Alexander "Rehash of Richard Burton Movie" (1 Viewer)

[Ernest]

In watching "Alexander" last night I couldn't help but compare it with the Richard Burton "Alexander the Great" movie. Alexander accomplished so much in his very short life Oliver Stone had the opportunity to show the story from a different angle. Saving Private Ryan, King Arthur, Troy, Gladiator, and many more. In Troy Wolfgang shows us the Spartans made the Trojan Horse using wood from their ships. Clever idea and who cares if its true we are watching Troy to be entertained, not for a history lesson.

Oliver took the safe route and just rehashed "Alexander the Great" without a great actor like Richard Burton.

Hollywood already showed us that Alexander's mother and father disliked each other and that his mother probably arranged for the killing of his father. None of the bickering between his mother and father needed to be in this movie.

What I wanted to see was how did Alexander accomplish the logistics of moving 40,000+ soldiers 2000 miles across Pershia to India? How did he feed, cloth and motivate his soldiers? Show us Alexander's battle strategy like the director did in Gettysburg. And show us lots of battle scenes.

Oliver claims he researched the history of Alexander for over 15 years, yet it doesn't show in this movie. There is so much about Alexander that Hollywood could easily make a trilogy about his life. Instead, we get a rehash of the 50's Richard Burton movie.

In any regards, I enjoyed the movie and recommend it for pure entertainment.

 

[TravisR]

Yeah but they were making one movie so it all had to fit into three hours so some stuff is gonna be lost.

And I think this fits better in the Movies fourm too

 

[Ernest]

That is the mistake that Oliver made. Why try to jam the highlights of "Alexander's" life in a 3 hour movie? Why not take the same path Michael Mann and Martin Scorsese did with Ali and The Aviator?

It's to late now a great opportunity was missed. We could have had a truly great movie that showed us something we haven't seen before. This is a movie, not a history lesson, directors need to take liberties to entertain as Wolfgang did in Troy. Instead we ended up with "Alexander the Great" without Richard Burton.

 

[Qui-Gon John]

I watched this last night as well. Like others I was underwhelmed. It started out OK. But went down hill starting with the first battle sequence. It's hard to say exactly what was negative, but something was missing to make it very enjoyable.

 

[TheLongshot]

Unfortunatly, the liberties with Troy didn't improve the story at all. I'm sorry, but it is very hard to take the Gods out of the Illiad and make it work.

Jason

 

[Qui-Gon John]

See now I really enjoyed TROY. IMHO it was just done much better, the characters were more interesting, story told better, whatever.

 

[Mark Maltais]

Second that, I also REALLY enjoyed Troy and never did get what all the bashing was about. It's not a classic by any means, but as far as entertaining, it did that for me in spades...different strokes I guess.

Haven't seen Alexander yet, now that the DC is out and getting OK reviews, I'll probably check it out on the week-end.

 

[Kain_C]

Count me in as well as someone who enjoyed Troy as a popcorn action epic. Maybe it was the lowered expectations from so many slams against the movie. But I can understand how the omission of the gods had people peeved.

 

[JonZ]

I finally got around to seeing Troy on HBOHD and wondered what all the bashing was about myself.

I enjoyed Alexander alot more the second time around. Its hard to pinpoint exactly what went wrong with it - the first 2 hours FLEW by for me during my second viewing.

Its no where near perfect, but I found it enjoyable and its a gorgeous film to look at.

 

[TheLongshot]

To me, Troy was a missed opportunity. It could have been great epic filmmaking, but ended up being a popcorn flick with a watered down storyline. It isn't bad, but it isn't everything it could be either.

Jason

 

[Jack Briggs]

Since there's no mention of anything related to DVDs in this thread and since you're all discussing film itself, the thread has been relocated to the correct spot.

 

[Ernest]

Oliver wasted so much time on Olympus and Philip, Alexander's mother and father, he left out many important battles. When King Darius was informed Philip was killed he thought the threat was over. Upon being informed the Spartan army had landed in Turkey and was headed by Alexander he replied, you don't need me to fight a boy. So the first battle Alexander fought was against a Persian army lead by Greek mercenaries. Darius was not at that battle. That battle is not even in the movie.

