what were The Old Men thinking?

[JazzJR]

Originally Posted by VONHARRIS

Troy stinks!
It has nothing to do with Greek mythology , and trust me I know MY mythology.
Sorry , I couldn't help it.

In Troy there are MANY things messed up. I think they wanted to put a lot of action into it.

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by VONHARRIS

Troy stinks!
It has nothing to do with Greek mythology , and trust me I know MY mythology.
Sorry , I couldn't help it.

I've been reading and studying Greek mythology for 40 years. Does Troy stick to the story of the Trojan War and its myriad characters as told in the most wellknown (to us) versions of the story (i.e. the Iliad and Odyssey)?

Nope. But:

Did the Iliad and Odyssey stick to the story of the Trojan War and its myriad characters as told in every previous version of those events that ever existed?

The odds are against it. They probably weren't even written down in the form we have now until generations after the death of the man who supposedly composed them, and we don't even know if he really existed or is more myth than man himself.

In short, the only reason we think of the Homeric version of those events as being the "right" version is because at some point one version of that version got written down and the tale became static instead of fluid and the shaping and reshaping of those stories stopped. To dislike Troy simply because somebody decided to reshape the story of those events again after two and a half millennia (give or take a century) is, to me, just silly.

And what else were they supposed to do? The Trojan War lasted for years. How do you convey that in a ~3 hour feature film? Or do you start, like the Iliad does, with the wrath of Achilles and his withdrawal from the fight, and then fill in all the necessary backstory through clunky voiceovers or extended flashbacks? Because I'm telling you, the average movie-goer is gonna need that backstory to understand what's going on.

And what about Agamemnon, the villain of the piece? Do you want to have to show him sailing all the way back to the Argolid to get what's coming to him? Rather anticlimactic, after the death of Achilles and the fall of Troy and all of that business. And wait, what's coming to him has nothing to do with the bit of the story that we actually just saw here in Troy, it has to do with what happened at Aulis ten+ years ago before he ever got to Troy. There's those pesky flashbacks again...

Troy isn't about "Greek mythology." I don't think it's even *supposed* to be about Greek mythology. If it were, I think we'd see a lot more of the Olympians hanging about and interfering in things, which actually makes up quite a bit of the classical and pre-classical versions of the tale. Except for Achilles' mother, there's none of that, and I don't even know that they specifically indicated whether she was really some type of immortal being or just a mortal with a gift for divination of the future.

What it is IMO is simply another retelling of a story that has fascinated a good part of the human race for over 2000 years, and an attempt to tell it in a way that will provide maximum dramatic impact given the time constraints of a feature film production. And they did a much better job of it than I expected, I must say.


Edit: What REALLY gets under my skin is that no one has ever made a good, reasonably (given what we know and what has been passed down) accurate movie about Thermopylae. I'm willing to grant some license but, seriously. I enjoyed 300 but it went way too far "out there" in many respects, IMO at least. And of course now it's unlikely that anyone will ever tackle that subject matter again in my lifetime.

And don't talk to me about The 300 Spartans. I tried to watch that once. UGH.

[JazzJR]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

And don't talk to me about The 300 Spartans. I tried to watch that once. UGH.

Oh thats....creepy. Always if such a movie appears everyone says "Spartans were the best soldiers" or you will find so many Topics "Roman Legions vs Spartans, who would win" and then all kids try to obtrude the other kiddys with their opinion. The movie was really WAY over the top. I enjoyed the parody of that movie much more then the original.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by JazzJR

Well in one scene the Kaleun says "It had to be like this...." and after Lt. Werner asked "Why did it had to be like this?" he answers "Because we don't have the room for so many survivors. How many of them you would have rescued? 1? 10? 100? We have the order to sink ships, where we find them. All other things you can ask the guys which started this war!"

That is actually a very polite change from the incident in the book. What happens in the book could never be put into a German-made movie.

[JazzJR]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

That is actually a very polite change from the incident in the book. What happens in the book could never be put into a German-made movie.

There are non-german Authors who make german WW2 soldiers into bloody beasts.

[soopaman2]

Originally Posted by VONHARRIS

Troy stinks!
It has nothing to do with Greek mythology , and trust me I know MY mythology.
Sorry , I couldn't help it.

I understand, alot of creative Hollywood liberties were taken. But you look at the content of the acting and script, as well as the overall mood and feeling it stands up, once again..In my opinion

I was simply mentioning more distinguished hits he made. Das Boot didn't get the deserved attention in America, though most his other films have.

