Brad Pitt is playing Achilles; Orlando Bloom is playing Paris; Eric Bana is Hector; and Sean Bean is Odysseus (aka Ulysses).

As for a summary of Homer's Illiad, here's a link to one:
http://members.valley.net/~benj/iliadsummary.html

This movie will have Legolas and Boromir? Cool!

In all honesty, the fact that Helen would fall for a guy looking as light in the loafers as Bloom makes me laugh.

You must not know many girls/women . . . this is happening all over the country . . .

Yes, but they're all around the age of 13-15 last time I checked.

Size doesn't matter DAMNIT! :)

AWESOME!!! i cant wait!! :)...great cast including my faves Eric Bana and Orli Bloom :) :drool: w00t w00t!!!! :lol: YEA! roll on May!!!!

I wonder if this movie will have any divine intervention by Zeus and Co. or if maybe it's just a straight out war movie in which the gods are just mentioned? According to "history", Zeus and Co. played a major part in both the war's start and end.
I am only interested because they will have a hard time explaining some stuff (like the Achilles heel situation and the fate of the man who warned against the horse) without the gods.

Doing this movie without acknowledging the role of the Gods would seem to be doing a huge inconvenience to the story...not that Hollywood is known for the strict adherence to source material.

I think it could work without the Gods, but there would have to be some work around.

Yeah . . . according to the mythology, the gods were severely split on this war with half supporting the Greeks and the other half supporting the Trojans.

I could see this movie going either direction though. While the movie would be more "mythically" accurate if they included the Gods in, I'd imagine that they could play it without the Gods fairly easily and effectively as well (e.g., Achilles is just and awesome warrior, etc.).

From my view as a love of mythology, i'd like to see the gods included, but as a fan of historically-based, epic-style, war movies, part of me would like to see it without the Gods (to make it a little more "real"). It will be complex enough as it is, adding the super natural aspect might put it over the top.

I can see your point. I also imagine that if they wanted to put in the gods they would also have to work in some creatures here and there, and that would add to what looks like an already huge budget. I'm just interested to see how the war really begins since the mythology basically traces it to three goddesses bickering over who looks the best.
They will also have to find a way of explaining Achilles' invinicibility without the river of Styx ordeal.
What's really interesting about the two poems/works of Homer is that The Iliad is mostly a tale of war with some fantasy elements while The Odyssey is almost entirely fantasy. I wonder if this movie does well enough if WB would greenlight a take on The Odyssey?

Wasn't it stated already (and I believe this was discussed in an earlier thread relating to this movie) that there would be no gods in this movie? Anyhoo, despite a cast I really like and a very good director, I'm still not excited about this movie. It still looks kinda iffy to me.