Is that Sean Bean? I’d never heard of him before, so I didn’t recognize him.
I heard they completely removed the gods that were in the Iliad.
Was Sean Bean also the guy that died at the end of The Fellowship Of The Ring movie?
Yes. I read that he’s playing Odysseus. I would have pictured him more as Hector.
That was Sean Bean. He does appear in The Two Towers Extended DVD during Flashbacks.
Big Nutter
I saw it, and I thought it was excellently done. However, it’s not perfect.
If you’ve read the Illiad, you’re going to notice that a lot of content from the epic was taken out of the movie. Diomedes doesn’t appear at all, you only see Aeneas once at the very end of the movie, there’s no Sinon convincing the Trojans to take the Trojan horse into the city, and there’s no theft of Pallas Athena’s palladium by Odysseus and Diomedes. Moreover, they crammed the entire Trojan War into fifteen days or so. But what gets to me the most is that (huge spoilers abound) Ajax and Menelaus are both killed by Hector. Ajax dies under much different circumstances, and Menelaus doesn’t die at all in the Illiad. Agammemon is also killed, and he doesn’t get killed until much later. On top of this, Paris survives. What the hell?
Next thing: Slowdowns. To elaborate on what Sorc said, the preparations for battles drag on a bit too long: Men gearing up for battle, men praying to win the battle, men spending time with lovers before the battle, etc.
Every movie has its faults, and Troy makes up for them at least three times over. Eric Bana was perfect for Hector, and Brad Pitt’s performance as Achilles has to be the best I’ve seen in a movie this year. The battles are sometimes confusing (you can have trouble telling apart the Trojans and the Greeks), but they’re realistic and you don’t get lost in them as much as you would get lost in the Zion battle in Matrix Revolutions. The environments, especially Sparta and Troy, are all superb.
You heard wrong. You don’t actually SEE the gods, but they still exist in the movie.
I just saw it last night, and I thought it was pretty damn cool. I disagree with Sorc about Orlando’s “bad acting”… I think he did a great job portraying a wimpy idiot. No, seriously. He was supposed to be that way. Young, naive, and selfish.
Hector and Achilles (and Perseus, the little of her we saw) had to be my favorite characters. Brad Pitt did an AWESOME job… I was impressed. I didn’t get out of the theater til 2am, but I didn’t feel like falling asleep once. (Felt like kicking Paris, but yeah ;p)
It’s not actually in the Iliad. It is foreshadowed and talked about, and since Troy is sacked he obviously is a dead man, but he doesn’t actually die. The Iliad ends with Hector being buried following Priam meeting Achilles, where Achilles learns that glory isn’t counted by slave girls or even immortality.
I saw it too, but I can’t talk about it yet, I will later.
Paris and Helen shoulda died. Achillies shoulda not died and got together with the preistess ho.
Well, Briseis wasn’t exactly having sex with Achilles in <i>The Iliad</i> either, and nobody’s complaining 
What’s great was the way they showed some of the strategies the Trojans and the Greeks used, especially that one fireball scene where the Trojans’ tactical brilliance was just so cool But although that probably didn’t actually happen, it was cool nonetheless I wanted to see the <i>twain</i> Ajax though, not just the strong guy. I wanted to see the archer Ajax, but they left him out completely. They also left out the part about the Amazons coming to aid Troy.
And yeah, a lot of things didn’t follow the book, but it’s a movie, so what do you expect?
Edit: And Sorc, Agamemnon was the King of Kings, not Achilles.
My biggest issue with the movie was that they messed around with the personalities of a lot of the characters. Menelaus and Agamemnon are far more complicated characters than in the movie; where they’re just portrayed as brutish (Menelaus) and hawkish (Agamemnon). Achilles is portrayed too nobly, in the Iliad he’s much more of a brat. Hector is almost portrayed too nobly and too tacticly sound; in the Iliad he advocates pushing the attack against the Greeks to disastrous results, but in the movie he’s of the opposite opinion. He also brags after killing Patroclus in the Iliad, and his hubris is just as much a factor in his downfall as his fate. Helen is also made to be much more likeable than she is in the story. Patroclus is much more important in the story than in the movie, and it was shameful that they couldn’t get him more involved. They pretty much nailed Odysseus and Priam though. And poor Diomedes why were you left out, you’re my favorite character! In general they blunted the subtleties of a lot of the characters, which takes away a lot of the value of the story.
