Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 109: Troy featuring Alice Ebenhoe
63 Plays1 day ago
Alice Ebenhoe is returning once again for another look at a “historical document” with Troy (2004). It’s in quotes because this epic poem adapted by Wolfgang Peterson is not exactly what you’d call accurate: it’s largely full of heterosexual atheists who will absolutely STOP fighting at the drop of a hat. And boy do they talk. If you want to hear Brad Pitt, Brian Cox, Eric Bana, Orlando Bloom, Sean Bean, Brendan Gleeson or Peter O’Toole deliver a monologue then you’ve got a banger on your hands. Also Diane Kruger is Helen of Troy and she’s important for reasons, along with some horse. Oh, there’s also a lot of fighting. We get into all the plot holes and have a pretty good time while doing so. Who knew that swords and (lack of) sorceries films could be this much fun? Tune in!
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:27
Speaker
that you would, if you could, and you know that you should, yes you know that you should.
Introduction to the Podcast and Hosts
00:00:40
Speaker
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to your favorite bad movie podcast. The only podcast that's brave enough to ask the question, if this movie's so bad, why do you like it so much?
00:00:52
Speaker
We're your hosts. My name is Chris Anderson, and I'm going to say I'm... Oh, the Achilles of the show.
00:01:04
Speaker
Sure. Sure. Sure. sure the odysseus of the show okay fair enough fair enough yeah i'll take odysseus i'll take the big o and of course my name is chris anderson and i've got with me my co-host we've got mr greg bossy okay and you are definitely going to be the uh anchor ptolemy i'm not certain i know who that one was
00:01:35
Speaker
That's the guy who was like, I saw a bird eat a snake. Oh, sure. Yeah, all right. And of course, we have my wonderful wife.
00:01:50
Speaker
So obviously the Odysseus's wife of the show doesn't appear in the film. Anna Anderson. Hello. How are you doing today? Penelope, that would be. no and I'm doing good.
00:02:04
Speaker
I love to hear that. Fantastic. And I love to hear the laugh of our wonderful guest.
Guest Return and Movie Selection: Troy
00:02:10
Speaker
You might know her from our previous episodes about In the Name of the King, a Dungeon Siege tale, and the 13th Warrior. She's back for more swords and sorcery action. Yes.
00:02:24
Speaker
That is overly long. ha ha. And needlessly self-serious. It's our own personal, let's go with Glaucus, Alice Evenhoof. Thank you for having me back to talk more about utterly defens indefensible movies that I will nonetheless try to defend.
00:02:49
Speaker
Our pleasure. ah Now, Alice chose Troy. Well, I will, to be totally fair, i i asked Alice. We've both been enjoyers of the trash that is Troy from way back. And I asked her, hey, when you come back on, do you want to do Troy?
00:03:10
Speaker
So just to get that on the record. And I said, yes, please. Please let me talk about Troy. I love Troy. It's the worst movie ever. I love it.
00:03:22
Speaker
Well, listeners, if you haven't seen Troy, here's just a brief description of the plot.
Plot Summary and Personal Experiences with Troy
00:03:28
Speaker
ah and You might notice it bears a certain resemblance to a story that you've heard somewhere.
00:03:35
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:03:43
Speaker
Prince Paris of Troy runs off with King Menelaus of Sparta's wife, Helen, launching a war that kills pretty much every character that we meet.
00:03:56
Speaker
Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. Pretty succinct. He starts a war and then everybody dies in the war. Yep. And then the movie's over. Uh-huh. So Alice...
00:04:08
Speaker
You said that you have a love of Troy. Tell me, when when did you first see Troy? Okay, so Troy came out in 2004, which is year after I graduated college with a degree in classics.
00:04:24
Speaker
Okay. At that time, most of my friends were still in college, including some fellow classics majors. So we went to see Troy, I believe, opening weekend. Okay.
00:04:36
Speaker
Perfect. You are the target audience. Absolutely the target audience. And our experience was such a combination of being utterly baffled by every single choice made in the making of this movie.
00:04:53
Speaker
But also there are these like teeny tiny little diamonds of really nice references and really like nice scenes, none of which unfortunately last for more than like five minutes.
00:05:06
Speaker
So that combination really sticks with me. Like it's garbage. It's terrible. There's this gigantic laundry list of things that don't make any sense or are just simply incorrect.
00:05:20
Speaker
um But there's just these little bits of things that are good and make me feel an emotion. And it's just, yeah it's catnip to me. I cannot resist this combination.
00:05:31
Speaker
So I've seen this movie numerous times. Okay. ah One of my roommates got it on DVD and it was one of the movies we would watch pretty regularly, even though, as I have said, it's terrible and incorrect on so many levels.
00:05:50
Speaker
Well, it's interesting. they're only We should mention explicitly that Troy is based on the Iliad and some other writings. Yep. And ah so it is the rare movie that one could describe as being incorrect. I don't think that's an adjective you can apply to art in general. yeah You're right. You're right. it's an It's an adaptation. But there are like...
00:06:18
Speaker
factually incorrect things like Sparta is. It's not a documentary. There aren't facts. Fair enough. You're right. You're right. I'll stop. it's the The other problem here is that at the time that I originally watched this, because I was in my early twenties, I had an unfortunate case of cinema sin brain.
00:06:37
Speaker
those Even though cinemasins did not exist at that time, because I don't believe YouTube existed at that time because I am an old person. Fair enough. You're our age. you We're all. Yeah. yeah um But that that little like turd in your brain that wants to say that's wrong. That's wrong. That's wrong. that is unfortunately still kind of part of the matrix in my brain that relates to this movie. No, I could see that digging some deep ruts, you know, especially on repeated viewing. ah
00:07:09
Speaker
ah Anna, you also have a deep love of Troy. What's your background with Troy? ah Well, it's it's a similar, it's similar to Alice's in that it was a couple of years after I graduated from a classics-heavy education. ah i actually, i have the first three words of the Iliad in Greek tattooed on my lower back. And I had had that tattoo for like three years at that point.
00:07:38
Speaker
um my so My sister was graduated in 2004. I don't, I don't remember what time a year this came out, but, um, I would have seen it opening weekend too, probably with my sister and, uh, a few more times over the years, although i'm sure you'll address this. I had, I'm not sure if I had ever seen this cut,
00:08:03
Speaker
i And I actually do think the theatrical cut was better. I believe it. But it's hard to tell because I haven't seen it and in a while. And I do definitely, like Alice, I remember the parts that hit.
00:08:18
Speaker
I remember the parts that hit. And they really hit when they do. Yeah. Greg, you look perplexed. Tell me what's on your mind. How long was the one that you watched?
00:08:31
Speaker
We watched one that was three hours and 16 minutes. I watched one that was two hours and 47 minutes. Oh, you lucky son of a bitch. watched the right one. Yes! Was that not what I was supposed to do? It doesn't matter. No, no, no, no. Okay, okay. It doesn't matter. I have thought that the theatrical cut
00:08:52
Speaker
It's my understanding that the director's cut mostly includes a lot more gore and more nudity. So I don't want to say nothing of value. wow i i get this so I would have appreciated the nudity and the gore, I suppose. But also, I'm sort of happy that the one that I watched was the two hour and 47 minute one. Yeah, yeah.
00:09:13
Speaker
We had to break it up over two days. I'm i'm quite happy to not have watched or I i would have liked to have that half hour of my life back. Sure. Greg, what's your ah background with Troy?
00:09:26
Speaker
So I also saw Troy in the theater. It's it's it. There's a there's two possible situations. I'm trying to remember what it was. was either that my friend who had seen it said we should go and see this.
00:09:38
Speaker
And I was like, ah sure, I guess. Or it was that I worked in a movie theater at the time and he said, we should go and see Troy. Can we do it for free? And I was like, sure, I guess. ah So it was both times I was just like or in either situation, is's kind of like, if you want to, I suppose, I suppose that makes some sense.
00:09:59
Speaker
We can do that, I guess. But I was not, this is not my typical cup of tea. And so both times I was just like, we'll see how this goes. ah And by the end, both times, I remember thinking that was fine.
Production Insights and Casting Choices
00:10:14
Speaker
Okay. And that was, yeah, that was kind of my experience of it. And do you have like a background with Homer or you're familiar very much with the Iliad? I'm familiar with the stories, you know, as much as one can be said to be familiar with, like, but also like, you know, the names, you know, the nouns. But like admittedly while I was watching this I was like oh Helen of Troy Thousand Ships Okay So it's like my understanding of it is very minimal And most forgotten at this point I think
00:10:49
Speaker
Yeah, I think we did the Odyssey instead of the Iliad in in my education. i think that but that probably like excerpts in high school. ah So I...
00:11:01
Speaker
knew some characters, but I didn't particularly know the story. I didn't see this one in the theater. I probably watched this at Kim's video. This is definitely the perfect thing to throw on at work because there are large parts where you are not going to pay attention. yeah And then you can like focus up on something cool is happening. This would be a perfect TNT movie.
00:11:21
Speaker
This is something that is on in the afternoon with commercial interruptions and you watch like half hour of it. Yeah. Yeah.
00:11:30
Speaker
Yeah, they just knock out a block. It has very much that kind of vibe to me. Except for all the gore and nudity. I guess that, you know, precludes that.
