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Troy is an epic
movie released on May 14, 2004 concerning the Trojan War. It is
loosely based on Homer's Iliad, but includes material from Virgil's
Aeneid and other sources, and sometimes diverges from myth. The film
has the following cast of actors prominent at the time of its
release: Brad Pitt as Achilles, Eric Bana as Hector, Orlando Bloom
as Paris, Diane Kruger as Helen, Brian Cox as Agamemnon, Sean Bean
as Odysseus, Rose Byrne as Briseis, Garrett Hedlund as Patroclus,
Peter O'Toole as Priam, Brendan Gleeson as Menelaus, and Tyler Mane
as Ajax. Troy was directed by Wolfgang Petersen and written by David
Benioff. It received an Oscar nomination for its costume design.
Plot
Agamemnon of Mycenae and his army are in Thessaly, Greece, looking
to expand his military might and empire. His army prepares to engage
in combat against a host of soldiers under the Thessalonian king,
Triopas. Rather than suffer great losses, Triopas agrees to
Agamemnon's proposal to settle the matter in the traditional way -
through a decisive match between the heroes of the opposing armies.
Achilles is summoned by Agamemnon, and arrives after being woken by
a messenger boy. He easily kills the greatest and most accomplished
warrior of Thessaly, Boagrius. Accepting defeat, Triopas presents
Achilles with a scepter as a token for his king. Achilles however
refuses, saying "He's not my king."
In Sparta, Prince Hector and his young brother Paris negotiate an
end to the war between the outlying kingdom of Troy and Sparta. On
the last day of a week long peace festival, Paris manages to smuggle
his love Helen back to Troy with him. Menelaus, Helen's husband,
vows revenge on Paris. Meanwhile, Agamemnon the brother of Menelaus,
who had for years harbored plans for conquering Troy, decides to use
his brother's situation as an excuse to invade. He is advised by his
general Nestor, to call upon Achilles to fight for the Greeks. This
is in order to ensure they can rally enough troops to the cause.
Agamemnon knows that with Troy under his control, he would have
complete control over the Aegean.
When they arrive in Troy, Hector, Paris and Helen are warmly
welcomed and received by their father King Priam. He says nothing of
his younger son's love for Helen. Shortly afterwards, Hector tries
to urge his father to put Helen on a ship back to Sparta, in order
to avoid a colossal war between Troy and Agamemnon (who now controls
all of Greece). Priam refuses, choosing instead to put his faith in
his high priests and their interpretation of how Apollo would react,
as well as his firm belief that Paris is truly in love with Helen.
Agamemnon and the Greeks amass the largest naval force ever known to
man - 1000 ships each containing 50 men - and set sail for Troy.
Agamemnon sends Odysseus to convince Achilles to join, but he
refuses as he utterly despises Agamemnon and only fights for
personal glory, not the power of others. Odysseus hints that the
warriors who would fight in this war shall receive immortality in
history, but he still refuses. Later, Thetis, Achilles' mother,
tells Achilles of the prophecy she had learned of even before he was
born, which foretold that if Achilles does not go to the war, he
will find peace, love and a family of his own, but he will
eventually be forgotten as time passed. But if he chooses to go to
Troy, his name would become immortal, at the cost of his life.
Achilles, unable to resist such fame and glory, heads for Troy.
The Greeks land at Troy and take control of the beach on the first
day of the war. Achilles and the Myrmidons are able to kill many
Trojans but also desecrate the Trojan temple of Apollo, slaying the
unarmed priests that reside there. Briseis, a member of the Trojan
royal family who has chosen to dedicate her life to service to the
gods, is captured and taken as a prize by Achilles. However, he
treats her with kindness, which makes her initially cautious. In the
course of the battle within the temple, Achilles and Hector meet but
do not fight. Hector is outnumbered but allowed to leave.
After the battle, Achilles is annoyed that, although he and his
Myrmidons spearheaded the battle, the other kings who serve
Agamemnon pay him tribute in honor of Agamemnon's great victory.
Offended by Achilles' disrespectful and disobedient attitude,
Agamemnon takes Briseis from him. Only Briseis' contemptuous pleas
stop Achilles from slaughtering Agamemnon and his men, and Agamemnon
taunts him for listening to a mere slave girl. Achilles leaves in a
rage, but promises Agamemnon he will see him dead before his own
life ends.
