posted
I might have said this before, but it's really troubling me.... It seems from the trailer like Paris and Helen are sort of the morally superior people in this movie... IE: love is superior to all, and the world won't tolerate that love kind've thing. So do you think that they'll change the ending, and let Paris and Helen live happily ever after? I would be bitterly, bitterly disappointed with that. What I got out of their exploits was, "Wow, people who just leap into love and lust do profoundly stupid things that have bad, bad consequences."
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posted
What I got out of their exploits is that you should never be the judge in a beauty contest between three gods.
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When you read the original story, Helen's character is really sort of ambivalent. Like she would love whoever won her. Or maybe she was infatuated with Paris and then woke up to reality... a little too late.
Or he really did kidnap her and she was just suffering from Stockholm syndrome.
Or she liked all the cool stuff she could get in Troy (Ilium) that wasn't available in her hometown.
Who knows.
Part of the issue, though, is the role of women in general. She's pivotal in the war by being the cause and the instrument of the end of it. But was she just being opportunist or was she sick of being the cause of all that death? Or was she tired of her lover? Or all of the above.
I couldn't really tell from the trailer because a flirtatious star-crossed Helen early in the story would fit just fine. If she's in love with and faithful to Paris in the end, it won't make any sense.
I can't imagine someone making this movie and changing the ending.
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posted
They just had this long speech at the start of it about the virtues of love, followed by Paris speaking of his undying love for Helen, shots of her smiling, and then her looking out at the ocean saying, "They are coming for me. The winds are bringing them closer."
Also, Agamemnon and Menelaus seem pretty barbaric, especially Agamemnon. That just kinda emphasizes Helen's purity and superiority, I guess.
[ March 10, 2004, 11:25 AM: Message edited by: Book ]
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posted
Yeah, true, I thought that since Paris had voted for Aphrodite her gift to him was Helen's love... Which I guess means that it wasn't real love, anyways...
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posted
Btw, on the Imdb boards one individual claims to have intimate knowledge of the film and says that, yes, they have changed the ending so that Paris and Helen live happily ever after, etc, etc, etc. Ugh. Does every audience need a happy ending? Are we all on valium or something?
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posted
From the books, and things like "The Trojan Women" I always found Helen to be a beautiful piece of furniture.
Some Helen myth, IIRC.
Helen, as a child, was originally kidnapped by Theseus and Hercules. Theseus ended up trapped in the Underworld and Hercules had to come and rescue him.
Paris destroys the sacred bond of Guest/Host by taking her when he was staying at her home.
She went partially because she was under Aphrodities spell, and partially because she was a woman, and women were expected to go where ever the big strong men told her to go.
She went off to Troy, where her presence was not welcome. They knew war was on her heals.
She stays with Paris until he dies.
Others claim her until Troy falls.
Then her husband happilly claims her, along with other shares of Trojan treasure.
Other women, from Aggemenom's daughter to Cassandra to the Slave Girl that encites Achillies strike, all are treated similarly, as furniture to be claimed by the victor.
None of that would sell in a modern movie. You think the "Passion" caused a stir with the anti-semitic claims, what do you think the women's groups would do if women were portrayed as they were written of, 3000 years ago.
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posted
I thought they would just portray Paris and Helen as the two profoundly stupid people they undeniably were. Why not make Menelaus the protagonist, trying to regain what was stolen from him by a petulant, empty headed womanizer? Besides, the agreement was that whoever Helen chose was the final suitor, and anyone wh violated that agreement would be attacked by all of the suitors. What's more empowering than that?
[ March 10, 2004, 02:47 PM: Message edited by: Book ]
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posted
I'd be a lot more impressed if the movie made the most of both sides. Play up the romantic side, play up the vengeance, let us know that everyone involved is doing what they are for good and honorable reasons (or at least that they all have reasons) and don't give us any villians at all. Don't give us any one to obviously root for, or against. Just a lot of people dealing with two equally important and mutually exclusive goals.
That, I would want to see.
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posted
I could understand changing something in the middle, to make it more filmable, like in LOTR. But I can't see them changing THE ending. I mean, there is a total opposite to how the story ended, and they chose that one. And it might not be historical, but it's very close to it, and they're changing that, too. I could understand them making Paris more respectable, but having him and Helen live happily ever after is changing the resolution of one of the most influential compositions in human history 180 degrees.
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posted
Maybe they wind up together in Hades Hey, they could just use the ending scene from Titanic.
Seriously, though, can you believe I never read the Illiad? But I read the Odyssey twice in high school and again in College. I dunno. The weird thing is I actually competed in the National Junior Classical Leauge Mythology exam and got 3rd place. Or maybe I'm mixed up. So I know all these stories from studying a mythology encyclopedia and then rewriting them with folks I knew at school in the roles.
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that was good...![[Evil Laugh]](graemlins/evillaugh.gif)
Hey, they could just use the ending scene from Titanic. 