00:11:42
Speaker
I will say, ah think the reason why I watched one that was shorter than you is because I wanted this to be in high quality. So I watched it on my TV and just rented it myself. e And so I think just by going to Amazon and choosing it, that's what led me to where I got to. Okay.
00:12:00
Speaker
are you do you You know that ah TVs have a Plex app on there. You can access our Plex on your TV. Yes, but it streams in pretty low quality. It's 720p. 720 is fine. Get off your high horse.
00:12:14
Speaker
ah It looks better when we watch movies. Everybody can have what we want. it's true what they I don't know what any of this means. Yeah, I don't really either. looks smeary. It often looks smeary when I'm watching the bad movies. And so it's weird when it's like, this movie isn't very good and it's hard to distinguish what's occurring.
00:12:35
Speaker
That's true. i ah Some of them it's hard to find good copies of all. Yeah, yeah. I'll try and get the 1080s for our movies at least. But do you guys want to hear about the context of Troy that I found out, the making of Troy? I very much Sure. yeah Because I don't understand how this happened.
00:12:54
Speaker
Well, I'll tell you.
00:13:09
Speaker
I wish I had some context about the background of the film. Script director, actors on set. What was going on on screen? I want to hear some details.
00:13:20
Speaker
Gossip scenes, all that shit. Can't imagine all the time again.
00:13:37
Speaker
So Troy was released on May 13th, 2004. Friday the 13th, probably. Yeah. Probably. ah Your director, Wolfgang Peterson.
00:13:51
Speaker
Most famous for Das Boot.
00:13:56
Speaker
Now, ah this was the first time where the taglines are associated with character posters. So each character poster has its own tagline. So we've got For Honor with Eric Bana as Hector.
00:14:12
Speaker
hu a For Love, Diana Kruger as Helen of Troy.
00:14:19
Speaker
For Destiny, Brad Pitt as Achilles. For Passion, Orlando Bloom Paris.
00:14:32
Speaker
Well, this what obviously Orlando Bloom is there to lure in young women with crushes on Legolas. I think that makes sense. and he is he's what he is well cast for the character. yeah the character is The character is a handsome coward.
00:14:47
Speaker
yeah yeah Yeah, exactly. And the last one, for victory, and it's just the horse. I like that. That one's good. That's very cool, actually.
00:15:01
Speaker
So today, writer David Benioff. Benioff? Benioff? Isn't he one of the... He is, right? Game of Thrones. yep Yeah, he is one of the co-creators of the TV show Game of Thrones. Back in 2002, he was famous for writing a screenplay based on his own novel, The 25th Hour. That was his breakout into the entertainment business. Spike Lee directed The 25th Hour that he wrote. Oh, interesting. Based on his own novel.
00:15:32
Speaker
Yeah. ah The success of that movie got Benioff a meeting at Warner Brothers, where he told them that his mother read him the Iliad over and over as a child, and he wanted to adapt it for the big screen.
00:15:48
Speaker
Warner Brothers on board. that makes so much sense. Of course, of course, of course that's his his origin. Now, the studio's first pick to direct was obviously going to be Wolfgang Petersen.
00:16:04
Speaker
Unfortunately, Peterson was working on a more modern take on mythology, Batman versus Superman. So then they offered to Troy to Christopher Nolan. Then Batman versus Superman fell through.
00:16:18
Speaker
So Peterson came back to work on Troy and Nolan was offered Batman Begins as a consolation prize. How about that? This is so weird! The fact that now he's doing the Odyssey, like the Odyssey's gonna be out, this is wild.
00:16:36
Speaker
that is That is creepy, honestly. it It is ah true that Nolan did get the Odyssey now, but we're still waiting on Wolfgang Petersman's take on Batman. Das Bat. That's...
00:16:52
Speaker
Well, it's flitter mouse in German. leadermout So ah the first thing that Peterson did was he got rid of all the mythological stuff from the Iliad.
00:17:04
Speaker
No gods, no magic, no monsters, just a bunch of guys. Bad choice, in my opinion. I agree. I understand it, but I agree with you.
00:17:15
Speaker
ah just a simple tale of falling in love with another man's wife. And then he sends you a horse sculpture full of killers.
00:17:27
Speaker
Peterson also initially did not want to show Helen of Troy because he didn't want a human actress to play this sort of supernaturally beautiful woman. He wanted her to be this beauty that you only saw in your mind. And you can imagine the most beautiful woman.
00:17:42
Speaker
Warner Brothers, for their part, they wanted Nicole Kidman. Also a good choice. Okay, yeah yeah. They're like, no, we just want a hot a hot woman. Yeah, I mean, if you want a supernaturally beautiful woman, we've got Nicole Kidman on contract. I mean, you are in Hollywood. It's not like...
00:17:59
Speaker
there are not supernaturally beautiful women just all over the place. But I do, I do like this choice because even I, like when I see Helen of Troy in this, it's Diane Kruger is just not my type of attractive.
00:18:13
Speaker
And so I'm always just like, Oh yeah, there's Helen of Troy. Look at her. Oh, guess this is all for, uh, for her. They did it all for her. well Fair enough.
00:18:25
Speaker
Uh, Yeah, they did split the difference, and they hired a relatively unknown actress at the time, Diane Kruger, who was obviously very beautiful, if not... Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm not trying to poo-poo anybody. I'm going to say she's no Nicole Kidman, but who is? oh Now, at this point, Brad Pitt was slated to star in Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain, but he dropped out because Aronofsky wouldn't let him make changes to the script.
00:18:55
Speaker
Hmm. Hmm. So instead they got, uh, old, uh, Hugh Jackman in there. And then after that pit, he owed Warner brothers a picture. They were like, we'll let you out of your contract for this movie, but you owe us another movie.
00:19:10
Speaker
And, uh, so he was like, okay, I'll take, I'll take Achilles. So you want Achilles? Yeah, I'll do Achilles. Sounds good. Uh, he's quit smoking and he spent six months sculpting his body into a living Greek statue. He said specifically that was his goal.
00:19:27
Speaker
I gotta slam dunk. I'll say i'll say he is his body is one of the things that works. I mean, he specifically in the role is very, very good. But part of that is that he his body is like very, very beautiful and very strong.
00:19:49
Speaker
And he shows a lot of it. Most of it. Yeah. ah know You see pretty much everything except for Brad in the pits. You know? I do like that he stopped smoking for a role.
00:20:03
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. it's like, if I'm to have to work out and do this kind of cardio, I'm going have stop smoking. Stop smoking. And yeah, I think this is the onscreen performance that I've heard the most, like at the time, straight guys being like, well, yeah, I'd go gay for Brad Pitt.
00:20:19
Speaker
If I had to do a guy, it'd be Brad. Do you see that guy in Troy? It's fucking crazy. That guy was the go-to for that, that answer for like six months. I could see it. I mean, yeah, he's just like legitimately just sort of aesthetically beautiful. And I think they just got confused by that concept.
00:20:38
Speaker
Uh, There were some problems in the course of filming, you might guess. They started off filming in Morocco, but they had to relocate after the start of the Iraq war.
00:20:49
Speaker
o Yeah, that'll do it. They relocated shooting to Mexico and because they didn't want all their extras to look like Mexican dudes, they brought along all the Bulgarian extras that they had already cast.
00:21:04
Speaker
Bummer alarm. Bummer alarm. This next bit is kind of a bummer.
00:21:11
Speaker
These Bulgarian extras were paid $12 a day, and one of them, a man named George Camilleri, got injured on set and died. oh God. yeah That's terrible.
00:21:23
Speaker
That sucks. That's heinous. Yes. God, that's... Ugh. None of this seemed to bother audiences at the time.
Box Office Performance and Cast Reactions
00:21:31
Speaker
Troy made nearly $500 million dollars on its million dollars budget.
00:21:37
Speaker
and The credits were mixed, but the general consensus seemed to be that Troy was a decent enough action movie and that it lacked emotional impact. The people who seemed to especially dislike Troy were the cast. Peter O'Toole walked out on a screening after 15 minutes and called Wolfgang Peterson a clown.
00:22:01
Speaker
Wow. Brad Pitt said the following. I had to do Troy because I pulled out of another movie and then had to do something for the studio.
00:22:12
Speaker
So I was put in Troy. It wasn't painful, but I realized that the way the movie was being told was not how I wanted it to be. I made my own mistakes in it.
00:22:24
Speaker
What am I trying to say about Troy? I could not get out of the middle of the frame. It was driving me crazy. Every shot was like, here's the hero.
00:22:36
Speaker
There was no mystery. and um
00:22:42
Speaker
That's a really good criticism. Yes. Honestly. No, it's really good. ah Other historical films of 2004. What else were you history buffs going to go see in the theaters?
00:22:55
Speaker
You got yeah the twin film of this. I want to say Alexander. ah Oliver Stone, Colin Farrell. That's genuine genuinely terrible and not enjoyable.
00:23:07
Speaker
That's what I heard about that one. You got Antoine Fuqua's King Arthur starring Clive Owen as King Arthur. You know, it's really embarrassing how many of these I've seen in the theater.
00:23:22
Speaker
That one, incredibly forgettable, I want to say. In more recent history, historical films, you also had Downfall come out this year, the Bruno Gans as Hitler movie.
00:23:35
Speaker
You had the Alamo completely forgotten. Nobody remembers the Alamo. They made an Alamo film? Who was in it? I think Billy Bob Thornton and like Dennis Quaid, maybe like people like that.
