Troy

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

AvsGirl41

New Yorker
Joined
Aug 28, 2002
Messages
2,948
Location
Denver, Colorado
Ok, supposedly everyone has seen Troy now.

I saw it today. I was pretty disappointed in it, but I enjoyed the male quasi-nudity... :drool:

Anyone else?
 
i haven't seen it yet either. i haven't heard very good reviews about it though.
 
CLASSICS NERD ALERT

I'm planning to see this next week. Some of y'all know that I have my degrees in classics (the study of ancient Greece and Rome), so many of my colleagues and I have been looking forward to this film for a long time. It has been a long time since I've read the Iliad in English, even longer in Greek, so I'm going to try to read through some notes I have to make sure I've got the real story straight before I see it.

One of my former professors had some fantastic comments on the film and how it compares with the Iliad, e.g., Achilles should not be in the horse, the actions of the gods are not in the film, etc. This was my favorite comment from her:

"I had an inappropriate Ovidian thought when I saw that the actress playing Andromache was very tall--see Ars Amatoria on her choice of sexual positions with Hector."

Guess I'm going to have to re-read the Ars Amatoria now! :laugh: Anyway, I'm looking forward to this film a lot. Even fellow classicists such as my professor, who have gone into this film knowing way too much about the subject matter, have enjoyed it. I can't wait. :up:
 
Pinball Wizard said:
Not enough Brad ass, if you ask me... and the world.

:up:

Not enough of Hector's either.

There needed to be some visual proof that the Trojans were equal to the Greeks in the ass department.
 
Tizer said:
anyone want to comment critically on the film...

It was very long and I didn't really care much for the characters. Hector is (and probably rightfully so) the only guy who comes across as smart, sympathetic and you truly want to see him win.

The Greeks are all highly unlikeable, except for Odysseus, so you'd think the Trojans would give you someone to root for, but they're all painted so unbelivably dumb that you don't particularly like them either. Which I guess is the point, but it's hard to watch a film where you can't really take either side. The battle scenes are epic, but not particularly edge of your seat. The fight between Hector and Achilles though is very cool.

Watch for some visual homages to LOTR and well, the whole cast of Braveheart except for Mel Gibson and David O'Hara is in the film, so it's hard not to compare the two.

Despite changing up most of the story of The Iliad, you do get some nice nods to literature, particularly in the cameo of Aeneas. :) I've only read "The Odyssey" so I shouldn't talk though.
 
Last edited:
I loved the movie, I'm even going to see it again next week.

I honestly havent seen any negative reviews on it. (see Peter Travers review on www.rollingstone.com if you want a review I agree with) Anyways, it was entertaining, that's all I ask.
 
Re: CLASSICS NERD ALERT

HeartlandGirl said:


Guess I'm going to have to re-read the Ars Amatoria now! :laugh: Anyway, I'm looking forward to this film a lot. Even fellow classicists such as my professor, who have gone into this film knowing way too much about the subject matter, have enjoyed it. I can't wait. :up:

Hmm, I'm going to have to find the Ars Amatoria too... :hmm:

I have a classics question! It's been driving me nuts since I left Troy, but I read a play/dialogue that featured a really sweet parting scene between Hector and Andromache, with the baby crying because he was afraid of his helmet. I thought I had it in my old drama textbook, but it's not there. I have since tore my bookshelves apart and can't find what book it's in, so I'm guessing it's a book I sold back. Do you have any idea what this might be? I hate when you know you've read something, but you can't remember what it is. Maybe they need to stop assigning me so much reading. :|
 
This scene may very well be in another work of literature, but it is also in the Iliad itself. The scene is incredibly touching, especially in context of the work as a whole, what with all the violence and war and people taking spears through the eye socket. From Book 6:



[390] Hektor hurried from the house when she had done speaking, and went down the streets by the same way that he had come. When he had gone through the city and had reached the Scaean gates through which he would go out on to the plain, his wife came running towards him, Andromache, daughter of great Eetion who ruled in Thebe under the wooded slopes of Mount Plakos, and was king of the Cilicians. His daughter had married Hektor, and now came to meet him with a nurse who carried his little child in her bosom - a mere babe. Hektor's darling son, and lovely as a star. Hektor had named him Skamandrios, but the people called him Astyanax, for his father stood alone as chief guardian of Ilion. Hektor smiled as he looked upon the boy, but he did not speak, and Andromache stood by him weeping and taking his hand in her own. "Dear husband," said she, "your valor will bring you to destruction; think on your infant son, and on my hapless self who ere long shall be your widow - for the Achaeans will set upon you in a body and kill you. It would be better for me, should I lose you, to lie dead and buried, for I shall have nothing left to comfort me when you are gone, save only sorrow [akhos]. I have neither father nor mother now. Achilles slew my father when he sacked Thebe the goodly city of the Cilicians. He slew him, but did not for very shame despoil him; when he had burned him in his wondrous armor, he raised a barrow over his ashes and the mountain nymphs, daughters of aegis-bearing Zeus, planted a grove of elms about his tomb [s?ma]. I had seven brothers in my father's house, but on the same day they all went within the house of Hades. Achilles killed them as they were with their sheep and cattle. My mother - her who had been queen of all the land under Mount Plakos - he brought hither with the spoil, and freed her for a great sum, but the archer - queen Artemis took her in the house of your father. Nay - Hektor - you who to me are father, mother, brother, and dear husband - have mercy upon me;

[429] stay here upon this wall; make not your child fatherless, and your wife a widow; as for the host, place them near the fig-tree, where the city can be best scaled, and the wall is weakest. Thrice have the bravest of them come thither and assailed it, under the two Ajaxes, Idomeneus, the sons of Atreus, and the brave son of Tydeus, either of their own bidding, or because some soothsayer had told them."

[440] And Hektor answered, "Wife, I too have thought upon all this, but with what face should I look upon the Trojans, men or women, if I shirked battle like a coward? I cannot do so: I know nothing save to fight bravely in the forefront of the Trojan host and win renown [kleos] alike for my father and myself. Well do I know that the day will surely come when mighty Ilion shall be destroyed with Priam and Priam's people, but I grieve for none of these - not even for Hecuba, nor King Priam, nor for my brothers many and brave who may fall in the dust before their foes - for none of these do I grieve as for yourself when the day shall come on which some one of the Achaeans shall rob you for ever of your freedom, and bear you weeping away. It may be that you will have to ply the loom in Argos at the bidding of a mistress, or to fetch water from the springs Messeis or Hypereia, treated brutally by some cruel task-master; then will one say who sees you weeping, 'She was wife to Hektor, the bravest warrior among the Trojans during the war before Ilion.' On this your tears will break forth anew for him who would have put away the day of captivity from you. May I lie dead under the barrow that is heaped over my body ere I hear your cry as they carry you into bondage."

[466] He stretched his arms towards his child, but the boy cried and nestled in his nurse's bosom, scared at the sight of his father's armor, and at the horse-hair plume that nodded fiercely from his helmet. His father and mother laughed to see him, but Hektor took the helmet from his head and laid it all gleaming upon the ground. Then he took his darling child,

[474] kissed him, and dandled him in his arms, praying over him the while to Zeus and to all the gods. "Zeus," he cried, "grant that this my child may be even as myself, chief among the Trojans; let him be not less excellent in strength, and let him rule Ilion with his might. Then may one say of him as he comes from battle, 'The son is far better than the father.' May he bring back the blood-stained spoils of him whom he has laid low, and let his mother's heart be glad.'"

[482] With this he laid the child again in the arms of his wife, who took him to her own soft bosom, smiling through her tears. As her husband watched her his heart yearned towards her and he caressed her fondly, saying, "My own wife, do not take these things too bitterly to heart. No one can hurry me down to Hades before my time, but if a man's hour is come, be he brave or be he coward, there is no escape for him when he has once been born. Go, then, within the house, and busy yourself with your daily duties, your loom, your distaff, and the ordering of your servants; for war is man's matter, and mine above all others of them that have been born in Ilion."