When the Greek army marches upon Troy, Achilles refuses to fight or
to allow the Myrmidons to fight until Agamemnon regrets belittling
him. Instead Achilles and his Myrmidons watch the events from a
distance, Achilles pacing back and forth in anger at Agamemnon's
mistakes. With the Trojan army beneath the walls of Troy and the
Greek army surrounding it, Paris, feeling guilt for having brought
the threat of war upon Troy, challenges Menelaus to a duel to settle
things. Menelaus agrees, knowing he is the better warrior. Agamemnon
then decides he will attack afterwards anyway, regardless of the
outcome. Paris, severely outmatched, is easily defeated. Terrified
of dying, he crawls back to Hector's feet. Menelaus approaches and
moves to finish Paris, but Hector steps in to protect his brother
and kills Menelaus. A shocked and distraught Agamemnon orders his
army to charge the Trojans.
During the battle, Ajax leads the fight and is unstoppable while he
causes mayhem with a great hammer of war. Hector, recognizing the
threat, faces Ajax and they fight. At first Ajax almost kills
Hector, who can only shelter behind his shield as it is smashed to
pieces. Hector only just manages to kill Ajax despite being almost
throttled to death by him. The increasingly energized Trojans press
their attack against the uncoordinated Greeks. The Greeks move too
close to the walls and Trojan archers rain arrows down on them,
killing Greek soldiers by the hundreds. Without Ajax or Achilles and
his Myrmidons, and with the Trojan archers upon the walls of Troy
free to shower arrows upon the Greeks, the battle quickly turns
against them. With command of the battle lost, Agamemnon grudgingly
bows to Odysseus's pleas to withdraw and the Greeks retreat to the
beach.
Briseis is given to some men by the king after their poor
performance in battle as a "morale booster". Before she can be
branded and raped, Achilles arrives in the nick of time to save her.
Killing her assailants and carrying her back to his tent. Later that
night, as Achilles sleeps, Briseis contemplates killing him and
kneels beside him to press a knife to his throat. He wakes but only
challenges her to do it and says that dying now isn't so different
than dying fifty years from now, causing her to hesitate at his
calmness in the face of death. As she hesitates, Achilles suddenly
pulls her down to him and rolls over so she is pinned beneath him.
He then kisses her passionately and as she drops the knife, begins
to make love to her. The next evening, the two lie in bed and
Achilles tells her he is sailing in the morning, having been
convinced that perhaps the life of an infamous warrior is not all
for him. She is slightly sceptical and asks him if he could really
leave it all behind, inducing him to ask if she could bring herself
to leave Troy.
A debate takes place within the Trojan palace. The priests say that
the gods are on their side and they should attack the Greeks while
they are weak. Hector points out that the Myrmidons did not fight
and that the Greeks are dispirited. If they attack, it might be the
thing to roust and unify the Greeks. He argues for leaving them
alone and perhaps they will leave on their own accord. Priam
disregards this and goes with the assurances of his priests, and a
reluctant Hector leads them.
The Trojans attack the Greek camp at dawn. As the Greeks appear to
be on the verge of defeat, Achilles appears and the Myrmidons join
the battle. He brings courage to the Greeks, and eventually fights
man-to-man against Hector, until his throat is cut. This energizes
the Trojans and dismays the Greeks, until Hector pulls Achilles'
helmet off and finds it is Patroclus. Achilles' cousin. Grieved at
having slain a boy so young, Hector gives him a killing blow out of
mercy. Odysseus informs Hector of the boy's identity and they agree
to cease hostilities for the day. Achilles, who had slept through
the battle, is informed by the Myrmidons of his cousin's death. They
had also mistaken Patroclus for Achilles. Consumed by grief and
rage, Achilles beats Eudorus and walks toward the beach. A
distraught Achilles leads the ceremony, complete with funeral pyre,
while a satisfied Agamemnon tells Odysseus "That boy just saved this
war."
The next day, Achilles approaches the gates of Troy and demands
Hector come out and face him. Hector stops the city's archers from
opening fire and goes down to face Achilles. Hector requests a pact
that the loser be given proper funeral rites by the winner. Achilles
denies him, saying that "There are no pacts between lions and men".