00:23:52
Speaker
How fascinating. That's wild. And ah probably the pick of the litter for the year this year, you got the aviators. Oh, that's a good one. Oh, that's a great movie.
00:24:05
Speaker
Haven't seen it in too long. Never seen it, but I've heard nothing but good things. That's good.
In-depth Plot Analysis and Character Decisions
00:24:11
Speaker
Well, do you guys want to talk about the very long plot of Troy?
00:24:17
Speaker
Sure. You got this, babe. All right. I believe in you.
00:24:40
Speaker
Plot bumper, listen to me. I'm gonna give you the plot summary. Come on, baby. Here's the synopsis.
00:24:52
Speaker
Plot bumper, plot bumper. It's 32,000 years
00:25:05
Speaker
it's thirty two thousand years ago Odysseus narrates about how if you do a good job in a war, people remember that kind of thing. Yeah. And then we're a battlefield.
00:25:19
Speaker
Two ancient Greek armies stand ready for battle. Their kings, King Agamemnon and some other guy, they ride out to parlay. It looks like it was Triopus.
00:25:33
Speaker
Triopus? Sure. sir King of Thunselaes. I thought Odysseus was the king of Thessalonica. No, he's the king of Ithaca. Ithaca.
00:25:43
Speaker
God, fuck a doodle, dude. All right. So anyway, got Magnon on this other guy. They ride out and they have a little parlay before the war starts. And they agree.
00:25:55
Speaker
Instead of having their armies fight, they're just going to let their best men go at it. Did this sort of thing actually happen? Like, did whole armies get together and be like, actually, just the two dudes. We just have the two dudes fight. Okay. Okay. That's kind of what I figured.
00:26:09
Speaker
You know what that reminds me of? I'm going tell a quick story. I used to work with this guy named Freddie and Freddie grew up in the Chelsea projects in the eighties. And one day we asked him like, is it true that you used to like settle disputes by break dancing, like with other like crews of people? And he was like, yeah, it was actually pretty cool.
00:26:30
Speaker
Cause you know, you wouldn't have to like fight anybody and you wouldn't get like beat up. You wouldn't have to beat anybody up. Being in a fight kind of sucks. Yeah. So sometimes we would just breakdance. And sometimes we would end up fighting anyway.
00:26:43
Speaker
But sometimes the breakdancing wouldn't solve it. So maybe this is the kind of thing, like like maybe sometimes I tried it, and maybe sometimes it worked. But probably not often. Yeah.
00:26:54
Speaker
So the other king that isn't Agamemnon, he calls out his giant, Boagrius. Boagrius. And Agamemnon, played by Brian Cox, who is slam dunking it as Agamemnon in this movie. Yeah.
00:27:08
Speaker
He's really good. he's really enjoying himself. Oh, yes. Yeah, he's a great mustache twirler. He's a real, like, shithead king. You really get to... You hate him, and you're supposed to. You could see the Game of Thrones in Agamemnon. This is what Benyam is going be doing later on, for sure. So...
00:27:29
Speaker
so Agamemnon, he calls out Achilles. Achilles is unfortunately asleep back in his tent, ass out with two naked ladies.
00:27:40
Speaker
He is Brad Pitt and he is looking insanely good. The way they reveal this was hilarious to me because it's like he's asleep in bed with a woman, but it's two women. It's like, OK, all right, I get it. yeah He's not at the war. I get it. I get it. he's not We didn't need to like really layer it on already. This is kind of wild.
00:28:03
Speaker
It's very important that we understand that Achilles is heterosexual. Yes. Very heterosexual. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just like in the book.
00:28:13
Speaker
ah and no So ah he's eventually urged out to the battlefield where he kills Boagrius by leaping upwards and stabbing him down through his clavicle. So already we've introduced Achilles as like, this is the coolest dude. Look at how he sleeps with all the babes. He's super hot. He kills giants in one blow. Achilles rocks. Everybody loves Achilles.
00:28:38
Speaker
The Thessalonians, they don't want to mess with Achilles, and so they back down. Back in Sparta, Agamemnon's brother Menelaus celebrates a peace agreement he's brokered with Hector and Paris, the princes of Troy.
00:28:55
Speaker
Menelaus decides he wants to celebrate by cheating on his wife, Helen, canonically the most beautiful woman in the world. Played by, what's her name? Diane Kruger.
00:29:06
Speaker
Diane Kruger. Everybody loves Diane Kruger. Helen, for her part, is sleeping with young Paris, but they're doing it for love, so their cheating is different. ah Paris tries to explain to his older brother Hector, and then he reveals that he has, in fact, snuck Helen out of the kingdom, and he wants to bring her back to Troy with them.
00:29:29
Speaker
Which is stupid. And without the God portion of this story... makes no sense because it just requires both Helen and Paris to be so fucking stupid.
00:29:42
Speaker
It's true. yeah Like if you had made these characters 16 and if you had made Menelaus a pedophile, then I feel like that would play a lot better. That probably would help this movie a fucking lot.
00:29:53
Speaker
yeah But instead, it's not that. God, that would have been so smart. Fuck, I just fixed the whole movie. um So Hector recognizes, yeah, this is a bad idea, but he also realizes that Menelaus will kill him if they bring Helen back. And he doesn't want to see his brother get killed. Very understandable.
00:30:16
Speaker
So he lets Harris take Helen to Troy.
00:30:21
Speaker
Menelaus finds out and he is pissed off. So he goes to his big brother Agamemnon. Yeah, understand. he's very This is very disrespectful to kidnap another man's wife. yeah and i would After doing a peace treaty, like this is like yeah the stupidest political decision possible Yeah, I would say Paris probably should not be your end. This probably should have been a Hector solo mission.
00:30:43
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, why why bring that that guy? I guess they wanted to train Paris up in the family business sooner or later. So admittedly, they they're like a lot of times like, no, no, we're going to let Paris handle it. It's like, do you think he can, though?
00:30:55
Speaker
ah Do you genuinely think he can? Because I don't know if he can. i don't think he's ever demonstrated that he can do things. No. No, that's not what I think of when I think of Paris. No.
00:31:09
Speaker
But anyway, Menelaus goes to Agamemnon and he asks for him to go to war against Troy with him. And Agamemnon, he's been looking for a reason to go with Troy. Once he gets Troy, he's going to be running all of like Greece, all of the Aegean. He's going to be cocky the walk. He's so stoked. He's like yes, finally, let's go fuck up Troy.
00:31:31
Speaker
He just needs one thing. And it's that damn Achilles and his band of myrmidons. Ooh.
00:31:41
Speaker
He's got a real Jonah Jameson relationship to Achilles. There's only one man that could convince Achilles to come out of retirement for one last job.
00:31:54
Speaker
That's his old friend Odysseus. So Agamemnon sends some envoys to go track down Odysseus in Ithaca. Odysseus yeah undercover bosses the two emissaries. He's like, I'm just a shepherd. I think Odysseus is lame. And no, I was Odysseus, idiots.
00:32:14
Speaker
ah And then ah the emissaries ah take him to go see Achilles. He finds Achilles training with his little cousin, Patroclus. Very cousin-like relationship. Perfectly normal.
00:32:28
Speaker
And Odysseus tells him that he's been roped into Agamemnon's BS. And he's worried that he's going to die if Achilles isn't there to walk his back.
00:32:40
Speaker
He also says that ah this will be the greatest war ever fought. So if he wants to go down in history as the greatest warrior, he'll have to be there. Also, Achilles is Sean Bean yeah and really, really well cast. odys achilles oh Odysseus. Odysseus. Fuck! Sorry. Yes, Odysseus.
00:32:57
Speaker
Yes, he's crushing it. Although it's it's fun to see him be this ah more positive-seeming person than such a serious one who dies in the first act or whatever, you know?
00:33:10
Speaker
Yeah. It is nice that Sean Bean gets to live through this movie. yes exactly. Exactly. He's good at being scampy and... No, it's fun. He's fun to watch.
00:33:21
Speaker
Yeah, he's got some mischief in his eyes. I don't see that typically from his role, so it was fun. It's true. He's got this big patch of curly hair. It's a good time. Everyone's got great mullet wigs. i don't know why they chose mullets for everyone, but... it's very That was the style in Greece. Yeah, they love that.
00:33:40
Speaker
Uh, so Hector, Paris and Helen, they all arrive in Troy and they're greeted by the boy's father, King Priam played by an incredibly old Peter O'Toole who is crushing it. Even though he does look like he is not longer for this world. Uh, Priam quickly puts together that Paris has got them in the jackpot, but he's not too worried about it because the walls of Troy have never fallen.
00:34:07
Speaker
And also they have the sun god, Apollo, on their side. m Fantastic stuff. yeah the The famous walls of Troy are why we have Trojan condoms to this day.
00:34:19
Speaker
oh like yeah you can't You can't beat those defenses.
00:34:28
Speaker
Did you guys not know that? No, I'm not. It makes sense. I haven't really given a lot of thought to it. Well, anyway, Priam, he says, yeah, we've got Apollo on our side. And Hector, paraphrasing Joseph Stalin, asks, how many battalions does the sun god command?
00:34:48
Speaker
Fair enough. Yeah, we've got a lot of ah atheist ancient Greeks in this. Yeah. winds Well, who knows?