The first battle Oliver films is the battle of Issus. At Issus King Darius leads a Persian army most historians place at 80,000 soldiers. Maybe the 250,000 sounded better to the script writer. Alexander leads approximately 30,000 foot soldiers and 7,000 calvary.

After defeating the Persian army at Issus Alexander marches his army along the coast of the Algerian sea to capture the very important city of Tyre. Tyre was an island and the inhabitants refused to surrender. It took Alexander approximately one year to capture the island. The battle for the island of Tyre is not even in the movie. This battle was so elaborate it could be its own movie.

Like everyone I want to be entertained and was not watching Alexander for a history lesson, I know the history. But if we know the history we should stick by it. The movie is titled Alexander so dedicate the 3 hours to Alexander. If you want to show Alexander's boyhood, how he grew up and the bickering between his mother and father then make another movie. In fact, I wish Hollywood would make a movie about King Philip. He was also an interesting character.

I would have preferred the events in the movie to be portrayed in chronological order, rather than flashbacks. Whether he was poisoned or died of the Nile Virus is speculation.

I promise this is my last posting about Alexander.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

But Troy wasn't based on history at all. While there was certainly a city in the Troad, and while it was destroyed (several times), there is nothing but vague tradition to connect any actual events that took place on the plains of Illium in the 13th century BCE to the story of Troy that has come down to us. What Wolfgang was "taking liberties" with wasn't boring history that had to be goosed to make an entertaining movie, it was a literary masterpiece that has been entertaining and thrilling audiences for the better part of 3,000 years. The original story didn't need Wolfgang's "help".

Regards,

Joe

 

[PatrickDA]

Ernest,

First of all, Mr. Stone didn't film the Battle of Issus,
but the Battle of Gaugamela. Secondly, the film didn't have
enough money to do more than two battles. Even with
$150-160 million they spent a total of six weeks on the two
battles they did film and couldn't have afforded any more.
So attacking the film for not having more battles is unfair
and I guess you haven't seen the documentary 'Becoming
Alexander' where they detail how many weeks to took them
just to reproduce the first battle on a somewhat limited
94-day shooing schedule. I just can't stand it when people
start throwing around "it didn't have enough battles" when
it was impossible for them to have more without a much
larger budget and longer shooting schedule. Also, if the
film would've only been about the battles then the same
people (like you) would've attacked the film for not having
any characters. Mr. Stone was very interested in
Alexander's parents (just like Nixon) and wanted that to be
an important part of the film and he was very much a fan of
the Alexander biography by Robin Lane Fox which went into
great detail of Alexander's parents! You can't understand
Alexander without understanding his youth and background!
Oh, and nobody has seen the Richard Burton Alexander
film...so who cares if it shares some of the same ideas or
even similiar scenes...I mean have you seen 'The Fall of
the Roman Empire? 'Gladiator' is basically the same
film...based on your logic nobody should waste their time
bringing Hamlet to the screen again and again!

 

[PatrickDA]

Oh, 'Troy' is a lifeless creation of the tin-eared Wolfgang
Petersen! A faithfull telling of the 'Illiad' would've ROCKED!

Secondly, Richard Burton was decent in his Alexander film,
but Colin simply owned the screen and gave the epic genre
a totally new kind of performance in that sort of role! I've
seen it eight times and each time I find new things to like
about Colin's performance!

 

[Paul Butler]

Anyone with any interest in the background to "real" Troy and the "real" Alexander may wish to obtain "In the footsteps of Alexander" and "In Search of the Trojan War", either as DVDs or the books. Author/Presenter is Michael Wood and they are absolutely superb!

Both the books and the DVDs contain vast amounts of historical detail and facinating anecdotes.

Paul

 

[PatrickDA]

Paul - I totally agree! Michael Wood's 'In the Footsteps of
Alexander' is what started my interest in the man and his
life!