The best three scenes were by far Achilles’ storming of the Apollinian Temple (doesn’t happen in the Iliad) and his fight with Hector, and the scene between Priam and Achilles. In the story this is the most important part of the work, because in it Achilles’ character’s development finds a truer meaning for glory than treasures or even immortality. The movie showed their dialogue very well and I bet O’Toole is going to receive a Best Supporting Actor nomination. And let me just say that the time where Achilles slings his shield on his back and spins around so it blocks an arrow was fucking awesome
In general the movie was alright. Rather standard historical epic fare though, and it didn’t really do anything that was significant. Some of the dialogue and scenes were awesome, some of it was rather stilted (like everything Bloom says, I’m sorry ladies but he doesn’t have the acting chops). The story got skewered though, so don’t ever watch it as an excuse not to read the Iliad. The music was pretty good, and I hope it does well at the box office so Eric Bana’s stock goes up.
Cala: the review you cited has a rather bland understanding of Greek myth.
Omega: Sinon and the Palladium’s theft don’t occur in the Iliad. And Ajax doesn’t die in the Iliad, and Paris is alive at its end (although he doesn’t escape the city in the surrounding mythology).
Astral: It’s Briseis, not Perseus. He’s the guy that killed Medusa And yeah my showing didn’t get out until 2 also
Cless: There’s no scene in the Iliad detailing Achilles/Briseis, but it is implied.
the slowdowns were alright; I particularly liked how they kept paralleling Achilles and Hector, which is very important to the overall story. But they should’ve had Achilles drag the body around more and have his men stab it like in the story, it shows his lesser side much more than just running off with it.
was I the only one resisting the urge of yelling out, “Legolas!! KILL HIM!!” when Bloom first started “practicing” with the bow?
<a href=“http://www.rpgclassics.com/quotes/iliad.shtml” target="_blank">oh look, someone made an Iliad quotes page. Who would’ve thunk it?</a>
one day, when I’m a famous film director, I’m going to insist on a 3 picture deal to make the Iliad the way it should be done. It would be the best trilogy ev0r.
No, I’m the king of kings. Duh.
Troy covers the entire Trojan War, not just the events of the Iliad, so Wolfgang Peterson left a lot of material out. I meant to say if someone had read not just the Iliad, but one of the other sources that accounts for what happened between the Iliad and the Odyssey. Paris doesn’t escape Troy because he’s killed before the city overrun (he gets shot from the wall, if you remember).
Holy shit, do you remember the scene just after the Greeks broke through the gates of Troy, when only the inner courtyard was still held by the Trojans, and Paris comes with his bow and takes aim at the rapidly collapsing door? <b>That</b> pose was <b>exactly</b> like the pose that Legolas does with his bow and arrow many, many times in Lord of the Rings. I laughed (really loudly I think :P) so hard at that
Troy was one of those movies that had so many things wrong with it… the world’s cheesiest script, mediocre acting even from good actors like Peter O’Toole (maybe it was a directing problem?), etc. But somehow it was really fun to watch. Almost like an MST3K movie. My date and I were cracking up the whole time.
It’s proably the worst movie that I’d ever recommend. It does have a lot of genuinely good parts, but I like this movie more than I probably should.
Yea, but the entire movie is worth Hector vs. Achilles.
Oh, definitely. The fights are all pretty damn awesome.
yeah I’ll end up watching and maybe even owning the movie just so I can watch Achilles take the Temple of Apollo single-handedly and watch Achilles vs. Hector. Sort of like how Matrix Reloaded is basically only watchable for the three spectacular action set pieces the Wachowskis cobbled together.