metaridley

I'm not sure what the general consensus of DVDtalkers is about the upcoming epic film "Troy", starring none other than Brad Pitt. After having seen the trailer numerous times, I bet that this will movie will suck. Why, you ask? Well, here's my reasons, based solely upon the trailer:

1. The opening scene with the ship fleet. Sure, it's impressive initially, but then you realize that the scene in which there are a seemingly endless number of battle boats in the water almost certainly never happened. If a history buff would like to correct me with a source, then by all means, go ahead. But it looks like there will be more Hollywood-style battles that never could of happened in history coming our way soon.

2. The actors are all hunky males sure to make the ladies swoon but look out of place in an epic such as this. Brad Pitt looks like...Brad Pitt. Orlando Bloom looks like...Orlando Bloom. And so on and so forth down the primary cast list. If these guys can't convince me that they look like they belong there (such as Russell Crowe in Gladiator or Mel Gibson in Braveheart), then why were they cast? Oh yeah, to get more asses in the seats. Anyway, it really does look like that they've done is called a bunch of these stars down, had 'em strap on some ancient battle gear, and then said, "Say your lines".

3. Orlando Bloom is too effeminate as Legolas in Lord of the Rings for me. He was bland in Pirates of the Caribbean. So of course he's cast in Troy. And that glimpse of a SoCal-looking girl dropping her dress for him is pretty groan-inducing. All of the women in this movie look obscenely hot, which is normally fine, except that I'll bet women didn't look *that* good in ancient times.

Basically, I guess this movie looks *really* fake from the trailer. Plus, it seems to be nothing but a piece of demographic programming. What are your opinions?

SunMonkey

My opinion is you lost any chance at an engaging discussion of your "points" when you posted this:

Breakfast with Girls

Apparently I missed the part where Legolas got it on with Gimli.

Terrell

Well, I wouldn't go that far. But I've never thought Orlando Bloom was a good actor. He's pretty stale and not convincing whatsoever. He was the weak performance in LOTR, although he really does nothing but hang around. Although I loved Pirates of the Carribean, Johnny Depp acted him off the screen.

I do agree however that Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom don't even come close to convincing me they are great warriors, gladiators, whatever. Russell Crowe did. But then he's a fairly big guy and a hellacious actor. As far as Eric Bana, he's a better actor than both Pitt and Bloom. Still to be determined if he's right for this role.

Having said that, I will most certainly give this movie a chance. But I do agree your homosexual comment was unwarranted.

One last thing. What I've seen of Troy looks 10 times better than Oliver Stone's Alexander. So far this thing looks like a damn cheesy gay porn movie, and the casting is terrible. Jared Leto, Collin Ferrell, Angelina Jolie, and Val Kilmer. HELLO!!! This is awful casting for an epic film about Alexander the Great. Oliver Stone looks out of his element here.

cross

1) Having read the Iliad many times and it being one of my favorite books, I'm actually looking forward to the movie. According to the book, Helen is "the face the launched a thousand ships." I was not only looking to see this scene, I was happy and amused that I was able to see it in the trailer. I thought it was cool , even bordering on amazing.

As for requesting a history buff's advice, historians and archeologists are actually still actually looking to find the site that Troy might have stood on, let alone existed. The Trojan War is mythology. Its no more real than King Arthur and his Round Table is.

2) In Greek Mythology heros and royality were, with a lack of a better word, handsome and beautiful. Hektor (Bana), Paris (Bloom), Achillies (Pitt). Not only were they written to be amazing in battle (well, maybe not Paris), women most definitely swooned at their presence.

I'm sorry tho, I don't understand you completely. After watching Gladiator and Braveheart, I still think Crowe looks Crowe, and Gibson looks a lot like Gibson. I doubt Crowe would look a lot like Maximus if one such character even existed and Gibson most definitely doesn't look anything like the real Wallace.

3) Sorry, this might be a spoiler, I dunno since I have no idea what the movie covers or explains.

This women that you say is "obscenely hot." Well she better be. Helen is supposed to be the most beautiful woman in the world. The fact that she would "drop her dress" for him, occurs because she is under the spell of Aphrodite (The Greek Goddess of Love) and she is basically awarded to Paris.

Course the movie probably won't go into that and probably will end up just saying Helen and Paris are actually in an adulterous affair of some sort.

As for you thinking Bloom is homosexual .. well I dunno ... if you've seen Spartacus, it could be.

