Hey folks, Harry here... Before we get to this absolutely terrific friggin review of David Benioff's screenplay for TROY which Wolfgang Petersen lept from BATMAN VS SUPERMAN when the project began reaching problems and second guessing of casting... along with executive juggling of the screenplay - including the latest report I hear that... Academy Award Winning Screenwriter Akiva Goldsman is script doctoring Andrew Kevin Walker's draft of BATMAN VS SUPERMAN... Ummm... Yeah.... So, rather than dwell on that, let's move on to something geniunely exciting... Wolfgang's film version of the story of TROY. This script sounds great, and if Wolfgang does this justice... it'll be another great historical epic to compare to Diesel's HANNIBAL -- Luhrmann's ALEXANDER THE GREAT with Leonard DiCaprio and the other big epics we've been hearing about. Being a fan of the epic film, all of this is very very exciting... and at least it isn't another bad superhero film from Warner Brothers... Whew... Meanwhile... Scamandrius here has turned in an absolutely breathtaking look, feel and critique to one of the most exciting projects to pop up in some time! I just hope Scamandrius graces us with more writing and analysis of scripts in the future!!!
Hey Harry:
Long time no talk. Anyway, since Troy is now on the fast track at Warner, I thought you might be interested in a review of the script. I've had it for a couple of months now, and like it more each time I read it. I really hope Petersen can pull this one off. Anyway, for purposes of this review, call me Scamandrius. Here it is:
What hath Gladiator wrought? The huge commercial and critical success of that film in 2000 seems to breathed new life into the once moribund historical epic genre, which is potentially great news for those of us who have longed to see the toolkit of CGI used to illuminate the past as well as the future. From Michael Mann's long-delayed Spartans at Thermopylae drama Gates of Fire to the Vin Diesel Hannibal project, every studio seems to have its own entry in the Swords and Sandals sweepstakes. One of the most promising of these is Warners' Troy, recently in the news when Wolfgang Petersen backburnered Batman Vs. Superman to do it instead. Which is ironic, since at its core, the legend of the Trojan War is itself about a battle between two superheroes. In place of the Dark Knight and the Man of Steel, we have swift-footed Achilles versus Hector, breaker of horses - an epic contest of wills and fighting skill that forms the basis of Western Civilization's first literary masterpiece, The Iliad.
And while screenwriter David Benioff (A quick googling of "David Benioff" reveals him to be a hip young New York novelist whose first book is currently being adapted to film by Spike Lee) does bring in the rest of the Trojan War into his 175 page script (from Helen's elopment with Paris to the final sack of the titular city), he wisely kept the battle between these two heroes at the heart of the story he tells.
On one side we have Achilles, a man literally born for battle. As depicted here, he's the most skilled killer of men who ever lived, but not particularly interested in any political causes - only in achieving glory on the battlefield so his name will outlive his death. When Agamemnon sets out to raise an army against Troy, Achilles couldn't care less about retrieving Helen or advancing the Greeks' political agenda. But the chance to be a hero in a war that will be remembered for thousands of years? ThatÃs another matter entirely.
But while Achilles' Bronze Age obsession with honor and glory makes him an intriguing but rather remote figure (until events in the second act turn his motivation to the more straightforward one of revenge), the script's other protagonist, Hector, comes across as a much more modern and likeable hero. A loving husband and father as well as a brave warrior and brilliant military leader, Hector's only moment of weakness comes when he doesn't force his brother Paris to send Helen back to Sparta after they elope. A besotted Paris presents Hector with the choice of letting him keep Helen or send them back together. And knowing it means his brother's certain death at the hands of Helen's husband Menelaus, Hector relents - a fateful decision for himself and his people.
And in one of Benioff's better touches, he actually constructs a plausible motive for what always seemed like a giant hole in the original myth - why the hell didn't the Trojans simply send Helen back? The answer here is that Agamemnon and the Greeks are more interested in Troy's wealth and control of shipping lanes than in getting Helen back.
Other characters are economically drawn but still vivid on the page, even if they don't always track with their mythic counterparts (which is fair enough, given how much the original stories themselves contradict each other. On the Greek side, Odysseus is a cunning tactician and skilled orator, Ajax, a gigantic, vicious brute, Meneleaus a drunken but essentially decent guy. And as in the Iliad, the Mycenaean king Agamemnon comes closest to being the villain of the story, with his lust for power and eagerness to rob his fellow Greeks of their glory nearly leading his people to disaster (his claiming of the captive Briseis sets off Achilles' disastrous withdrawl from the front lines.)
