"Troy" with Brad Pitt

[Bill Marsh]

I just watched this again. I am fascinated by the battle scenes, especially how Brad Pitt as Achilles uses his marvelous shield and sword.

Is any of that historically correct?

 

[Bandit5]

Historically... it is a guess.

But according to the Iliad, it follows it pretty good except for a few details, i.e. when Achilles kills Hector he drags his body behind his chariot around the city of Troy 3 times before leaving... that was cut with no harm to save time. Also, I think Achilles told Patricles to lead the fight where he got killed. Achilles gave his armor to him, he didn't just do it on his own. But the movie was pretty entertaining, and does a better job of showing how Achilles gets killed. The key thing is that he was never defeated in battle, there was no real honor for the person who killed him. There is more, but I ain't writing a book.

 

[Fiddleback]

Lots of cool swords and fighting though. I like greek/mythology movies. Im just that way. They don't have to be good or anything. Clash of the Titans is still one of my favorites.

 

[redvenom]

I enjoyed this movie a lot more than Alexander.

I'm hoping somebody will pick up the movie rights to "Gates of Fire" and a director who will do justice to it.

 

[kamagong]

The director took quite a bit of artistic license with this movie, but I think that's OK because it's called Troy, not the Iliad. Although I liked it, there were several discrepancies between this movie and the epic poem. Off the top of my head they are -

1) Achilles was a demigod. He was nearly invulnerable except for a spot on his foot where his mother held him when she dipped him into the river Styx. The part where he gets shot in the trunk full of arrows never happened except, but at least in both the book and the movie it is Paris who killed Achilles.

2) In the Iliad the whole pantheon of Greek Gods were involved in the Trojan War. Ares, Athena, Poseidon, Apollo, and company all took an active part during the battles and fought alongside the heroes. Obviously that part was not included in the movie.

3) Patroclus was Achilles' best friend, not his cousin. Although some scholars believe that they were more than just "friends."

4) The Trojan War lasted ten years, but focuses on the last year or so. The movie made it seem that the war lasted only a couple of weeks.

5) Achilles was not the first person on the Trojan beach. Although he was perhaps the greatest hero on the Greek side he was no fool. There was a prophecy that the first Greek to land on Trojan soil would be the first to die, so naturally the Greeks were hesitant to be the first to land, including Achilles.

That's all I can remember for now as it's been a dozen or so years since I last read the book. Despite the inaccuracies though I like this movie a lot. In fact I even rented it last week.

 

[Bill Marsh]

Were the swordplay and particuarly the shield manuevers authentic? It was art, the way Pitt used that shield in battles!

 

[Kevin the grey]

i don,t know how historicaly accurate it was . I enjoyed watching Mr.Pitt snake through the air like a contortionist in some of the battle scenes .

 

[David Schott]

Nothing is better than the first fight you see with him, when he casually runs up to that HUGE giant of a warrior, jumps above him, bisects his aorta, and lands on the other side of the guy, never looking back.

Reminds me of the scene in the first Indiana Jones when the swordsman is swinging his huge swords around in circles and indiana jones just shoots him and walks away.

 

[not2sharp]

i don,t know how historicaly accurate it was . I enjoyed watching Mr.Pitt snake through the air like a contortionist in some of the battle scenes .

It was a fun movie. Historical accuracy is hard to gage. To some extent I would expect to see more tactical cohesion within the various military units. Different groups should be uniquely uniformed and moving and fighting together, rather then represented as a CGI blob merging into an endless
one-on-one melee. I would also expect to see some sense of self preservation; fighters should be running away in panic and killed, beaten and coerced into going back to the front lines. One of the reason you tended to have these deep tight battle formations is so that the more relible men in the rear would be in a position to kill anyone in the front ranks who went anywhere but forward.

n2s

 

[Bill Marsh]

I would also expect to see some sense of self preservation; fighters should be running away in panic and killed, beaten and coerced into going back to the front lines.

n2s

This makes a LOT of sense to me! I never understood movies where a powerful enemy kept on killing people and others kept charging in and trying to kill someone like Conan, who had just wiped out half their army.

Unless they have a howitzer and can get back from the guy with the sword.

 

[Kevin the grey]

Gentlemen ! Gentlemen ! What about honour ? What about integrity ?
To live and fight another day ? That just won,t Do ! L:O:L

Actually one of my favourite lines from a movie involves a cavalry officer complaining that "those darn Indians won,t stand still and fight . They keep popping up in the most unexpected places ."
The retort was " How inconsiderate of them ! "

 

[ishiyumisan]

I just watched this again. I am fascinated by the battle scenes, especially how Brad Pitt as Achilles uses his marvelous shield and sword.

Is any of that historically correct?

I like the beginning of this movie funny shit
When the guy calls with loud voice Achilles

I enjoyed this movie a lot more than Alexander.

Me too:thumbup:

 

[Grob]

When it comes to the Iliad historial accuracy is almost impossible to achieve, even the original greek text from homers hand (not that he ever wrote anything down) is not accurate, the Iliad was writen 400 years after the sack of troy and more closly reflects the style/technology of the time of writing than the actual trojan war.

Myth evolves, it is meant to. In classical greece the story changed many times to reflect the audiance or the times. Note references to iron in the iliad, which had not been invented at the time of the trojan war. It was never meant to be historicaly acurate, it was always meant to be adapted so even as a student of classical greece I take no exception to modifying it to apeal to todays audiance.

Interesting things:
1. The Iliad contains no reference to the trojan horse, it was Apolodorus who meantioned it in his historical account. The trojan horse was most likly a seige engin built by Hittite mercenaries, neither the greeks or the trojan of the time had ever seen one so it could easily have been seen as a horse.

2. At the time of the city states the predominant military formation was the phalanx which amounted to a big shoving match. There would only have been one formation on each side as niether side had highly enough trained soldiers to manuver multiple formations. Chariots were not much more than battle feild taxis by this point, people had learned that if your hoplite stay together a horse will not charge through a solid wall of spear points.

3. There probably was little or no use of swords. Swords were pretty experimental things at the time metelurgy was not really good enough to make a bronze sword that wouldn't break as soon as it hit anything (they could have used some Kamis).


Gord

 

[Bamboo]

Reminds me of the scene in the first Indiana Jones when the swordsman is swinging his huge swords around in circles and indiana jones just shoots him and walks away.

Originally, that scene was supposed to be a big fight between Harrison Ford and the sword guy. But rumor has it that Mr. Ford was extremely sick with stomach problems that day and came up with that solution on the spot. Definitely one of the best scenes in the movie.


I liked Troy a lot too. It even surprised me how much I enjoyed it.


~ bamboo

 

[Kevin the grey]

Not many people know this .Its a historical fact that The Trojan war was the first time "safe sacks" occured . L:O:L

 

[tsf]

The swordplay is chinese.
Terry