Wraping up:
1) The movie is based on myth , not history
2) I hope the movie rocks and does well
3) I'd be careful about making comments about "demographic programing" cause comments like this show more about original poster than he probably wants to reveal.

Jericho

I'd agree that it doesn't seem realistic. But it does help represent how epic it was. And has been stated Helen was the "face that launched 1000 ships". Although it's not like there is really and great historical accuracy from history that old. Still, seems a bit nit-picky to me

Yeah, but this is true of ANY Hollywood movie. Besides the gods were involved. Of course these people will look good. I'm not sure what exactly you're looking for though. I mean it's a trailer and you're making some pretty sweeping generalizations already.

Again, see above. It's true in pretty much all movies to use better looking actors. It helps fill seats as people don't like watching ugly people. I don't know what to say about the gay thing though. I guess my gaydar when watching LOTR

In whole, I'm pretty optomistic. Wolfgang Peterson usually does good work and Brad Pitt has done a good job in choosing interesting projects. An obviously the story is pretty compelling. All in all, it has the ingredients of a good movie

clemente

I'm sorry dude, but it just seems that you don't want to like the movie and have constructed these reasons as to why it won't be good.

I won't go into anymore detail, because the past few post have done a bang up job of debunking your first two points...and the third point just doesn't merit a response.

I'll wait till I see more than 60 seconds of footage before I decide.

Ian11

Overall, I agree with most of the posters so far. Troy looks promising but I do have my doubts. The opening scene from the preview of the endless sea of ships looked phony and digital not awe inspiring. In general it does look like a tarted up made for TV mini-series but the fact Wolfgang Peterson is directing is giving me hope.

And Legolas is an elf. When he's not busy killing orc he's too busy baking magical crackers. He's got little time for shagging other elves or anything else.

talemyn

Several things . . .

1) Excellent points, cross . . . I was going to make some of the same comments myself, but you seemed to have gotten it covered. Nice to see another Greek mythology fan around.

2) Lot's of ships - Well, I'll admit that there are more than I would have expected to see, but like cross and Jericho said, Helen was the face that launched a thousand ships. When that is all you have to go by (no historical records on this one), then you use "a thousand ships". Makes sense to me.

3) Time for a little defense of Mr. Pitt and Mr. Bloom and their acting skills . . .

- Orlando played Legolas perfectly. Legolas is an elf. Elves are delicate, peaceful, reflective, quiet, unassuming, philosophical, playful, nature-loving, etc. . . . and understated badasses when they need to be. I think that Bloom nailed that role, but I also think that in order to do so, he had to act in that fashon that could, conceivably come off as what you saw to be "homosexual" and/or doing "nothing but hang(ing) around". His character was suposed to be one of the more subtle ones and I think that he got it exactly right. He also did pretty well in Black Hawk Down.

- Brad Pitt . . . bad actor? Have you seen 12 Monkeys? Snatch? Two films in which he was absolutely amazing. Not to mention the solid jobs that he did in The Devil's Own, Se7en, Interview With The Vampire, and True Romance.

While I understand why people dislike guys like these because of their "pretty boy" status, don't transfer that personal dislike onto their acting skills . . .

As for the movie . . . I am looking forward to it. There really hasn't been a very good adaptation of Greek mythology since Clash Of The Titans and even that left something to be desired.

Edit: Crap!!! I can't believe that I forgot Fight Club as another example of superb acting by Brad Pitt . . .

Mourn

Um, they found what they think was Troy more than a century ago.

Anyhow, the heros in the Iliad were more than regular men, so them being unusually good looking is fitting. Whether Pitt and Bloom can pull it off is up for debate.

Still, those alexander pics are terrible...I dont know what they were thinking of casting Collin Farrel as alexander.

Kal-El

And you can make this bet....how?

Anyway, cool. One more seat in the theater and one less patron bitching behind me that I have to shush.

In summary, I think Brad Pitt is a good actor and most(not all, mind you) are just jealous of how good the guy looks and that he wakes up with Jennifer Aniston in his bed every day. And TROY for me looks Amazing. I'm there opening day.

Terrell

No, neither one of them can act in my opinion. I've never seen Fight Club. Never had any desire to. The guy just doesn't convince me he has the chops, and it has nothing to do with his looks. Neither has Bloom. But that's just one man's opinion. Your's may differ.

