Meanderings In The Mesozoic
Tuesday, July 20, 2004
  I sense a disturbance in The Force...
This post is a continuation of this.

As a Christian who also happens to be very fascinated with the multitude of lifeforms that once inhabited this planet long before humans walked the Earth, I am often caught up in a storm of arguments for and against evolution. And while I openly proclaim myself a Theistic Evolutionist, i.e. one who believes in both the existence of a God and that evolution does occur, it riles me to no end when Creationists and fellow Christians resort to half-truths, occasional outright lies, withholding of valuable information, out-of-context quotes, irrelevant and illogical arguments, and already-refuted points, and much hysterical arm-waving and hollering to strengthen the case for the story of creation, which, to put it mildly in my point of view, is complete bullshit.

Now I don't want to start a flame war or end up polarising my readers into 2 opposing camps, but all I have to say is that, at present, all the evidence points out that the Earth is indeed several billion years old, and that over the eons, the shape of life has not been immutable and permanent, but that organisms have been continually changing ever since time immemorial.

Follow this link to an article in Scientific American, for 15 rebuttals to some of the common Creationist arguments.

I have chosen to reproduce here the introduction to the essay, as well as a few of the other more pertinent points. The entire article is 7 pages long, so read the entire article only if you're really interested in the creation vs. evolution debate, which actually IMHO, isn't a real debate, but the whinings of a proportion of the population who would apppear to worship the book of Genesis more than they worship God Himself, and who choose to ignore all the evidence that exists all around us. But don't quote me on that.

15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense
Opponents of evolution want to make a place for creationism by tearing down real science, but their arguments don't hold up

By John Rennie

When Charles Darwin introduced the theory of evolution through natural selection 143 (Ivan: now it's 145) years ago, the scientists of the day argued over it fiercely, but the massing evidence from paleontology, genetics, zoology, molecular biology and other fields gradually established evolution's truth beyond reasonable doubt. Today that battle has been won everywhere--except in the public imagination.

Embarrassingly, in the 21st century, in the most scientifically advanced nation the world has ever known, creationists can still persuade politicians, judges and ordinary citizens that evolution is a flawed, poorly supported fantasy. They lobby for creationist ideas such as "intelligent design" to be taught as alternatives to evolution in science classrooms. As this article goes to press, the Ohio Board of Education is debating whether to mandate such a change. Some antievolutionists, such as Philip E. Johnson, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley and author of Darwin on Trial, admit that they intend for intelligent-design theory to serve as a "wedge" for reopening science classrooms to discussions of God.

Besieged teachers and others may increasingly find themselves on the spot to defend evolution and refute creationism. The arguments that creationists use are typically specious and based on misunderstandings of (or outright lies about) evolution, but the number and diversity of the objections can put even well-informed people at a disadvantage.

To help with answering them, the following list rebuts some of the most common "scientific" arguments raised against evolution. It also directs readers to further sources for information and explains why creation science has no place in the classroom.


Among some of the excellent rebuttals to the points argued again and again in Creationist websites and propaganda are:

4. Increasingly, scientists doubt the truth of evolution.

No evidence suggests that evolution is losing adherents. Pick up any issue of a peer-reviewed biological journal, and you will find articles that support and extend evolutionary studies or that embrace evolution as a fundamental concept.

Conversely, serious scientific publications disputing evolution are all but nonexistent. In the mid-1990s George W. Gilchrist of the University of Washington surveyed thousands of journals in the primary literature, seeking articles on intelligent design or creation science. Among those hundreds of thousands of scientific reports, he found none. In the past two years, surveys done independently by Barbara Forrest of Southeastern Louisiana University and Lawrence M. Krauss of Case Western Reserve University have been similarly fruitless.

Creationists retort that a closed-minded scientific community rejects their evidence. Yet according to the editors of Nature, Science and other leading journals, few antievolution manuscripts are even submitted. Some antievolution authors have published papers in serious journals. Those papers, however, rarely attack evolution directly or advance creationist arguments; at best, they identify certain evolutionary problems as unsolved and difficult (which no one disputes). In short, creationists are not giving the scientific world good reason to take them seriously.

5. The disagreements among even evolutionary biologists show how little solid science supports evolution.

Evolutionary biologists passionately debate diverse topics: how speciation happens, the rates of evolutionary change, the ancestral relationships of birds and dinosaurs, whether Neandertals were a species apart from modern humans, and much more. These disputes are like those found in all other branches of science. Acceptance of evolution as a factual occurrence and a guiding principle is nonetheless universal in biology.

Unfortunately, dishonest creationists have shown a willingness to take scientists' comments out of context to exaggerate and distort the disagreements. Anyone acquainted with the works of paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard University knows that in addition to co-authoring the punctuated-equilibrium model, Gould was one of the most eloquent defenders and articulators of evolution. (Punctuated equilibrium explains patterns in the fossil record by suggesting that most evolutionary changes occur within geologically brief intervals--which may nonetheless amount to hundreds of generations.) Yet creationists delight in dissecting out phrases from Gould's voluminous prose to make him sound as though he had doubted evolution, and they present punctuated equilibrium as though it allows new species to materialize overnight or birds to be born from reptile eggs.
When confronted with a quotation from a scientific authority that seems to question evolution, insist on seeing the statement in context. Almost invariably, the attack on evolution will prove illusory.

6. If humans descended from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?

This surprisingly common argument reflects several levels of ignorance about evolution. The first mistake is that evolution does not teach that humans descended from monkeys; it states that both have a common ancestor.

The deeper error is that this objection is tantamount to asking, "If children descended from adults, why are there still adults?" New species evolve by splintering off from established ones, when populations of organisms become isolated from the main branch of their family and acquire sufficient differences to remain forever distinct. The parent species may survive indefinitely thereafter, or it may become extinct.

9. The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that systems must become more disordered over time. Living cells therefore could not have evolved from inanimate chemicals, and multicellular life could not have evolved from protozoa.

This argument derives from a misunderstanding of the Second Law. If it were valid, mineral crystals and snowflakes would also be impossible, because they, too, are complex structures that form spontaneously from disordered parts.

The Second Law actually states that the total entropy of a closed system (one that no energy or matter leaves or enters) cannot decrease. Entropy is a physical concept often casually described as disorder, but it differs significantly from the conversational use of the word.

More important, however, the Second Law permits parts of a system to decrease in entropy as long as other parts experience an offsetting increase. Thus, our planet as a whole can grow more complex because the sun pours heat and light onto it, and the greater entropy associated with the sun's nuclear fusion more than rebalances the scales. Simple organisms can fuel their rise toward complexity by consuming other forms of life and nonliving materials.

13. Evolutionists cannot point to any transitional fossils--creatures that are half reptile and half bird, for instance.

Actually, paleontologists know of many detailed examples of fossils intermediate in form between various taxonomic groups. One of the most famous fossils of all time is Archaeopteryx, which combines feathers and skeletal structures peculiar to birds with features of dinosaurs. A flock's worth of other feathered fossil species, some more avian and some less, has also been found. A sequence of fossils spans the evolution of modern horses from the tiny Eohippus. Whales had four-legged ancestors that walked on land, and creatures known as Ambulocetus and Rodhocetus helped to make that transition [see "The Mammals That Conquered the Seas," by Kate Wong; Scientific American, May]. Fossil seashells trace the evolution of various mollusks through millions of years. Perhaps 20 or more hominids (not all of them our ancestors) fill the gap between Lucy the australopithecine and modern humans.

Creationists, though, dismiss these fossil studies. They argue that Archaeopteryx is not a missing link between reptiles and birds--it is just an extinct bird with reptilian features. They want evolutionists to produce a weird, chimeric monster that cannot be classified as belonging to any known group. Even if a creationist does accept a fossil as transitional between two species, he or she may then insist on seeing other fossils intermediate between it and the first two. These frustrating requests can proceed ad infinitum and place an unreasonable burden on the always incomplete fossil record.

Nevertheless, evolutionists can cite further supportive evidence from molecular biology. All organisms share most of the same genes, but as evolution predicts, the structures of these genes and their products diverge among species, in keeping with their evolutionary relationships. Geneticists speak of the "molecular clock" that records the passage of time. These molecular data also show how various organisms are transitional within evolution.


There's more arguments, and you can read the whole article here.

Thirsty to find out more on the evolution and creation debate? Visit the following:

Talkorigins is the one-stop website that clears up the muck stirred up by the Creationists.

A blog (of sorts) that discusses and debates evolution.

An innocuous question about Answers In Genesis sparks off a long, protracted debate, with victory (of sorts) going to the evolutionists.

A statement-by-statement rebuttal to an entire article spawned by a Creationist.

After a while, the arguments all sound the same. This is what you get when an entire school of thought rehashes and recycles its arguments ad nauseum, even when it has been thoroughly refuted and disproved by the evolutionists.

I don't want a petty little thing like how the world came to be to detract from the glory of God (yes, atheists and non-Christians, go ahead and roll your eyes), so why is it that some people will go to extreme lengths just to accuse evolutionists of being evil blasphemers who don't believe in God and who will all burn in Hell? And I find it extremely distasteful that information is deliberately withheld, that Creationist science (an oxymoron itself) is force-fed and indoctrinated into schoolchildren and being preached as the truth, even when its lies have long been exposed.

Pah. Reading all that Creationist nonsense again irks me to no end. Shall reserve a true rant on this subject for another time.
 
Saturday, July 17, 2004
  "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture – it’s a really stupid thing to want to do."
Or so says Elvis Costello. *shrugs shoulders*

Check out Agagooga's analysis of the sorry state of modern music, entitled "Why I Dislike Modern Music".

A disclaimer from Agagooga himself:

Please note that the title of this page is "Why I Dislike Modern Music", and not "Why anyone who likes modern music is a crass idiot who deserves to be shot". Few may agree with my intensely subjective opinions, but I retain the opinions anyway. Also, the following points do not all apply to all genres of modern music.

Non-modern music is by no means immune to all of these, but it suffers from the symptoms below to a much lesser extent.


Check it out here.
 
