GOOD MORNING!

[lithera]

No. Really. Wow.




I'm awake now. Geeze. It was rough getting out of bed this morning but some good music and some pretty pictures have made my day a little easier to handle. I'm really trying to get my 'but... but that's not what happens!!!!' instincts out of the way. I know some fairly hefty changes to the story but I'm trying to ignore them. I want to see this for the pretty.

There's the question. All of the Classic Epic movies coming out. While on one hand I'm happy they're coming out and exposing people to the stories and all.... Does it really count if they get it all wrong? I'm torn.

Work calls me, lovies.

Comments

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think it counts. It was all an oral tradition anyway: things got conflated, distorted, and left out depending on the storyteller's preferences. Just because we usually pay attention to one main version (only sometimes the original) of a story, doesn't mean that the same skeleton can't be used as part of the folk process. I'm not hoping for any Shakespeare out of the movie industry, but the story-mining he did is the same as what they do.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

Man, he's pretty. In a psycho kind of way in that picture, but pretty.

As for the stories...see, this is my take on it.

These stories are meant as entertainment. They were entertainment written two thousand years ago, they were meant as entertainment then, they're meant as entertainment now. Two thousand years ago, entertainment meant gods and passion and wars; today, the same story might be told without gods, but I think it's basically the same story. I think the way we tell stories changes to some degree; the constructs we use change, and what the audiences want/expect changes. I don't really mind, personally, if somebody reinterprets the Iliad (or Arthur, or name your favorite classic here) for a modern audience, because to me, they usually keep the things that are *really* important. The love story. The passion. The war. They keep the backbone and they hang the new interpretation on that, and I like that, because it means that at least the backbone of the story is still being used. And when you're talking about stories that are older than Christianity, that's a pretty damned cool thing.

One of the reasons I liked Hercules: the Legendary Journies was because of this very thing. Sure, sure, they're wildly anachronistic and they pull in mythologies and stories from all over the world and mash them all up into ancient Greece, but to me, that's the way we tell these stories now. It's not a travesty; it's how storytelling changes with the world around it. And one of the most wonderful things, to me, is that there will be at least *some* people who are going to go read the Odessey and the Iliad and the Hercules stories who never read them before, because they've been exposed to one version of that story. Maybe they'll like the movie/tv show/whatever better, maybe they won't. But they'll have been exposed to them. And even if they don't go read the ancient texts, that's okay too, because stories aren't static. They change with the times. And for me, these movies and shows are just that. Changing with the times.

(You may wish to remember I'm a writer, and possibly have something significant invested in being *allowed* to retell stories!)

[warpdragon.livejournal.com]

If anybody dies in one version who lives in another, then no, they don't count.

The same can be said for Lord of the Rings. More people now believe the Elves came to Helm's Deep than don't, and that's not The Way The Story Goes.

[lithera.livejournal.com]

That's very true and where I normally end up on the entire subject, if I'm honest with myself. I'm normally pretty flexible about staying true to source material as long as they get the spirit of things down...

[lithera.livejournal.com]

What about people dying at the wrong times?

[warpdragon.livejournal.com]

It's all subjective. It's all about how much they then miss.

[warpdragon.livejournal.com]

The stories weren't static, but these have been for the last two thousand years or so. The "retelling" of the Odyssey in O Brother Where Art Thou was one thing, and a Bugs Bunny version would be another. But these movies act authoritative, and people will believe they are.

But I guess if they get the themes right, it's not so bad.

[lithera.livejournal.com]

I have to admit, I really liked Hercules and Xena. (Of course, it didn't hurt that Ares was a super hottie.) It was at least a glimpse into the cultures that were represented and in a lot of the cases they were closer to being right than they were to being wrong. (Which reminds me. I need to buy Xena seasons 2 and 3.)

I agree that movies these days can act as a gateway (to steal terminalogy from the war on drugs) to other and better things. I really have to wonder what the turn over rate on that really is. I have no idea. I found Greek myths and the Classics on my own and have always been very fond of grey-eyed Athena.

There is one death and the the way it happens in the movie that I know is going to bother me no matter what, though. I haven't seen it yet but from what I know it seems like a needless concession to modernity. I understand that there aren't any kick ass women in the story (unless you count Penthesilea but we won't see her) but.... does there have to be? Are you thinking you'll offend someone if there isn't?

I don't know. Generally I agree with you but there are specifics that get to me.

[lithera.livejournal.com]

We shall see how I feel about it after watching it.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, they've been static for two thousand years, but that's because how we told stories changed at some point. We moved from an oral tradition to a written one. My argument is that how we tell stories has changed again, from a written tradition to a visual one. I'd expect the stories to change as well.

(Obviously we still have both oral and written storytelling traditions. I don't think that negates the point. :))

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm not really arguing in favor of wholly and blatantly rewriting the stories. It's just that somewhere in the last few years I've come to grasp the idea that a movie is simply a wholly different storytelling medium than a book (or a comic book), and that to make things work in a movie you have to take a different approach. I came to the classics on my own, too, and I *do* love the originals, but mostly I don't hate reinterpretations.

Don't, however, talk to me about Disney's The Black Cauldron. :)

[lithera.livejournal.com]

Heh. Yeah. I really, really liked what was done with X-men and that helped. That and I've really started to realize that there are some things that work in books but you could never, ever carry them off on a screen.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Different mediums. It took me a looooong time to come around to that realization. :)

[jeditigger.livejournal.com]

My....goodness.

[lithera.livejournal.com]

Yeah. That was about what went through my head.

Hello! *ahem*

[sharkcowsheep.livejournal.com]

It would be GREAT if you could get one of him looking moody on a rooftop somewhere. :D

[lithera.livejournal.com]

Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Hee hee.

