A true story

[Amusement Gal]

wait, your avatar is awesome so is this really a bad thing?

Yes, because I took it from someone else...?

[morgana]

There's a reason I have a spot on, head-desk inducing Valley Girl impression.

One of the few good (?) points about my ex-stepdaughter is that I now can do a really scary Valley Girl impression. Absolutely terrifying from a 60-year-old woman.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Our professor took great pleasure in showing how often they did that in the movie Troy when we were covering the Iliad. Now that we're on the Odyssey, he's having more fun popping in completely random movies to show just how directly people steal from the classics. )

My husband had this theory that the old movie The Warriors, which is one of our favorites, was based on the Odyssey. Turns out, he was close, it was evidently based on another lesser known classic piece of that genre, the name of which escapes me at the moment.

And, of course, Oh Brother Where Art Thou, which was pretty blatantly and openly based on the Odyssey.

[Amusement Gal]

One of the few good (?) points about my ex-stepdaughter is that I now can do a really scary Valley Girl impression. Absolutely terrifying from a 60-year-old woman.

I also have a similarly creepy, 'peppy' voice, like a high strung cheerleader. And a very happy and possibly demonic sounding giggle... No one bothers you when you use it though!

[LadyAndreca]

My husband had this theory that the old movie The Warriors, which is one of our favorites, was based on the Odyssey. Turns out, he was close, it was evidently based on another lesser known classic piece of that genre, the name of which escapes me at the moment.

And, of course, Oh Brother Where Art Thou, which was pretty blatantly and openly based on the Odyssey.

O Brother Where Art Thou was the movie for today, since we were comparing how the "Cyclops" translated into "modern". It was fascinating which details were kept--by claiming to be 'man of God', Big Dan could be said to be something of a shepherd, and the rules of hospitality and host and guest obligations were there.

It was interesting to me that both that and the 1997 miniseries "The Odyssey" bought into Odysseus' claim that the Cyclops was ugly and lawless--a fact we've spent two full classes now debating.

[El Pollo Guerrera]

My husband had this theory that the old movie The Warriors, which is one of our favorites, was based on the Odyssey. Turns out, he was close, it was evidently based on another lesser known classic piece of that genre, the name of which escapes me at the moment.

I just had a mental image of Luther clanging the beer bottles together and saying...

"Oooodyyyyseussss..... come out to PLAAAAaaaayyyy....."

[Geek King]

My husband had this theory that the old movie The Warriors, which is one of our favorites, was based on the Odyssey. Turns out, he was close, it was evidently based on another lesser known classic piece of that genre, the name of which escapes me at the moment.

That would be Anabasis. Its a great military drama/heroic epic about a group of Greek soldiers who get trapped far behind Persian lines when the rest of the army is destroyed, and follows their trials while trying to return to Greece. There are actually a good many movies that have adapted aspects of it for plot. Good stuff.

[terakhan]

Disney: No story goes un-sugar-coated.
Fairy tales, history, it doesn't matter. They will make it cute, add a handful of songs, and jam it down our throats.

[ThirdGenRetail]

"Whoa! Really??? Next time I go to Virginia, I am SOOO looking for that talking tree, cuz like, trees live a long time."

Don't forget those GIANT, SOARING cliffs taller than sky scrapers! You know, the last 11 years, I've been wondering just WHERE they are... Maybe the settlers ground them down into this beach of ours... [/sarcasm]

Somebody on another forum actually swore up and down Disney's Mulan was a ploy to get girls to be un-girly I don't think he had ANY idea that it was based on historical fact(With a magic dragon tossed in, and actually WAY more condensed - The real Mulan served for many years before she was discovered)

[Merriweather]

Don't forget those GIANT, SOARING cliffs taller than sky scrapers! You know, the last 11 years, I've been wondering just WHERE they are... Maybe the settlers ground them down into this beach of ours... [/sarcasm]

Somebody on another forum actually swore up and down Disney's Mulan was a ploy to get girls to be un-girly I don't think he had ANY idea that it was based on historical fact(With a magic dragon tossed in, and actually WAY more condensed - The real Mulan served for many years before she was discovered)

I've heard they chose the story in response to people wanting them to show a female lead that didn't depend on the "prince" to rescue/take care of them/live happily ever after with, for once.

Not sure if it was Disney or another studio, but I was horrified years ago to learn someone actually considered the life of Anastasia as appropriate basis for an animated tale for the young. Never saw, it just could not get past how innappropriate a subject it was, so I don't know details, but have heard they basically just took the "she's a pretty princess" theme and ignored everything else. But geez.

[Kogarashi]

Not sure if it was Disney or another studio, but I was horrified years ago to learn someone actually considered the life of Anastasia as appropriate basis for an animated tale for the young. Never saw, it just could not get past how innappropriate a subject it was, so I don't know details, but have heard they basically just took the "she's a pretty princess" theme and ignored everything else. But geez.

Having seen and actually liked it on its own merits (Christopher Lloyd/Jim Cummings playing Rasputin is pretty awesome to me), it's more that they took the "what if Anastasia actually survived like some people think" angle and made the story out of that. There's very little Disney-style "pretty princess" in it, as I recall. And it's done by Fox, not Disney, though lots of people get it confused.

Besides, it's got con men.

[Pagan]

But, like, don't you know that like Columbo was like the first person to like discover America, and like George Washington like freed the slaves? Like oh my gawd..seriously...

Ok if I don't stop that I am going to have to punch myself in the face...*shivers* .

Like, totally, like, gag me!

A friend of mine saw a teenage girl in the bookstore decline to read the book adaptation of Dances With Wolves because "The movie was like way long and she didn't want to do that much reading."

Honestly, I have never seen it and don't want to because of my dislike of Kevin Costner. Won an Oscar for that, got too big for his britches, and promptly sank "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" despite the stellar cast that surrounded him.

My French advisor in college referred to it as "Cha-Chas with Coyotes".

"Whoa! Really??? Next time I go to Virginia, I am SOOO looking for that talking tree, cuz like, trees live a long time."

They're the ones left from Middle Earth....

Some movies are close but then they change some of the story for dramatic impact. Many war movies will combine two or three people into one character so you don't have as many faces to remember.

This is exactly why I can't watch "The Tudors". Especially with what they've done with Henry VIII's sisters, Margaret Tudor (wife of James V and grandmother of Mary, Queen of Scots and Lord Darnley) and Mary Tudor (Queen of France and grandmother of Lady Jane Grey). They combined them into one person and made her Queen of Portugal!

I don't get why they do this when what really happened is oh-so-much-more interesting.

[tropicsgoddess]

This is like saying Hercules was correct, and I am not overly familiar with Greek mythology. >.<

Seriously, why do people think that any movie is going to portray history correctly?

Disney never makes anything right...but Ms.Valley Girl Teenybopper seemed to think so.

[Ironclad Alibi]

Don't forget those GIANT, SOARING cliffs taller than sky scrapers! You know, the last 11 years, I've been wondering just WHERE they are...

Those cliffs are still there. It's just that global warming is melting the ice caps, and the water level has risen so the cliffs aren't as high.

You can get science from the movies as well as history.

[emax4]

You mean Star Wars was not, like um... ?? didn't ruhlly happen?