The Clash of the Not-Titans
Apr. 16th, 2010 02:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
azuriteSo it's a bit overdue, but last week I went to see "Clash of the Titans" in 3D XD! What that means is that I wore cheesy glasses and sat in a theatre with an awesome sound system. Yup.
Okay, so we've got Sam Worthington (om nom nom) playing Perseus, one of the many great heroes of Greek myth. In the movie, his mom was killed by an angry king, Acrisius, because Zeus impregnated her (because that's what Zeus did/does). In mythology, Acrisius was actually Perseus' GRANDFATHER, and he was upset that he hadn't had a son. He went to the oracle at Delphi and was told that he would be killed by grandson, but because his daughter (Danae, if you're curious) was not pregnant, he decided to lock her up in an open-air chamber, a bit like a courtyard on high. And well, Zeus can get into any space he likes, and he did!
So right from the get-go, you've got a bizarre twisting of myth. Why make Acrisius Perseus' not-father instead of his grandfather? Supposedly (in the movie) Zeus only slept with Danae to teach Acrisius a lesson for smack-talking the gods. The movie's whole plot seems to be built on the idea that the Greek gods require "love" in the form of worship and prayer from the humans (ironic, considering Zeus supposedly created humans, which is another mindfuck of the mythology that I'll get into later). Basically: if you piss off the gods by not worshipping them, they will find a way to smite you in the most painful way. And Zeus just happened to be quite good at sleeping around and impregnating random women, so that's exactly what he did to Acrisius.
In the myth, it's Danae who names him Perseus, but in the movie, it's a bit weird...the fisherman seems to name him Perseus, since he was found in a floating casket with his late mother, and there didn't appear to be anything on said casket with his (or his mother's) name on it. Also, Acrisius had tried to kill Danae BEFORE she gave birth to the baby, by hurling the casket with pregnant Danae into the ocean (if she wasn't already dead, she certainly was unconscious), but either way: how the heck did baby Perseus even get born? Divine intervention is really the only explanation....
Anyway, baby!Perseus is found by a fisherman and his wife (childless), who take him in. And they live and try and do their best for years, but the ongoing dispute between men and the gods mean that other "god-loving/fearing" humans suffer as a result of those humans who no longer worship the gods. That is to say, the fisherman ain't got no fish.
In the myth, Danae survives to also be taken in by the fisherman (who does not have a wife). The fisherman's brother is the king of the island where they wash ashore, and he has jealousy issues and aims to remove Perseus from the scene so he can have Danae to himself. Not sure if the fisherman ended up marrying Danae or what, but more death and jealousy ensues. GREECE: WE KNOW DRAMA.
Back to the movie! One day, Hades, pissed-off, shafted brother that he is, decides to go attacking the humans who felled the great Zeus statue on the coast where Perseus and his adopted family are fishing. Hades spots Perseus in the boat and, because he's the God of the Underworld or just because he's a mean son-of-a-bitch or whatever, he decides to sink the boat. All but Perseus die, leaving him very mad at the gods. He gets captured by the same Argosian soldiers that had felled the statue, and he's brought to Argos.
Here's a quick bit of extra movie info: we are told that the Twelve Olympians (Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, Athena, Apollo, Ares, Artemis, Aphrodite, Demeter, Hephaestus, Hermes, and Hestia) defeated their forefathers, the Titans, thanks to an all-powerful beast created by Hades, the Kraken. I'm so sick of the Kraken being used as a plot device. The one in the movie, while a sea creature, looks nothing like an actual kraken (a.k.a. a HUUUUGE-ass octopus/squid). But whatever, it's a Greek myth action movie, so who cares? It has to look FEARSOME!
Anyway, this is all rubbish, because the Titans were defeated pretty much by Zeus, which is what enabled him to become the next King of the Gods and therefore distribute the rest of the wealth between himself and his brothers...which why Hades got shafted with just the Underworld and why in the movie, he was pissed off enough to try and destroy his own brother. Zeus' father, Chronos, knew he was going to be defeated by his own son, so he ATE his children as they were born. But his wife, Rhea, managed to get away from him in time to get baby Zeus down to Earth, where he was cared for by nymphs and animals. When Zeus reached manhood (which, for a god, you presume doesn't take very long), he castrated his father and ripped his siblings out of Chronos' stomach: he'd swallowed them whole, so they were all right.
So right from the beginning, we know that there are no "Titans" clashing, because there are no Titans left. The Titans are: Chronos, Rhea, Oceanus, Hyperion, Coeus, Crius, Iapetus, Mnemosyne, Tethys, Theia, Phoebe, and Themis. If you want to include some of their non-Olympian offspring, they also include Eos (the dawn), Helios (the sun), and Selene (the moon); plus Coeus's daughters Leto and Asteria; Iapetus's sons Atlas (the guy who holds up Earth), Prometheus (the guy who brought fire to mankind), Epimetheus, and Menoetius; and Crius's sons Astraeus, Pallas, and Perses.