*ahem*

*snicker*

Ah Nightwing, how I love thee.

[pullthestars.livejournal.com]

mmmmm.

this will blatantly show the HUGE holes in my reading history, but I'm glad in this case that I have no idea of what the story truly is. then I can go and not worry about being weirded out by story changes.

[lithera.livejournal.com]

Heh. There are lots and lots of people who have no idea what the story is, other than vaguely. I'm just bringing it up because of all of the people throwing fits on the Classics list.

Yeah, yeah. Pretty. (One)

[twoinone.livejournal.com]

What can I say without being the usual old, jaded Oxford intellectual raised on classics? Nothing of course :)

But I'll tell you this. It has always been, is and will remain a matter of quality.

In itself, whatever what, any work derived from the classics does good. If nothing else because of the exposure, which yes, does count, for after all there will be those (one in a thousand maybe) who will be urged to go read Homer after seeing the film. Get actually interested in the subject, even though it is not easy.

For the rest, the film industry today seems to be so steeped in its moneymaking religion at all costs, aside from laudable exceptions, that it tends to only produce works directed to stroke the egos and fancies of uneducated dumb teenagers suffering from school-induced ADD.

For these, you might set Troy in snowy Scandinavia and cast Achilles as a handsome dyke, make Hector elope with Helen /from/ Troy and Priam lead a surprise strike back to Hellas with Paris as his catamite, it would not make a difference. They consume stories and forget them at the rate of popcorn, and when you listen to their talk you realise that it is all the same soup to them: Homer and Shakespeare and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. No difference of quality, none of depth of value. Having the gadget will be the fad, of course, perhaps a brooch in the shape of the shield of Achilles to go with the elven brooch leaf, or pretty little models of Balios and Xanthos, Achilles' talking steeds.

I have no hope that things may be different. Popular culture is and unfortunately remains what it always was: thrash, to which from time to time gems are born, which usually go unnoticed especially in modern times (for you see, there is a difference between Dickens or Dostojevsky and Mercedes Lackey or Anita Blake... as there is a difference between a film like Alexander Nevsky and a film like Excalibur).

Yes I really dislike most of popular culture. No I would never welcome the institution a censorship against it. But I reserve my right of disagreement and contempt.

Yeah, yeah. Pretty. (Two)

[twoinone.livejournal.com]

So I will go see Troy (and the household is already dreading it, as you may figure :)). And if they butcher the Iliad, I will express my firm and detailed disagreement.

I have not read anything about the film yet. So I do not know what they have changed. I have seen pictures and the costumes are good, historically accurate for the time that Homer sings for (not /as/ Homer sings it, for like Shakespeare, the poets who went under the name of Homer dressed their heroes in the garb of their time). I am afraid about the acting. I am afraid about the screenplay. I am afraid about the infinite chances of disneyzation, and I am afraid about a lot of things that I know surely can be done to make the Iliad more attractive to soda-brains. But I will not speak until I have seen it.

Still my position is, if they make unwarranted changes or go off the mark too wide, they will have no excuse, because they are selling it as the Iliad. Not a story of the war of Troy but the Iliad.

The one thing that really will bother me at that point is that there will be a great many who will go and believe they know things about the War of Troy and Greek mythology because of it. For so goes the world, after all. It will take a generation at least to clear the butchery of English history performed by Mel Gibson's Braveheart on the minds of poorly educated people (young Scots included, I am sorry to report). So goes the world.

For the rest, it is a matter of quality. And if a piece of supposed art is bad to my standards (and it can be bad also because it cannot deal properly with its matter, a sin that can only be redeemed by exceptional visual beauty) then it is bad.

Nobody will die for it, but I will spit on the film. Included the so pretty but seldom capable of acting Brad Pitt, whom I despair of seeing buggered by Patroclos of course (Patroclos was the insertor of the pair, being the older, but I'm not being finicky; still, I do not expect to see any explicit reference to same-gender sex).

If it is bad, I will call the Erinyes to haunt the director and producer (whoever they are) for their crimes. I do believe, you see, that when you touch something sacred, and do wrong, it does strike back in subtle ways. And the ancient gods have still a shadow to cast, in the dreams of men.

(And yes, a tiny nazgûl is already coiled up at the base of Mr Jackson's skull, giving him headaches, because of Arwen in place of Glorfindel at the Ford, and the Elves at Helm's Deep. Some great books have their own gods. And people who want to please audiences should be more careful)

:)

Re: Yeah, yeah. Pretty. (Two)

[lithera.livejournal.com]

First off, you know I love you, right? Especially when you talk classics to me. *happy happy*

I can tell you that there are two changes that distinctly bother me. One of them much more so than the other. Both of them have to do with characters dying at the wrong time.

There are some people who are missing from the story and while there was male frontal nudity filmed, it won't be in the movie (more is the pity, I say).

Brad Pitt can actually act. I didn't think so at first but watching him in Twelve Monkeys, Seven, Ocean's Eleven and The Mexican showed me that the man can act. (The first two more than the later two.) I thought he was just a pretty boy with no talent but the man /can/ act. He's just not an Ian McKellan. Then again, who is?

There seems to be a gravitas in the older movies that is missing from most movies these days. I'm wondering if it because there are so many of them made. I don't want to fall into the trap of thinking because it's older it is some how magically better. No, there were just as many crappy movies made years ago, bad plays written and bad songs sung. It's just that the bad stuff has been filtered away, mostly, by time. The bad stuff doesn't as often get to us for us to see.

Suddenly I'm on a 'history repeats itself' internal monologue but I've done that one already today, so I think I'll avoid it for the time being.

He is pretty, though. I mean... I'd love to have someone look at me like that.