[Vwing]

Alright listen, I'm prejudging here, but my topic description says what I think. There are too many goddam epics in Hollywood. With Troy coming out, I mean yeah it looks very impressive, but in my opinion, at a certain point, when a battle is so large, it loses its emotional impact. That happened to me in ROTK, and it will probably happen in this, which will probably be worse than ROTK anyway. But aside from that, there are just too many epics in Hollywood. I mean, comedies probably need special effects now. It's ridiculous. One of the greatest movies of all time had a cast of, oh, about 12 men. 12 badly tempered men. That's it. Hollywood is really going too much spectacle and not enough story. Episode III probably won't be any different, but do you guys agree? Is Hollywood getting too epic for its own good?

[civilian_number_two]

I think I'll hold my answer until after the Bruckheimer-produced KING ARTHUR. Billing itself as "the true story of King Arthur," it has 5th-century warriors in full plate mail spouting Romantic ideals and marching alongside Hollywood-styled warrior women towards gasoline-fulled explosions. Looks pretty accurate.

If you look at all the realeases, there's the usual number of war movies alongside the himan dramas and the silly comedies. LOST IN TRANSLATION and AMERICAN SPLENDOUR were among my favorites for the year, and MYSTIC RIVER and COLD MOUNTAIN aren't what I'd call "epic." Sure, a lot of folk are going to want to follow LOTR, and we'll see a bit of that for a while, but I bet we get some good space flicks soon, what with this Mars thing coming up.

Also, the next HARRY POTTER should be pretty good. Nothing epic about that.

[Paladin]

I think I'll hold my answer until after the Bruckheimer-produced KING ARTHUR. Billing itself as "the true story of King Arthur," it has 5th-century warriors in full plate mail spouting Romantic ideals and marching alongside Hollywood-styled warrior women towards gasoline-fulled explosions. Looks pretty accurate.

Full plate armor wasn't invented until the 15th century. They're WAAAYY ahead of their of time!

[civilian_number_two]

I think I'll hold my answer until after the Bruckheimer-produced KING ARTHUR. Billing itself as "the true story of King Arthur," it has 5th-century warriors in full plate mail spouting Romantic ideals and marching alongside Hollywood-styled warrior women towards gasoline-fulled explosions. Looks pretty accurate.

Full plate armor wasn't invented until the 15th century. They're WAAAYY ahead of their of time!

Well, that was kinda my point.

[Paladin]

And that's not all either.

King Arthur was a real person, but his real history has been botched up, bastardized and skewed into mythology to the extent that his real history is almost completely forgotten.

For one thing, his name wasn't Arthur, it was Lucius Artorius Castor. His real life was more or less a bunch of military campaigns against the Germanic invaders who were invanding Britain at the time. He considered himself a 'son of Rome' and did whatever he could to make sure that Britain remained 'Romanized'.

He almost suceeded, but his son revolted against him and they both died in the battle of Camlann.

Here's a link about him.

King Arthur

It's a small part of an E-book about the Middle Ages and the Hundred Year War.

[Lord Aquaman]

I just got done watching Helen of Troy the 1956 version and, dated as it is and along with certain liberties, it felt less insulting in some respects when compared to the 2004 Troy, perhaps because the 1956 version had the guts to show Paris getting killed.

[J m HofMarN]

I think the 2004 version did a good job of showing that Agamemnon was an ass, though it definately did change history just a bit.

[civilian_number_two]

It didn't change history. None of that shit happened. The Iliad is fiction, and any kind of Trojan War probably as well.

[Lord Aquaman]

It didn't change history.  None of that shit happened.  The Iliad is fiction, and any kind of Trojan War probably as well.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

But I believe they did find a city in Turkey that they believe could have been Troy.

Agamemnon was an ass, but I think the 2004 movie over did him as the villain - the lack of gods didn't help.

[J m HofMarN]

It's entirely plausible that these events are at least roughly based upon facts.

I thought the gods would have been a cool touch, but after thinking about it a bit more I realized that it would be insanely difficult for any movie to handle a cast that large with American attention spans so small. Not to mention that hardly any Americans know about ancient greek deities at all except from the Xena warrior princess and Hercules the legendary journeys.

[scubasteve4lyfe]

I like the part in Troy when the squat hairy man dies in battle and the other squat hairy man goes, "YEEEAAAARRRRGGHH!!!"

[civilian_number_two]

It's entirely plausible that these events are at least roughly based upon facts.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It is plausible, yes.

However, they're not. It's total bullshit. Let's not even mention that more than a thousand years after the alleged events, Homer could remember the names of about 600 characters and how they were all related to one another. Also, how many boats each guy commanded. When it comes down to it, the least credible aspect of the story is the horse. The Trojans would simply never have been able to roll that monster on the sand. It's nuts.

[Jordan]

There would have been records recorded by other greek states and probably a few Perian provinces about TROY, if it really was such a great city.

[xenduck]

the city of troy was real. i work in a museum and all the dated maps have troy listed, right across from greece in turkey. odds are there was a war, or a series of campaigns, but ya, the trojan war is mostly bull. still, the illiad is an amazing book, and its impact on western culture is imeasurable. so naturally i was disturbed that the movie troy followed niether the legend nor the history. troy is as much based on the illiad as o' brother where art thou was based on the odessey.

i have the same beef with king arthur. meh.