Friday, July 16, 2004
  Selections from mr brown's SNE 100
More gleanings from the wise words of mr brown. Check out the rest of his hilarious Singapore National Education series #100.

I have also learned lately:

  • That with Xbox Live, Microsoft's new online gaming service, you can select a gamertag or userID of your choice. Tempting choices include:

    -leekuanyew (so your friends can boast that they just whooped Lee Kuan Yew's ass in Return to Castle Wolfenstein)

    -wa_si_chow_angmoh (so that when play with Westerners online, they will be dissing themselves every time they call your name)

    -hokkienexpletive_wa_eh_lao_bu (so that whoever calls your name online will be saying something rude about their mother)

    -a_chao_ah_gua (so that when people lose to you, you have to say you have been beaten by a_chow_ah_gua)


  • That military commanders need their Mercs and Audis to communicate their commanding presence to their troops.

    If you need an easily identifable car to inform the troops their commander has arrived on site, wouldn't it be cheaper to paint a Land Rover pink and decorate it with Christmas lights? And if that is not enough, put bunny ears on it.

    "The position of Mindef... was that there were practical reasons for allotting high-end models to some officers... Military commanders, it said, need the cars to rush back to camp or anywhere else in an emergency, and to make their presence felt among their men.

    It said: 'An easily identifiable car helps to communicate the commander's presence. The presence of the car informs the troops that their commander is now with them even as they carry out their training and operational duties.'" -ST 11 May 2004.


  • That not long after Singapore's Great Western Blackout, in a bid to keep up with us, Kuala Lumpur had a power blackout too, on the 19th of April. Anything Singapore can do, like have a power failure, Malaysia also boleh.

    While Singapore's blackout happened in the dead of night in an ulu part of the island, KL had theirs during the morning rush hour, right smack in the city centre.
    Singapore will have to work harder if they want to beat KL at having disasters. Damn, they're good.


  • That government-linked building firm Synergy Construction has been wound up and is under investigation by CAD for "severe accounting irregularities". Synergy's majority shareholder is Jurong International, whose parent company is JTC Corporation.

    Creditors are now angry because they extended generous credit terms to Synergy on the basis of the prestigious and reliable name of JTC. Synergy owes hundreds of creditors more than $40 million.

    Hello, you think what? Government-linked company cannot pok-kai one ah?

    You know the shit has hit the bulldozing machine when even Government-Linked construction companies are going under.


  • That according to Reuters, Singapore's PM is known as Goh Chok. All hail our Prime Minister, PM Tong.

    Stupid Angmohs. Cannot even get Asian names right.

    "Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair (L) looks on as his Singapore counterpart Goh Chok slips on the doorstep at Downing Street in London, May 11, 2004. REUTERS/Kieran Doherty"


  • That North Korea has condemned the United States on human rights.

    "More countries joined the international community during the last few days in condemning the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers and urging the punishment of the perpetrators.

    The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Saturday described the United States as "the world's worst human rights violator and a graveyard of human rights for its violation of international law and the Islamic ethics and culture."

    It said the United States should settle all its human rights issues before acting as the "world judge of human rights."

    You tell them, Great Leader Kim Jong Il (or better known as Lil' Kim).


  • That a nursing mom was asked to leave the Esplanade premises because what she was doing, breast-feeding her kid, was deemed offensive to other members of the public.

    I think the real reason was that the Esplanade, like our cinemas, do not allow patrons to bring in outside food.
Here's to 100 more SNEs!


 
  Lessons from being a year older
Plagiarised from mr brown.

As I've matured, I've learned:

You cannot make someone love you. All you can do is stalk them and hope they panic and give in.

No matter how much I care, some people are just assholes.

It takes years to build up trust, and it only takes suspicion, not proof, to destroy it.

You can get by on charm for about fifteen minutes. After that, you'd better have a big weenie or huge boobs.

You shouldn't compare yourself to others - they are more screwed up than you think.

You can keep puking long after you think you're finished.

We are responsible for what we do, unless we are celebrities.

Regardless of how hot and steamy a relationship is at first, the passion fades, and there had better be a lot of money to take its place.

No matter how you try to protect your children, they will eventually get arrested and end up in the local paper.

Never, under ANY circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved (and never will achieve) its full potential, that word would be "meetings".

There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."

People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.

When God, who created the entire universe with all of its glories, decides to deliver a message to humanity, HE WILL NOT use, as His messenger, a person on cable TV in a bad suit, with a bad hairstyle.

You should not confuse your career / job with your life.

No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too seriously.

When trouble arises and things look bad, there is always one individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command. Very often, that individual is crazy.

Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.

Never lick a steak knife.

Take out the fortune before you eat the cookie.

The most powerful force in the universe is gossip.

You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.

The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers.

The main accomplishment of almost all organized protests is to annoy people who are not in them.

A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.

Whatever hits the fan will not be evenly distributed.

Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.

It is not what you wear; it is how you take it off.

Sweat the petty things, and not pet the sweaty things.

Age is a very high price to pay for maturity.

I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy it.

Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

99% of the time when something isn't working in your house, one of your kids did it.

There is a fine line between genius and insanity.

The people you care most about in life are taken from you too soon and all the less important ones just never go away. And the real pains in the ass are permanent.

Your family and true friends love you, no matter what.

Author unknown
 
  I WIN
Ha! Think you could get me so easily? You forgot the power of Google!

As you can see, a semblance of normality has resumed here. Now for me to do my re-posting on the other blog...
 
Thursday, July 15, 2004
  Down, but certainly not out.
No little hacker is going to stop me.
 
Wednesday, July 07, 2004
  Latin Prayer of Death, my ass...
Are you totally sick and tired of receiving nonsensical chain mails? I am. And while Friendster is totally lame, at least some people have chosen to post their nonsense up on their Friendster Bulletin Boards, instead of clogging up our email inboxes.

Well, the most recent one is the totally retarded Latin prayer of Death. Apparently, you're supposed to repost it in your bulletin, otherwise your family members will die within the year.

RIGHT...

This is a latin prayer. And
you have
opened it.
And because you did open it, you will repost
this
bulletin if you do not want the members of your
family die in a year's time. I'm not kidding
around. You do have the option to ignore this
message and death knocks at the door of your
family. Have fun! P.S. Don't change the SUBJECT
TITLE of the MESSAGE. Adios! Avada Kedavra!

THE PRAYER OF DEATH:
El tiquira con vosotros mes tera dima ul
kevadra,
ses avada, mi jubilo con de los requerrimos,
unta
de pondresita kon cantamos, remanso tu sus lomis
enta dira ela proteuera, lumos esta di ridikula
pontre se mundo de adios. mustros monda, el
tiquiera. Cada vez que elevamos nuestras voces
en
alabanza y adoración al Demoño, es necesario que
lo hagamos bién, entendiendo lo que le estamos
diciendo. Es por ello que la Palabra de Dios nos
enseña que debemos usar nuestro intelecto para
entonar cánticos al Satanas. Es tan sencillo
como
comprender lo que estamos cantando. Es procesar
cada palabra que estamos entonando, haciéndola
brotar desde nuestro corazón, y dirigirla a
nuestro paliente. Recuerda que no estamos
cantando por cantar, ni estamos entonando
cánticos para escuchar lo bonito que se oye. No,
estamos dándole la Alabanza a nuestro Dios. Él
es
el objeto de nuestra alabanza.Él es la razón por
lo cual cantamos, por lo que sonamos nuestros
instrumentos de punyeta. No podemos estar
cantando a la ligera sin darle el peso que
merece
estar cantándole a Dios. Que las palabras no
salgan de nuestros labios, sólo porque nos
sabíamos la letra de tal o cual canto, sino que
sea brotando desde nuestro corazón, expresando
al
Señor todo lo que Él es para nosotros. Si vamos
a
entonar un canto que diga por ejemplo: "Tu
eres
Bueno", que realmente estemos comprendiendo
lo
bueno y maravilloso que Él es con nosotros. Si
estamos diciendo: "Tú eres grande y
fuerte", que
todo nuestro ser lo esté proclamando. Si estamos
cantando: "El gozo que el Señor ha puesto
en
mí",
¿estaremos en una actitud de seriedad o de
tristeza?. Al contrario, debemos expresar lo que
estamos diciendo, por lo tanto debemos estar
contentos, gozosos y sonrientes al proclamar
estas verdades. Y si estamos cantando:
"Enciende
una Luz y déjala brillar", ¿Porqué hay
algunos
que elevan sus brazos? Éste canto, al igual que
muchos otros, son para cantárselos a nuestros
hermanos, en alabanza al Señor (Alabanza es
hablar de Él a otros). En cambio si estamos
entonando un canto que diga: "Tú eres
Santo,
Santo, Santo", ahora es cuando debemos
elevar
nuestras manos y nuestro corazón al Señor y
adorarle. Debemos usar nuestra inteligencia al
cantar alabanzas, es muy importante. No
olvidemos
que "Grande es Jehová y digno de ser en
gran
manera alabado". por lo tanto debemos
alabarle
como Él lo merece, con todo nuestro corazón y
cantando con el entendimiento , proclamando y
declarando lo que Él es. Si estamos celebrando
que Cristo ha vencido a todos nuestros enemigos,
entonces alegrémonos y declaremos con toda
convicción ésta verdad. Si estamos cantando que
nos rendimos a Él, pues que sea una realidad y
que Él gobierne verdaderamente sobre nuestras
vidas. Yo te animo a que uses tu inteligencia al
momento de cantar y entrarás en una nueva
dimensión de la Alabanza de nuestro Dios. Avada
Kedavra. Nema.


SHAME ON YOU, if you actually thought that this had any grain of truth to it.

Agagooga has posted a wonderful tirade against all the idiots and fools who have been bo liao, naive and gullible enough to believe in such retarded nonsense.

Stupidity knows no bounds (repost of a Friendster bulletin I put up)

Now, the few of you who are still actively using Friendster might have seen an alleged "Latin Prayer" being circulated on Bulletin Boards lately. Amazingly, this chain letter (or prayer, if you like) has powers of magnitude more powerful than all the other chain letters out there. While those only threaten to leave you shagless, loveless or at most kill you, this one has power over the lives of your whole family. Wow, just imagine that.