Saxofonix

.. Twelve Monkeys ??

mee2

It's a fantasy film. It's like pointing out the fact taht young Arthur was too frail and weak to have been able to draw the sword from teh stone in Excalibur....

talemyn

Just out of curiosity (not being sarcastic, truely just wondering), what Brad Pitt movies have you seen?

fumanstan

Troy actually looks pretty good to me, reminds me of Gladiatior. I know Gladiator is hated by more then a few people on these forums, but personally, if Troy is anything like it i'm sure i'll love it.

Buck Turgidson

Under the right circumstances, I can see Farrell as Alexander (who was a very young man, and generally depicted as rather handsome and striking), but what is with the blonde dye job?

Terrell

Three you mentioned. Seven! In that movie, a prime example of this is his completely inability to convince me he was shocked and grief-stricken when John Doe told him he took his wife's pretty little head. All he could do was scream out "oh god" in a lame tone. Cheesy as hell. I loved that moment and I like the film a lot. But it had more to do with the story, Morgan Freeman, and Kevin Spacey.

In the Devil's Own, his accent was one of the worst I've heard. Only one I've heard worst is Kevin Costner's attempt at an English accent in Robin Hood. Didn't think his performance was particularly strong there.

Interview With A Vampire! Don't get me started.

Also Meet Joe Black, Legends of the Fall, and 12 Monkeys. A few others as well. What can I say. Color me unimpressed with his acting talent. Considering my favorite actors are Al Pacino, Russell Crowe, Kevin Spacey, and Harrison Ford, you can see why.

talemyn

Hmmm . . . okay . . . I still can't agree, but . . . okay . . .

. . . although, I must say I am really suprised by the fact that you didn't enjoy his performance in 12 Monkeys. I found it to be one of the most impressive acting performances of any actor in a long time.

badger1997

There seems to be an awful lot of judging this film based off what is essentially a teaser trailer. The movie doesn't even come out until May 2004 and the trailer really didn't show much of anything. I was looking forward to this one before the trailer because I have read the Illiad so many times and while the trailer didn't knock my socks off, it did nothing to make me not interested in seeing this one.

QuiGonJosh

This movie looks amazing! Great cast...PETER O'TOOLE!!!! Great director...and you cant really ask for a bigger and more epic story.

movielib

True, and nobody thought there was any truth to the Iliad before that.

And while there is probably a core of fact to the story of the Trojan War there is obviously an enormous amount of myth overlaid in the Iliad.

Goldberg74

I was just wondering why they didn't show...... in the trailer? I thought that is what you are supposed to give away major plot points in a teaser nowadays...

But I really wonder how they are going to treat that scene on the silver-screen. It was very well done in the Odyssey (mini-series) back in 1997 while kept in line with studio guidelines for violence and gore.

Penny Lane

I've been looking forward to this movie since I learned that they were making it. However, I'm wary of the title Troy, as opposed to The Iliad. To me that suggests the possibility of more of a freedom with the plot. I have heard that the gods won't be included, which disappoints me. BUT, I'm still excited about seeing the movie. I don't see what's so wrong with the casting.


It's a good thing, then, that Orlando Bloom is playing Paris and not one of the stronger warriors. Then it would be much less believable. Paris always struck me as much less powerful with much less strength of character than the others. After all, he did get Helen by proclaiming Aphrodite was the most beautiful of the goddesses, preferring to receive love over the intelligence and strength in battle that might have been his reward for choosing Athena, or whatever else Hera might have rewarded him with.

As far as the women go, I think they are appropriately "hot." Helen, of course, would've been gorgeous, and Briseis was also stated as "very beautiful." I'm not really sure what other women are supposed to be in the movie, though, so I can't say anything for them.

scroll2b

Troy has long been discovered in Turkey. As for Collin Farrel - who the hell ever allowed that guy into Hollywood films? Was there EVER a film in which he proved he was a good/great actor? If anything, I think he's riding the "bad-boy" coat tails of Russell Crowe. Otherwise, there's no reason to see this guy in ANYTHING.

I haven't seen the trailer for Troy, but everything is done digitally these days. We'll most likely never see a fleet of a thousand anything. Ever.

Finally........... Orlando Bloom gay in LOTR? Are you sick? There's was nothing wrong in LOTR, especially something as overt as you describe. I think some people in here are a little jealous that he's the hot new thing, and on of the most emailed celebrities at Yahoo. (BTW, does Collin have that pull, at least? NO!)