With all the thoughts on “Odyssey” here, does anyone remember or have any thoughts on the 2004 “Troy” film? I didn’t like it when I first saw it but I warmed to it later. Haven’t seen it in years. A friend of mine and I have agreed to watch it in the next few weeks to see how we feel about it before seeing Odyssey.
I absolutely love Troy. I actually watch it quite often. I know that it isn’t entirely faithful to the Iliad, but I first watched it at a sleepover when I was 12 and the ending really affected me and stuck with me all these years later.
If I watched it for the first time now, I think I would be a lot more critical of it and wonder why certain decisions were made and important elements were left out or changed (the presence of the gods, certain characters, why Achilles and Patroclus’ relationship was changed, etc).
I quite enjoyed the 2004 Troy movie. It’s entertaining and Brad Pitt as Achilles is a lot of fun. However, I thought it was a bit flat.
I actually preferred the 2003 miniseries “Helen of Troy” with Rufus Sewell as Agamemnon, Stellan Skarsgård as Theseus, John Rhy-Davies as Priam and Sienne Guillory as Helen. That was really cool but unfortunately not as famous as the Brad Pitt movie from 2004. I wonder if that series is available for streaming somewhere…
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Brad Pitt’s superstardom kind of overshadowed Achilles’ ancient superstardom for me…
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In the USA, the 2003 miniseries is available for streaming on Tubi and YouTube. I haven’t seen it in years but I remember it fondly.
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Right, Liana, that was my same problem back in 2004 - Where are the gods? But later I got that they were trying to do the Trojan War “realistically” - so, okay, I was all right with that. I guess. Seemed less “Troy” without the gods though.
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And, yes, Linawyn, I know what you mean. I remember reading, before the film came out, that Pitt hired a trainer to “sculpt his body into a statue of a Greek god” and, unfortunately, that stayed with me when I first saw the film. So I spent too much time thinking `is that the body of a Greek god? Really?"
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Sounds like a good cast! Will have to see if I can track it down somewhere.
How about the 2018 Netflix series? I thought it was pretty mediocre, although I did like how the gods were more involved and once again, the ending was pretty powerful, I thought.