*** Official TROY Discussion Thread (2 Viewers)

[JeremySt]

In addition to PERFECT STORM, I couldnt help but notice the score often has passages that sounded identical to parts of WILLOW. Horner sucks at stealing his old stuff.

 

[Chris]

Eh, I only noticed when Priam referred to Achilles as Hercules tonight He does so during the "how many sons, fathers.. etc." speech.. I thought he said it the first time around, very sure the second time.

 

[Amy Mormino]

What this movie seems to lack that my favorite recent adaptations (Master and Commander, the LOTR series) have is a genuine love for the source material. The absence of the gods and Cassandra and the alteration of the time that the war took to fight is bad enough. But the worst thing was the alterations to the fates of some main characters. Two died in very different ways, including one whose ironic fate would have made for a great postscript. And one very guilty character lived who never should be allowed to survive in any adaptation of this material.

The fighting scenes are mostly right, but I didn't get the sense that the filmmakers understood what this story was really about. It is a difficult story to do right, though, as there's no real villain (though the filmmakers created some) and the most sympathetic character is clearly doomed.

 

[Sam Favate]

Believe it or not, I think the scenes of ancient Egypt in Steven Sommers' Mummy pictures look grander and more epic than scenes of ancient Greece in Troy.

 

[KyleC]

Did anyone else notice someone wearing a t-shirt under their armor during the opening scene? It was the army that was marching to the left, and one of the soldiers had a shirt with text on the back of it. I'm almost positive.

 

[ToddP]

To me Eric Bana looks like the twin brother of Burton from one of the more recent Survivor seasons, for those that watch it.

 

[Erich_S]

I enjoyed the movie as a piece of summer entertainment, but it certainly wasn't life-changing. A couple of my observations:

I haven't seen anyone mention this, but I took the Achilles/arrow through the tendon to be an explanation of the myth as a historical event, rather than through any divine intervention. Certainly, the arrow through the ankle didn't kill Achilles, the three in the chest did it - but he managed to pull those out before dying. However, when the other Greek solders come on the scene later and find his body, it will look to them like he was killed by a single arrow through the ankle (as I'm sure they didn't perform an autopsy before lighting up the requisite pyre) - thus starting the 'myth' that he was invincible except for the ankle.

Secondly, I'm no expert in Greek military history, but based on my reading "Gates of Fire" a couple years ago, I was kind of expecting to see an extrordinarily well-trained and disciplined army from at least the Spartans. From my reading, I expected more of the interlocked-shields-slowly-advancing-killing-machine that we see briefly from the Trojans instead of the braveheart-like free for alls that were shown most of the time. I'd imagine that at least one side in any battle would break down into hand to hand combat, but I thought the Greeks had a more evolved style of warfare than "let's all just run at the other guys waving our swords!"

Hmm, I guess I need to go see if that "Gates of Fire" movie is ever going to be made...

 

[Holadem]

This is an excellent observation!

--
H

 

[Richard Travale]

You can add me to the list of "liked it, didn't love it".
There were a few things that I think would have made this film a lot better.
First, casting. I think they could have found a better Helen than Diane Kruger. While she was pretty, I never got the sense of "the face that launched a thousand ships" from her.
Generally the rest of the cast was good, especially Bana, O'Toole, Bean and Cox.
Second, some of the choices in the directing/screenwriting. Never in this film did I get a sense of anyone falling madly in love with Helen. We see Paris and Helen on what, their third night together? I would like to have seen at least a shot of Paris first laying eyes on Helen with a starstruck look on his face. Cheesy film making? possibly. But it would have shown us that Paris was almost hypnotized by Helen's beauty.
I would also like to have seen less fooling around (read none) with the maids or what have you by Menelaus. Just the shot with the girl on his lap made me not believe he would go to war for Helen.
I would also like to have seen, and this is probably the nerd in me talking, more "divine intervention". When we talk about Greek mythology, we think of Gods and Titans and Heroes, not just heroes. I think if the director had put more of the mythology into this movie, it would have been better for it.
Lastly, the score. This score took me out of the movie so many times. It was all climax and no foreplay. I hate that type of score. The type that yells at you and says "HEY! time for you to get nervous now." or "Time to feel sad!"
I prefer a score that just aids in the storytelling not overpowers it.

I really hope that this will lead to 'The Oydyssey' being made.

 

[Holadem]

Menelaus went to war because he was insulted, not because he was madly in love.

--
H - well, in the movie anyway

 

[Aaron Garman]

I've also checked out Gabriel Yared's site with his score. My oh my is this so much better than Horner's. What were they thinking when they rejected this?! We have got to get Warner to make a second track on the DVD with this score because it is truly awesome. Check it out!

AJG

 

[Jay E]

Saw the film last night (for free) and like most people here, I enjoyed it overall, but I had problems with some of the specifics, mainly the overdone-THIS IS HOW YOU SHOULD FEEL-score, Diane Kruger, misconceived alterations from the Iliad, and that entirely inapporpriate and irritating song played during the end credits which prompted me to ask my friend, (who's the manager of the theatre), if he could turn the sound off so I could stop sitting there with my hands over my ears.




That's exactly what I was thinking too. I was wondering if Peter O'Toole was devilishly cutting farts during the scene because Brad Pitt's facial expressions would be clearly understandable under those circumstances.

I was actively rooting against the Greeks in this film, msotly due to the performances of Eric Bana & Peter O'Toole. I couldn't care less when Petroclus or Achilles was killed & I was hoping that Helen would be taken back to Greece as in the original story (and immediately given acting lessons) as I didn't have an ounce of sympathy for her.

