darcydodo | That famous ten-day war in Troy....

So, I went to see "Troy" tonight with Kristin. I was quite impressed, for a start, at how they managed to annhilate a good few centuries' worth of literature in one fell swoop, just by careful slaughtering of people who really didn't die in that way. Farewell to the Odyssey, where Telemachus can no longer encounter Menelaos and Helen at Sparta, because Menelaos died on the second day of battle. Farewell to Sophocles' Ajax, where Ajax can no longer quarrel with Odysseus over Achilles' armor and subsequently commit suicide, because, ooh, Ajax also died on the second day of battle. Farewell to the entirety of the Oresteia, 'cause how is Orestes ever going to avenge his father's death at the hands of his mother when his father never even managed to leave Trojan soil? Farewell to Catullus 68, for although Laodamia might well mourn for a less-aptly named Protesilaos, I'm pretty damn sure that Achilles was the first one onto the beach at Troy. And can I just pause a moment to laugh my head off at the tender years of Aeneas as he supported an appropriately elderly Anchises and was handed The Sword of Troy, +2 against Greeks, by a still-living Paris, rather than being handed the Trojan penates by the shade of Hector?

The casting, on the other hand, was masterful. Orlando Bloom, Eric Bana, Sean Bean, and Brad Pitt were all perfect in their roles, as I rather expected. The girl playing Helen (I still have no idea of her name, and I'm not going to look it up on IMDb, 'cause that's rather my point) was certainly attractive enough, too.

Back to being a whinging classicist, now: I was so convinced that they were going to have Astyanax bursting into tears at Hector's helmet, they had a beautiful setup for it, even showed him taking his helmet and sticking it under his arm, but no. They had to have Astyanax start crying for no reason whatsoever, just to show that his father wasn't going to come back and he could somehow sense it. Why didn't Hector just jam the fucking thing on his head??? It would have made me so happy. *sigh* And damn, I guess showing Astyanax getting tossed off a wall would've just been too much for American audiences, being as how he was such a cute baby. *again, sigh*

There was quite a good reaction from the audience when Patroclus died but everyone still thought it was Achilles — a lady in back gasped "No!" and when Hector snatched off the helmet to reveal Patroclus' face, even Kristin, whom I had believed to know at least bits of the story, was surprised.

The lack of gods made for some kind of weird changes; although I can see that including the gods would have possibly made the whole thing too cumbersome, they could have structured it far more sensibly in order to exclude them than they did. Also, what was with the completely random battle for Thessaly at the beginning? It also would have made my day to see Brad Pitt dressed convincingly in women's clothing, but I guess they couldn't add that much of a dimension onto the story. People'd be all, WTF? But that's enough out of me. I will endeavor to forget the travesty that is "Troy." And now, I would like to take a moment to curse Berkeley theaters for never having junior mints. What the hell is wrong with the local cinemas?? A quick trip to Walgreens sufficed, of course, but it shouldn't be necessary. I mean, really.

And on an entirely different note, that random (but kinda cool) color-of-username meme (except it apparently only works in IE):

darcydodo

Cut and paste the following into your journal, replacing username with, strangely enough, your username:
<font color="username"><b>username</b></font>