NOT ONE OF THEM SHOWS UP IN THE MOVIE. NOT ONE.
So why the heck is it "Clash of the Titans," when there are no Titans clashing? Probably because "Clash of the Olympians" doesn't sound as cool, and also it's a spoiler (Hades hates Zeus! News at 11)! Also it was based off another movie of the same name (remake madness ftw), though I haven't seen it, so I can't say whether that movie was any better with following myth than this one was.
The narrator in the movie is Io (in myth: a nymph that Zeus seduced and a former priestess of Hera). She says she was "cursed with agelessness" by a god that she spurned, but the god's name is never mentioned. (Plot hole! It would be kind of cool to find out what god it was, since any major god might still be prissy enough about it, but in the movie!verse, we know it can't be Zeus.)
In mythology, she was the ancestor of a lot of great heroes, but she had no connection with Perseus; in the movie, it's not clear whether she's a goddess, demi-goddess, nymph, or just a cursed human (she seems to appear and disappear quite well, which would indicate powers rather than her just being a cursed human), but she's there as Perseus' romantic interest. So yeah, WEIRD. Especially considering we see Perseus brought to Argos, where he meets the princess Andromeda, and while he does rescue her, he doesn't stick around to rebuild Argos with her and marry her: he tells her she can be a fine queen on her own (even though a huge chunk of her city just tried to sacrifice her to the ~~KRAKEN~~).
There's a point in the movie when Io gets stabbed (by Acrisius, who has been turned into a big ugly by Zeus and given powers by Hades!) and it seems like she's actually mortal and will die: agelessness doesn't mean immortality or invincibility, and so at movie's end, Zeus "brings her back" as a gift to Perseus for preventing Hades from overthrowing Olympus.
...The whole plot really confused me, because Zeus is the one that told Hades to "release the Kraken!" as punishment upon the humans who wouldn't worship him. Hades thrives not on love and prayer, but fear, so the more people that get scared shitless because of the Kraken, the more powerful he gets. And Hades released the Kraken anyway, thereby getting more and more power, supposedly enough to overthrow Zeus, but Zeus couldn't do anything to stop him without the power of prayer given to him by humans...? I think. So even though Perseus initially was against the gods (Hades for killing his family, and Zeus, for raping his mother in Acrisius' form and leaving her to die), he ended up becoming their "savior!" Something like that; like I said, I'm still confused. Mythology on its own is confusing enough, but when you butcher it in an effort to create a blockbuster, it just leaves big gaping holes everywhere.
What the movie got right:
* Perseus did slay the Gorgon - only in mythology, he didn't do it to defeat any Kraken or anything, he did it because the king of the island where he lived with Danae told him to, as a "present" for a grand banquet. Perseus foolishly promised the king anything he could get, all because he hadn't been able to bring a horse, which was the originally requested gift.
* Gorgon Medusa was cursed by Athena - Except in mythology, Medusa was a vain bitch who thought her hair was awesome, and when Poseidon got interested, Medusa LET HIM do it, on the floors of Athena's temple (not sure if she was a priestess of Athena or was just in the neighborhood or what). Athena was pissed off at the desecration of her temple. In the movie, Athena came across as a heartless bitch who let Medusa get raped in her own temple, despite Medusa's pleas to help her. It's not explained why Athena allowed this (was it only because Poseidon's her uncle?), or why Athena felt that turning Medusa into an ugly, snake-like woman who cursed all men with her stone gaze would be better for Medusa in the long run. Somehow, the temple of Athena ended up in the "Underworld" in the movie, which is why Perseus and his gang had to go there in order to get the head to kill the Kraken to stop Hades to save Olympus to save humanity or something like that.
* Perseus did end up killing Acrisius - In revenge for killing Io, he used the sacred sword of Zeus, which only he could use: it "purified" Acrisius back into his normal form, pre!Zeus-lightning bolting him and Hades corrupting him further, and then he died. So it was almost like Acrisius forgave Perseus for being born and Perseus forgave him for killing Danae or something.
It was a pretty cool action movie, and a halfway decent 3D movie. I liked the music a lot, but perhaps my knowledge of myth--even though they butchered it in the movie, often in bizarre ways that made me go "Bwuh!?"--made it more predictable than it would have been for the average audience member. It was cool, and Sam Worthington's always fun to watch, whether he's blue and got a tail or is speaking Aussie despite playing a Grecian and wearing a skirt, but I wouldn't get it on DVD or anything.