I would like such amazing power too. Not to put a death curse on the families of all the idiots who read my obviously fake chain prayer, but to emotionally blackmail gullible fools into wasting bandwith, pissing sensible people off and making other foolish nincompoops circulate the balderdash that I've written around the world!

How stupid are you? Do you really believe some rubbish posted on a Friendster bulletin board which you haven't even read and can't even understand, can have an effect on you?

Sheesh, the bastard who started this ridiculous joke couldn't even get his facts right - the damn thing isn't even in Latin, for Pete's sake. Latin does not have upside down question marks, tildes or other squiggly signs over the letters. Everyone has actually been forwarding a Spanish prayer (of sorts). Hell, it isn't actually a prayer, more of a homily about how to pray, part of which reads: "No, we are giving the Praise to our God. He it is the object of our praise.It is the reason thus we sang, reason why we sounded our instruments of [untranslated word: punyeta]. We cannot be singing to the light one without giving the weight him that deserves to be singing God to him." No part of the homily says anything about death.

If you were only stupid enough to believe in this nonsense, you can still be forgiven. But if you actually reposted this chain "prayer", you are not only stupid, but horribly evil. Is it not enough for your family to die? Do you want the families of all your "friends" (up to all 500 of them) to have a curse of death over them? Shame on you. You deserve to go to hell. Or you would if it existed (and millions of innocent people were condemned to burn there for all eternity by a "loving" god, but that is another rant for another day), so I will just excoriate you selfish and malicious people here.


Ivan's comments: Well said. Well said. Personally, I think that there are too many stupid people who are being allowed to breed. It's about time that we, the self-proclaimed intellectual elite, step in to stop this abject wasting away of the human brain.

So please, dear readers, think twice before you follow the advice written in some silly little email or Friendster bulletin board post. Do you seriously believe that a little bunch of 0s and 1s can really affect your life and your destiny so much? Oh, come on...
 
Tuesday, July 06, 2004
  She's menstruating? Shh......
A really hilarious post on Kotex from Skin Talk. Check out some of the other discussions and articles from their website, which touch on various topics you don't exactly discuss with your parents over dinner.

A Kotex Rant

Last night I saw a commercial about Kotex pads with new 'whisper-quiet' wrappers. Apparently not only is menstruation a dirty little event to be hidden from boys, it's also so filthy and embarrassing that the crinkle of a pad-wrapper in a public restroom is a shame to be avoided at all costs.

I thought I'd seen everything when I saw the Tampax commercial about the leaky boat plugged with a tampon by a quick-thinking girl in white pants. (Remember that one?) What is with you people? For God's sake, it's only menstruation! It's not like we leak hydrochloric acid every month!

Check out Kotex.com's menstruation FAQ page. It starts out bad ("Mother Nature has a really twisted sense of humor. 9 times out of ten, she'll make your period fall on a weekend.") and gets even worse (the first 'question' is, "What's your most embarrassing period story?") Thanks a lot, Kotex. That's really helpful and supportive.

The ad copy for the 'whisper-quiet wrappers' is equally embarrassing.

Shhh...

Enjoy quiet time. With improved KOTEX® Ultra Thin with Wings. Now with a whisper-quiet, clothlike pouch — the quietest pouch you can get! Less crinkling. Less crackling. Less embarrassing! Plus, they now have more than 10% bigger wings. Now that's what you call quiet comfort. Ahh ...

Human women are the only mammals on earth that have the menstrual cycle. Other mammals are locked onto the estrus cycle, which means they only get freaky when there's a chance of pregnancy. Human woman can have sex for non-procreative reasons (which include social bonding, cheering up, and my personal favorite, breakup sex.) Dolphins, chimpanzees and bonobos have nonprocreative sex too, but they don't have the menstrual cycle.

When did menstruation become so frightening? Feminine hygiene commercials always talk in euphemisms. Just once I'd like to hear a Tampax commercial start out with, "Okay. So your pussy's leakin' blood. Here are your options." Instead, what I get is white pants, women running through fields of daisies and plugging leaky boats with tampons.

I swear to God, the next time I'm on the rag, I am going to make as much noise as I can in the bathroom. I'll crinkle my tampon wrapper and just for good measure, yell, "I'm BLEEDING!" over the stall wall. I might even fake an orgasm when I put my tampon in.

To hell with whisper-quiet.


Ivan's comments: Nothing much, although I do keep pondering as to why diaper ads and sanitary pad commercials always use some nondescript blue liquid to show their absorbence. Maybe Magdelana Cruz-Ferreira, my EL1101E lecturer, was right; it's just a way to present things without grossing out the viewers. It's all in the mind...

But Rachel has thoroughly spoiled my appetite for McDonalds' starwberry sundae; never mind, I've spoiled her taste for mayonnaise or tartar sauce anyway.
 
Sunday, July 04, 2004
  Bullshit in a China Shop - a rant by metastasis
Read this excellent post by metastasis, who posted a wonderful and scathing commentary on this editorial written by News Editor of The Straits Times, Bertha Henson, warning of the danger that China girls pose to the very moral fabric and integrity of our society, and how they will corrupt and pollute the purity and soul of our men and disrupt the sanctity of our wonderful Singaporean marriages. And to think that this appeared in The Straits Times? Gee, I thought only The New Paper was fit for this sort of subjective journalism?

Why those China girls worry me
By Bertha Henson

THINKING ALOUD

IN THE basement of the Golden Mile shopping complex is a very popular coffeeshop that specialises in steamboat meals. I go there often. So do China girls.

On Sunday afternoons, lithe young women with straight long hair will be there, accompanied by their heartlander men.

You can tell them from Chinese Singaporean women because they are fairer and slimmer. And once they speak, well, that's that.

They are there too in top-class lounges in top-class hotels. Lithe and lanky, but better-dressed than their kopitiam sisters, they hang onto the arms of men I recognise as members of the establishment.

They are everywhere and they make me uncomfortable. In fact, all the recent news about China women makes me uncomfortable.

Here's a sample:

China women staking out coffeeshops in Geylang, or hanging out in Chinatown and outside MRT stations, and openly offering their sexual services.
China women swopping elderly folks' savings for plastic bags of red apples.

China women vanishing from tour groups in Singapore and ending up in the vice trade or other illegal work.

Is this China woman phenomenon something to be concerned about? I think so.

Their approach to living and thinking seems so different from the ways of the people here.

We are no strangers to vice, and men here know where to look for their bit of fun. And the women who service them do so discreetly.

The aggression of these China women, on the other hand, is astounding. They pounce on men in broad daylight.

One reader called to complain that one girl opened the passenger door of his car while he was waiting in it. She got in, buckled up and made her pitch.

It seems that the Singapore man, young or old or fat or ugly, is a ticket to the good life for some China girls.

And Chinese Singaporean men do fall for them, if anecdotal evidence is anything to go by. I just hope they are bachelors who have finally found love.

I acknowledge that for some women, desperation drives them into the trade. We have heard it all: the need to feed the family back home, put children through school, tend to sick parents.

One prostitute from China told of how she had been duped by her boyfriend into giving his potential employers sexual favours. He left her high and dry, and she now works for a pimp.

A sad story, but it does make you wonder about the kind of people we are letting into the country.

The fact is, Singaporeans are getting mightily miffed about the problem.

Shopkeepers in Chinatown, for example, are dismayed by the presence of China women because they are keeping legitimate customers away. The women worry about dirty old men looking them up and down, while the men worry that their wives will misunderstand their presence there.

The China girls' presence in Geylang is upsetting even brothel owners because the girls negotiate their own rates.

The single-mindedness with which they seem to pursue their prey is so at odds with everything that most of us here have been brought up to believe in.

And there are simply too many stories of marriages wrecked because the husband has a mistress from China.

I suppose some people would argue that nothing should be done, and that the men should either get their kicks or get what they deserve - depending on how you look at it.

I disagree.

There is no way of counting the lives that have been wrecked by these women.

And if there is - rightly - such a fuss about the lives that will be ruined by a proposed casino, this issue deserves a more thorough looking at as well.

There have been some government moves recently to contain the number of China nationals here. For one, it has turned off the tap for construction workers from China (men though) and quietly dropped an experiment to introduce China maids in homes.

When the private education boom here brought not just China students but also their mothers, restrictions were placed on what sort of jobs these 'study mamas' could moonlight in.

While visa rules have been relaxed, there is still a security bond that agencies have to put down in case their China visitors 'vanish'.

The Immigration and Checkpoints Authority declined to give figures on tourists from China who have 'disappeared'. One can only speculate that it is a sizeable problem, or it would be no big deal for the ICA to say the numbers are negligible.

The number of tourists from China in the month of May, by the way, was about 70,000, and the target for this year is 770,000.

There are, I'm sure, men who go missing as well. And I am sure those that do aren't giving away free lessons in biculturalism.

It is time to put a stop to it. We cannot close our borders, but a way must be found to make sure the tourists we let in are really here for the sights.

Right now, Singapore tour agents rely on agencies approved by the Chinese government to vet customers and make sure they are genuine. Obviously, this is not working as well as it should.

One idea would be to get Singapore firms themselves to set up offices in China to do the vetting.

There is talk that Malaysia will require single China women below the age of 25 to be accompanied by a family member if they want to enter Malaysia. If they are married, their husbands must accompany them.

Should we go the same route?

I say we should think seriously about copying the move.

Or is the China tourist dollar so big that we will look the other way?

I hope not, because, at the risk of sounding old-fashioned, the moral structure of our society does not need to come under further strain.

So can we please stop importing more problems than it can take?




Ivan's comments: I can just imagine PC Lee standing up and then in mock respect, clap his hands and shout "Whoah!!!"

Wahahahahaha...

Er... I thought such an abject and subjective display of xenophobia was generally frowned upon in Singapore?