00:35:00
Speaker
you can make You know, maybe the the atheist tales didn't survive till today. Who can say? But anyway, Troy, they prepare for battle. But soon, the combined navies of all the Greek kingdoms under Agamemnon set sail for the beaches of Troy. and great A great shot of this huge Greek navy full of ships. looks so cool.
00:35:22
Speaker
Yeah. I love it. I love those kinds of boats. They make me happy. Yeah. Apparently in the original trailer, they had like even more of those boats. They're more tightly packed. But then people started complaining that if you have that many sailboats close together, they steal each other's wind and they would all just be unable to move.
00:35:42
Speaker
Wow. Boats from that initial shot. But it seems like audiences were always involved in Troy in this specific way of nitpicking it. So Achilles.
00:35:55
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's the target audience. So Achilles and his boat full of myrmidons, they sail out front. And soon he leads them as they storm the coast.
00:36:06
Speaker
The battle scene is intense and long, probably much longer for us than it was for Greg. Lots of dudes get spears thrown through their faces and necks. I see a lot more face and neck damage in this movie than I have in a lot of other movies. Interesting.
00:36:23
Speaker
Well, those were the parts that weren't armored. yeah That's where you aimed your spear. That's fair. It's small, though. Well, anyway, ah we also get a few glimpses of another king serving under Agamemnon, King Ajax. Ajax is huge and wields a giant stone hammer. And any time that Ajax is on screen, the movie is at least 20% better.
00:36:50
Speaker
Best character, King Ajax. My brother has a cat named after Ajax. ah Yeah, he's a great cat. I think Ajax only has one line in the movie, and it's, I am Ajax, breaker of stone. Look upon me in despair.
00:37:12
Speaker
yeah Yeah. to say I mostly remember him shouting his name. That's all that I recall. Yeah, guy's throwing people around. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I love seeing a guy in the movie with big man offense.
00:37:25
Speaker
It's great stuff.
00:37:28
Speaker
Now, eventually, the Greeks push the Trojans off the beach. The Myrmidons raid a nearby temple to Apollo. Achilles, being an atheist, and doesn't seem to mind. Yeah, he chops the head off of an Apollo statue.
00:37:45
Speaker
Hector sees this and chases Achilles inside. He wants to fight, but Achilles wants an audience and the glory that comes with it. All my life.
00:37:56
Speaker
search for worthy adversary. Yep. We got a worthy adversary situation going on. Oh yeah, very much so. Yeah. So he lets Hector go so they can fight later on in the movie.
00:38:10
Speaker
Achilles continues to explore the temple where he meets Briseis, a cousin to the princes and a temple virgin. He takes her to his tent and treats her relatively nicely before being summoned by Agamemnon.
00:38:23
Speaker
Agamemnon says, I'm tired of your lone wolf antics, Achilles. better fall in line. You're on thin ice.
00:38:36
Speaker
I got the mayor breathing down my neck. And, uh... So, ah but yeah, Agamemnon's like, people are gonna remember my name, not your name, Achilles. And Achilles like, no, people are going remember my name. They're not to remember your name.
00:38:51
Speaker
And then Achilles is about to storm off when Agamemnon takes Briseis away from him to prove that he does still hold the cards and he is kind of the boss around here. Why Achilles has never killed Agamemnon, I have no idea.
00:39:05
Speaker
Back in Troy, they plan their next move. The Trojans are not going to give up. They're going to defend themselves. And the good news for them is that Achilles is mad at Agamemnon, so the Myrmidons are going to sit the next round of the fight out.
00:39:23
Speaker
The next day, the Greeks roll up to the walls of Troy, and the two sides parlay again. They love to have a parlay before the fight. It was very nice, very honorable to be like, listen, we're going to beat the shit out of each other in a moment, but for right now, let's get together, let's talk about it. yeah It's very important to give lots of speeches. yeah Oh, definitely.
00:39:44
Speaker
a very central part of ancient warfare is just yelling at each other about how yeah good you are and how bad they are. yeah And that was one problem that I think speaks to the larger problem that I have on the movie that I want to address later. But in the previous scene, there was like Hector giving a inspiring speech to the Achilles. And then there were ah an inspiring speech to the Trojans and Achilles giving an inspiring speech to the Trojans or to the Myrmidons. Jeez, there's so many nouns in this. And there are, uh,
00:40:14
Speaker
But because they're both like inspiring their own groups in very similar ways to go fight each other. Like it all just felt like, am I just supposed to be inspired about fighting? Like, I don't know. That's a fair point. Yeah. I mean, the problem is, is that the Iliad is not a story about who's a good guy and who's a bad guy because they're all yeah kind of shit.
00:40:35
Speaker
Yeah. Mm hmm. So the next day, it's not even really about the Trojan War, but I'll get into that later. Yes. ah So ah in the parlay, the guys agree that they can settle this with a duel between Paris and Menelaus. It's just two guys. Just your guy and my guy. Yeah, that's it. Let's settle this like gentlemen. This is about honor.
00:40:59
Speaker
Let's settle on this like like honorable men. Unfortunately, Paris can't duel for shit, and he's also a coward. Yeah. And he's fighting Brendan Gleeson, who is twice his son. Yeah.
00:41:14
Speaker
But also probably in, I'm going to guess, his mid-50s at this point, I feel like Paris might have the cardio. Now, but in any case, Paris can't beat him.
00:41:26
Speaker
And he crawls over to Hector for protection. And when Menelaus is like, I'm going to kill your brother because that's what we agreed is happening right now. ah Hector stabs him in the heart to protect Paris.
00:41:40
Speaker
Agamemnon, very upset. Yep. Anyone who's read the Iliad going, what the fuck just happened? Okay, so this is not what happened in the Iliad.
00:41:52
Speaker
No. Ilias lives. The whole thing. Menelaus goes home with Helen. Oh, okay. Well, that's good. I hate to i hope they can work. Wow.
00:42:05
Speaker
Okay. Well, here Menelaus dies. But here Menelaus dies, and honestly, I'm sure Helen was happier that way. perhaps Probably. Probably. Now, ah so the war is back on. Hector suits up and he squares off against Ajax and Hector kills Ajax. That's two kings he's killed in one day. He's on a roll.
00:42:26
Speaker
ah The Greeks, they can't beat the Trojan defenses. And so they retreat back to the beach. As the Greeks lick their wounds, Agamemnon realizes that he's going to need Achilles if he wants to turn this thing around.
00:42:42
Speaker
I did want to and like this. was Was this the scene where like Achilles and all the Myrmidons are like sitting on rocks, eating popcorn, going, they're doing everything wrong. Oh, yeah. they They watched that entire battle scene. That was a very enjoyable scene to me because I was like, that yeah.
00:42:59
Speaker
They should be flanking them. Yeah. ah Now, what was I doing? So. Agamemnon gives Achilles Briseis back as a peace offering.
00:43:16
Speaker
And Achilles takes her back to his tent where they make love while she holds a knife to his throat. Classic trope. Yeah. yeah very The next day... Yeah, it's wonderful stuff. It's a beautiful relationship. The next day, Odysseus begs Achilles to get back into the war.
00:43:36
Speaker
But Achilles is packing up his myrmidons and going home to Myrmidia. don't know where he lives. His little cousin, Patroclus, calls him a traitor to Greece, and he storms off.
00:43:49
Speaker
Meanwhile, the Trojans are feeling psyched, and they want to press the attack. Hector urges everyone to just let the Greeks sort of fall apart on their own. We don't need to, you know, give them a ah common enemy anymore. We can just be done with this. But he's overruled.
00:44:05
Speaker
So the Trojans attack the Greeks beach encampment. To everyone's surprise, the Myrmidons suit up and they join the fracas led by Achilles.
00:44:16
Speaker
And he and Hector, they spy each other across the battlefield and they start fighting each other. And Hector slashes his opponent across the throat. But when he removes his helmet, it turns out that it wasn't Achilles. He was fighting little cousin Patroclus the whole time.
00:44:30
Speaker
oh
00:44:33
Speaker
I also found this really hilarious because this happens in the middle of a giant battle. And the moment he slashes his throat, everyone on that battlefield stops. yeah Like suddenly everyone's like, oh shit.
00:44:47
Speaker
Oh shit. It's like shit. Somebody killed someone? In a battle? Yeah, that's right. It's like in the middle of this battle, two dudes fought each other and one of them died. It's like, yeah, that's happening.
00:44:58
Speaker
everywhere but it's like it's like the sword it's like the sword slash that was heard around the world somehow yeah it's weird that people like even 15 feet away from this yeah knew what was happening like it's just like dead silent which is a beautiful cinematic moment but i was like where's where'd all what happened all the fighting yeah why did they stop but it's and also hector who was just five minutes ago really psyched up to fight achilles now he's like oh shit achilles is gonna be mad I'm out. I don't want to fight Achilles when he's bad. And everyone on that battlefield too is like, no, he's right. No, we got to get out here. We got to leave everybody. I'm glad we stopped. who
00:45:40
Speaker
We could have made this a lot worse if we kept going. Yeah. Everyone agrees that Patrick Lee's dying has put a bad vibe on the war for today. Yeah. And they're just going to pick it up tomorrow. ah It's so ridiculous.
00:45:54
Speaker
They really do look around like they like knocked over mom's vase and they're like, guess we should stop playing. Ooh. Maybe we should take the ball outside. yeah So ah when Achilles finds out what happened, he is pissed off.