And again: no Titans were clashing at all in the entire film. Boo.
Okay, so we've got Sam Worthington (om nom nom) playing Perseus, one of the many great heroes of Greek myth. In the movie, his mom was killed by an angry king, Acrisius, because Zeus impregnated her (because that's what Zeus did/does). In mythology, Acrisius was actually Perseus' GRANDFATHER, and he was upset that he hadn't had a son. He went to the oracle at Delphi and was told that he would be killed by grandson, but because his daughter (Danae, if you're curious) was not pregnant, he decided to lock her up in an open-air chamber, a bit like a courtyard on high. And well, Zeus can get into any space he likes, and he did!
So right from the get-go, you've got a bizarre twisting of myth. Why make Acrisius Perseus' not-father instead of his grandfather? Supposedly (in the movie) Zeus only slept with Danae to teach Acrisius a lesson for smack-talking the gods. The movie's whole plot seems to be built on the idea that the Greek gods require "love" in the form of worship and prayer from the humans (ironic, considering Zeus supposedly created humans, which is another mindfuck of the mythology that I'll get into later). Basically: if you piss off the gods by not worshipping them, they will find a way to smite you in the most painful way. And Zeus just happened to be quite good at sleeping around and impregnating random women, so that's exactly what he did to Acrisius.
In the myth, it's Danae who names him Perseus, but in the movie, it's a bit weird...the fisherman seems to name him Perseus, since he was found in a floating casket with his late mother, and there didn't appear to be anything on said casket with his (or his mother's) name on it. Also, Acrisius had tried to kill Danae BEFORE she gave birth to the baby, by hurling the casket with pregnant Danae into the ocean (if she wasn't already dead, she certainly was unconscious), but either way: how the heck did baby Perseus even get born? Divine intervention is really the only explanation....
Anyway, baby!Perseus is found by a fisherman and his wife (childless), who take him in. And they live and try and do their best for years, but the ongoing dispute between men and the gods mean that other "god-loving/fearing" humans suffer as a result of those humans who no longer worship the gods. That is to say, the fisherman ain't got no fish.
In the myth, Danae survives to also be taken in by the fisherman (who does not have a wife). The fisherman's brother is the king of the island where they wash ashore, and he has jealousy issues and aims to remove Perseus from the scene so he can have Danae to himself. Not sure if the fisherman ended up marrying Danae or what, but more death and jealousy ensues. GREECE: WE KNOW DRAMA.
Back to the movie! One day, Hades, pissed-off, shafted brother that he is, decides to go attacking the humans who felled the great Zeus statue on the coast where Perseus and his adopted family are fishing. Hades spots Perseus in the boat and, because he's the God of the Underworld or just because he's a mean son-of-a-bitch or whatever, he decides to sink the boat. All but Perseus die, leaving him very mad at the gods. He gets captured by the same Argosian soldiers that had felled the statue, and he's brought to Argos.
Here's a quick bit of extra movie info: we are told that the Twelve Olympians (Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, Athena, Apollo, Ares, Artemis, Aphrodite, Demeter, Hephaestus, Hermes, and Hestia) defeated their forefathers, the Titans, thanks to an all-powerful beast created by Hades, the Kraken. I'm so sick of the Kraken being used as a plot device. The one in the movie, while a sea creature, looks nothing like an actual kraken (a.k.a. a HUUUUGE-ass octopus/squid). But whatever, it's a Greek myth action movie, so who cares? It has to look FEARSOME!
Anyway, this is all rubbish, because the Titans were defeated pretty much by Zeus, which is what enabled him to become the next King of the Gods and therefore distribute the rest of the wealth between himself and his brothers...which why Hades got shafted with just the Underworld and why in the movie, he was pissed off enough to try and destroy his own brother. Zeus' father, Chronos, knew he was going to be defeated by his own son, so he ATE his children as they were born. But his wife, Rhea, managed to get away from him in time to get baby Zeus down to Earth, where he was cared for by nymphs and animals. When Zeus reached manhood (which, for a god, you presume doesn't take very long), he castrated his father and ripped his siblings out of Chronos' stomach: he'd swallowed them whole, so they were all right.
So right from the beginning, we know that there are no "Titans" clashing, because there are no Titans left. The Titans are: Chronos, Rhea, Oceanus, Hyperion, Coeus, Crius, Iapetus, Mnemosyne, Tethys, Theia, Phoebe, and Themis. If you want to include some of their non-Olympian offspring, they also include Eos (the dawn), Helios (the sun), and Selene (the moon); plus Coeus's daughters Leto and Asteria; Iapetus's sons Atlas (the guy who holds up Earth), Prometheus (the guy who brought fire to mankind), Epimetheus, and Menoetius; and Crius's sons Astraeus, Pallas, and Perses.