You can always respond to this article by emailing the writer at bertha@sph.com.sg

And now, for metastasis' commentary:

Bullshit in a China Shop

[EDIT: I wrote this in one huge rantstorm late at night and so I've ended up editing my original post in places. I haven't mentioned it where I've rewritten for style (and I deleted one whole section and rewrote another where I realised I was rambling on about nothing), but factual corrections are indicated just like this.]


Why those China girls worry me
by Bertha Henson


In the INSIGHT section of all things. Let's have a look.

IN THE basement of the Golden Mile shopping complex is a very popular coffeeshop that specialises in steamboat meals. I go there often. So do China girls.

What a great start. 'In the basement of the mall I go to is a Dairy Queen. I go there often. So do niggers and other filth.'

On Sunday afternoons, lithe young women with straight long hair will be there, accompanied by their heartlander men.

You can tell them from Chinese Singaporean women because they are fairer and slimmer. And once they speak, well, that's that.

They are there too in top-class lounges in top-class hotels. Lithe and lanky, but better-dressed than their kopitiam sisters, they hang onto the arms of men I recognise as members of the establishment.

They are everywhere and they make me uncomfortable.


I'm not surprised! They are, after all, lithe and young and fair and slim and well-dressed and they sleep with powerful men and get paid for it. Every last one of these 'China girls' and 'China women', apparently. I frankly would not have guessed it; all my mainlaind Chinese tutors have been middle-aged and auntie-ish, and though there was a bit of sadism involved I can't say I got much of a kick out of it.

In fact, all the recent news about China women makes me uncomfortable.

Some relatively recent news alarms me too. But of course they deserved it because China women are all dirty whores.

(Not really salient, but too good to pass up.)


Here's a sample:

China women staking out coffeeshops in Geylang, or hanging out in Chinatown and outside MRT stations, and openly offering their sexual services.


'Openly' being the key word in, well, this whole editorial.

China women swopping elderly folks' savings for plastic bags of red apples.

Which no local criminal would ever dream of doing, no doubt.

China women vanishing from tour groups in Singapore and ending up in the vice trade or other illegal work.

This is not a significant separate sample; this is what allows them to commit those horrendous acts in the first place. Listing it on it's own is like listing what makes a murder so evil as being 1) killing someone, 2) illegally buying a gun to kill someone, 3) illegally buying bullets for the gun, 4) using stolen change to take a bus to go and do the killing. . . . More concisely, it's like listing, under 'social problems caused by people smuggled in on boats', the item 'illegal entry on unlicensed boats'.

Is this China woman phenomenon something to be concerned about? I think so.

These 'phenomena' are certainly something to be concerned about for many real reasons. None of which are really touched on here—it's all morals, morals, morals with a side of I-shouldn't-need-to-see-this. [EDIT: In retrospect, more like the other way round.]

Their approach to living and thinking seems so different from the ways of the people here.

. . . who mostly did not have take up loans and leave their families and country to illegally immigrate to a foreign country where they have no legal or social status and have to sell their sundry holes to fat sweaty men for money.

Wake up. This is not just a lifestyle choice we've got here.


One reader called to complain that one girl opened the passenger door of his car while he was waiting in it. She got in, buckled up and made her pitch.

That is desperation or greed. Both are very ugly and not unique China Girl v. 1.7 features.

It seems that the Singapore man, young or old or fat or ugly, is a ticket to the good life for some China girls.

And of course non-China girl prostitutes only go for the handsomest, most morally upstanding ones who just happen to be out for 'a bit of fun'. And naturally all these other prostitutes do it out of altruism.

And Chinese Singaporean men do fall for them, if anecdotal evidence is anything to go by. I just hope they are bachelors who have finally found love.

Yes. The johns are completely innocent; it's those dirty harpies who are at fault. But they can turn good with the firm, Asian Values-guided hand of just the right upstanding young man who just happened to accept an offer of illegal, hot, wild, commercial sex—just for a bit of fun.

While we're at it, ban the spaghetti-strap all around. It causes rape. [EDIT: In retrospect this wasn't the best comparison, since of course the prostitute isn't innocent either. But the reasoning's still the same: it's not the man's fault. The woman made him do it. He had no choice. The Edenic view of immorality.]


I acknowledge that for some women, desperation drives them into the trade. We have heard it all: the need to feed the family back home, put children through school, tend to sick parents.

You acknowledge it the way George W. Bush admits the existence of civilian casualties in Iraq.

One prostitute from China told of how she had been duped by her boyfriend into giving his potential employers sexual favours. He left her high and dry, and she now works for a pimp.

A sad story, but it does make you wonder about the kind of people we are letting into the country.


'I mean, when I grew up my daddy promised me a pony, and then he BROKE HIS PROMISE. And I've had to live amidst an immoral, slowly decaying society all my life. And I'm really not paid enough to write such long meandering columns. But never once did I succumb to the temptation to become some sort of. . . some sort of DEVIL WOMAN! At least not an indiscreet one.'

The fact is, Singaporeans are getting mightily miffed about the problem.

Shopkeepers in Chinatown, for example, are dismayed by the presence of China women because they are keeping legitimate customers away. The women worry about dirty old men looking them up and down, while the men worry that their wives will misunderstand their presence there.


This is the stupidest of stupid reasons why the increase in prostitution by illegal Chinese immigrants needs to be looked at. [EDIT: On second thoughts it actually isn't. It is a valid concern, at least for the shopkeepers and women. The men must have really sad marriages if their wives would think that.]

The China girls' presence in Geylang is upsetting even brothel owners because the girls negotiate their own rates.

Not only are they upsetting the common people, they're upsetting conscientious, ethical and (though I hate to be this repetitive) above all discreet professionals in the tits and cunts and arseholes business. Quite beyond the pale.

The single-mindedness with which they seem to pursue their prey is so at odds with everything that most of us here have been brought up to believe in.

Yes. We don't have 'prey', we have 'goals' and 'career landmarks' and 'CVs' and 'jobs we hate but keep because of the money and the promise of a better life'. Not at all similar.

And there are simply too many stories of marriages wrecked because the husband has a mistress from China.

Nothing to do with the husband, of course. He was just a passive observer.

And hang about, what's this mistress stuff got to do with the 'China girl' issue? Not much at all. Red herring, we meet again.


I suppose some people would argue that nothing should be done, and that the men should either get their kicks or get what they deserve - depending on how you look at it.

I disagree.

There is no way of counting the lives that have been wrecked by these women.


Yes, since we have yet to introduce a working scale to measure what amount of wreckedness is due to 'China women' and how much due to near-Priapic men.

And of course you have no interest in tallying up the number of women whose lives have been wrecked by the business. Just pack them up and send them back to China. . . where all women are like that.

The rest of the piece I cannot quarrel with since it largely sticks to factoids and possible solutions. [EDIT: I retract that. I didn't notice the bit where she suggested it be made compulsory that Chinese women be accompanied in by their husbands or male family members. This suggestion should be taken out back and shot.]

All in all, what riles me is this

1) Unnecessary stereotyping—why 'China girls' and 'China woman' all the time? Why not 'China prostitutes' or something? And since the article supposedly deals with a specific issue, why bring in the 'mistresses from China' bit? Because they're from China too?

2) Male chauvinism—it's never the man's fault. The prostitutes are the predators and the men are the prey. The mistresses are the marriage-wreckers and the husbands are among the wreck-ees. And when the men 'fall' for the hooker's tricks, why, maybe they found love. If a man wrote this article, he would be lynched.

3) The emphasis on 'discreetness'—if prostitution is so immoral, and wrecks so many lives, why isn't the writer going after prostitution in general? That's like allowing murder if you do it indoors. It means the writer doesn't really care about 'the moral structure of our society'; she just doesn't want to have to face up to what really goes on in it. Everything must look nice and be presentable; everything must look decent. Asian values for you.

You know, ma'am, that itching in your rear is not Satan tempting you with foulness. It's a stick insect trying to get out.


Ivan's comments: Now I remember why I hardly read the papers these days. And if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go listen to China Girl by The Usual Suspects one more time.
 
Thursday, July 01, 2004
  All I Want For Christmas Is A Life-size Sarcosuchus...
This post is in relation to this.

Well, I guess you're wondering, what do I expect out of a dinosaur model kit? Well, for your assistance, especially since there's still quite a bit of time till Christmas and my birthday (BIG HINT), here's a few websites for your browsing interest...

Taburin's Dinosaur Sculptures
You think sculpting your very own dinosaur model kit is easy? Well, this person makes dinosaur skeletons out of wood. No, not those cheapskate kinds where the skeleton is simply made up of a few flat pieces of wood that you slot together, this guy carves the entire skeleton out of wood and then joins the various pieces together. You get this:


Suchomimus tenerensis skeleton - with each bone handcrafted out of wood. Posted by Hello

You want to know the amount of time, effort and attention to detail all that involves? Well, just visit this page where he shows you how he makes his dinosaur skeletons from scratch. It's all in Japanese, but I believe the pictures tell you the whole story.

And you know what's the scary part? He's doing all this not to make a living, but as a hobby.

You think that's hardcore enough? This other Japanese guy makes his dinosaur skeletons from... golf balls!

Dinosaurs Made From Golf Balls

Somehow, he manages to use whatever's inside a golf ball as a material to shape and sculpt into a miniature skeleton! And he is so passionate about this, that he has created miniature sculptures of 8 of the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex specimens known to man!


You mean someone made this out of the stuff found inside golf balls?! Posted by Hello

But personally, I'm not that interested in skeletal kits. Instead, I am more fascinated with fleshed-out reproductions and reconstructions of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals, because this is where you can let your imagination run wild, and let your creature take on whatever colouration you give it. And if the sculptor is good, and your skills at modelling competent enough, if you take a closer look you might just swear that the dinosaur blinked at you, or that you could almost hear it breathing...

Anyway, if you are interested in seeing what my expectations of a perfect dinosaur model kit are, you had better check out the following websites. WARNING: Prices are extremely prohibitive, so you'd better be filthy rich before buying any one of these babies for me (Although David Krentz's entire Antediluvia Collection would be really wonderful as a Christmas present ).

