I thought Brad Pitt was woefully miscast. Then again Troy was a pretty awful film. Why do a film about Greek Mythology and then remove all the mythological elements?
The Achilles in The Illiad is a bit of a spoilt, petulant brat, so i thought Pitt was pretty well cast and acted role well. Ditto Bana as stoic Hector. Troy gets a lot of the mood and small details right (and Pitt nails the fighting style), but probably quite rightly (if sadly) ditches the intervention of the gods, bar Julie Christie as Achilles' mother Thetis.
The Achilles in The Illiad is a bit of a spoilt, petulant brat, so i thought Pitt was pretty well cast and acted role well. Ditto Bana as stoic Hector. Troy gets a lot of the mood and small details right (and Pitt nails the fighting style), but probably quite rightly (if sadly) ditches the intervention of the gods, bar Julie Christie as Achilles' mother Thetis.
If you take out the gods then it isn't the Trojan War anymore. They played a major role and without them it just becomes any old sword and sandals epic and not a very well executed one.
I'm not sure what you mean by the small details but they're not so great at the big details. Off the top of my head both Agamemnon and Menelaus survive the war, Helen returns to Sparta and Paris is killed all of which is totally rewritten in the film along with the fact that the war took ten years not five minutes. Achilles relationship with Patroclus is also a total mess not least because Patroclus was older than Achilles.
I thought Bana as a Hector and Peter O'Toole as Priam were the only good things about the whole film.
Yes, the big details of Troy are a right mess (I'd completely forgotten Agamemnon was killed; remembered Menelaus). The small details from memory are the uniforms and weaponry, but admittedly it's a while since saw film and read Illiad . I haven't seen the Helen Of Troy miniseries, but it's apparently more faithful.
If you take out the gods then it isn't the Trojan War anymore. They played a major role and without them it just becomes any old sword and sandals epic and not a very well executed one.
I'm not sure what you mean by the small details but they're not so great at the big details. Off the top of my head both Agamemnon and Menelaus survive the war, Helen returns to Sparta and Paris is killed all of which is totally rewritten in the film along with the fact that the war took ten years not five minutes. Achilles relationship with Patroclus is also a total mess not least because Patroclus was older than Achilles.
I thought Bana as a Hector and Peter O'Toole as Priam were the only good things about the whole film.
As a classical archaeology student, when I decide to see a movie based around ancient Greek culture and mythology, I never expect it to be historically accurate or to stay true to the source material (especially not such a magnum opus that is Iliad). Otherwise it would be very frustrating to watch. I learned to enjoy these movies for what they are. When I'm so absorbed in the plot that I stop to notice the mistakes, then I know the movie is great.
But it's fun to talk all the mistakes with my classmates. We had a lot of fun with Troy, enough to write several books about it. Battle scenes, costumes, interior and exterior design etc., almost everything in this movie is depicted wrongly and/or out of place in time. The movie is incorporating very prominent medieval and fantasy elements and all the inaccuracies are so huge that there is no point in talking about details.
About the plot, as soon as they killed off Menelaus, I knew that Helen and Paris are getting their happy ending, what was very Hollywood-like and predictable. It was not only one of the major story deviations, but they destroyed interesting plot twist with it imo. Agamemnon's death is just another example of Hollywood cliche when the main antagonist must be punished.
On the other hand, Peter O'Toole's acting was splendid (as usual), he saved the film for me. The best moment was when Priam asks Achilles to return Hector's body. Amazing scene. Achilles' and Hector's characters/attitudes were depicted quite accurately though.
Yes, the big details of Troy are a right mess (I'd completely forgotten Agamemnon was killed; remembered Menelaus). The small details from memory are the uniforms and weaponry, but admittedly it's a while since saw film and read Illiad . I haven't seen the Helen Of Troy miniseries, but it's apparently more faithful.
Trojan war was a very popular theme in Greek art, especially in black figure and later red figure vase painting. It's obvious the armour and weaponry used in the Troy movie were loosely based on these depictions.