*** out of **** stars.

 

[David Judah]

I'm no expert either, but I think the famed discipline and formations of the hoplites came much later. This took place around 1250 B.C., so the Spartans hadn't yet formed the militaristic society that we know them for and the zenith of Greek culture and military prowess was still probably around 600-800 years away.

DJ

 

[TheLongshot]

Jason

 

[david stark]

I saw this the other night and enjoyed myself. It kept me entertained for the 2hr+ running time so it must have something going for it.

On the positive side were Bana's and O'Toole's performance and to a lesser extent Sean Beans. Some of the action scenes were extremely well done and the achilles v hector duel was the best of the lot.

I thought they also managed to do Achille's death well, I was wondering for a long time how they were going to make him look tough dying from an arrow in the heel.

On the negative side I was very dissapointed with Brad Pitt's performance, he reverted back to teen girlie heart throb character which for me he managed to dispel with his acting in seven and 12 monkeys. Bloom was very weak as was Brian Cox as Agamemnon, for me he just did not portray enough conviction as a king who ruled so many with force.

Overall a good film, but no where near as good as Gladiator which had a far better script, score and acting. A welcome start to the summer blockbuster films that had a false start last week with van helsing.

 

[Patrick Sun]

I think the film plays better if you treat the story from the film an an attempt to tell of a "true" story that inspired "The Iliad" and the other works of Homer, and it was Homer that ran with the story to construct his own tale, adding in all the details/relationships of the gods to balance out a grander story.

 

[michael_mo]

A few of my own thoughts.....

I loved the film. But, I love old-earth epics, so I would have probably liked anything they put on the screen. Although this film will not go down as in the same class of LOTR, Braveheart and Gladiator... Troy does provide us with some very memorable scenes. The imagery of the 1000 ships sailing off was just overpowering (one of those raised eyebrow moments when all you can say is "wow"), the fire/giant balls of hay was incredible. Also, there are some very good lines that will go down in hollywood lore. Such as the "you are a far better king than the one leading this army.." (or something like that). Troy is a step down from LOTR, but certainly a giant step above recent similar genre films like the mummy series, robin hood.. and certainly we've come a long long way from Excalibre and Conan (which kinda hurt to watch nowadays)

Few other thoughts:
I never saw "hulk" and didnt know who Bana was. During the movie I thought he may have been the same actor as Charlie from "Party of Five".
Thought Brad Pitt did a good job overall. But, I could not stop thinking of him as a pot smoking pretty boy who shacks up with Jennifer Anniston. Arnold was believable as a great warrior as Conan, what ever happened to directors type-casting large muscular guys for this role. Even Marc Singer was believable in the Beastmaster, and the Rock was a good as the Scorpion King. Couldnt they find some lesser/unknown ex-bodybuilder to be Achilles?

Someone mentioned on the first page of this thread that Achilles and Patroclus were not cousins but 'lovers' in the real Iliad. Is this true. Was the greatest warrior of all time shacking up with a dude between battles?

I loved the fact that the "gods" were not involved. This movie could have easily gone the "clash of the titans" route.. and I'm glad it didnt. I liked the way they worked the mythology of it in subtly.

Also liked the fact that I couldnt decide who to root for.

Watched LOTR FOTR about 1000 times now. How did I ever not notice that Boromir was Odysseus?

For those complaining about some of the acting in Troy. Pull out Excalibre and see how bad some casting and acting can really be. We are just spoiled by LOTR.

 

[Steve Schaffer]

It's probably mentionned elsewhere in this thread, but if you can find a copy of Chopper do rent it to see just what Eric Bana is capable of--so much more than what he had to work with in Hulk. It's an Australian film about the life of a career criminal, based on a book written by the real guy. Bana's performance is incredible in this movie, especially since it was essentially his first acting job--he was previously a comedy star on Aussie tv.

 

[Wouter Heyse]

Most definitely, and he wasn't the only one. I remember reading an old Greek proverb which loosely translates as "women are for children, men are for love". Also, the role of Briseis is pretty much negligible in the source material. Achilles never fell in love with her or anything like that, and the reason why he wanted her back from Agamemnon wasn't because of romantic feelings, but just because by taking one of his possessions, Agamemnon insulted Achilles.
By the way, Patroclos didn't sneak off with Achilles' armor if I remember the original version correctly. The Trojans were routing the Greeks and pushing them back to their ships after Achilles pulled out with his Myrmidons. Patroclos then pleads with Achilles for assistance, which he refuses. However, he does allow Patroclos to borrow his armor and lead his warriors. The sight of Achilles joining the battle alone routs the Trojans who flee back to the city until Hektor faces "Achilles" and kills him, only to find out it's really Patroclos. Of course, either implying Achilles was mad because his lover was killed, or implying that he was to blame for his death about as much as Hektor wouldn't have fit in with the movie very well.
And one other thing that really annoyed me. Menelaus doesn't get killed (in what I considered a rather cowardly move of Hektor) in his fight with Paris. Instead, when Menelaus is about to slay paris, Aphrodite (if I remember the deity correctly) whisks him away so he can "fight a battle more suited to his tastes", which means he gets another round with Helen. For the most part, Paris was a snivelling weasel originally, and he only manages to kill Achilles because Apollo guides his arrow (Apollo was still pissed because Achilles defiled his temple).

 

[david stark]

I've got Excaliber and yep the acting is pretty ropey in it at times and it hasn't aged too well, but I still love it. I wouldn't say we are spoiled by LOTR, I think that LOTR is a far better film than Troy, but that is down to the script more than the acting. I don't think the acting in LOTR is that good.