NOT ONE OF THEM SHOWS UP IN THE MOVIE. NOT ONE.
So why the heck is it "Clash of the Titans," when there are no Titans clashing? Probably because "Clash of the Olympians" doesn't sound as cool, and also it's a spoiler (Hades hates Zeus! News at 11)! Also it was based off another movie of the same name (remake madness ftw), though I haven't seen it, so I can't say whether that movie was any better with following myth than this one was.
The narrator in the movie is Io (in myth: a nymph that Zeus seduced and a former priestess of Hera). She says she was "cursed with agelessness" by a god that she spurned, but the god's name is never mentioned. (Plot hole! It would be kind of cool to find out what god it was, since any major god might still be prissy enough about it, but in the movie!verse, we know it can't be Zeus.)
In mythology, she was the ancestor of a lot of great heroes, but she had no connection with Perseus; in the movie, it's not clear whether she's a goddess, demi-goddess, nymph, or just a cursed human (she seems to appear and disappear quite well, which would indicate powers rather than her just being a cursed human), but she's there as Perseus' romantic interest. So yeah, WEIRD. Especially considering we see Perseus brought to Argos, where he meets the princess Andromeda, and while he does rescue her, he doesn't stick around to rebuild Argos with her and marry her: he tells her she can be a fine queen on her own (even though a huge chunk of her city just tried to sacrifice her to the ~~KRAKEN~~).
There's a point in the movie when Io gets stabbed (by Acrisius, who has been turned into a big ugly by Zeus and given powers by Hades!) and it seems like she's actually mortal and will die: agelessness doesn't mean immortality or invincibility, and so at movie's end, Zeus "brings her back" as a gift to Perseus for preventing Hades from overthrowing Olympus.
...The whole plot really confused me, because Zeus is the one that told Hades to "release the Kraken!" as punishment upon the humans who wouldn't worship him. Hades thrives not on love and prayer, but fear, so the more people that get scared shitless because of the Kraken, the more powerful he gets. And Hades released the Kraken anyway, thereby getting more and more power, supposedly enough to overthrow Zeus, but Zeus couldn't do anything to stop him without the power of prayer given to him by humans...? I think. So even though Perseus initially was against the gods (Hades for killing his family, and Zeus, for raping his mother in Acrisius' form and leaving her to die), he ended up becoming their "savior!" Something like that; like I said, I'm still confused. Mythology on its own is confusing enough, but when you butcher it in an effort to create a blockbuster, it just leaves big gaping holes everywhere.
What the movie got right:
* Perseus did slay the Gorgon - only in mythology, he didn't do it to defeat any Kraken or anything, he did it because the king of the island where he lived with Danae told him to, as a "present" for a grand banquet. Perseus foolishly promised the king anything he could get, all because he hadn't been able to bring a horse, which was the originally requested gift.
* Gorgon Medusa was cursed by Athena - Except in mythology, Medusa was a vain bitch who thought her hair was awesome, and when Poseidon got interested, Medusa LET HIM do it, on the floors of Athena's temple (not sure if she was a priestess of Athena or was just in the neighborhood or what). Athena was pissed off at the desecration of her temple. In the movie, Athena came across as a heartless bitch who let Medusa get raped in her own temple, despite Medusa's pleas to help her. It's not explained why Athena allowed this (was it only because Poseidon's her uncle?), or why Athena felt that turning Medusa into an ugly, snake-like woman who cursed all men with her stone gaze would be better for Medusa in the long run. Somehow, the temple of Athena ended up in the "Underworld" in the movie, which is why Perseus and his gang had to go there in order to get the head to kill the Kraken to stop Hades to save Olympus to save humanity or something like that.
* Perseus did end up killing Acrisius - In revenge for killing Io, he used the sacred sword of Zeus, which only he could use: it "purified" Acrisius back into his normal form, pre!Zeus-lightning bolting him and Hades corrupting him further, and then he died. So it was almost like Acrisius forgave Perseus for being born and Perseus forgave him for killing Danae or something.
It was a pretty cool action movie, and a halfway decent 3D movie. I liked the music a lot, but perhaps my knowledge of myth--even though they butchered it in the movie, often in bizarre ways that made me go "Bwuh!?"--made it more predictable than it would have been for the average audience member. It was cool, and Sam Worthington's always fun to watch, whether he's blue and got a tail or is speaking Aussie despite playing a Grecian and wearing a skirt, but I wouldn't get it on DVD or anything.
And again: no Titans were clashing at all in the entire film. Boo.
