How accurately is The Movie Troy portrayed?

Answer 1

The movie Troy takes much of Greek mythology and oral story telling and tradition roles it up and tells a story very different from that which has been passed down to become the Illiad. To compare either Troy or the Illiad with what happened in a true historic sense would be foolish. An army camping in an area and laying seige to a city for 10 years is impossible, disease or lack of supplies would devastate one side or the other. The Illiad was composed hundreds of years after the war that inspired it, was passed down as oral tradition for many years after that so it cannot be relied on as a source, plus it deals with the Greek gods as the true actors behind the conflict.

So a true comparison should only be attempted between the Illiad and the movie Troy. The Illiad only describes a few days during a 10 year war. The build up to that point is something that the story teller assumes his audience should already be familiar with, so he does not cover it in the story. The movie Troy covers the build up to the war and then the war happens over the course of a few days. Some of the main points are shared between the Illiad and Troy: the antagonism between Achilles and Agememnon over a woman, the death of Achilles cousin at the hands of Hector, the fight between Hector and Achilles and Priam the King of Troy coming to the Greek camp to take his son's body back all occur in both versions but not in exactly the same manner.

There are many differences though. The Illiad contains descriptions of the funeral games after the death of Achilles cousin, Troy does not. There are two warriors named Ajax that fight for the Greeks in the Illiad neither dies during tha story, Troy has only the larger Ajax who Hector kills.

The biggest difference is one many people make in regards to the ending of the Illiad. Don't go looking for the Trojan Horse in the Illiad, it's not there. The Illiad ends after Priam recovers Hector's body so the funeral rights can be carried out inside Troy. All the things about the death of Achilles, the use of the Trojan Horse and the fall of Troy do not occur in the Illiad, they exist elsewhere in Greek tradition.

Overall I liked the movie Troy. It actually does a good job at telling a fairly interesting story. Everyone knows what it is based on and it is not named the Illiad so I can forgive the differences between the movie and the story, they are not the same thing. Besides I think that Homer like any good story teller would embellish on his story and alter it to fit his audience. The Illiad was never a work of non-fiction historical scholarship, it was meant to be an entertaining work of historic fiction, and because we still tell versions of this story today I think Homer did a pretty good job.

Answer 2

The 2004 movie Troy attempts to portray the battle of Troy as a historical event. The epic ancient Greek poem the Iliad presents the battle as a mythic struggle among the Greek gods and goddesses, with the mortal warriors playing a secondary role. The Iliad describes the battle as lasting ten years, while the movie implies the battle lasted only a few days. The Iliad describes the primary human characters as mythic warriors seven feet tall with super-human strength, while the movie shows these same characters as brooding members of opposing gangs.

The historical reality is that Troy competed with other ancient Greek city-states and may very well have been attacked by one or more of its competitors. Both the epic poem and the movie present wonderful artistic visions that have scant basis in history.

PS - I thought Brad Pitt made a wonderful Achilles.

Answer 3

The story of Troy is based on stories that were passed down through generations by word of mouth - as such it's impossible to say what really happened. (Archaeological sources suggest that there was in fact a war bewteen Greece and Troy, but it was a trade war rather than being about Helen of Troy.) Eventually these stories were written down around the 8th century BC into the Iliad - this is what the film Troy is basically based on. There are lots of innacurate details, but the gist of the story is basically right.

Answer 4

Monkeymanelvis had some very good points. Also to be remembered, the Trojan War lasted for seven years, not seven days, and both Agamemnon and Odysseus were constantly working to keep the Greek armies from leaving out of frustration. At the end, giving the sword of Troy to a stranger named Aeneas was a nice touch (the founder of Latium, later to become Rome), but in the Aenead (by the Roman Virgil) Aeneas was actually one of the many younger sons of Priam, King of Troy.

Answer 5

The movie Norbit accurately portrays Eddie Murphy's ability to shoot himself in the foot. He was practically an Oscar contender, but then Norbit came out and the Academy was horrified, and the possibility of an Oscar evaporated. Norbit may go down as the movie that killed his career.

Answer 6

If you mean, how similar was the movie to its source, The Iliad, the answer is "not much."

If you mean, how archaeologically correct was it, the answer is "even less."

The whole thing looked as if Hollywood had raided every prop drawer and warehouse for leftovers from every historical drama ever made about any era at all, and jumbled it all together. I particularly liked the llamas in the crowd scene; the ultimate touch of happy unreality.

Answer 7

I once read the "Illiad" by Homer {a hard read} and the story has been hollywoodized but not too much. The charactors are all pretty much the same. On accuracy I give it an 80%.

Answer 8

There were some discrepancies.

For example - the Trojan high priest advised against bringing the horse into the city whereas he was protrayed as being eager to bring it in.

Answer 9

Very inaccurate indeed.

Examples:
- iron weapons were not available in the bronze age
- Ajax died at sea
- Some characters who died in the film were not killed in the battles
- other characters who survived were killed in the battles

Answer 10

Actually, it's pretty accurate. Just minor discrepancies basically.