The two fight bravely and arduously. Hector, though he is a great
warrior in his own right, is outclassed by the enraged Achilles, who
duly kills him. Achilles then ties Hector's body to the back of his
chariot and drags it along the dirt. That night King Priam, aided by
the dark, goes to the Greek army's camp to get Hector's body back.
After an emotional and mortifying talk given to him by Priam,
Achilles breaks down into tears near Hector's slain body. He lets
Priam take Hector's body back, promising him that no Greek will
attack them on the way back. Achilles lets Priam take Briseis back
as well, and gives her the shell necklace Thetis made for him. He
assures Priam that the Greeks will honor Prince Hector's death, and
that no Greek will attack Troy for 12 days. This temporary ceasefire
angers Agamemnon who sees it as golden opportunity to attack Troy
while they are leaderless.
During the 12 days that Troy mourns Hector's death, the Greeks plan
to enter the city using a hollowed-out wooden horse, devised by
Odysseus. The Greeks leave the horse just outside the city gates,
then withdraw to the beach hiding in their ships behind a nearby
island. Paris warns Priam about the horse and says they should burn
it to the ground, but Priam neglects his warning, blinded by the
priests' talk of the horse being a "peace offering by the Greeks" in
order to appease the Sun-God Apollo for the desecration of his
temple by Achilles earlier. Assuming victory, the Trojans take the
horse into the city and celebrate. A Trojan scout sees the Greeks
still at the bay but gets killed by an archer. The Trojans celebrate
their victory and the whole of Troy is in drunken stupor when
several Greeks, hidden inside the horse, launch a surprise attack
and open the gates of Troy to allow the Greek army inside the city
walls. Helen and Andromeche are able to gather a large amount of
women and children and other Trojans who take the secret path Hector
showed to Andromeche. Paris refuses to leave and hands the sword of
Troy to Aeneas, quoting his father by telling Aeneas that "So long
the sword of Troy remains in the hands of a Trojan, our people have
a future". Priam yells to the Greeks who break statues in the
temple, "Have you no honor?" but before he can act, he is killed by
Agamemnon. In the Director's Cut before Priam dies he asks Agamemnon
to spare the innocent, but Agamemnon refuses saying "No one's
innocent."
Achilles frantically searches for Briseis, who is at the shrine of
Apollo being threatened by Agamemnon. She kills him with a concealed
knife, and is saved by Achilles from being stabbed to death by
Agamemnon's guards when Achilles arrives. Paris manages to find
Achilles and shoots an arrow that goes straight through Achilles'
fatal weakness, his heel. Crippled, he is then hit in the chest by
several more arrows, but is able to remove them. Though the wound to
his ankle proves decisive. As she cries, Achilles tells Briseis,
"You gave me peace in a lifetime of war," and urges her to leave the
city with Paris, though she initially refuses to. Tearfully, Briseis
lets Paris pull her up and lead her up the steps as they run towards
the secret passageway and leave Achilles there. After watching them
leave, he collapses with the one arrow remaining in his heel.
After a last disorganized and futile attempt by surviving Trojan
soldiers to repel the invaders, the battle ends and the Greeks storm
the inner palace only to find that Achilles has died just a few
moments earlier. They perform the funeral rituals for him the next
morning. Odysseus delivers the final words, "If they ever tell my
story, let them say that I walked with giants. Men rise and fall
like the winter wheat, but these names will never die. Let them say
that I lived in the time of Hector, tamer of horses. Let them say I
lived in the time of Achilles...."
Finance and Reaction
When the film was completed, total production costs were
approximately $180,000,000. This makes Troy one of the most
expensive films made in modern cinema. Not adjusted for inflation,
it is number 13 on the all time list of most expensive films and
number 16 when adjusted for inflation.
Troy screenings have earned $133 million (US$133,378,256) in the
United States.[1] Having cost $180 million to make,[1] the film was
a disappointment in the US. Many critics anticipated that it would
flop as Troy barely missed the $50 million mark on its opening US
weekend and wrote off the film. Troy was among the several
historical epics released in 2004 that disappointed, such as
Alexander, The Alamo and King Arthur, although it fared better than
those films.
