Archived from groups: rec.games.miniatures.historical (More info?)
I went to see Troy this afternoon. Pretty good, I must say. I always
liked the big-scale Cecil B. DeMille type epic movies from the 1950's
and 60's, especially the tales from ancient history and mythology, and
the story of the Trojan Horse was always one of my very favourites from
all of literature.
The acting averages out to average. Brad Pitt is in it, but so is Peter
O'Toole, so they pretty much cancel each other out. Dialogue is
predictable but acceptable, the rest of the writing is pretty good.
Cinematography, lighting, sound, direction, and editing is all pretty
good. Special effects are well done, particularly the ships; none of it
looked too CGI-ish. Oh yeah, I think there were some battle scenes in
there too.
They did manage to stick pretty close to the original storyline, except
for the ending which was Hollywood-ized. There were some divergences from
Homer's original: there were no car chases at all, for instance, and the
part where Achilles dresses Hector up in a clown suit and forces him to
perform Broadway show tunes was a little weird. (That might just be a
problem with the English translation I'm working from.) The war was
supposed to cover ten years, but in the movie they wrapped everything up in
135 minutes. The combat scenes looked reasonably believable for the period:
no Matrix-style bullet dodging or flying-through-the-air trapeze stuff. I
particularly liked the combat scenes with Achilles, Ajax, and Exeter.
One minor quibble: Helen was supposed to have "the face that launched a
thousand ships". She was okay in this movie, I mean I wouldn't kick her
out of bed for painting 15mm miniatures, but I certainly wouldn't rate
her at a thousand ships. Maybe six catamarans, or a handful of biremes.
Okay, a pair of triremes at the most. For my tastes, Briseis is much
more of a hottie, even though she doesn't have any lines in Homer's
original. I would also accept any two of the Generic Dancing Babes(tm).
On last thing: if you ever find yourself standing in one of those
ancient temples, don't stand next to those huge statues of the gods. You
just know they're going to come toppling down at some point.
DLF
--
David Ferris
www.irvania.com
Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings
A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
-- John Milton, Paradise Lost
I went to see Troy this afternoon. Pretty good, I must say. I always
liked the big-scale Cecil B. DeMille type epic movies from the 1950's
and 60's, especially the tales from ancient history and mythology, and
the story of the Trojan Horse was always one of my very favourites from
all of literature.
The acting averages out to average. Brad Pitt is in it, but so is Peter
O'Toole, so they pretty much cancel each other out. Dialogue is
predictable but acceptable, the rest of the writing is pretty good.
Cinematography, lighting, sound, direction, and editing is all pretty
good. Special effects are well done, particularly the ships; none of it
looked too CGI-ish. Oh yeah, I think there were some battle scenes in
there too.
They did manage to stick pretty close to the original storyline, except
for the ending which was Hollywood-ized. There were some divergences from
Homer's original: there were no car chases at all, for instance, and the
part where Achilles dresses Hector up in a clown suit and forces him to
perform Broadway show tunes was a little weird. (That might just be a
problem with the English translation I'm working from.) The war was
supposed to cover ten years, but in the movie they wrapped everything up in
135 minutes. The combat scenes looked reasonably believable for the period:
no Matrix-style bullet dodging or flying-through-the-air trapeze stuff. I
particularly liked the combat scenes with Achilles, Ajax, and Exeter.
One minor quibble: Helen was supposed to have "the face that launched a
thousand ships". She was okay in this movie, I mean I wouldn't kick her
out of bed for painting 15mm miniatures, but I certainly wouldn't rate
her at a thousand ships. Maybe six catamarans, or a handful of biremes.
Okay, a pair of triremes at the most. For my tastes, Briseis is much
more of a hottie, even though she doesn't have any lines in Homer's
original. I would also accept any two of the Generic Dancing Babes(tm).
On last thing: if you ever find yourself standing in one of those
ancient temples, don't stand next to those huge statues of the gods. You
just know they're going to come toppling down at some point.
DLF
--
David Ferris
www.irvania.com
Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings
A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
-- John Milton, Paradise Lost
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