Link and Pin Hobbies
One of the best places to look for model kits and fossil replicas of dinosaurs and other prehistoric life, especially for those that are no longer in production.

CM Studio
One of the most prolific modelers and sculptors I have seen so far, although he doesn't seem to be producing any new work lately. I want all 3 life-size sculptures of Gorgosaurus libratus (labelled here as Albertosaurus), Daspletosaurus torosus and Tyrannosaurus rex, then I can have a gallery of Late Cretaceous North American tyrannosaurids in my house! Just kidding.

David Krentz Presentz
This guy is one of those Gods of paleosculpture. I want his Antediluvia Collection! Either that, or his 1/20 scale Gorgosaurus libratus.

Watson Sculptures & Models
Apart from making some really excellent scale models, Doug Watson has also been commissioned to provide life-size reconstructions of various species. His life-size sculpture of a pair of soaring Pteranodon longiceps is not to be missed! There's also a smaller 1/12 scale version for those who do not have as much space as the Canadian Museum of Nature for giant pterosaurs to stretch their wings.

Staab Studios
Gary Staab is the person who did the life-size sculpture of the long-extinct SuperCroc aka Sarcosuchus imperator for National Geographic. Oh my God THAT is a fucking big crocodilian...


Sarcosuchus imperator - A giant relative of today's crocodilians, which roamed the rivers of northern Africa some 110 million years ago during the Early Cretaceous period. Growing up to an estimated length of 12 metres, this was a beast capable of taking down most of the dinosaurs that shared its world. Luckily for these puny humans, this is only a life-size reconstruction. Posted by Hello


Steve Irwin, let's see you wrestle THIS croc! Posted by Hello

Planet Earth Sculpture
Keith Strasser is a name familiar to many dinosaur model kit aficionados, and his attention to detail and his skill in creating lifelike models and reconstructions is almost unparalleled. My personal favourites are his 1/18 scale Spinosaurus aegyptiacus, Allosaurus fragilis and Tyrannosaurus rex and life-size Dimetrodon grandis (Although technically this last one isn't a dinosaur but a pelycosaurian synapsid, a creature closely tied to the beginnings of mammals).

Michael Trcic Studio
Another of those gods of paleosculpture, he always brings out the energy and power of the animals he reconstructs. I especially like his 1/8 scale Daspletosaurus torosus and Styracosaurus albertensis bust, his 1/8 scale piece depicting a trio of Dromaeosaurus albertensis attacking a Lambeosaurus lambei, and 1/35 scale Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops horridus .

Menagerie Productions
Dinosaur model kits are only one of the many things Tony McVey has produced (he was Sculptor for Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace and for Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. He was also Concept Sculptor for Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones.), but the quality of his dinosaur figure kits are of a quality matched by few. These include his 1/18 Gorgosaurus libratus (once again mistakenly called Albertosaurus here; it's a long story I'll tell another time), as well as the 1/30 "Running" Tyrannosaurus rex, and Triceratops horridus. And I especially want this:





The oxidised finish on this 1/40 scale pewter Tyrannosaurus rex skull keychain will soften with use as the high points become polished over time. At 1.5 inches long and weighing 2 ounces, this carefully sculpted mini skull makes for an unusual and eye-catching item. Price is US$5.75 each, domestic UPS Ground shipping included. Chain included, as pictured.

To all my friends, who might be busy scratching their heads over what to give me for Christmas or for my birthday later this year, BIG HINT.
 
  A moment of plagiarism...
Ladies and gents, we kick off the opening of this blog with a post that I plagiarised from In principio erat Verbum Ην αρχη ην ο Λογος, a person with a passion for the Classics, and definitely one who has been very much riled by Troy. OK, I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but this might be for those who are curious with regards to the accuracy of Troy. Enjoy.

"Sir, your wife left ... with the Trojans."

Watched this film last night with a bunch of friends. At the end of it, I heard some girls going "Wah, you mean it's based on a book?". Lady Athena give me strength...

WARNING: Rant ahead. This one's LONG. I don't usually post ultra-long reviews of films like this, but being a Classicist, I've taken this desecration of Homer personally.

What do you get if you start with the first great narrative of Western civilization, then remove all the psychological complexity and profound characterization?

Troy

If you're someone to whom "Homer" means only the stupidest character on The Simpsons, this may not be off-putting. If you think the Bronze Age began when Brad Pitt's tanning bed was delivered, you may not care. And if you know Trojans only as impediments to procreation, Wolfgang Petersen's grandiose, hollow war film may seem like gold. The rest of us may wish he'd plunged head-first into Homer's wine-dark sea and stayed under.

This Iliad purist doesn't know where to start. Let's try starting with the time-frame. Writer David Benioff compressed 10 years of battle into 17 days (I counted) and ignored significant characters.

From the very beginning, where the historical preamble of text explaining the "background" gets shown, I started shifting in my seat. "Greeks and Trojans" they said. Now, even though in English we tend to think of the war as having been between Greeks and Trojans, here wasn't such thing as "Greece" in the times the Trojan Wars took place. "Greece" was a bunch of city-states, led by more or less independent kings: Sparta (Menelaus), Mycenae (Agamemnon), Ithaca (Odysseus), Phthia (Achilles) etc... Those people, by the way, called themselves Achaeans most of the time, and that's what Homer calls them. "Greeks" doesn't appear in the Iliad at all. Agamemnon neither conquered nor unifed Greece. Greece was still a collection of loosely allied kingdoms at the time of the Trojan War. The Greek kings fought to get Helen back because they had all wanted to marry her and pledged each other that they would defend the one who won her hand against any tried to take her away, not because they owed Agamemnon fealty.

First the men. The cast's Achilles heel is its Achilles, who ought to be a heel: arrogant, lazy, stubborn, cruel, deceitful and foolish. Homer created Western literature's first anti-hero in this demigod, upon whom the Greeks' hopes rest despite his long reluctance to fight Trojans. Pitt turns him into a simple, sullen rebel against Greek leader Agamemnon, a generically stolid warrior who wonders in the best tradition of the 20th century crap: "What's all the killing for?" He comes to life only in sword-to-sword combat with Trojan prince Hector (an excellent Eric Bana). The rest of the time, even in bed with the captive Briseis, this Achilles is as wooden as the Trojan horse. Achilles also declines to join his friend Patroclus in bed. Patroclus is his "beloved cousin" rather than, as Shakespeare so piquantly put it, "his masculine whore." And, just to dispel that expectation from the start, our very first view of Achilles finds him in bed with TWO babes. When Achilles bedded Briseis, my friend Anthony very evilly commented, "I hope he's using a Trojan!"

Stupid filmmakers have changed the key to Patroclus' death - in the Iliad, Achilles tells Patroclus to lead the Myrmidons, and is thus responsible for his lover's death. A pity Hollywood didn't have the guts to show Achilles' bisexuality. Would Pitt's female fans still have come to watch a near-naked Brad Pitt getting it on with some guy? Sure, why not? It's not like he's ever going to get it on with most of them anyway. I'll be posting about the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus soon - I'll reread the Iliad and come up with some ideas.

Is it my imagination or is Pitt's designer leather skirt about four inches shorter than everyone else's? Pitt also poses his way through the film. He preens, he prances and he pouts. And when he summons his men in to battle it is with an accent that knows no location on earth. It has a tinge of the British in it so maybe that is where he was aiming. But he doesn't hit that target. His cry outside the walls of Troy - "Heck-tah! HECK-TAH!" sounded like a "can Hector come out and play, Mr Priam?".

No wonder Hector didn't look too worried.

Achilles, who has a strange combination of nearly Matrix-like powers, utter ruthlessness and male lovers in the original poem, has been turned into "Fabio on the beach" in the guise of Pitt (who with a good script and more effort could have turned this into the most complex and original warrior figure Hollywood has ever produced). I must say though, he did look really good with his shirt off, especially the scene where he was conveniently covered in vaseline.

They've removed the importance of Shield Brothers and gotten rid of, surprise surprise, the importance Patroclus has in Achilles' rampage. No idea what I'm talking about? Patroclus and Achilles were lovers, or at the very least, the dearest of "bosom friends" and shield brothers.

At the root of the film's troubles is the Petersen's biggest miscalculation: leaving out the gods. Though the Gods are referred to obliquely, the film keeps them firmly out of sight and mind - the implication being that they aren't there at all. It's Homer as secular humanist. But the Gods are what make the Iliad so grand. To tell the story of Troy without the back story of the Judgment of Paris, for example -- in which the handsome prince is forced to pick between the goddesses Aphrodite, Hera and Athena by giving the most beautiful a golden apple -- is to suck the tale of its vigor. And when Paris challenges Helen's ex-husband, King Menelaus, to single combat and starts to lose, what a difference it makes for Paris to cower in terror and scurry away, as the film depicts, rather than have Aphrodite swoop down and spirit him away, as in Homer's version.

Lost in the translation is the vivacious, compelling tug of war between Gods and mortals. Sure, the Gods are immortal, but they miss out on the joy -- the excitement -- of being alive and knowing you have a finite time on this Earth. Homer's gods meddle, bicker, squabble and, in many ways, are less noble (and more fun) than the humans they try to push around. Even Homer's martial epic would best be subtitled, The Gods Must Be Crazy. In the Iliad, the Gods are a meddlesome bunch -- Zeus, Apollo, Aphrodite and the rest are always zipping down from Olympus to butt into human affairs. Homer would've had no story without them. There would have been no Trojan War because Helen would never have been abducted. Achilles, the story's hero -- and the son of a Goddess -- would have never been born.

Benioff and Petersen made a fatal mistake by excising the gods, who are mentioned vaguely but never interfere with the action. One points of the Iliad is that fate and the immortals rule us, despite our attempts to assert free will; we must be righteous partly because the Gods may end our lives at any time. Hector is Achilles' equal in the Iliad, until the goddess Athena disguises herself as Hector's brother and betrays his trust.