But it is important to note that the vase paintings are also only later interpretations of the events. Homer's Troy (Troy VIIa) is dated to the 13th century B.C. (Late Bronze Age). The black figure vase painting originated in the 7th century in Corinth. Artists depicted their heroes in the contemporary used armour and it later became a tradition to depict heroes and gods in an armour typical for the Archaic period in Greece (Corinthian style helmet, armour, Dipylon shield etc.)
We don't have any examples of such armour from the late bronze age period. For late bronze age were common for example the boar's tusk helmets, beaten bronze cuirasses like the one from Dendra, tower shields or figure-of-eight shields, which we don't see in the movie at all.
There are various examples of imaginary/fantasy armours instead
Comments
The Achilles in The Illiad is a bit of a spoilt, petulant brat, so i thought Pitt was pretty well cast and acted role well. Ditto Bana as stoic Hector. Troy gets a lot of the mood and small details right (and Pitt nails the fighting style), but probably quite rightly (if sadly) ditches the intervention of the gods, bar Julie Christie as Achilles' mother Thetis.
If you take out the gods then it isn't the Trojan War anymore. They played a major role and without them it just becomes any old sword and sandals epic and not a very well executed one.
I'm not sure what you mean by the small details but they're not so great at the big details. Off the top of my head both Agamemnon and Menelaus survive the war, Helen returns to Sparta and Paris is killed all of which is totally rewritten in the film along with the fact that the war took ten years not five minutes. Achilles relationship with Patroclus is also a total mess not least because Patroclus was older than Achilles.
I thought Bana as a Hector and Peter O'Toole as Priam were the only good things about the whole film.
Clash of the Titans & Wrath of the Titans and Immortals.
That's interesting. Are there any more films you felt that portray historical fighting styles well?
As a classical archaeology student, when I decide to see a movie based around ancient Greek culture and mythology, I never expect it to be historically accurate or to stay true to the source material (especially not such a magnum opus that is Iliad). Otherwise it would be very frustrating to watch. I learned to enjoy these movies for what they are. When I'm so absorbed in the plot that I stop to notice the mistakes, then I know the movie is great.
But it's fun to talk all the mistakes with my classmates. We had a lot of fun with Troy, enough to write several books about it. Battle scenes, costumes, interior and exterior design etc., almost everything in this movie is depicted wrongly and/or out of place in time. The movie is incorporating very prominent medieval and fantasy elements and all the inaccuracies are so huge that there is no point in talking about details.
About the plot, as soon as they killed off Menelaus, I knew that Helen and Paris are getting their happy ending, what was very Hollywood-like and predictable. It was not only one of the major story deviations, but they destroyed interesting plot twist with it imo. Agamemnon's death is just another example of Hollywood cliche when the main antagonist must be punished.
On the other hand, Peter O'Toole's acting was splendid (as usual), he saved the film for me. The best moment was when Priam asks Achilles to return Hector's body. Amazing scene. Achilles' and Hector's characters/attitudes were depicted quite accurately though.
Trojan war was a very popular theme in Greek art, especially in black figure and later red figure vase painting. It's obvious the armour and weaponry used in the Troy movie were loosely based on these depictions.
But it is important to note that the vase paintings are also only later interpretations of the events. Homer's Troy (Troy VIIa) is dated to the 13th century B.C. (Late Bronze Age). The black figure vase painting originated in the 7th century in Corinth. Artists depicted their heroes in the contemporary used armour and it later became a tradition to depict heroes and gods in an armour typical for the Archaic period in Greece (Corinthian style helmet, armour, Dipylon shield etc.)
We don't have any examples of such armour from the late bronze age period. For late bronze age were common for example the boar's tusk helmets, beaten bronze cuirasses like the one from Dendra, tower shields or figure-of-eight shields, which we don't see in the movie at all.
There are various examples of imaginary/fantasy armours instead