00:46:13
Speaker
He suits up and he rides out to Troy's walls alone and he starts calling out Hector quite literally, repeatedly. He just stands in front of the walls and just goes, HECTOR!
00:46:26
Speaker
For a very, very long time. yeah Yeah, like over and over. and like And everyone in the city can hear him. It's pretty cool. But it's also really funny when like Hector starts going around and saying goodbye to everybody. And every now and then you'll just hear in the background, Hector! No, it was really good.
00:46:47
Speaker
It's like, yeah, no, he's still out there. ah But yeah, he he goes and he says goodbye to like all his family and everyone he's ever met. And they're all like, yeah, good luck. He'll kill. He's probably going to kill you. And ah yeah, everyone has lost all fight in Hector ever since he accidentally killed Patrick. Please.
00:47:05
Speaker
So we finally get our climactic fight between Hector and Achilles. It's unfortunate that is this climactic fight. And we still have probably another hour of the movie. Achilles wins ah killing Hector and then he ties Hector's corpse to the back of his chariot and drags his dead body back to camp. Priam faints at the sight.
00:47:29
Speaker
Classic stuff. Yeah. That's our hero, Achilles. That night, old King Priam, he sneaks into Achilles tent to beg for his son's corpse back. This was, I thought, one of those highlights that you're about. Yes, this is seriously the best scene in the movie.
00:47:48
Speaker
Because Peter O'Toole is doing all of the acting. And he yes is really good. Yeah, you finally let Peter O'Toole, you know, do what he does well in this movie for a scene, and he really delivers.
00:48:04
Speaker
And, uh... Achilles is still upset that Hector killed his cousin. And Priam gently reminds him that his cousin was a soldier in a war.
00:48:16
Speaker
Dozens of peoples of cousins have been killed in the last few days, many of them by Achilles' hand. That doesn't mean you can go around denying people's funerary rites. And Achilles is like, ah, yeah...
00:48:30
Speaker
you' probably right. Take your son's corpse. You're not such a bad guy. for I respect you. And then he says, I'm going to give you 12 days to mourn your son, to play your funeral games.
00:48:47
Speaker
And after that, the war will resume. A lot of pausing. Agamemnon. A lot of pausing in this. There's a lot of pausing in this war. Yeah. Like, yeah, actually, let's take a break for now. Yeah.
00:48:58
Speaker
ah People's will to fight really died down pretty quick. Yeah. They're just like, this is going to take more than two days. Ugh.
00:49:09
Speaker
Now, Agamemnon is pissed that this this that this ceasefire was put into place without his input. But Odysseus has got a great plan for their downtime.
00:49:23
Speaker
While the Trojans burn hundreds of corpses in the Agora, clever Odysseus is going to take some wrecked boats and use them to construct a 30-foot-tall sculpture of a horse.
00:49:36
Speaker
To what end? Oh, the answer is devilishly clever. I have a question. Did they show him in the cut that you watched, did they show him like planning it or talking about it or anything?
00:49:50
Speaker
a little bit. They showed him seeing someone carving a toy horse and then he gets a very twinkly look in his eye. Horse. Horses, eh? Yeah.
00:50:01
Speaker
yeah They kind of show at the end results with the with the ship horse on the beach later. Right. But I mean, that's what I remember. But what did he talk? Because I liked that he didn't talk about it, that they just showed him. They didn't talk about like, oh, we're going to hide men in there. yeah know i thought that was a I thought that was a nice way to do the Trojan horse because it's like, yeah, yeah we all know.
00:50:24
Speaker
At this point, we all know how this works. so just You don't need to show me Bruce Wayne's parents getting shot again. I did love the scene where he looks down at the horse and then like looks up and like, hmm, a horse.
00:50:38
Speaker
There's an idea. yeah and the whole audience is pointing at the screen like Leonardo DiCaprio. There's the Trojan horse. Also, earlier there was some carving going on, so I was like, ah, it's Chekhov's um a whittling, I guess.
00:50:53
Speaker
they lay that down early soldiers they love to whittle when they're bored they just whittle they need to make toys for their kids they didn't have that's why they go to war really for time to do their whittling yeah finally get away from the missus get some quality whittling time ah so after the trojans finish mourning they get word that the greeks have left All that's left of their encampment is a giant sculpture of a horse, which the priest Archiptolemaus supposes is an offering to Poseidon for a safe journey home.
00:51:31
Speaker
It's agreed like that an offering like this should be respected. So they're going to take it to their temple back in town to Poseidon and offer it to him there.
00:51:42
Speaker
like We shouldn't mess with an offering to Poseidon. Poseidon will give them that. So Paris is like, we should burn it. Yeah. You can only imagine all the guys inside being like, shit, shit, shit. No, no. As soon as he said that, I was like, yeah, burn it. No, burn it. No, burn it right here. Yeah. Do it. Do it. Do it.
00:51:59
Speaker
Yeah. It'll be so cool. You can burn offerings. Burning offerings is totally a lot totally normal. do Yeah. But instead, these Trojans do not know that there's more to this horse than meets the eye.
00:52:14
Speaker
And also the Greeks didn't really leave. They merely hid the world's largest Navy that's ever been assembled in an adjacent bay. no So sneaky.
00:52:28
Speaker
It's really funny when like one Trojan season, he's like, wait, a thousand boats. Oh shit. And then he gets shot with a bunch of arrows. Yeah. ah That night, under the cover of darkness, Odysseus and his boys, including Achilles, all come crawling out of this so-called Trojan horse.
Final Battle and the Fall of Troy
00:52:51
Speaker
Odysseus, that clever-wrapped scallion, that lovable rogue, he sneaks over to Troy's front doors and opens them right up, allowing the entire Greek army to come in and start throwing babies out of third-story windows and raping women in the streets.
00:53:05
Speaker
They did it. Yeah. It seemed that complicated my feelings for old Odysseus in this final act. I feel like that's obviously something that's going to be anyway.
00:53:17
Speaker
Uh, it seemed odd. Uh, Also, everything is on fire immediately. yes they Yeah, they really light it up. Maybe some people were doing preemptive fires. you know, it was like, you won't burn it down. I will.
00:53:32
Speaker
Yeah, I don't want them to get my stuff. They can't have my whittled objects. even So Achilles, he starts running around looking for Briseis, who returned to Troy for Hector's funeral.
00:53:48
Speaker
ah Priam, he runs into Agamemnon in Apollo's temple, and a Agamemnon kills him. Agamemnon then s finds Briseis, and she stabs him in the throat.
00:53:58
Speaker
God bless. Yeah. Good for her. Yeah. yeah Achilles then finds Briseis, and they embrace. But then Paris shoots him in the Achilles tendon, which it turns out before then was just called the tendon.
00:54:13
Speaker
And... Then he also shoots him several times in the torso, killing him. All while Briseis just keeps screaming, no, stop shooting him, stop shooting him.
00:54:24
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, Paris does not listen to poor Briseis. Does not respect his cousin like that. But he's a man now. He killed the greatest hero in Greece. They never thought Paris could do it.
00:54:37
Speaker
Paris, Helen, and Briseis, they all escape Troy as it burns to the ground. Odysseus has a funeral for his boy Achilles before beginning what we can all assume will be an uneventful sail back to Ithaca.
00:54:50
Speaker
Well, there's no gods, so it should be. It's like there's no time to get that in. So what's going to happen? yeah It's going to take him 20 minutes and then it'll be fine. Yeah. He had to stop for some snacks, but other than that, it's all good. yeah Final thoughts, five-star ratings. What do people think of the feature-length, well, more than feature-length film, Troy?
00:55:13
Speaker
Greg, why don't you start us? All right. So for me, since I don't really understand the Iliad and what's going on, a lot of the the stuff didn't bother me, though I understand it more when things are historical and something is not obviously
Reflecting on Troy's Entertainment Value
00:55:28
Speaker
accurate. It feels hollow, you know, but it's like very obviously, provably like, well, that didn't happen. It can be difficult to like get past that. But luckily for me, i didn't have that inside of me.
00:55:42
Speaker
ah So for me, this was just kind of a thing that occurred. It was perhaps, well, not perhaps, it was too long. Yes. But it still kept me more entertained than I thought it would. um The fighting in it is interesting.
00:55:57
Speaker
I mean, like the action sequences are like fun to watch, at least for me. ah It kept my attention for the most part. It's lot of good acting in it. ah It was at times very stupid. It felt a lot like it was a cliche of itself somehow. I don't understand how that works.
00:56:13
Speaker
But like there were so many scenes I watched. it was like, of course, of course you do this now. And like lines like... ah sometimes you have to serve in order to lead. It's like, yeah, it's a classic way to put a line together that sounds really interesting and profound, but it's really just like, ah sometimes you have to do one thing to get the opposite of it. It's like, yep, that's a pretty, stamp you know, full of stuff like that. These stupid little moments of like Brad Pitt waking up to a woman, but it's too, you know, just like all that was, it was enjoyable to me. I'm going to say three for watchability, I guess. Mm-hmm. And I didn't think it was very weird at all.
00:56:52
Speaker
I thought it actually, this might be the rare rare case where i'm going to put a zero for the weird because it just okay seemed like couple of people fighting and that all made a bunch of sense. And then you tell me, someone's like, what if he's these wacky gods? I'm going to be like, those don't exist.