[Sailor Steve]

As for Troy, I have a love/hate relationship for the same reasons Frau Kaleun expounded on. Likewise with the one-year-earlier British miniseries Helen Of Troy. They did a much better job of telling the whole story, and at least saying it lasted ten years. That said, it's not nearly as good a piece of filmmaking. That said, I own copies of both, and watch them both fairly regularly. Also The Trojan Women and Electra (1962 Greek film based on the play by Eurypides, with Irene Papas).

To add to Frau K's post, and partially disagree with it, we only have Homer's word that the war lasted ten years, and we don't know for certain that it happened at all, which makes this a case of the movie varying from the book, not from history. I highly recommend Michael Woods' documentary In Search Of The Trojan War. Excellent show, and very enlightening. It starts with Heinrich Schliemann and works backwards, discussing everything that's known.

An eminently readable novel about the Trojan Wars is Lindsey Clarke's The War at Troy. I quite enjoyed it.

http://www.amazon.com/War-at-Troy-Li...015943&sr=1-11

I grew up on the Iliad and the Odyssey, Dad used to read a Greek version to me as a kid and translate it into English in the hopes that I might learn the language.

The 300 Spartan's is pretty grim but the historical treatment is slightly better than in 300. Part of the problem is that the story tries to be all things to all people and the actual history won't match the legend in many peoples eyes.

It is generally forgotten that there was, in addition to Leonidas 300 body guards there were at the final battle, hundreds of helot auxiliaries and several hundred Thespian hoplites that stayed with the Spartan's but that the legend usually forgets. The helots certainly were not there voluntarily since they were mere slaves, unworthy of remembrance while the death of the Thespian contingent alongside their Spartan allies was always an inconvenient truth and incompatible with the common mythology about the battle. See Tom Holland's Persian Fire for an excellent account.

And in any case, there were no destroyers at Salamis to be torpedoed he wrote, in a futile attempt to get back on topic.

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

To add to Frau K's post, and partially disagree with it, we only have Homer's word that the war lasted ten years, and we don't know for certain that it happened at all, which makes this a case of the movie varying from the book, not from history.

Oh, absolutely. I was referring to the story as it has been passed down since the time that it was committed to writing primarily in the Iliad/Odyssey, which most people would agree is the definitive literary version. The actual history involved is a matter for the archaelogists to sort out as best they can. In that respect, we do know that there was a major city in the "right" spot at the "right" time and that it was sacked/burnt/destroyed/suffered some catastrophe and was rebuilt many times over during its long history. IIRC though the jury is still out on which "Troy" is the likeliest candidate for the Homeric one, i.e., the one that could have been besieged and sacked by a Bronze Age army from the Greek mainland.

I highly recommend Michael Woods' documentary In Search Of The Trojan War. Excellent show, and very enlightening. It starts with Heinrich Schliemann and works backwards, discussing everything that's known.

Yep, I hadn't even read that far when I started to reply to the first part of your post and that doc was gonna be the next thing I mentioned.

Oddly enough my Grecophilia (is that a word?) started with Schliemann and grew from there. When I was around 6 or 7 years old I found a little book in the children's section of the local library called "Great Stories Of Archaeology" or something like that. Funny how those things stick with you - I can still see the cover in my mind, bright yellow clothbound with a picture of the famous King Tut sarcophagus staring right out at you. But it was the story of Schliemann's search for a real, historical Troy that sucked me in. From there I went to the card catalog and looked up "Troy" and "Trojan War" and I never looked back.

[Herr-Berbunch]

@FK - thank you for not writing myriad of...

[Luno]

That is actually a very polite change from the incident in the book. What happens in the book could never be put into a German-made movie.

What did happen in the book? I'm curious now...

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Herr-Berbunch

@FK - thank you for not writing myriad of...

A mistake I probably would have made, though I should know better.

Originally Posted by Luno

What did happen in the book? I'm curious now...

Are you absolutely sure? I'm not going to put a spoiler that important up here, but will send you a PM. I suggest you should read the book, though, and not read my PM in case you change your mind.

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Herr-Berbunch

@FK - thank you for not writing myriad of...

You'll never how close I came to it. Twice.

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Are you absolutely sure? I'm not going to put a spoiler that important up here, but will send you a PM. I suggest you should read the book, though, and not read my PM in case you change your mind.

PM me, then, cuz I can't remember. And I've read the book.

[WWII44]

Originally Posted by flag4

i think this is a waste of resourses. as soon as you start attacking destroyers, surely the convoy breaks up and starts to zig-zag.

go in. find the biggest juicy ones. sink them and leave sharpish...no?

when I attack a convoy at night I use my torps on the merchants, and if my watch officer spots an escort I train my deck gun on them and try to sink them before the get within firing range for their guns(wich I have proven to be quite sucesful at.).