It's vain Aphrodite, goddess of love, who gives the Spartan queen Helen to the Trojan prince Paris, as Helen's his reward for judging Aphrodite winner of a beauty contest.) This infuriates Helen's husband, Menelaus, who convinces his fellow kings of Greece to seek revenge. Without a sense of destiny and divine command behind them, Paris becomes a common seducer and Helen a cheap tart. (The smaller-than-life performances by Orlando Bloom and German actress Diane Kruger reinforce that impression.)

Oh, and what on earth is the temple of Apollo doing on the beach, outside the city walls? That's supposed to be the temple of Troy's patron god. What is this, San Apollo fuori-le-mure?

In just the first half hour of the film, most of the back-story of the Trojan War has been jettisoned. Gone is the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, where the shunning of Eris, the Goddess of Discord, sets the wheels of the Trojan War into motion. Gone are the twin prophets Cassandra and Helenus, who are the voices of reason of Troy. Gone is Hecuba (or Hecabe), the mother of Hector and Paris, who tries to stop her younger child from traveling to Sparta to act on his romantic impulses. Gone is Paris having been exiled from Troy at an early age, due to a prophecy he would lead to the downfall of Troy. Gone is the fact that Paris not only stole Menelaus' wife but much of his wealth as well. Gone is Menelaus calling upon all of Helen's old suitors, who made an oath long before that they would all back Helen's husband to defend her honour. Gone is Agamemnon having to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to Artemis (the twin sister of Apollo) in order to secure safe passage on the oceans to travel to Troy. Actually, much more of the story has been shuffled off, including a lengthy battle against the Teuthranians, whom the Greeks originally thought took Helen, since Menelaus was away at a funeral when Helen was squired away, but who needs all that rich texture when you only have 165 minutes to tell your story, and you wasted the first fifteen setting your hero up as the Grecian Fabio meets Han Solo?

Achilles never really gets a scratch on him even though he is in the thick of a battle full of spears and swords, never mind that he is not revealed to be the son of a Goddess or wearing armor forged by the Gods. He is only a mere mortal here. For anyone who read the poems or is familiar with the stories, there is too much missing.

THE MOST POIGNANT PART OF THE STORY WAS CHANGED! I'm talking about Book 6 where Hector says goodbye to his family... why oh why did they change that?! Go read the Iliad, and you'll see what I mean.

What's left? Not mythology, to be sure, but a rather bland sociology lecture on the realpolitik of power and the human waste of war. Now, such a contemporary sermon is well and good, but ancient Greece ain't the place to preach it. Also, there's carnage, accomplished over and over with the best computer-generated images money can buy. We're treated to at least four funeral pyres and countless scenes of slaughter, which achieve tension and emotional resonance only when a few great foes go one-on-one.

So they've removed the Gods and all hint of the supernatural, but it also includes a reference to Achilles' heel, which, in the absence of the gods, is merely a payoff with no setup. Traditionally, Achilles' prowess is the result of his mother dipping him in the river Styx's Invulnero-Water, since the water makes invincible whatever body part it touches; but since she held him by foot, his heel didn't get the treatment. Also, Paris is given a vision from Athena where she practically holds up a sign pointing to Achille's heel saying "AIM FOR THIS SPOT". Let's not forget Apollo, who's pretty pissed at the Achaeans for having violated his sanctuary and priests, guided the arrow of Paris to Achilles' heel.

Without that having been established, the crucial arrow to Achilles' heel makes us think, "Right. The heel. I remember that. What exactly was it about?" The scene's inclusion is therefore a stupid loose thread left dangling after the story was trimmed and re-hemmed, and his thrashing around when he is hit in his hamstring with an arrow after he has suffered far stronger blows to the rest of his body becomes almost comical.

And what the hell is Achilles doing taking part in the taking of Troy? He's dead LONG before that happens in Homer.

Anthony pointed out quite correctly that the Iliad is about Gods and heroes. This film has humanised the heroes and eliminated the Gods. Epic is about heroes, not humans. It's perhaps unfair to expect contemporary Hollywood moviemakers to do justice to Homer or the legends of the Trojan War that have inspired artists and writers through the centuries. It is definitely unfair to expect Hollywood moviemakers to be comfortable with any notion of honour, even though the behavior of classical heroes like Achilles and Hector is inexplicable without it. However, Troy goes to the other extreme: Belief in the Gods is shown to be absurd, and whenever a character invokes them, he is making a ludicrous mistake.

As a result, the film lacks any sense of fate, destiny or even why this war's heroes should be memorable. Troy takes all the wind out of Homer's sails. This is an epic made by a modernist who doesn't believe in epics. Doesn't believe in the honour of battle, or the status of a tragic hero, or the ideal of romantic love, or the dictates of an omnipotent god.

It's OK to create a political explanation for the Greek expedition, making punishment for Helen's abduction a convenient cover story for Agamemnon's imperial ambitions. But without honour as a primary concern, Achilles' fury at Agamemnon for taking away his lawful prize, the priestess Briseis, doesn't really make any sense.

There's a movingly human scene in the Iliad, one of the most beautiful and noblest scenes from the poemin which Glaucus and Diomedes stop fighting to exchange their armours as a gesture to the ties of hospitality that binds the two. Homer considered Diomedes so important that an entire book of the Iliad is dedicated to him. Unfortunately that scene is absent because they've completely eliminated Diomedes and regal warrior Aeneas does only marginally better - here he's a Trojan teen in a toga who speaks one line. Agamemnon (Brian Cox) sniggers that the foolish Helen has "proved to be very useful" — and he must have fought the urge to stroke his beard like Ming the Merciless. His pettiness cheapens the character's shrewd intelligence. Cox goes so over-the-top as a thoroughly evil Agamemnon that you wonder if he isn't deliberately sabotaging the movie. His performance raises an interesting question: Which is harder to watch, a talented actor giving a performance way below his game, or a really dreadful actor demonstrating for all time his utter lack of talent?

If Troy doesn't put an end to the movie career of Orlando Bloom, there is no justice in movieland. Could somebody remind Bloom that we are in the Homeric Age - not Middle Earth - when using the Bow he morphed into Legolas. All I needed was a Cave Troll to come up and smite the Greeks. After he kills Achilles with an arrow, I was half expecting a voice from below to shout, "that still only counts as one!". Please, Bloom... change professions. You should not be allowed to act, legally. I am amused by the thought that teenage girls might actually buy a copy of the Iliad, perhaps hoping to find an insert with pictures of him. There was that bit when Paris and King Priam are looking at the Horse (it's hideous) left behind by the Greeks, and Bloom comments "burn it, father". I couldn't help thinking "Oh, he HAS to be gay... he has taste".

Sean Bean makes a canny and trustworthy Odysseus of Sparta, although even Cecil B. DeMille himself might have resisted the scene in which the character sees a soldier carving a wooden toy horse and -- say! -- the light bulb goes on over his head. And Australian actor Eric Bana thoroughly atones for last summer's The Hulk with his performance as Hector, Paris's older brother and the most capable and most tragic figure in the entire saga.

The first major battle sequence, with Achilles and his hand-picked Myrmidons storming the Trojan beach, might be exciting if it weren't a flagrant carbon copy of the D-Day opener in Saving Private Ryan. The final scenes, with Achilles searching the dying Troy for Briseis, suggest Titanic. The large-scale battle scenes are impressive, but they suffer by comparison to those in Lord of the Rings (Peter Jackson has made it pretty difficult for directors of epic movies for the forseeable future). Then there's that scene where the Trojans set ablaze giant orbs of thatch and bowl them straight at the massed enemy. Scary it isn't, but you sure do want to sing along: Goodness, gracious, great balls of fire!

Now the women. Diane Kruger's Helen. Ha. She's pretty in a sort of Californian High-School way, but no way would she be a woman for whom a thousand ships were launched. In the Iliad, it says when Helen is in Troy, two old guards catch sight of her and say "it is no shame that men should fight and die for such a beauty as this". I can't imagine that happening with Kruger, who seems to have wandered in from the next-door audition for Eastern European Bond girls.

I read somewhere Catherine Zeta-Jones was a possibility for Helen, and I can imagine a LOT more ships being launched for her. However, Bloom had already been cast as Paris and she would've looked too old for his consort. Pity.

The movie's real erotic object is Pitt's Achilles, really. Just look at the number of times he slowly undresses and washes his body.

They've eliminated Cassandra the priestess. Cassandra was given her powers of prophecy by Apollo, who wanted to gain her favour, but after getting her powers she rejected him. Instead of taking back the powers, he cursed her to never have anyone believe her prophecies. When Hecabe was pregnant with Paris, she had a dream that she gave birth to a flame that destroyed Troy. Cassandra said that the child would destroy the kingdom and he should die. However, the dream was interpreted by someone else the same way, and Paris was taken to a mountain top and left to die of exposure. He was found instead, and raised as a shepherd. Later, when he came back to Troy, Cassandra recognised him and again warned them that he would bring the death of the kingdom. She attacked Helen upon arrival, again warning everyone, and again being unbelieved.

At the end of the Trojan War, she warned the King that there was an army inside the wooden horse, but no one believed her then either, the one with the gift of foresight. She knows what is going to happen, and that is why she tells the Trojans "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts". It's one of the key lines of the Iliad. POOF. Disappeared without a trace. During the sacking of Troy, she was captured by Ajax in the temple of Athena and raped, but since Ajax has been killed by Hector in the film...

Where is Hecuba, the Queen of Troy? They seem to have misplaced Priam's 48 other sons and all 50 of his daughters. I understand that it would be extremely difficult to have them all, but they left out such key Trojan royals as Deiphobus, Polyxena and Cassandra. As I said, I understand leaving these characters for the sake of it being a complex story, but they're not even mentioned.

Helen. Helen was not sent to Sparta to marry Menelaus, she was the daughter of Leda and Tyndareus (previous king and queen of Sparta), her real father was Zeus which explained her beauty. She chose to marry Menelaus out of all the suitors in Greece and the alliance was made upon the suggestion of Odysseus that the suitors agree to join together and stand behind her choosen husband if his right to Helen is challenged .