00:57:07
Speaker
And it was like, okay. Yeah. Well, i I gave it a one and a half for watchability. First of all, I thought it was way too long. Wait, ah especially this director's cut too too long. Yeah, I will say if I watch the director's cut, I think my watchability for it would be less.
00:57:24
Speaker
No. Secondly, I think it's applying sort of modern Hollywood storytelling to this ancient story where you keep on getting hero shots. Like it it's telling it like it's a hero movie, but it seems like the Iliad is just a story of just a bunch of things happening. It's just like a war is bad story.
00:57:43
Speaker
And, and, and definitely more of an ensemble piece. So it feels like it's a hero movie where everybody's a hero or nobody's the hero, you know, it just emotionally, tonally, it just feels very strange to me in a way that I, it, it makes it harder to like become invested in on a level other than spectacle.
00:58:03
Speaker
And it's just a, just a bunch of dudes dying for no reason. And also I thought it didn't look particularly good. I thought the, uh, The costumes were good. I think it won an Academy Award for costumes or at least dominated.
00:58:17
Speaker
And think the costumes were great. And I thought a lot of the performances great. I thought Eric Bana was only okay. And I think Brad Pitt, other than physically, I don't think he did a great job just because his character was so like he doesn't like war. he does like, he's like, Oh, I like to be in a war and killing people, but not for you because you send people to war. Like it, like he just didn't make any sense to me.
00:58:47
Speaker
Uh, for weirdness, three stars. Uh, there's a weird um amount of gore here, i think, but it's also really repetitive. Like the amount of times that you see people get stabbed through the throat in this movie with spears and arrows is surprisingly high.
00:59:04
Speaker
um And it's also just really sort of a strange experience to merge these two different storytelling traditions, I think, in a way that doesn't serve either of them.
00:59:19
Speaker
Anna, what do you think in terms of watchability and rudeness? I'm give it a watchability of four. Yes, it's too long. And the director's cut is definitely too long. Yeah, I would. If I watch it again, i would try to find the ah the shorter cut I remember, because I do think you end up end up being right about the gore reaching a ah point of repetition that's too much.
00:59:44
Speaker
And that's, the thing is, like, that's actually something that it gets from the i Iliad, because the Iliad does have frequent, repetitive, like, you'll have two guys dueling, and then one of them...
01:00:00
Speaker
gets a mortal wound and he tells you exactly how that spear cuts through their body and exactly how they die and that happens a lot but like that's very much a recurring motif but in a in a movie um yeah visually it stops visually it stops hitting yeah after a while i also will say that i did not have that feeling when i watched this one the gore did not seem repetitive to me at all So that's probably a big difference between. Yeah. That's the director's cut for sure.
01:00:33
Speaker
Yeah. But honestly, i think a big part of what makes it watchable for me really is that it is until Nolan's Odyssey comes out, like the only big budget thing,
01:00:50
Speaker
um Iliad adaptation, the only big budget Homeric adaptation this century. um and there just aren't there aren't very many at all, which is strange um to me because it's such an old story, you would think it would be more frequently adapted.
01:01:11
Speaker
um But then it is kind of weird. Yeah. ah The Iliad is weird. I don't think Troy is very weird.
01:01:25
Speaker
So I'm going to give it a one. Okay. Fair enough. What about you, Alice? Watchability and weirdness out of five I'm going to do this in reverse and I have a reason. So I'm going to give it a weirdness of two because I don't think it's weird enough because it cuts out all of the really weird stuff from the Iliad because that's all to do with the gods.
01:01:47
Speaker
But I do think it is a little bit weird because like Chris was talking about the tonal mismatch between modern story storytelling and ancient storytelling, because the concept of what a hero even is, is completely different in the genres. And I wish it had been made by so a weirder director. Like I was just thinking that I wish this movie had been made by like John Borman or somebody. So do you really read the weirdness?
01:02:14
Speaker
Because I think that would make it better. So I'm giving it a two for weirdness. And then um because of that, I dropped the watchability to a three because i like it because I like ancient stories and I like the setting and the set. I thought the sets were really quite good. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
01:02:32
Speaker
And all of the statuary and everything like that. And I thought there were some really good performances, but they were so uneven in how they were. placed and like the overall pacing and everything just didn't work because there were just so many scenes of warriors lining up to fight like you don't you don't need that like we know what they're doing yeah um so i give it a watchability of three but in my heart it's a watchability of five because i can imagine the movie that i wish it was
01:03:07
Speaker
All right. So probably three for civilians, five for people who have studied People who have brain problems. Yeah. Well, speaking of people who've studied Homer, my wife has studied Homer and they're going to talk a little bit about it in our next segment because they read a book.
01:03:49
Speaker
I read a book once, it related to this movie It had lot of pages, but it was pretty groovy There's more than one source of information If you care to take a look And if you need resource, then you can be like Because I read a book Because I read a book
01:04:26
Speaker
Okay. So I did not reread the Iliad, especially for this podcast, but that's fine. I've read it a bunch of times and I read two 19th century French novels for the podcast this year. Get off my back.
01:04:42
Speaker
no yeah No, nobody's on my back. Um, Iliad was probably composed around 650 BC um about events that were about 400 years in the past.
Comparing Troy to the Iliad
01:04:58
Speaker
Okay. ah It's in dactylic hexameter, ah which means, yes. Yes. Which is the the meter of Greek epic poetry.
01:05:12
Speaker
um It's six metric feet to a line, with those feet being either dactyls, which is dun-dun-dun, or spondes, which is dun-dun.
01:05:24
Speaker
um So the first line of the Iliad is, main in ida tea pela adeo achiauus which means sing goddess the wrath of Peleus' son Achilles.
01:05:37
Speaker
And it sounds really beautiful. when It is. It's really beautiful. it's ah it's not a It's not a meter that you can get in English. No, it doesn't. It's very specific to Greek in the same way that in the same way that iambic pentameter is sort of the quote-unquote natural meter for English poetry. um This is ah a natural meter for Greek. um Now, the inciting incident of the Iliad, take in in the movie troy in the director's cut, it takes place at an hour and 11 minutes.
01:06:16
Speaker
So all that stuff before that is All that stuff, the stuff before that is actually mostly told in flashback. Okay. They just, he he moved a lot of the flashbacks.
01:06:28
Speaker
He wanted to make it a linear narrative, like recutting lost. Yeah. Yeah. um Well, you've got so the thing in media race. You start in the middle of the action. Right. and Yeah, exactly. explain Yeah. And you start with um Agamemnon taking Briseus from Achilles, ah although for for different reasons, because she's a different person.
01:06:55
Speaker
Okay. The end of the Iliad is Hector's funeral, which in the director's cut is 2.39. So just Iliad would be just an hour 20. I'd watch that movie.
01:07:10
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. um The events between ah Hector's funeral and the end of the movie, a lot of them are taken from a third century, and that's A.D., so this is ah written like 800 years after Homer.
01:07:31
Speaker
um But it's an epic poem called The Post Homerica by Quintus of Smyrna. um This was apparently, though, a combination and abridgment of three epic poems that are now lost,
01:07:46
Speaker
That I guess were ah more contemporary to Homer. And those were called the Ethiopis and Iliu Persis by Arctinus of Miletus.
01:07:59
Speaker
And the Little Iliad by Leskis. The Little Iliad is where the Trojan horse story comes from. It's a fun name too. It's a fun name. little Yeah. The Little Iliad.
01:08:10
Speaker
Yeah. The treasure more story also in the Aeneid, but... but yes Yeah. Yeah. So the changes... yeah um so the changes ah He moves the flashbacks. They condense the time frame by quite a lot. ah The Iliad takes place in the last week of what has been a 10 year war.
01:08:34
Speaker
so everybody is that much more miserable and exhausted. and They've done so much whittling. everywhere yeah many No wonder they were so psyched when Petrarchus died at like 11 They were like, well, I guess we need to stop.
01:08:51
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. You know, 10 years in, you're definitely like looking for an excuse to knock on parole. Oh, we can stop fighting? Oh, damn. I'll catch you tomorrow, Jerry.
01:09:03
Speaker
Have at you.
01:09:07
Speaker
Um, Briceus is a completely different person. She is not Trojan. oh she is, uh, she's from a village allied with Troy that's sacked by the Achaeans and she's taken as a war prize by Achilles.
01:09:25
Speaker
Okay. um And Agamemnon, Agamemnon has another woman that he's taken as his war prize, but he has to give her up for reasons that are too complicated to go into. And she gets mad and takes Briseus from Achilles. And Achilles is just like, what?
01:09:44
Speaker
What? And so, and then, so he sulks in his tent for a while and everybody dies. Okay. Okay. Until finally, actually, Achilles gives Patroclus his armor um and tells him to, you know, inspire the Myrmidons. Maybe that'll be good, but I'm i'm not going. I'm not going.
01:10:07
Speaker
um So he feels, you know, he's not surprised by it. He feels guilty because he got him killed. That is very Very directly. Yeah. um There are some differences about, you know, who lives and dies, who kills them.
01:10:23
Speaker
ah Menelaus, like Alice says, yeah he gets Helen back and lives. Okay. So they get there happily ever after. They sure do.
01:10:34
Speaker
god bless those two. ah The whole time like, man, Menelaus and Helen. Come on. I hope they can work it out. Come on. I hope they can solve this thing. they're my coach every marriage has has Rocky. Of course. Run off with some dipshit from Troy. Start a war or continue a war. I never thought you'd wage a war for me.
