The Illiad/Troy movie!!

[Mazzaup2]

You may have had this topic before - but...
The movie Troy was soooo innacurate it was unbelieveable!! Its was 'inspired' by Homer's Illiad apparently. The mistakes are as follows...
1) Agamemnon doesnt kill Priam - Achilles son Pyhrrus does
2) Ajax doesnt die at Troy - he goes mad and drills his brain out after
3) Menelaus doesnt die! - In fact he is in Homer's Sequel to the Illiad, The Odyssey (There are rumours that thy are palnning to do an Odyssey film so they'll need to butcher that story as well)
4) Patroclus isnt Achilles' cousin - He is his GAY lover!
5) Agamemnon doesnt die! - He get's killed by his wife (Clytaemnestra) on his return home
6) Aeneas (the guy who is given the sword at the end) was not that young - He was a General at Troy so wouldnt have been 18! See Virgil's Aeneid.
7) Achilles deatwass wrong! - He fell in love with Polyxena (not Briseis) and wanted to marry her in Apollo's temple. Paris shot a poisoned arrow (guided by Apollo) which hits his heel and kills him.
8) WHERE ARE THE GODS!! - They control most of the events in the book!! Its is a myth for crying out loud!!
9) Helen doesnt escape Troy - Menelaus (who if you remember DOESNT die) takes her back to Sparta!! (See The Odyssey).
I think ive covered most of the major mistakes that just goes to show that hollywood can severly butcher a brilliant epic story.
Does anyone else agree?

[Hippy]

The big hairy brutish man in the early part of the film who challenges all and sundry to a fight is called Boagrius. This man did not exist in the Homer story, but is the name of a river. Homer describes the trojan war as lasting about ten years, the film has it over and done with within a year.

Coins on the eyes of the dead during funeral fires is an old Greek custom, but at the time of Troy, there were no coins, they only appeared about 650 BC.

Having been to Mycenae, Agamemnon's home, and stood in his citadel, it is clear that Menelaus could never have approached it from the sea as shown in the film. Nearby Tyrrins in nearer the coast, but still not on it.

Right at the start of the film we see some street scenes in Troy. Look for some South American Llamas. Quite impossible in ancient Troy.

When I was last at the location of Troy it is not a desert with a flat sandy landscape as in the film, but wooded rolling hillsides with loads of olive trees.

Apollo was not the god of the Sun. This was a much later Roman confusion. Apollo was the bringer of truth, healing and music. Helios was the Sun god.

Anyway, despite all this, the film was a ripping yarn, but no substitute for reading the original Homer.

[Chessman]

Your absolutely correct, glad to see i'm not the only one who was disapointed with the film, what you left out though, was depicted 100% wrongly in the film, and actuall took place after Homers iliad was finished. Paris, who in the film survived, was actually killed by the same poisened arrow that killed Achilles.

[TomFooleree]

Fair enough, but you said yourself that the film was "inspired" by Homer's Illiad. Regardless whether it was historically inaccurate or not, its conversion into a Hollywood blockbuster is clear from its popularity..

Noone said it was going to be "correct"