Troy Vs. The Iliad

These days, Hollywood is all about remakes. Every year, new movies come from older original movies, books, plays, musicals, poems and myths, that have all been retooled to fit our modern audience. The somewhat recent movie, Troy which is based off the ancient Greek poem, The Iliad, is a prime example.

In the Iliad, the story begins in the middle of the Trojan War. The Greeks, who are led by Achilles, have just won a battle and have taken two beautiful maidens into captivity. That causes a bunch of other events which end in the death of the Trojan prince Hector. Many events throughout the story are influenced both directly and indirectly by the Gods. This undoubtable classic by Homer emphasises respect, glory, love and especially fate.

In Troy, the war is started by Hector's brother Paris, who convinces the spartan queen, Helen, to come back with him to Troy. Menelaus, Helen's Husband finds out and sets an army of 50,000 Greeks off to Troy to get her back and regain his dignity. In this re-telling of the Iliad, The Gods are only mentioned and we never see any signs of their influence. Because the characters can't fall back on the superpowers of the gods, they are responsible for their actions and fate is a much more prevalent value.

Over 200 mistakes were found in Troy, and while not all of them are necessarily fact based, that is still a very high number for any historical movie. I think that if this were truely supposed to be a spot on representation of The Iliad, that this number would be lower. The point of Troy is to entertain you rather than give you a history lession on Ancient Greece, which is why I don't fully consider it a "translation" of The Iliad.