01:11:01
Speaker
um Ajax ah Ajax kills himself out of ah yeah there are various it has to do with he's upset that Odysseus gets Achilles' armor after his death and not Ajax not him Ajax Ajax is too big, though. he wouldn't in some In some myths, he goes crazy and and kills a bunch of sheep and then is is really upset about that. But yeah. um But he doesn't... He does he has ah ah a dishonorable death in um the myths, which is, yeah, it's too bad. um
01:11:40
Speaker
ah Priam, speaking of dishonorable, well, I mean, he's killed by Achilles' son, Okay. Neoptolemus.
01:11:52
Speaker
I didn't know he had a kid. yeah pets and Yeah, well, it's over it's a 10 year war and you've been picking up war prizes along the way. that you end up with some like teenage sons to avenge you. Neoptolemus is also responsible for he ah throws Hector's baby son from the city walls and takes Hector's wife as a concubine.
01:12:20
Speaker
but ah They both live and are fine in in Troy. And Agabemnon, finally, ah he is killed immediately upon returning home by his wife, Helen's sister, Clycanestra.
01:12:35
Speaker
Yes. Who is mad at him for having sacrificed their daughter before... going to Troy because because they needed a they needed a wind. Yeah. Yeah. They needed a wind to push the fleet to Troy. And Clytemnestra gets him with an axe. It's so good. Yeah. Yeah. It's great. It's great. That's a wild choice.
01:13:00
Speaker
Now, I didn't hear anything about any of the gods. What were the gods up to? Well, that's that's what I was going to say, that they leave out um the gods. the yeah They're very active in the original poem. They're very they're partisan. They take sides. Some of them switch sides. um They're always arguing with each other over you know what should be done now.
01:13:23
Speaker
um They do Paris... Paris is a favorite of Aphrodite because he's so handsome and, you know, she was instrumental in in him getting with Helen of Troy. Because ah gave her the golden apple for the fairest.
01:13:38
Speaker
Oh, right, but right, right. So she gave him Helen and then... So it's really her fault, basically. Yeah. And then she like she saves him on the battlefield a couple of times. Well, Eris created the apple, but Paris gave the apple to Aphrodite.
01:13:56
Speaker
And then so it is Eris's fault at the end of the day. But they didn't invite her to the party. So it was whole Maleficent situation. It keeps on going farther back, you know.
01:14:08
Speaker
yeah
01:14:11
Speaker
um Yeah, so Aphrodite, you know, rescues Paris a few times. um There's this passage, Ares, the god of war, ah briefly fights on the Trojan side until um a Greek who's aided by Athena ah spears him.
01:14:31
Speaker
And he he, his yell, his yell of pain is so, it just, everybody hears it. um It's the throat slit heard around the world, and and then he runs away.
01:14:44
Speaker
um because Because the god of war is portrayed in a lot of mythology as as a coward. Which is, yeah.
01:14:55
Speaker
Coward is the sport of war. Yeah. Yeah. ah So, okay, here are the three things that that it leaves out that are my favorites from the Iliad. I'm just going to... Just going to sit me with the top three. Here, okay.
01:15:12
Speaker
ah One, Catalog of Ships. That's book two, where we have that shot of all of those ships. That's a long passage in book two, which describes...
01:15:24
Speaker
29 different contingents of Greeks who sailed to Troy, their leaders and the settlements that those leaders rule. um It's hard to tell how historical it is or even whether it's original to the Iliad or whether it was added later. But like ah the Greeks did consider it. The later Greeks did consider it to be historical. People would kind of...
01:15:50
Speaker
I believe, and this might be no longer accurate, but it's like when they've like studied the the language, it is like one of the older worded parts of the Iliad. So it could be like from an older passage. Interesting. Very cool.
01:16:07
Speaker
so it's yeah interesting very cool Yeah. Unless don't want to read list of ships, but why wouldn't you want to read a list ships? Right, right. We all have our things. What really, what made it interesting for me was a ah tutor, a professor at my college, reminding us, being like, the people who were listening to this when it was first composed, they were waiting to hear their ancestors. yeah They were waiting to hear where they came from.
01:16:36
Speaker
and it was like, oh, of course. Like, yeah, that makes sense. good and There's much later i in book 18. Number two. ah Achilles' shield is destroyed when Patroclus is killed, his original shield. And Hephaestus, god of the forge, ah makes him a new one.
01:17:00
Speaker
And this shield is, it's a long passage describing... um it's got, it's got the whole world on it, really everything from the sun and the moon and the constellations to, uh, there's a wedding, you know, depicted and, uh, a war and a shepherd with a sheep. And, um, and it's just, it's just this beautiful packet, uh, passage of what's apparently called exphrasis, just the, the description in words of, of, of visual, visual art.
01:17:37
Speaker
Um, And then number three, ah it comes close to having my favorite moment, but it doesn't it doesn't quite. um There's this moment where Hector is going off to war and he's saying goodbye to his wife and son, wife and baby son.
01:17:58
Speaker
And in the Iliad, his son is frightened by his father's helm, his big helmet with all the feathers and stuff on it. um And he starts crying and Hector, you know, laughs and and takes it off and then, you know, hugs is his boy. And it's just this incredibly small, tender moment, um small, tender human moment.
01:18:25
Speaker
Yeah, it's my favorite. And I wish they had included it. too Yeah. I mean, they did have a couple of. scenes with Hector and his wife and his kid, but they didn't quite have that exact moment. And yeah, that's my favorite scene in the Iliad too.
01:18:40
Speaker
Alice, were there any other missing scenes that you would have liked to see? um Well, like I would have liked to seen the scene, the scenes with, with the gods. I would have liked to see Achilles going crying to his mom because Agamemnon stole his favorite new toy.
01:18:59
Speaker
i would like to see there's a scene where think it's it might have been Achilles, but he like fights the god of the river because he's been killing so many people.
01:19:11
Speaker
that it's like clogging up the river, so the god of the river like comes out of the river and he's like, dude, cut it out. and So he has to fight the god of the river. And then Aphrodite tries to get involved with the fighting, but like someone hurts her pinky, so she goes crying to her mom.
01:19:29
Speaker
So it's just... There's just like these two layers to the to the story, and I think that they play very interestingly off each other because there's all this really... serious, horrible, dark stuff happening with the humans because so many people are dying and there's so much suffering. And then you get this layer of the gods where none of that really matters to them. Like this is all kind of just a game.
01:19:56
Speaker
And I think it's a really interesting aspect of the poem as a whole that gets lost when people chicken out and don't include the gods in the story. Sure.
01:20:07
Speaker
It's a loss. Speaking of losses... Let's see who can win in our next segment.
Orlando Bloom Trivia
01:20:14
Speaker
This guy played that guy. Okay.
01:20:17
Speaker
Which is a game. Hooray.
01:20:26
Speaker
This guy played that guy. Yeah. This guy played that guy. This guy played that guy. a fair.
01:20:45
Speaker
That's right. We're playing this guy, play that guy, and we're doing it with everyone's favorite Lord of the Rings hunk, Orlando Bloom. Ooh. Okay. Ooh. What I'm going to do is I'm going to read you a film title and I'm going to give you a brief description and three characters that appear in the film. I want you to tell me which one was played by Mr. Orlando Bloom. And ah you'll buzz in. You'll want to buzz in by saying your own name. If your opponent gets it wrong, you will have the chance to steal. Is everybody ready?
01:21:15
Speaker
yeah Yes. All right. Hands on buzzers. Question number one, deep cover. Hmm. Three improv actors are asked to go undercover by the police in London's criminal underworld.
01:21:32
Speaker
Did Orlando Bloom play Billings, Marlin or Hugh? oh Anna. Alice.
01:21:43
Speaker
Hugh. No, I'm sorry, he didn't play Hugh. You're thinking about the Borg, aren't you? Greg? Almost always. Greg? Is it Billings?
01:21:59
Speaker
No, I'm sorry. He played Marlon. Anna gets the point. Question number two. The Calcium Kid. Ooh.
01:22:10
Speaker
Following a bizarre series of events, a local amateur boxer finds himself pitted in a match against the world champ. Did Orlando Bloom play Pete Wright?
01:22:23
Speaker
Herbie Bush or Jeremy, the calcium kid Connelly.
01:22:31
Speaker
Anna. Anna. Jeremy, the calcium kid Connelly. You're correct. hey pulling out to an early lead. My heart.
01:22:44
Speaker
Question number three. Unlocked. A CIA interrogator is lured into a ruse that puts London at risk of a biological attack.
01:22:57
Speaker
Did Orlando Bloom play Jack Alcott, Bob Hunter, or Eric Lash? Alice. Alice?
01:23:08
Speaker
Eric Lash.
01:23:11
Speaker
I'm sorry, didn't play Eric Lash. It was pretty solid. yeah Anna? Anna? anna Jack Alcott. My God, my love, you're on a roll. Wow.
01:23:25
Speaker
All right. I don't want to talk about it I don't want to jinx you. Question number four. The Outpost. A small team of U.S. soldiers battles against hundreds of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.
01:23:40
Speaker
Did Orlando Bloom play Captain Ben Keating? Staff Sergeant Clint Ramesha... or First Lieutenant Andrew Bunderman?
