Tendo City

Stupid movie, and definitely bad as a film, but just lamely entertaining enough to make me feel that I didn't completely waste my time.

Oh, I saw it in 2d, not 3d.

Warning: Spoilers!


I mean, the movie had some big problems. First would be that it has an identity crisis in that it couldn't decide whether to be Clash of the Titans or God of War... it eventually decided on Clash of the Titans, but only after a lot of "I hate the gods" stuff that didn't end up going anywhere and just helped the movie make even less sense. "I hate the gods and I'm going to destroy them!" "... Well okay, maybe not, I'll work with them actually, and just fight the evil one..."... and in the film it's done even worse than that. It was just stupid. I know we're in a time of cynicism, as God of War shows (Kratos is a suicidal mass murderer who kills like half of the gods for really badly written reasons, and yet he's the "hero"...), and with that element of the film (if mostly just in word and not in deed) they were obviously trying to attract that audience more, I think, but because of how they resolved it, it just made it make no sense. They really needed to work that out and make the film more consistent. "We got no fish so I hate the gods and want them to die!" says the old fisherman at the beginning... and that theme comes back again and again, only for the movie to sabotage it at the end. The whole ending was just so bizarre... they could have done that same ending but made it actually made sense had actual good writers been working on this movie, but yeah, no luck in that department obviously. This movie's about the spectacle, you're supposed to ignore how bad the plot is. (And I've only scraped the surface in how stupid and broken the plot was... I won't mention everything right now, but it was just so dumb...)

Now -- I think that it is BETTER that they didn't go through with it. I don't like God of War's approach. But honesly, in this movie it just made no sense.

Beyond that, of course just like the first movie any attention to mythological detail is seriously lacking to the point where it's almost an accident when they actually get anything RIGHT, but with a movie like that you expect that kind of thing, so that didn't surprise me.

As for the movie itself, it was predictable, somewhat like the original 1980s movie and yet different in a some ways, including some I've mentioned. I thought parts of it were awful, a lot of it mediocre, and a few parts good. There were some pretty cool action scenes, such as the fights against the giant scorpions and then the Kraken. I liked the second half of the movie better than the first; while early on I wasn't liking the movie at all, by the later parts I was enjoying myself enough to make it feel worthwhile seeing. It's a bad movie, but entertaining bad, at least for anyone who likes fantasy movies, ancient Greek themed stuff, or things like that, as I definitely do.

Oh, the women with the vaguely Cretan/Mycenaean layered dresses in the Argos hall were a nice touch, maybe a tiny little nod to the period when the myths were actually set? (Greek myths were written down in the Classical era when everyone wore draped robes, as they do in this and every other Greek-themed movie, but the myths were mostly SET hundreds of years earlier, during the Mycenaean age before the Greek Dark Ages. Clothing, government, writing, political systems, and more were very, very different at that time.) Putting people in classical robes anyway is justifiable though, because the myths reflect the time they were written down in as much or more than the time they are supposedly set, but still if intentional it was a nice touch.) Having Medusa be beautiful and yet hideous was also interesting, it was an interesting take on the character for sure.

(Of course, after all five of his companions died in the successful effort to beat Medusa is when our hero abandons all his "I'm going to win with just human means" and uses the sword Zeus gave him and takes off on Pegasus, without a good enough explanation for why he changed, but yeah, I did say the plot was bad, so oh well. :))

... Also, after getting back from the film a few days ago I spent most of the next eight hours reading about various Greek myths on the web, which was pretty fun and interesting, so it definitely wasn't all bad if it got me to do that. But yeah, don't go in expecting a good movie... it's definitely not that.

it was crap indeed

I'll stick with the original.

The original is in my top 10 movies of all time, I haven't seen the remake so i'll have to stay reserved.

There's a paradigm of sorts I have to consider though, like Terminator Salvation. It is not a bad movie, but it's shit compared to the first two Terminator films, even the 3rd one is better in my opinion. This is mostly the fault of the director I think, as the writing was quite good at times though nothing was very memorable. John getting an artificial heart in the manner that he did was cheesy but in the good way, so I have to consider the film as a quality sci-fi that falls short of its legacy, it should have been stripped of its Terminator nods and made in to something new.

I'll have to see this Clash of the Titans remake this weekend. Here's to hoping for a more epic battle with Cerberus and the gorgon.

