watching troy and barely enjoying it helped me finally relate to the people who read tolkien, watched lotr, and proclaimed to the world that the movie version sucked.

i waited for that movie. i watched the online trailers over and over again. everytime i'd watch a movie with the pilot, i'd tug his arm and proclaim, "hey, we're watching that movie, ha?"

come may 12 (or was it 13?) we watched it. i fell asleep.

it was a visual treat. the thousand ships, the trojan horse, troy and its walls, the fights.

it was like a christmas gift or a birthday gift. may brad pitt na, may orlando bloom pa!

but iliad the epic and troy the movie were two different things. in fairness, they did say the movie was just "inspired".

still.

patroclos and achilles? best friends, not cousins.
achilles withdrawing from the war? it was because of a girl really. agamemnon took his prize, he got pissed, he didn't want to fight. period. nothing noble about that. think of it as your boss taking your favorite g.r.o. from pegasus.
achilles dying a noble death to look for his g.r.o.? bullsh*t.
and everything at the beginning and everything at the end? nothing in the iliad about that.

so, it was like whereas i enjoyed all those gorgeous elves marching into rohan while the rest of the tolkien-reading people were thinking "where the f*ck did all of these beauties come from?" i had the same sinking, bewildered, and lost feeling while watching troy.

read the epic. better yet, read the fitzgerald version.

you'd enjoy it much much better, promise.