01:23:51
Speaker
Greg. Greg? First Lieutenant Andrew Bunderman. No, I'm He didn't play First Lieutenant Andrew Bunderman.
01:24:03
Speaker
What were the other two again? The other two were, of course, Captain Ben Keating or Staff Sergeant Clint Ramesha. Alice. Alice?
01:24:13
Speaker
Ben Keating. You're correct. You're on the board, Alice.
01:24:19
Speaker
Clint Ramesha, I believe, was played by Clint Eastwood's son, whatever his name is. No. Question number five. Scott. Yes, Scott Eastwood.
01:24:31
Speaker
Question number five. Ned Kelly. The true story of Australia's most famous outlaw. Did Orlando Bloom play Ned Kelly, Aaron Sherritt, or Joseph Byrne?
01:24:49
Speaker
Greg. Anna. Greg. Was the second one was like Andrew Sherratt? aon shirt Aaron Sherratt? Aaron Sherratt. No, I'm sorry. right
01:25:01
Speaker
Anna. Anna? Joseph Byrne. You're correct. Ned Kelly, think, was Heath Ledger in that one. Yeah, I knew that Ned Kelly was Heath Ledger, but I didn't.
01:25:13
Speaker
Yeah. Heath Ledger, Australian? Yes. Yeah. Okay. I've forgotten that. It's okay. Mea culpa, Heath Ledger.
01:25:24
Speaker
Yeah. I think he'll get over it. Question number six. Sympathy for delicious. Ooh. A newly paralyzed DJ gets more than he bargained for when he seeks out the world of faith healing.
01:25:41
Speaker
Hmm. Did Orlando Bloom play Oogie? The Stain? Or Prendle, Greg?
01:25:52
Speaker
How? The stain. You're correct. Yes. Wow. Greg's on the board.
01:26:04
Speaker
Question number seven. Red right hand. Cash is trying to live an honest, quiet life. But when Big Cat forces him to go back to work, he proves capable of anything to protect the town and the only family he has left.
01:26:23
Speaker
Did Orlando Bloom play Cash, Big Cat, or Lazarus? Alice. Alice? Lazarus.
01:26:36
Speaker
I'm sorry, he didn't play Lazarus. What were the two what were the two options again? Cash or Big Cat?
01:26:45
Speaker
This is tough. Greg? stuff greg Cash? You're correct.
01:26:54
Speaker
Question number eight. Needle in a time stack. I forgot about that. Nick and Janine live in marital bliss until Janine's ex-husband warps time to try to tear them apart.
01:27:11
Speaker
Did Orlando Bloom play Nick Mickelson? Tommy Hambleton or Tattersall? Greg?
01:27:22
Speaker
I was just losing it. Greg? Is it Tommy Handle? Handlerman? Tommy Hambleton? Yeah, Tommy Hambleton. You're correct. Come on, Tommy.
01:27:36
Speaker
Greg, you have chance to tie it up. Yes, Tommy Hambleton. Hambleton.
01:27:44
Speaker
Question number nine. S-M-A-R-T Chase. Boy. A washed up private security agent has to escort a valuable Chinese antique out of Shanghai, but is ambushed en route.
01:27:59
Speaker
Did Orlando Bloom play Bach Ren? Ding Dong Tang? Or Danny Stratton?
01:28:11
Speaker
Anna. Anna? Danny Stratton. yeah You've got it my love. yeah And on top of that, you're our big winner.
01:28:25
Speaker
Amazing. You are amazing. It's amazing how many movies Orlando's been in that I've never heard. yeah He had a surprisingly deep roster. I think he fell into that red box action zone
The Batty Awards and Humorous Moments
01:28:40
Speaker
for a while. Hmm.
01:28:43
Speaker
Uh-oh, it's the Batty Awards.
01:28:51
Speaker
Now you're messing with the Batty Awards. Now you're messing with the Batty Awards. Now you're messing with the Batty Awards.
01:29:02
Speaker
Now you're messing with the Batty Awards.
01:29:07
Speaker
Congratulations to all the nominees.
01:29:15
Speaker
That's right. Congratulations to all our nominees. It's the Batty Awards. The awards that we'd like to give out to those special people and moments that make a bad movie so good.
01:29:26
Speaker
Greg, do you have a Batty Award? I do. ah And I'm going to bring this up now as an honorable mention because I forgot to talk about it earlier. And that is, so it's not quite the Batty Award, but...
01:29:39
Speaker
ah It's the the focus on saying names in the first hour and a half and then kind of stopping. like There's a scene where they're like the kid's like, I wouldn't want to fight this guy. He's huge. And Brad Pitt's like, then they'll never remember your name.
01:29:55
Speaker
And then he like stabs him. And the guy's like, what's your name? He's like, my name is Achilles. He's like, I'll remember your name. It's like, okay, we get it. They want to remember the name. It's like, they're not going to remember your name. They're remember my name. It's just like, all right. And after about an hour and a half, that stops for some reason. until the very end when he's like and they'll remember his name it's like all right great we brought it back uh but my yeah it's funny i i thought that part was i remember thinking god that's so corny and then remembering my tattoo you whatever' like i can't yeah i remember his name yeah so there we go
01:30:29
Speaker
ah But my baddie award is going to go to my new favorite insult, which is spoken by ah Brad Pitt to Brian Cox. And he goes, you sack of wine.
01:30:45
Speaker
and I'm going to say that to a lot of people. i a You sack of wine. good.
01:30:54
Speaker
What about you, Anna? You got a baddie award?
01:31:01
Speaker
So many. I could give so many. um So I am going to give it to ah the very fun and silly cameo of little Aeneas and his old as fuck dad getting getting out of Troy at the end and going off to found Rome. Okay, that's what emmed to the Trojans. They became Romans.
01:31:27
Speaker
yeah good that is it That's what the the what roman Imperial Rome believed. yeah okay I thought Rome was founded by two boys that were suckled by a she-wolf.
01:31:39
Speaker
Yeah, but they were descended from Aeneas. yeah Oh, ok okay. Aeneas, a band okay. I thought when you said he would go on to found Rome, I thought he'd be like, and here I will build Rome. did something much more complicated, I imagine.
01:31:55
Speaker
I'm going to give my baddie award to shawarma fries. I got some really tasty shawarma fries while we were watching ah Troy this for the the second half of Troy.
01:32:09
Speaker
Unfortunately, I think they ended up giving me food poisoning when I reheated them the next day. But that first day they were really crazy good. I'm definitely going to get those again, but I'm to to wait six months just to be safe. Alice, do you have a Batty Award?
Recommendations and Podcast Milestone
01:32:22
Speaker
I do. um I am going to give an incredibly shallow Batty Award to the actor Vincent Regan, who played the character Eudoris, who we didn't really talk about in the yeah in the recap, but he was basically Achilles' second in command. Oh, okay. That guy had a name. i looked I had to look it up. I didn't. like But while Achilles...
01:32:46
Speaker
Brad Pitt as Achilles is extremely aesthetically pleasing. I would say that Vincent Regan is the hottest man in the movie. okay got like He's got very striking eyes his very striking eyes. He's very tan and dark, but he has these bright blue eyes and he's got this kind of bandana situation going on. And every time he's on screen, my eyes were always just immediately drawn to him. So this is my incredibly shallow baddie award to the guy who thought was the biggest baddie in the movie.
01:33:13
Speaker
No, no, we love shouting out our unconventional hotties in movies. When you're outshining Brad Pitt in Troy, it just goes to show you there's somebody out there for everybody.
01:33:24
Speaker
You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. Like you can't think things. Variety is the of life. Yeah. We all have our own personal tastes and picadillos. Alice, thank you so much for coming and talking to us about Troy.
01:33:37
Speaker
Thank you for having me. I had so much fun watching the movie again, and I had so much fun talking to you guys about it. Do you have anything that you want to plug anything you want to shout out? I would just shout out and plug the idea that if you are interested in ah Homer and but you don't necessarily want to read it.
01:33:58
Speaker
There are a lot of really good audio books. You can have Ian McKellen read it to you. you can have Audra McDonald read it to you. and i I actually looked this up. There's a BBC full cast recording of both the Iliad and the Odyssey with like Derek Jacoby and Christopher Eccleston. Wow. okay I really think that the audio book format lends itself really well to these kinds of things because that's kind of how they were originally meant to be new that makes absorbed as somebody telling you the story. So that's my shout out for this.
01:34:30
Speaker
I've been terribly nerdy and I'm not going to stop now. so Nice. All right. Well, if you need something to listen to that isn't an audio book of the Iliad, check out more episodes of your favorite bad movie podcast next week. course.
01:34:48
Speaker
we're going to have something going on. It's a little bit up in the air. It's very exciting for us. Uh, uh, check out the show notes. You can hit our link tree. You can find all our socials. Please give us five stars. It really helps us out a lot. Please tell your friends about the show. It really helps us out a lot. And, ah Oh, also recently we've gotten to, enough listeners. We've hit a milestone.
01:35:13
Speaker
Spotify has started copyright striking the music that I put on the end of the episodes. so Hey. oh a minor milestone, listeners. I was wondering if this is going to happen.
01:35:25
Speaker
Yeah. so guess what? We're going back to the intro for our outro. So until next week, be good and goodbye.
01:36:03
Speaker
That you would, that you could And you know that you should Yes, you know that you should