I haven't seen the original, but I thought this was boring. It hadn't caught my interest much to begin with, but I was seeing it as part of a friend's birthday celebration, so I wasn't going to complain.

Some good CGI, but it couldn't make up for how formulaic and lacking the movie felt. I never much cared about the main character, or his crew, or any of the characters really. It was an okay way to waste two hours, but I wouldn't have gone out of my way to see it under normal circumstances, and I definitely wouldn't sit through it again.

What you ALL fail to understand is that movies in 2010 are only made to rake in profits. If they made a sturdy plot, it may be to the detriment of eye-candy special effects. I haven't seen it, but I can tell that its in the same mold as all the newest ancient world movies have been, a la 300. Dark, poetic, artsy--not even the vaguest attempt at realism. Not that the original was "realistic" by today's standards, but at least they strove towards it.

No thank you.

SJ: It's only a bit over an hour and a half, actually. Fairly short film. That perhaps helps it, it doesn't overstay its welcome.

I agree that it doesn't do a very good job of making you care about the characters, though. I didn't care that much about them either, really. I just didn't mind that as much as you obviously did, I think.


Darunia: 300 I tried to watch a few weeks ago actually... I disliked it so much that I quit maybe two third of the way through and didn't even finish it. Ugh... so stupid, so inaccurate, so propagandistic... that was a bad movie. High production values, but a bad film.

Honestly, while Clash of the Titans is also pretty poor, at least I was entertained and felt like it was worth the time, if barely. The spectacular visuals are the main draw, certainly, but they're done well and did help keep me interested in watching.

Anyway. Inaccurate, yes. The new Clash of the Titans is, incredibly, probably even less accurate than the first one, which had almost no connection to the myths it was supposedly based on. Almost nothing about the movie was really accurate. Did I mind? Somewhat, yes. Some of the inaccuracies bothered me a lot, most notably the "the gods are awful and should die" element that the main character and his stepfather both said a lot. That's just not very accurate historically!

I mean, yes, some Greeks were of course athiests, etc, but honestly, his stepfather decides he hates the gods because he wasn't catching enough fish? Oh come on... and if Perseus oh so hates the gods, then why near the end did he pick up that sword... Even so though, it's perhaps not as bad here as it was in 300, where somehow they twist Sparta from the most religous, devout state in Classical Greece (which it actually was) to some place whose religious leaders were awful creepy old men... and Leonidas from a believer in prophecy and the gods to one who essentially spites them... etc, etc. The twisting is as bad in Clash of the Titans, but at least they sort of take it back at the ending. Of course, that dissonance between most of the film and the ending is very strong, so I don't know if that's a lot better, but it's slightly better, I think, at least.

Oh yeah, I do have to mention one inaccuracy. I forget what the original one did, but this Clash of the Titans has the now-standard Evil Hades. Hades is the villain, as usual in modern ancient Greek stuff. Actually in Greek myths Hades wasn't evil. People feared him and often avoided using his name, because he was the god of the dead, and he was strict and harsh, but he was not evil or a villain, aside from the "kidnapping Persephone" thing. But because in the Christian world the Greek world of the dead has been equated with Hell, Hades is the devil in this movie and many others (Disney's Hercules is another of many examples). It's just not at all accurate to the actual myths... not that the people making these movies care at all.

But anyway, yeah, Darunia, I agree that they were trying to get in that dark theme that is so common today, and I definitely agree that it's unfortunate, but the entertainment factor of the rest of the movie was enough that I didn't regret watching it, even if it was often pretty stupid. Also, while it has a lot of htat modern darkness in it, some of the spirit of fun of the older films does come across. While they sort of tried, this isn't God of War or 300, it is a bit different. Not as much different as it should be, but different.


Anyway, on a related note, my favorite ancient Greek themed movie is Oliver Stone's Alexander. I really, really liked that movie. I know most people in America hated it, but I thought it was very good...

One of the great things about 300 (which as a heterosexual man I can tell you I masturbated several times while watching) is that it mixes actual history with the story and styling of that period and how that story was told to people during that time, how the other cultures appeared, perceptions of those people, etc. Did you notice how he didn't recognize it as an "elephant" it was simply a "beast from another world". Part of the plot was to kill the God King but instead he made him bleed, both sides of the conflict were awestruck because both sides lived at a time when the belief was that Gods were as real as the ground at your feet.