[494] He took his plumed helmet from the ground, and his wife went back again to her house, weeping bitterly and often looking back towards him. When she reached her home she found her maidens within, and bade them all join in her lament; so they mourned Hektor in his own house though he was yet alive, for they deemed that they should never see him return safe from battle, and from the furious hands of the Achaeans.


Translation from the Perseus Digital Library
 
Yes, that's it! Thanks! How odd, I've never read The Iliad, I didn't think I had even read excerpts. I wonder where I read it. :hmm:

I really liked Sean Bean as Odysseus, maybe they'll film The Odyssey next. :laugh:
 
I've read quite a few negative reviews of it - I didn't think it was as bad as they said it was.

I thought Eric Bana was the best part of the movie

Somehow I wasn't really thinking about The Iliad or how historically accurate it was when I watched it :shifty:

Brad's hair looked good too...
 
Iliad Hollywood version :yuck:

A movie made to that Brad Pitt look good and nice. Bad performances, bad direction, a superficial version of the Iliad
who can believe that Brad Pitt (very regular actor) can be a Greek hero?

I wasted valuable hours of my life
 
i considered going to see troy today. there were people in line buying tickets to it, and i hate crowded theaters.

i went to see ven helsing instead.

special effects and that stuff aside, i'd rather see a movie with hugh jackman in it than brad pit.
 
(spoiler)





I was actually starting to read the Iliad (in french) when I first heard that they were going to make a movie about the Trojan war.

I finished the book about a week before the movie came out in theaters... but:

My book (is it just mine?) ends at the funeral of Hektor. There is no horse or anything; the war isn't over. I actually read the Odyssey before the Iliad (and it's been a while so I don't remember it that well but I do remember that it didn't start with the end of the trojan war). I knew how the trojan war ended, so I was surprised to see the Iliad (by Homer) end so soon (and it does say THE END after Hektor's funeral...)

So; is this how the book 'the Iliad' by Homer ends? It's hard to believe...

***

As for the movie:

I thought it was entertaining but Brad Pitt as Achilles was terrible. He was too arrogant; we're far from the poetic conversations from Homer's incredible work :wink:

But seeing all these boats coming to Troy was still incredible!
 
Badyouken said:
So; is this how the book 'the Iliad' by Homer ends? It's hard to believe...


Yeah, that's really how it ends--it isn't just your copy. :) I remember being slightly shocked when it ended that way.
 
spoiler x2






the thing that pissed me off was no real mention of the gods. athena helped trick hector with achilles in order to kill hector when they ran around the trojan wall... in the movie, there was no chase around the wall, and when they showed achilles' mom, they only showed her once when he was still in greece before he departed, and you wouldnt have known that it was athena. annoying. there was no real mention of posiedan or aphrodite either.

also annoying is that paris intentionally kills achilles in the movie, when I believe it was accidental in the bookl
 
Certainly a visual feast ( made much easier these days with computers. Hats off to early film makers.
I came out of the theatre thinking Eric Bana was the star :applaud: Eric
I think the costume makers should win an Academy Award. I would say someone put a lot of research and love in to that side of the project.
It was a delight to see Peter O'Toole again. I've loved his acting for a long time. His retrieval of hector was quite moving.
The story unfolded quite well. I'll whisper this next bit....
as much as I love his Legolas role, I feel my dear Orlando still has to hone his acting skills. He's only a baby yet, plenty of time. I heard they may have offered him the James Bond role:faint:
The group of people in the small theatre I was in seemed to find Brad's role quite amusing. I know I couldn't stop muttering "go for the heel, go for the heel"
I saw this movie in the most unusual circumstances, so I hope to see it again before it leaves the theatres.
 
Back
Top Bottom