On the Trojan side, old king Priam is appropriately magisterial (and a plum role for a 70ish actor - has anyone called Derek Jacobi or Ian Holm's agents?), if a little too indulgent of his bad boy son. And Paris fulfills his role as history's original lover, not a fighter, yet somehow manages to remain sympathetic throughout the carnage he unwittingly unleashes. Refreshingly enough, Benioff doesn't go the revisionist route of turning the female characters into Xena-esque action heroines. Trojan women Andromache and Briseis remain in supporting roles, while still staying active and interesting. And while Helen's thoughtfulness and self-loathing over her own role in the deaths of thousands may strike some as incongruously modern, it's actually true to Homer's own original portrayal of her.
And while some Homer fans might balk at Benioff's changes (a few of the famous heroes die very differently than they do in myth), we still get most of the highlights from the Iliad onscreen - the fight over the captured priestess Briseis, Achilles sulking in his tent ("like some guy from Chile," to quote The Tick's Handy), the duels between Paris and Menelaus and Hector and Ajax, Hector's heartbreaking farewell to his wife and son, and finally, the duel to end all duels itself, the fight between Hector and Achilles outside the walls of Troy. And many of the best scenes and lines are pure Homer - Hector's disavowal of bad omens with his declaration that "to fight for your country is the best omen," Achilles' refusal of Hector's entreaties to fight fair, and Priam's ransom of his son's mutilated body all come across as particularly vivid.
But enough of the political background and character details. How are the battles? At least in this draft of the script, they're amazing. If Warner Brothers isn't afraid of a hard R rating and Petersen employs some decent master shots instead of chopping everything up into indecipherable bits and pieces a la Ridley Scott, this could set the new high water mark for pre-modern combat in cinema that Gladiator narrowly missed. There are three major setpiece battles between the Greek and Trojan armies, all tense and bloody but each sufficiently unique to avoid repetition. Iliad readers might miss the lovely little mini-biographies Homer composed for each hero as he described their deaths in excruciating detail, but what we get in the script is still an unflinching depiction of what happens when sharpened bronze meets human flesh and bone.
If Petersen pulls this off, this has the potential to be one of the best duels in the history of cinema, because unlike the tiresome hero/villain dichotomy of so many Hollywood films, we care deeply about both men, even while we know that one must die.
So what are the flaws with the current screenplay? While a certain amount of compression of characters and events is necessary with an event as huge as the Trojan War, the story sometimes suffers by trying to shoehorn in all the major plot points (abduction of Helen, raising of the Greek Army, wrath of Achilles, Trojan Horse). And after 50 pages of buildup, the Trojan War itself seems to take place over a long weekend rather than the ten years of legend.
Other touches feel like early draft problems, such as a failure to foreshadow the otherwise wimpy Paris' skill with a bow, so his Legolas-like feats of archery in the third act feel out of the blue instead of set up. Hopefully these will be addressed as the script is polished on its way to production next year.
Of more concern is the fact that the very nature of the myth means that the story peaks and feels finished with the climactic Hector/Achilles duel, but the screenplay goes on for another 25 pages to deal with the legendary Trojan Horse and fall of the city. One almost wishes the author had covered them with a brief epilogue instead. And the actual ending (with a clever borrowing from Virgil's Aeneid) that Benioff's come up with here comes across as a bit feel-good for what's Western literature's first and arguably greatest tragedy.
Finally, one wishes for a bolder touch in places, such as the depiction of the Greeks' and Trojans' relationship to their gods, who were so active in the Iliad but nowhere to be found in Benioff's screenplay.
While leaving Zeus and Apollo offscreen was probably a wise touch, it would have been nice to see how the characters treated them as an active if unseen presence in their lives. And it also might have been fun for Benioff to have woven into the screenplay some of the recent archaeological discoveries regarding Troy and late Bronze Age Greece (Troy's likely status as a vassal state to the Hittite Empire and pawn in an ongoing struggle between the Hittites and Mycenaean Greeks, for example).
But these are all pretty minor quibbles with what's by and large a confident, hugely entertaining screenplay.
If Petersen's skill at executing the story matches his passion for the project, and Warner Brothers can manage to not destroy what they loved about the script in the first place during the development process (never a given in Hollywood, unfortunately), this could be one for the ages. Which is only appropriate.
After all, it was German adventurer and businessman Henrich Schliemann, who with his excavations at Hissarlik on the Turkish coast near the end of the 19th Century revealed the physical reality of Troy to the world. Could it be that another German at the dawn of the 21st is about to do the same for the legend of Troy? Fingers crossed.