It's a wonderfully told story, told from the perspective of a culture that only knew war against another who sought domination. It was a mirror to today's conflicts, how alien and bizarre the middle eastern cultures look to us, how their strange culture seems to American soldiers. You really have no ability to think or reason, it's scary to me.

What I didn't like about 300 was Xerxes being... whatever the fuck he was... with chains and jewelry and having that voice... and the general total abandoment of reality for stimulating imagery. The darkness I loathed... I don't enjoy watching two hours of dark, dreary scenery. Furthermore, in ancient Greece, all the Spartans have glistening, ripped, smooth, hairless chests? Really? And I've never been to Greece but I'm rather sure they don't have big, gaping bottomless pits laying around. And the wolf--belonged in a fairy tale cartoon, not in an adult movie I'm supposed to take seriously. The greatest tragedy is that this sort of dreary, comic book-like fantasy film has spread all over the industry. Clash seems to echo these nauseating sentiments.

Darunia Wrote:What I didn't like about 300 was Xerxes being... whatever the fuck he was... with chains and jewelry and having that voice... and the general total abandoment of reality for stimulating imagery. The darkness I loathed... I don't enjoy watching two hours of dark, dreary scenery. Furthermore, in ancient Greece, all the Spartans have glistening, ripped, smooth, hairless chests? Really? And I've never been to Greece but I'm rather sure they don't have big, gaping bottomless pits laying around. And the wolf--belonged in a fairy tale cartoon, not in an adult movie I'm supposed to take seriously. The greatest tragedy is that this sort of dreary, comic book-like fantasy film has spread all over the industry. Clash seems to echo these nauseating sentiments.

The big gaping pit was a water well, Historically Xerxes emissaries were thrown into wells by the Greeks,The Persian demanded food and water for their soldiers and the submission of the Greeks, The Greeks said "you want water here you go" hurling the envoy down the well". The Wells definitely weren't Bottomless.

Anyone with the smallest degree of intelligence would immediately realize that the movie is not historically accurate, *Especially when the Giant ogres with blades for arms showed up*.

Frank Miller didn't give them torso armor since he thought they "looked better bare-chested" .

I liked 300, Sure its full of shit It was still fun to watch, It was far more enjoyable then Clash of the CG monsters.

They were bare chested and muscular because that is how the Greeko artisans depicted power in males, hairless (except the head, facial air to show wisdom, and pubic hair) with rippling muscles, even on old people. It just went with the art style of everything. They looked how they sculpted themselves, painted themselves, etc because the film is a form of art as a sculpture or painting of that period. I thought it was brilliant.

It should also be noted that the writing had a huge nod to the bible with the depiction of Xerxes and their empire. Golden Calf's anyone?

lazyfatbum Wrote:They were bare chested and muscular because that is how the Greeko artisans depicted power in males, hairless (except the head, facial air to show wisdom, and pubic hair) with rippling muscles, even on old people. It just went with the art style of everything. They looked how they sculpted themselves, painted themselves, etc because the film is a form of art as a sculpture or painting of that period. I thought it was brilliant.

The armor was form fitting and molded from a sculpture, Going without protection on the torso was historically inaccurate and silly, Given how many arrow heads were raining down on them.

link

The big gaping pit was a water well, Historically Xerxes emissaries were thrown into wells by the Greeks,The Persian demanded food and water for their soldiers and the submission of the Greeks, The Greeks said "you want water here you go" hurling the envoy down the well". The Wells definitely weren't Bottomless.


I did not know that.

I prefer realism to all this flowery poetic foo-foo artsy shit. GLADIATOR > 300 just because it looks immersively real--compared to 300 anyway.

alien space marine Wrote:The armor was form fitting and molded from a sculpture, Going without protection on the torso was historically inaccurate and silly, Given how many arrow heads were raining down on them.

link

You mean just as ridiculous as the nude statues depicting war heroes?

HUH? DO YA?

Darunia Wrote:I prefer realism to all this flowery poetic foo-foo artsy shit. GLADIATOR > 300 just because it looks immersively real--compared to 300 anyway.

Gladiator's not exactly realistic either, you know... you're right that it's more so than 300, but realistic? No way.

lazyfatbum Wrote:You mean just as ridiculous as the nude statues depicting war heroes?

HUH? DO YA?

