Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Feb 12, 2010 18:50:26 GMT
I'd never heard of this before. Is it a series of books? Sounds a bit like a Harry Potter clone, but I watched the trailer and was sold for one reason: it promised a proper big screen treatment of the Greek gods.
One of my biggest cinema disappointments of my life was 'Troy'. All through that film I was saying to myself, "Well, they've messed that up," "They've got that wrong," "Has the scriptwriter ever actually _read_ The Iliad?" and "WHERE ARE ALL THE BLOODY GODS?!?!" This in the same decade that we were getting proper Balrogs and Nazgul and trolls and things in 'The Lord of the Rings', some fools decided to make a film called 'Troy' which was basically a bunch of blokes killing each other with swords and nothing supernatural whatsoever.
'Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief' put all that right for me. All through _this_ film I was saying to myself, "Yep, _that's_ how Poseidon should make an entrance," "Yep, that's about the right portrayal for that god... and that one... and that one there..." "That's how you show a fury/satyr/centaur/minotaur/hydra on film in the 21st Century," and "Bloody hell, that's how you do Medusa!"
Where in watching 'Troy' I was constantly thinking what _should_ come next and then being disappointed, in this film the opposite was the case. Half an hour after the characters picked up a few gold coins, I thought to myself, "If they're being true to Greek mythology, they're going to have to use those about one minute from now," and bingo, they were true to Greek mythology and used it just as expected.
The best thing about the film is that if successful it should inspire the kids of today to go and read Homer.
The worst thing was Persephone's American accent.
But well satisfied on the whole. Hope there's a sequel.
Edit: Looking back, the film itself may not have been that great. But I just loved the fact that I could treat the genuine Greek myths as canonical background material for the film while watching it, without any of it requiring modification or (urgh) 're-interpretation'. It lifted the gods straight of the 3,000-year-old page and brought them into the 21st Century without parodying them, or modernising them, or fobbing them off with second-rate production values. And I had been so denied this with 'Troy' that I just lapped it up.
Martin
One of my biggest cinema disappointments of my life was 'Troy'. All through that film I was saying to myself, "Well, they've messed that up," "They've got that wrong," "Has the scriptwriter ever actually _read_ The Iliad?" and "WHERE ARE ALL THE BLOODY GODS?!?!" This in the same decade that we were getting proper Balrogs and Nazgul and trolls and things in 'The Lord of the Rings', some fools decided to make a film called 'Troy' which was basically a bunch of blokes killing each other with swords and nothing supernatural whatsoever.
'Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief' put all that right for me. All through _this_ film I was saying to myself, "Yep, _that's_ how Poseidon should make an entrance," "Yep, that's about the right portrayal for that god... and that one... and that one there..." "That's how you show a fury/satyr/centaur/minotaur/hydra on film in the 21st Century," and "Bloody hell, that's how you do Medusa!"
Where in watching 'Troy' I was constantly thinking what _should_ come next and then being disappointed, in this film the opposite was the case. Half an hour after the characters picked up a few gold coins, I thought to myself, "If they're being true to Greek mythology, they're going to have to use those about one minute from now," and bingo, they were true to Greek mythology and used it just as expected.
The best thing about the film is that if successful it should inspire the kids of today to go and read Homer.
The worst thing was Persephone's American accent.
But well satisfied on the whole. Hope there's a sequel.
Edit: Looking back, the film itself may not have been that great. But I just loved the fact that I could treat the genuine Greek myths as canonical background material for the film while watching it, without any of it requiring modification or (urgh) 're-interpretation'. It lifted the gods straight of the 3,000-year-old page and brought them into the 21st Century without parodying them, or modernising them, or fobbing them off with second-rate production values. And I had been so denied this with 'Troy' that I just lapped it up.
Martin