Troy

It killed the Sword & Sandals revival of the early aughts, but laid the groundwork for Game of Thrones.

Photo by Tayla Kohler on Unsplash

Every famous story teller has a bad day.

Shakespeare’s bad day happened sometime in 1602 when he put down his quill and announced he’d completed Troilus and Cressida.

Troilus and Cressida is based on the Iliad, one of the most influential pieces of literature in, well, all of history.

The Iliad is an epic poem (probably) written by Homer.

The Iliad is what made Achilles, Agamemnon, Ulysses, Helen of Troy and many others into characters that would endure for millennia.

The Iliad takes place during the Trojan War, which (probably) happened 3200 years ago and (probably) played a pivotal role in the development of the ancient Greek ethno-cultural identity.

It (definitely) played a role in teaching people not to accept gifts from strangers.

Globe theatre-goers were (probably) ecstatic when they heard Shakespeare was adapting the Iliad but were (definitely) disappointed when they got to see it.

The Plot: The titular Troilus is a Prince of Troy and Cressida is his true love.

They marry but then Cressida is carted off to Greece against her will.

Troilus promises to rescue her and does attempt it, but when the two meet again, Cressida has a Greek lover and no interest in revisiting her past.

Also: Achilles, the toughest warrior from ancient Greek mythos, turns out to be gay.

Needless to say, this version of the Trojan War did not go down well with Elizabethan audiences, or Jacobean, or Victorian, or Modernist and it most definitely bombed in front of Neo-Classical crowds.

But in the post-modern era, Troilus and Cressida was re-examined. Its bleak outlook on war and fickle characters resonated with readers who just got out of World War II.

I say readers, not audiences because the play largely remained unperformed.

It was no longer offensive, but it was still way too long and kind of boring.

402 years after Shakespeare’s attempt, Hollywood adapted the Iliad into a very expensive blockbuster called Troy.

And just like Troilus & Cressida, it really pissed a lot of people off. But it wound up getting re-examined a lot quicker.

The Plot: King Agamemnon (Brian Cox) has succeeded in uniting the warring city states of Greece through his own Machiavellian scheming and the brute force of Achilles (Brad Pitt) a one-man killing machine so lethal people think he’s a god.

Just across the harbor from newly unified Greece is another kingdom named Troy.

King Priam of Troy (Peter O'Toole) realizes that his new neighbors might cause trouble so he decides to get ahead of it and broker a peace treaty.

Then he throws a big party and voila, Greece and Troy are buddies now!

…..That is, until the next day when Priam's son Paris (Orlando Bloom) starts looking really sheepish and asking questions like "You'd still love me no matter what I did, right?"

Turns out Orlando fell in love with the Greek queen Helen of Sparta (Diane Kruger) and smuggled her home.

This makes Paris's older brother, Hector (Eric Bana) super pissed because now the peace treaty is totally ruined!

But the rest of Troy is so charmed by the new squeeze they start calling her 'Helen of Troy' and resign themselves to a Greek invasion.

Which is what happens pretty much immediately because King Menelaus of Sparta (Brendan Gleason) is seriously angry and demands that Agamemnon avenge him.

So, war it is.

But Agamemnon has underestimated the Trojans, particularly Hector, who rises to the occasion and drives the first wave of the Greek invasion back into the sea.

Agamemnon realizes that if he doesn’t want to get creamed, he'll need Achilles but Achilles is being all "Casey at the Bat" about this war and spends his time hanging out with his naive cousin Patroclus (Garrett Hedlund).

So, Agamemnon decides it's time to play dirty.

He convinces Ulysses (Sean Bean) to secretly recruit Patroclus into the war, disguise him as Achilles and pit him against Hector.

And when that plays out exactly the way you’d expect, Achilles goes bananas, starts murdering Trojans and the playing field is evened!

But there's more

Much more

And they're not anywhere close to building that horse yet!

Troy was released in 2004, which was a great time to be making microbudget films about time travel and documentaries about overeating fast food, but a terrible time to be making a big budget Hollywood epic.

With the debatable exception of the Harry Potter movies, the general public was not into complex characters and multiple story lines.

As Roger Ebert succinctly put it “It was an era of Sped Up and Dumbed Down”.

Critics hated Troy.

They mostly saw it as a cynical attempt to cash in on Gladiator’s success.

They also felt that it resembled a 50s sword and sandals film in a bad way. Wooden performances, stilted dialogue and a bizarre absence of sex and violence in a story that is all about sex and violence.

This foul judgment shrouded Troy for months after its premiere, but as it moved onto VOD and DVD release perception started to change. To many Troy was an impressive digest version of the Iliad that managed multiple plot lines very well.

I saw the film for the first time last June and I kept thinking, “this is okay, but this whole historical-soap opera/part myth-part fact/synthesized-dialogue sort of thing was done so much better on Game of Thrones.” And then the credits rolled and Troy’s sole screenwriting credit went to David Benioff

And then I thought “Oh.”

I’m (probably) not recommending Troy.

There’s lots of interesting things about it, but much like Troilus and Cressida, it’s too long and kind of boring.

But do remember that without this film, Tyrian Lannister, John Snow and Daenerys Targaryen would never have made it to HBO.

And while not a huge success, Troy did manage to become the eighth most successful movie of 2004.

Number seven was Meet the Fockers, but still

The Tea: There was no tea in the ancient Aegean.

So, in lieu of a traditional option, Troy is best enjoyed with yerba-maté, the Argentinian loose leaf tea that is served in spherical cups and sipped through a metal straw. It’s impossible to chug yerba-maté, which is good, because you need a drink that will last all 163 Minutes of this film.

The metal straw will make you feel thoughtful and scholarly and less likely to give up on Troy when it starts getting dull.

The Snack: No shortage of authentic ancient Greek Cuisine! To put yourself in the right frame of mind for Troy, eat what the ancient Greek warriors ate, Black Broth.

To make some, bring pork blood to a slow boil and remember not to add any seasoning. Alternately, you can burn a pig carcass on a sacrificial pyre and stew the leftover ashes.