Those were just statues, not how they actually dressed in combat. :)

Darunia Wrote:What I didn't like about 300 was Xerxes being... whatever the fuck he was... with chains and jewelry and having that voice... and the general total abandoment of reality for stimulating imagery. The darkness I loathed... I don't enjoy watching two hours of dark, dreary scenery. Furthermore, in ancient Greece, all the Spartans have glistening, ripped, smooth, hairless chests? Really? And I've never been to Greece but I'm rather sure they don't have big, gaping bottomless pits laying around. And the wolf--belonged in a fairy tale cartoon, not in an adult movie I'm supposed to take seriously. The greatest tragedy is that this sort of dreary, comic book-like fantasy film has spread all over the industry. Clash seems to echo these nauseating sentiments.

Xerxes... propaganda pretty much, I think. I mean, his costume is utterly insane historically, with absolutely not even the slightest shred of connection to anything any Persian monarch would ever have worn. They wore clothes you know. :)

Essentially, the critics of the film sya that the idea was to present the villanous Eastern Middle Easterner Xerxes in a negative, effeminate light, and the Western Greek Spartans in a positive, masculine light, as a part of the flim's general "the West is better than the East" tone.

While it is true that at the time some Greeks did think of it as a West vs. East matter, and they talked in terms of resisting Eastern tyrrany, the movie is pretty heavy-handed about making its point, to say the least. I think that the Iranian government's protests about the movie are entirely accurate, the movie's portrayals of Persians is unfairly negative.

I mean, sure, Persia was autocratic and crueler than Greece, and today the Iranian government is one of the most evil in the world. No question. I just don't think that that justifies making things up and stereotyping in that way.

For further evidence that the author of the original comic books would have wanted to make such anti-Eastern propagandistic things and it wasn't just an accident or just done for the spirit of the film as opposed to making a modern-day political point, see this, said by Frank Miller, the guy who did the original comic book. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Mille...cal_stance

and

http://www.theatlasphere.com/metablog/612.php

Frank Miller is a conservative and supporter of the Iraq War. The movie's pro-Western, anti-Eastern propagandizing is not accidental. Conservatives probably don't mind that of course, they agree with such views... and as I said I certainly agree that many Middle Eastern countries have absolutely horrible governments, no question. But still, the negative stereotyping just isn't right, particularly on top of the warmongering machismo spirit of the film.

He's not wrong that their culture has some huge problems with its treatment of women, etc., but his solutions... no, I mostly disagree. (I do agree with the invasion of Afghanistan, but not Iraq...)


... Bah, I couldn't resist. I'm mentioning a bunch of the historical inaccuracies in the film. First, yes, I know that it's just a movie, and a fantasy movie too... but as it is supposedly based on real events, I think this stuff does matter. They don't need to be entirely historically accurate or anything, but some of the things they do in the movie are just so stupid, Xerxes above being one of the most notable.

The wolf -- It is true that Spartan boys had a very harsh training regime, which cumulated in, somewhere in their teens, having to fend for themselves, with only a scant robe to wear, for some time. They weren't sent to fight wolves though, but to survive. If they had to kill a helot during it, that's fine... but don't get caught, they'd be punished if caught (Teaches stealth!).

It's not true that "Spartans never retreat", though. They'd retreat just like anyone else when it seemed right to do it; actually, in fact, it's more like Thermopylae created the whole myth of "Spartans never retreat", not the other way around.

Other major inaccuracies include of course the monsters and the clothing (male Spartans, female Spartans, Persians... all wear costumes that are entirely fiction with only tiny shreds of connections at best to anything the actual people then wore). That's obvious, for Xerxes and the armor and stuff at least, of course.

Sparta actually had two kings at a time, not one. The movie never mentions this, but Sparta had two kings at all times. They had a complex multilayered political system designed to bog things down and keep change from happening, because Sparta was a very traditional culture highly resistant to change.

Gorgo (Leonidas' wife) says "only Spartan women can speak to men because only Spartan women give birth to real men" or something along those lines in the film to the Persian ambassador. The actual saying was supposedly said to some unknown Athenian woman, if it actually is real; many of those sayings are likely mythological, though they have a basis in reality, as Spartan women clearly did have many more rights than women almost anywhere else in Greece. Also the whole thing with her going before the Spartan council during the battle was invented; no such story exists in history. Gorgo was mentioned much more than most women by historians like Plutarch and Herodotus, and Herodotus does say that she did go to the council meetings sometimes and say her opinions, which were listened to, so that's clearly the origin of the story in the film -- Gorgo was an important leader, it seems clear. Still, the scene in the council with Theron (a character made up for the film) didn't happen.