Briseis? Briseis was not a cousin to the royal family nor was she a priestess of Apollo. Briseis was the wife of King Mynes of Lyrnessus, which was an ally of Troy's. According to mythology, Achilles sacked Lyrnessus, killing Briseis' husband and her three brothers. Achilles then took her as his prize, making her his concubine. He fell in love with her, and during the tenth year of the Trojan war, Agamemnon decimated Thebes, taking Chryseis, the daughter of a priest of Apollo. Apollo got pissed when Agamemnon refused to give her back, and "came down from Olympus darker than night, though he is known as the 'bright one'; and shooting his golden arrows at the Achaean camp, he caused a plague that decimated the army."

Agamemnon was told by Calchas (the same prophet that told him to sacrifice his daughter) that the plague was created by Apollo's wrath over the pain of his priest. Agamemnon agreed to give back Chyrseis as long as another prize was provided to replace her. Achilles, hearing this ridiculed Agamemnon, calling him a schemer, and to punish him for this, Agamemenon took Briseis from Achilles. That is why Achilles refused to fight anymore until Patroclus was killed by Hector.

They've elevated Briseis' existence from chattel (and minor sub-point) to Trojan royalty and a love story. (For goddsakes! A love story!) I am so sick of stories of women who are enslaved and then fall in love with their captors/rapists/enslavers! Hello, where are all those nutty left-wing liberals and feminists when you need them?

They have Briseis kill Agamemnon. Unbelievable. Oresteia, anyone? Hello? Clytemnestra - are you listening? 'Cos if you are, you're going to be really happy... you don't have to kill your husband anymore! Your son doesn't have to come back to kill you anymore! Of all the wrecking of the myth, this is the WORST. This is SACRILEGE. The very idea that Hollywood could so alter one of the greatest tales ever told to say that anyone but Clytemnestra killed Agamemnon is, to use an apt Greek word, hubris. It's disgusting. The point that Agamemnon goes home to be killed by his wife Clytemnestra is the basis of the Oresteia - the cornerstone of Western Drama. Benioff might as well make a giant 40 foot robot come in and kill him because, well, if he can change important events in the poem such as the DEATH OF THE KING OF THE MYCENAEANS, then adding a 40 foot robot bent on destruction shouldn't be a problem at all.

For such a high budget production, you would think they could have afforded to have Chryseis, Cassandra, and Briseis... WITHOUT bunging them together into one unlikely character! Briseis killed Agamemnon? No problem! She can stand-in for Clytaemnestra, after all, Briseis' character was standing in for virtually every female in the Iliad. The film's entire female cast is basically just an elaborate background tool set up so that the men have a distraction when the battles have died down. This treatment of the women and the elimination of the homosexual love between Achilles and Patroclus makes the film the worst sort of Hollywood heterosexist whitewash imaginable.

I must remember this if I ever become a Classics teacher and give a test on the Iliad or Greek Mythology. I shall make sure to ask questions whose answers are very different in the book and flick - that way we'll see who did the reading! "How does Agamemnon die?" (trick question)! That'll teach'em to read the text! No, he is not killed by Briseis!

What the movie doesn't explain is why Helen would leave with Paris after an acquaintanceship of a few nights. Is it because her loins throb with passion for a hero? No, because she tells him: "I don't want a hero. I want a man I can grow old with." Not in Greek myth, you don't. If you believe Helen of Troy could actually tell Paris anything remotely like that, you will probably also agree that the second night he slipped into her boudoir, she told him, "Last night was a mistake."

Hector tells Paris how he remembered when Paris was 10 years old. Hello... Wasn't Paris abandoned at Mount Ida, raised by a shepherd and later returned to Troy as prince?

Ajax was not killed by Hector, instead Ajax wounded Hector without sustaining an injury. Later he and Odysseus made speeches to determine who among the two of them should get Achilles' armor, and Odysseus won, so Ajax started killing his own people too after going berserk, and later he comitted suicide.

What is this nonsense about "the sword of Troy"? Aeneas didn't carry out the sword of Troy, he carried his father, led his son, and carried the statue of Troy (a goddess figure) according to the Aeneid.

Patroclus was an accomplished warrior in his own right, not the untried boy presented in the movie. Patroclus, who looks a little like Achilles, wears his helmet and armor to fool the enemy, and until the helmet is removed everyone thinks that Achilles has been slain. So dramatic is that development that the movie shows perhaps 100,000 men in hand-to-hand combat, and then completely forgets them in order to focus on the Patroclus battle scene, with everybody standing around like during a fight on the playground.

Menelaus? He's supposed to survive the Trojan War and get back to Sparta promptly, where ten years years later he tells Telemachus all about his father (Odysseus). He is not supposed to die on the second day of the war.

By treating Achilles and the other characters as if they were human, instead of the larger-than-life creations of Greek myth, director Wolfgang Petersen miscalculates. What happens in Greek myth cannot happen between psychologically plausible characters. That's the whole point of myth. Great films like Michael Cacoyannis' Elektra, about the murder of Agamemnon after the Trojan War, know that and use a stark dramatic approach that is deliberately stylized. Of course, Elektra wouldn't work for a multiplex audience, but then maybe it shouldn't.

Then we've got the Trojan Horse itself. It's a monstrous thing, hammered together out of ship planks, and painted a menacing black. Why anyone would bother hauling it home beats me. In Homer, the soothsayer of Trojans tried to warn King Priam that the horse was a danger but Poseidon sent his sea serpant to silence him, unlike the film where the soothsayer/priest was encouraging Priam to bring the horse into the city. Also would it have killed them to be a bit faithful to the script and show the horse so large that the Trojans had to demolish part of their city walls in order to bring the thing in?

Paris and Helen run off together at the end. I repeat - Paris and Helen run off together at the end. Excuse me? He's supposed to get mortally wounded and go crawling back to his first true love, the nymph Oenone on Mount Ida, whom he abandoned when Aphrodite promised him Helen. She has the power to heal him, but refuses to because he abandoned her. He dies right there and she is grief-stricken, etc. Paris hence dies long enough before the Greeks breach the city that Helen is married off to Deiphobus, another of Paris' brothers. I was looking forward to Paris dying. But turns out that the writers changed it...grrr. They kill Brad and Eric, but they can't kill Orlando. Were the writers afraid that a few million teen Orli fans were gonna hurt them or something?

Helen is supposed to go with Menelaus, but since they've already killed him, she might as well go with the cute one, right? Andromache is supposed to be dragged off into slavery. Astayanax (Hector's teenaged son) is supposed to be hurled from the walls of Troy by Neoptolemus, Achilles' son. Aeneas' son Ascanius doesn't seem to exist in this movie, and how could he if his father is like, 15? Homer has Menelaus come into the palace at Troy, intending to kill her. As he finds her, Helen bares her bosom, and the beautiful sight affects Menelaus so much that he forgives her everything and brings her home. Of course, in the film, Menelaus died at the hands of Hector, so that couldn't happen...

The really bizarre thing about the script was that despite the listed inaccuracies, there were several things that only those well-read in the Classics would understand. For example, Thetis' wandering around in the water for no real reason seems extraneous unless one understands that she was the daughter of a sea god. She also seems pointless unless one knows that it was her prophecy to Achilles that gave him the choice between a long life of obscurity and a short life of glory. Furthermore, at the end of the film, when several Trojans are fleeing to Mount Ida, Paris stops a teenage boy who is helping an old man to flee. Paris asks the boy what his name is, and he says "Aeneas."

Paris then hands him the "Sword of Troy", which as previously mentioned, if it is in the hands of a Trojan, Troy would never fall. Unless someone knows about the Aeneid, etc, they wouldn't get this reference, nor would they realise that the boy was basically carrying Anchises on his back. Never mind the actor playing Aeneas is actually 16, and therefore too young to be married to the eldest daughter of Priam and have a son. After all, do you really need Ascanius to rule Alba Longa for 30 years? Nah.

Imagine a movie based on the Bible without Christ, angels, or miracles. Or Lord of the Rings without magic or wizards. Imagine the Titanic taking its maiden voyage down to the French Riviera in late July, where the only ice to be seen for miles and miles were the ones the bartenders were putting into the drinks. Imagine Frodo and Sam reaching the Cracks of Doom in a week by taking a little known short cut that does not appear on any map of Middle-earth. That's about the level of change made in adapting the Iliad to the screen, and that is simply unacceptable. I can't figure out why they made so many of the changes they did. They're not little details by any means, and saying that it's not supposed to be the Iliad doesn't excuse the fact that the story goes against every source of myth related to the war, not just the Iliad.

"Don't look now, dudes, but there're, like, a thousand ships outside.
But never fear. The pecs of Troy -- um, princes of Troy -- are ready."

They also show plenty of male flesh. Granted, it was nice to see lots of splendid muscles from Pitt and Bana, but did Petersen really have to desecrate the Iliad in order to do that? Couldn't he have made a film about bodybuilders or competitive swimmers instead?

Adaptation of the Iliad? Perhaps rape would be more appropriate.

Some things that really got to me: the pronunciation of names. Yes, I understand that in Latin, Priam is pronounced Pree-ahm — that one I could accept, but they did some odd things with the other names: Briseis is now Bri-say-iss and Menelaus is now Meneh-louse.

MUSIC

Unmemorable. Horner, who's done fabulous work elsewhere, gives an eminently forgettable score here. It's one of those "we can tell the Greeks are about to appear because the music's changed and the drums have started" sort of soundtracks. Plus, epic films have epic soundtracks and themes. Doctor Zhivago had "Laura's Theme", for example. If I'm not humming the theme or theme song as I leave the cinema, it's not an epic soundtrack. Way too much "aaAAAaaaaaAAAhhhh" music going on. Easily his worst soundtrack in 20 years.

SET & COSTUMES

Despite all the technology and GCI battle scenes, the biggest problem with Troy is a simple filmmaking 101 blunder: If a period picture wants to seduce an audience into suspending disbelief, a director must create not just a physical world, but an emotional one as well. In recent flicks such as The Last Samurai, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, there's the sensation that we've happened upon a fully realised universe that was buzzing and thriving long before the camera crew stopped by. But for all his eye-popping set pieces, Troy still feels phony. Everyone seems to have just shown up that morning- nothing about the landscape looks lived-in. The costumes are all shiny and brand-new, the actors even shinier and prettier. The armour everyone's wearing looks like they took it out of the plastic wrap right before they jumped off the ships - either that or polishing armour is part of the ritual of preparing for war (it's not).

