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Helen of Troy
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Posted by: Rob Helmerichs

Attention historical epic buffs! The first part of the USA miniseries of Helen of Troy just showed up on my To Do list.

From what I've seen, this might be better than usual...I think they spent some money on it, and it looks gorgeous. By the way, the Guide Data does not distinguish repeats of the first episode, so you'll have to manually prune if you go the Season Pass (or Wishlist) route.

Posted by: IJustLikeTivo

Are you sure this isn't a trojan horse? I'll go search for it. I love history stuff. One of the first "grownup" books I read as a kid was about Schliemann and his discovery of ancient troy.

Thanks for pointing this out.

IJLT

Posted by: jwjody

I'm looking at USA's page on this and in the list of character's there is no Odysseus or Achilles.

I've been looking forward to this for months, since I saw the previews on USA, but how can they tell this story without those two characters?

I'm sure there are going to be others significantly absent but those are two big ones that come to mind.

Jody

Posted by: WinBear

IMDB shows someone named Joe Montana as Achilles, but no Odysseus.

Posted by: Rob Helmerichs

Odysseus wasn't a major character in the Iliad, was he? I thought he popped up in the Odyssey...

And the preview I saw had somebody getting shot in the heel, so Achilles (or somebody very much like him!) is there.

Posted by: Graymalkin

So who's playing Helen? I hope to God it's not Nia Vardalos! They'd have to call it "My Big Fat Greek Siege."

Let's all hope that the Greeks and Trojans managed to remember the fine art of bikini waxing that was so well known in the ancient Egypt of "The Scorpion King."

:D

Posted by: Rob Helmerichs

She's a babe.

Never heard of her before (and can't remember her name), but she's a babe.

Posted by: jhausmann

quote:
Originally posted by Medieval Guy
She's a babe.

Never heard of her before (and can't remember her name), but she's a babe.

That rules out Nia...

Posted by: jwjody

quote:
Originally posted by Medieval Guy
Odysseus wasn't a major character in the Iliad, was he? I thought he popped up in the Odyssey...

And the preview I saw had somebody getting shot in the heel, so Achilles (or somebody very much like him!) is there.

He wasn't a giant part of the Iliad but he had some big parts. He didn't want to go to war and was hiding out, but somehow he was found and didn't want to go without Achilles, whose mother was dressing him up like a woman so he wouldn't have to go. Odysseus found him and took Achilles with him.

Odysseus has some important roles later. If nothing else they should have the character in there with some sort of line thrown at him about not getting lost on his way home.

J

Posted by: Chris Roberts

Odysseus will be in it. Here is the URL for the credits on the official site...

http://www.usanetwork.com/movies/he...oy/credits.html

Posted by: DLiquid

Cool, Stellan Skärsgard. He's like the Swedish Chris Cooper. Very good actor. I have to check this out.

Too bad it's not quarterback Joe Montana, he was great in the TiVo commercials. ;)

Posted by: DLiquid

quote:
Originally posted by MalachiNY
Anyone else watching this one?

Its a mini-series that premieres on USA sunday night.
Looks well made...but ive been fooled before...

Ill try it any way!

The Sesson Pass dont know which episodes are new or reruns so you'll have to watch that.

Anyone know the premiere nights & hours???

My TiVo guide data for this is confusing. It looks like they're airing the same episode several times over a few days. Does anyone know what day/time each new episode premieres? Is it Sun-Mon-Tue, three Sundays in a row, what's the deal?

Posted by: Rob Helmerichs

It's a two-parter, Sunday and Monday, with lots of repeats. The Guide Data cannot distinguish; they all show up as generic episodes, so TiVo plays it safe and tries to get them all.

Posted by: Chris Roberts

Sun 8pm is the first part. Monday 8pm is the second part. Anything between those is a repeat of the first part.

Posted by: spartanstew

quote:
Originally posted by Chris Roberts
Sun 8pm is the first part. Monday 8pm is the second part. Anything between those is a repeat of the first part.

8 pm EST

Stew

Posted by: innocentfreak

Was this any good? My father asked me to tape it, and I no longer have my VCR hooked up, so I need to know if it is worth the trouble.

Posted by: sieglinde

It is OK. Pretty cheesy but OK.

Posted by: DLiquid

Bummer, I was hoping it wouldn't be cheesy. Oh well, it's on my TiVo so I'll check it out tonight.

Posted by: jones07

Come on guys. This is a USA channel miniseries we are taking about. Cheesy is their middle name

Posted by: Rob Helmerichs

...and it was a fairly fine cheese...

Posted by: DLiquid

I only watched the first half, but I really liked it. It's no Gladiator, but for a TV miniseries this is good stuff. Rufus Sewell does a very good job as Agamemnon. I'll definitely watch part 2.

Posted by: Chris Roberts

I've only seen the first part, but it doesn't seem bad to me. In fact I'm going to step out on a limb here and say I liked it.
I was glad they included the judgement of Paris by the three goddess's. Since that's really where the Trojan war started (or the seeds for it anyway).

Posted by: Hunter Green

Thread necromancy alert -- I only just got around to watching it.

Overall I was pleased with how true to the original it was. No matter who makes something like this, certain adaptations have to be made for the medium, audience, and timeslot, but with USA making it, I expected there to be a lot more "adaptations" than that. But I got every sense that the creators knew the original story, respected it, and even when they had to deviate from it, did so for good reasons.

They left a lot less out than I expected -- for instance, I figured Theseus would be dropped, as the story works fine without him. Even when they did leave stuff out, they often "winked" to those of us familiar with the original story -- like Theseus's comments to his unnamed (in the movie) friend about Persephone.

About the only modernization I didn't like was the unnecessary use of that camera thing where they monkey with the frame rate during action scenes, which they did a few times, most noticeably when Paris was fighting for his bull. The use of "bullet time" was a lot less gratuituous than most of the time it gets overused, but even so, it was also unnecessary.

Probably the biggest let-down was the casting for Helen. No actress can be the most beautiful woman in history, sure -- neither in terms of actual looks, nor acting ability to make up some of the gap. One must use equal parts of "unseen mystical force" and "suspension of disbelief". But even so, there are plenty of actress, and not just A-list actresses, that could have outdone Sienna Guillory on both looks and acting. Don't get me wrong -- she was a competent actress bordering on good, and plenty sweet on the eyes, but not quite "Helen of Troy" levels on either. They could have done better.

All in all, it could have been a little better, but it could have been a lot, lot, lot, lot, lot worse.