As I said, Sparta was in fact the most religious state in Greece. They were deeply devout, Leonidas included. He had had a prophecy from one of the oracles some time earlier that said that in order for Sparta to be saved, one of its kings would have to die. One theory says that the reason he stayed at Thermopylae was to make the prophecy come true... but of course because he didn't survive, no one could exactly ask him. In any case, Leonidas was in no way opposed to the gods, prophecy, or anything like that, like they claim in the movie. That's just another element of that modern-day "the gods are awful" stuff you see in God of War, the new Clash of the Titans, etc, etc.

The later Roman historian Plutarch claimed that "According to Plutarch, before the Battle of Thermopylae, knowing that her husband's death in battle was inevitable, she asked him what to do. Leonidas replied "marry a good man who will treat you well, bear him children, and live a good life."". In the movie Leonidas says nothing of the sort when they part, quite the opposite in fact. Of course Plutarch was writing hundreds of years later; at the time I think the stronger evidence says that they weren't intentionally going to their deaths so the anecdote is probably wrong, but that is the myth at least and the movie certainly does not follow it.

And again, the Spartan religious leader people were not horrible old men like they showed in the movie, all in the pocket of the Persians (they weren't, in reality), and Leonidas did not leave without permission. In fact the decision to let him leave with 300 troops was the compromise between the fact that it was a Spartan holy festival that week that ordinarily would not have allowed any military action -- and the Spartans were very, very serious about holding their festivals at the appointed time. For instance, even during wars Spartan soldiers from villages holding certain special festivals would be sent home to participate.

Another big one of course is the whole "300" thing. There weren't just 300 people there. The Spartans had allies there, both from towns in the area and from around Greece, totalling in the thousands at first. Also, the "300" Spartans would have each had between 1 and 3 servants with them, who presumably stayed and were also killed. The movie has just a few allied Greek troops and no servants for the Spartan warriors, not the thousands that were actually there. This focus only on the Spartans began shortly after the battle, pretty much, but the other troops WERE actually there! The sevants of course have been 100% ignored essentially all the time, unfortunately, as such people always are. Most of the allied troops did leave, as the movie showed with its few allied troops, after the Persians found the path around the army. A Greek force had been left guarding that path (some troops are referenced in the movie I think), but the Persians went around them and the troops didn't really try (or weren't able) to stop them. The traitor was not a spurned misshapen Spartan, but a man from the area lured by Persian promises of gold. Of course, all he got long term was a Greek price on his head, which someone did eventually collect.

Anyway, after the Greek army learned of that, most of the allied troops left, but a few hundred others from two cities did stay. One other city's troops were wiped out along with the Spartans, but the other city's troops surrendered near the end.

Near the end, two wounded Spartans were told to leave. However, one turned back anyway and fought, while the other did leave. This is the one that the movie twists into being someone told to leave "to spread the story"; this is historically false. He did later participate in the great battle of Platea, as seen at the end of the film, but that was in part to try to redeem himself and reclaim his honor, because he had been so strongly criticized for not turning back as the other man did.

One other Spartan survived the battle, because he had been sent elsewhere earlier and did not get to the battle site before it was over. He was so criticized for it that he committed suicide.

The battle was also not a victory or a success for the Greeks in pretty much any way. Delaying the Persians for just a few days didn't change things that much. It was the naval battle of Salamis that won the war, some time later. After that Xerxes and most of the Persian troops left. It was some time after that that the battle of Platea was held, where the Greeks defeated the remnant Persian force.

As for Plataea, actually the Spartans did not charge. In fact, the Greek lines started the battle by retreating (the army had three parts, Spartan, Athenian, and other, I believe, and they didn't coordinate well as always, they weren't sure if the enemy was stronger, etc). Only when the Persian army decided to go after them did the Greeks solidify their lines and fight back. The Greeks did end up winning the battle, but no, they didn't start it with a charge. :)


Also, later on the Spartans did at certain times accept Persian money, for instance to fund opposition to Macedonian rule after Alexander's death. By that point of course Sparta was weak and their opposition was ineffectual, but it's worth mentioning anyway.