Is it just me or does Achilles' armour look like it's from a mail-order fetish catalogue? According to the Iliad, his armour was forged by the great god Hephaestus. And with today's amazing special effects that are obviously available in Hollwood and used elsewhere in the film... it's not much to ask for the armor to LOOK somewhat impressive if not god-forged. The armour of the period is quite extensively described by Homer, bronze breastplates with silver and tin and enamel ornamentation, bronze greaves etc. The stuff they're wearing in the film looks like leather and moulded plastic. Of course they couldn't have their actors jumping around in heavy bronze breastplates because they're bloody heavy (those ancients were made of sterner stuff than our modern men) but they could have made an effort to make it look less cheap! After all, this film did have a budget of $200 million!

Which brings me to the costumes. I suspect they must have run out of money at this point (the film ended up wildly over-budget and over-schedule), because if you look closely, the nobles of Troy are all wearing tie-tyed cotton fabrics in white and blue. One can even spot where the knots and rubber bands were tied. Somebody please tell the costumer that bright blue and white tie-dye belongs in 70s California in hippie-settlements, not the world of Homer.

The Greek kings all look like old bikers. In fact, the Greeks look pretty much like every OTHER people trying really hard to look like Greeks. They're kind of a cross between Minoans, Medieval Europeans, and Vikings. It's a sad day indeed when the Greeks aren't Greek. One of the gang I watched the film with commented that the Greeks looked more like Dwarves from LOTR.

HISTORICAL DETAIL

There were more Greeks in one scene of My Big Fat Greek Wedding than there are in the entirety of Troy. In keeping with the Eisenhower era-style casting, the rank-and-file Greek army -- you know, the nameless barbarians who get brutally slaughtered -- has a few guys who look as if they might be of Italian or Middle Eastern descent. I read somewhere the extras were Bulgarians (rather pissed off at being paid $12 USD a day). What's the point of having some actors spout Greek in the big crowd scenes? I definitely heard a "Malista" somewhere.

The swords in the film are made of steel - and definitely not bronze. WHY IN ZEUS' NAME IS THERE IRON IN THE BRONZE AGE? There's a reason this age is called the BRONZE AGE - they didn't have iron or steel tools yet.

Further nitpick - why do all these sword dramas feel the need to have the sound effecty "kkkssssszzzing" when a sword is drawn from the scabbard? I've worked with all sorts of swords and NOT ONE ever makes that sort of sound.

I have to laugh at the celebration around the wooden horse. Of course, the Trojan women are doing a Mayim step (That's an ancient Hebrew dance step. Enough said) And of course, there was a random guy doing backflips. Ah, movie cliché #987.

What on earth were llamas doing running around the streets of Troy? I know they filmed in Mexico or something, but what are South American animals doing in a market place in Asia Minor in 1200 B.C.?

When praying, the characters of Troy are depicted as kneeling before the statues. They couldn't have had a historical or classical consultant on this film, as everyone knows the Ancient Greeks and Homeric heroes STOOD when they prayed - in the ancient "Orans" position of forearms raised, palms facing upwards when praying to the Olympians or palms down when praying to the Gods of the Underworld. They most certainly did not kneel.

While we're on the topic of religion in the film, in the scene when Hector and Paris return to Troy, as they're entering the great hall, one sees clergy milling about, presumably the priests of Apollo, who is patron of Troy. One knows they're meant to be clergy not because they're wearing funny clothes (pretty much everyone is in this film, aside from Pitt who seems to show more skin than clothes) but because they're wearing hats and holding golden staffs which are directly stolen from Greek Orthodox CHRISTIAN Bishops' vestments and regalia. The staffs they hold (called Pateritsa) are terminated by two serpents looking toward an orb surmounted by a cross - an example may be seen here. The priests of Apollo are also wearing on their heads these tallish cylindrical hats covered with a black veil - they're called Kamilavka (Kalmilavkion in the singular) and are worn by Bishops, dignitaries and monks - a picture of a bishop wearing it and holding the serpent staff may be found here.

What the hell, did they think Greek Orthodox = Greek Pagan?

THE SCRIPT

Oh, the script. Did director Wolfgang Petersen imagine that if his actors acted as though they were reciting Shakespeare, it would make the dialogue, which alternates among the pompous, the banal and the just plain dumb, sound like Shakespeare? When Paris, who's so gorgeous he could have played Helen, nuzzles the Spartan queen in her boudoir, she coos, "Last night was a mistake," just like any soap opera star.

"You must be Hector," says Achilles, on their first meeting. Ouch.

"Burn Troy Burn! Burn! Burn! Burn Troy to the ground!" screams Agamemnon during the sack of Troy. HA.

Benioff's script tries so hard to be high-flown and solemn that it ends up funny. The speech is hokey enough that hearing it once almost induces groans. Hearing it over and over and over again, as we do here, ensures groans. Enough with the immortality business, already! A lethal drinking game could be crafted from the number of times the script solemnly refers to "immortality", just as it could for the number of times that Pitt strikes a body-builder's pose as horns in the soundtrack adore him.

We also get countless speeches about how "the world will never forget this war/our glory/your bravery/the mighty sword of blah-blah-blah." If you took a drink each time someone said one, you'd be snockered halfway through. "Immortality, take it, it's yours!" Even our great warrior signs on. He sings a chorus of the pathetic blues (seems his Achilles heel is really just a bad case of angst), and then gives the sad song a positive spin: "The gods envy us. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed."

How can I take Achilles seriously after hearing him utter the line "It's too early in the day for killing princes"? That and the Rules of Epics, which require all critical death scenes to occur in Act 3. Bana's Hector has his moments, too. A couple of times, by the expression on his face, I thought he was going to go green, you know, Hulk out. "Hector Smash! Don't make Hector angry Achilles. You won't like him when he's angry." Orlando Bloom elicited a big laugh from me when he swept Helen into his arms and vowed "We'll live off the land. I'll kill deer and rabbits," or something to that effect. Though, I don't think it was supposed to be funny.

David Benioff's adaptation is laced with the dialogue of a angsty teenager who never studied the classical works. One of Agamemnon's men says "if we turn back now, we’ll lose all credibility". How about some poetry to the language?

REWRITE: "If we turn a blind face, the four winds will spread our cowardice to every corner of Greece."

That's a centuries-old epic I can buy, not crap like "I want to see my son grow old and have girls chasing him." The film needs "my eyes want to look upon my son, bathing in all the flavour that life has to offer," not "May the Gods be with you." That last line is not made up and one which even George Lucas would admit sucked.

Menelaus: "Where is she?"
Guard: "Sir, your wife left ... with the Trojans."

One would assume that a $200 million summer blockbuster could have found space on the payroll for some random lackey to comb the script and extricate any errant one-liners that could be potentially misconstrued as silly condom jokes by annoyed, impatient audiences. It calls to mind a quote from the estimable film critic Homer Simpson: "Your movie is more boring than church." I believe neither Homers would approve.

In an interview, Benioff recently said,"This is the mother of all epics, the cornerstone of Western literature. If I screw it up, classicists around the world will issue a fatwa and assassinate me with bronze daggers." He'd better be borrowing Brad's protective armour then. If I were in the mafia, I would seriously start a vendetta against those who allowed this film to see the light.

Please just pretend like you read the Iliad before you make a screenplay. This goes beyond interpretation (read: O Brother Where Art Thou? Now that's an excellent interpretation of the Odyssey!), this whole movie entered in to Classics heresy. The whole "inspired by" is nonsense. We wouldn't have people giving that argument if the story was of a character whose name was Jesus Christ, who was from Nazareth, parents were Mary and Joseph and instead of being crucified, instead he was whisked away by a gang of robbers, and he ends up becoming an alcoholic, womanizer and a gang leader and comes back and destroys the Roman Civilisation. A director could easily put a disclaimer at the end saying "Inspired by the Life of Jesus Christ", but we all know what would happen then.

But yet, respected Classicist Mary Beard says:

Among those of us [professional classicists] who look on, a few will be curmudgeonly carping at inaccuracies or misrepresentations of the original. The majority will welcome the publicity for their subject. Many (myself included, I should confess) will already be penning articles on the "Pittian Moment In the Reception of The Iliad" or devising new courses on "Classics in Film" or "The Trojan War in Popular Culture". The chances are that Troy will have a longer life in a university department near you than in your local multiplex."

And ironically, she's right.

If they had done a good job, I perhaps could have had a sequel to look foward to. Now I fear it. The only good sign I saw in the whole bloody film was that they killed enough main characters (in the wrong way), that perchance they can't attempt to ruin my beloved Odyssey, Aeneid and Oresteia, right? Plus, no Gods and monsters means the Odyssey and Oresteia can't be made by them right? Oh Zeus. I hope so.

If you really want to experience Troy as it should be, go out and get a translation (I recommend Lattimore or Lombardo's versions), and read it for yourself. Better yet, learn Homeric Greek and read the original. If you want to actually see it... might as well wait for the rentals to come out (if I ever buy this on DVD it'll be as a comedy). If you want to see really hot men go naked (forgot how many times I almost jumped at the screen seeing Brad Pitt and Bana), then by ALL means, do go and watch it. As for the $200 million spent... all down the drain. If you want to see a comedic adaptation of Iliad without being too offended, then gooo ahead and watch. I thought the movie was hilarious. It shouldn't have been, but it was. Every time they screwed up, I just burst out laughing. Especially at Bloom's Paris . Because honestly...

In the Odyssey, Homer calls Odysseus

"one who in time past had suffered many griefs at heart in passing through wars of men and the grievous waves; but now he slept in peace, forgetful of all that he had suffered." (Odyssey, 13.90)

Now, taking a cue from Odysseus, I'm going to have a nap. Hopefully when I get up, I won't be so angry.

Ivan's comments: WHOAH...
 
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