doc_destructo

Guess who didn't sleep for crap today. That's right! How'd you guess? Ugh, I don't know what happened, but I kept waking up every couple hours, looking at the alarm clock and trying to go back to sleep. I think it's withdrawal from whatever the hell it is ne_today puts in my food...

I also managed to watch all of the Troy this morning.

It's not the horrible film everyone made it out to be. Oh, don't get me wrong, it ain't great, but I think it got just enough scenes right to be considered okay. I mean, if you're going to completely cut out the mythological aspect from the Illiad then you could do worse than this film.

I really enjoyed the portrayal of Hector (eric bana) in the film. It seemed to resonate well with the character in the Illiad. A noble and loyal older brother dutifully putting up with the shitstorm caused by his jackass younger brother. Perhaps you can see why he's my favorite in the Illiad. My favorite part was, of course, as he made his preparations for his battle with Achilles. I liked how the character seemed to acknowledge his inevitable doom and continue regardless.

Something that surprised me was just how much the film allowed you to despise Legol- I mean Paris. Considering it was Orlando Bloom, I was almost certain they were going to play up the whole "but it's LOVE!!!" side of things. And while they did play it up, they still made the character the snivelling little shit I always thought him to be in the fight with Menolaos.

Unfortunately, I was a bit disappointed with the characterization of most of the other generals. I mean, I always thought Menolaos got the raw end of the deal (at least in the Illiad, they make him a bit more detestable here). Odysseus isn't given enough screentime (yeah, I know he gets his own epic, but still, it'd be nice to see him being cunning a bit more). And Achilles and Agamemnon... yeah, okay, I'll buy that some of that snark is legit because there actually were juvenile snarkfests over concubines, but jeez. Could we have heaped any more hollywood villain onto Aggy? And Achilles, well, I think that was somewhat accurate in depiction of his attitude some of the time, but damn did it get a little tiring after a while.

And the pacing of the movie... jeebus, people! It somehow feels like they crammed in a 10-year war into 3 weeks into an interminable movie. It just. Kept. Going. And without the depiction of the gods (who were responsible for making the war go on that long), it seemed kinda... bleh. It in no way depicted the harshness that 10 years of brutal attrition and seige would have on either side.

And while I'm somewhat glad that Hector's family made it out of Troy, I think they cut out some of the best lessons from ancient Greek plays. I know in Euripides Women, it addressed the horror of the aftermath of Troy including Cassandra's slavery to Agamemnon (who later plays a role in the Orestia), the destruction of the temples, and the sorrowful killing of all of Troy's male children... even Hector's infant son.

I know, how could Hollywood pass up such a feel-good ending?

But yeah, I'm a total nerd.