However, Troy did extremely well at the international box office
financial success, making more than 73%[1] of its revenues outside
of the U.S. Eventually Troy made over US$497 million dollars
worldwide,[1] placing it in the #52 spot[1] of top box office hits
of all time. This places the film 18 spots above Gladiator (#70) and
approximately 20 spots above 300 (#72)[2] in the all-time worldwide
box office.
Troy met mixed reactions by reviewers. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a
Tomatometer rating of 55% from a base of 214 reviews while Yahoo!
Movies gave it a critic rating of "B-" (although that was based on
15 Critical Reviews). Roger Ebert, who disliked what he saw as an
unfaithful adaptation of the Iliad, gave it two stars out of four[3]
Ebert claimed that Troy "sidesteps the existence of the Greek gods,
turns its heroes into action movie clich้s and demonstrates that
we're getting tired of computer-generated armies."
Box office totals
* Budget - $180,000,000[1]
* Marketing cost - $50,000,000
* Opening Weekend Gross (Domestic) - $46,865,412
* Total Domestic Grosses - $133,378,256
* Total Overseas Grosses - $364,031,596[1]
* Total Worldwide Grosses - $497,378,256
Cast
Actor Role
Brad Pitt as Achilles
Eric Bana as Hector
Orlando Bloom as Paris
Diane Kruger as Helen
Peter O'Toole as King Priam
Sean Bean as Odysseus
Brian Cox as Agamemnon
Brendan Gleeson as Menelaus
Ken Bones as Hippasus
Saffron Burrows as Andromache
Rose Byrne as Briseis
Julie Christie as Thetis
James Cosmo as Glaucus
Frankie Fitzgerald as Aeneas
Julian Glover as Triopas
Garrett Hedlund as Patroclus
Tyler Mane as Ajax
Vincent Regan as Eudorus
John Shrapnel as Nestor
Nigel Terry as Telephus
Adoni Maropis as Philoctetes
Nathan Jones as Boagrius
Shero Rauf as Trojan Archer (stunt actor)
Ben Crompton Body double
Music
Composer Gabriel Yared originally worked on the score for Troy for
over a year, having been hired by the director, Wolfgang Petersen.
Yared wrote and recorded his score and Tanja Tzarovska provided
vocals on various portions of the music, as she later would on
composer James Horner's version of the soundtrack. However, after
having screened the movie with an early incomplete version of the
score, the reactions at test screenings were against it and in less
than a day Yared was off the project without being given a chance to
fix or change his music, while Warner Bros was already looking for a
replacement. According to Yared, his score was removed due to a
complaint by the screening audience that the score was too
"old-fashioned".
The replacement score was written by composer James Horner in about
four weeks. He utilized Tanja Tzarovska's vocals, traditional
Eastern Mediterranean music and brass instruments. Drums are
conspicuous in the most dramatic scenes; most notably, in the duel
between Achilles and Hector.
Horner also collaborated with Grammy-nominated American
singer/songwriter, Josh Groban and lyricist Cynthia Weil to write an
original song for the film's end credits. The product of this
collaboration, "Remember" was performed by Groban with additional
vocals by Tzarovska. The song is available from the movie's original
soundtrack.
Around the time of the film's release in theaters, Gabriel Yared
briefly made portions of his rejected score available on his
personal website which was later removed by the request of Warner
Brothers. Bootleg versions exist on the Internet. Yared's score has
since gained much of attention from the fans of movie music. Several
petitions were made in request to release Yared's score on either a
limited edition CD, or as a bonus feature or secondary audio track
on the film's DVD. Those requests however, have been denied by
Warner Bros.
Filming
Major sets for the city of Troy were built in the Mediterranean
island of Malta at Fort Ricasoli from April to June 2003. Other
important scenes were shot in Mellieħa, a small town in the north of
Malta, and on the small island of Comino. The outer walls of Troy
were built and filmed in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
Director's cut
Troy: Director's Cut was screened at the 57th Berlin International
Film Festival on February 17, 2007, and received a limited
theatrical release in Germany in April 2007.[6] Warner Home Video
reportedly spent more than $1 million for the Director's Cut, which
includes "at least 1,000 new cuts" or almost 30-minute extra footage
(Running Time: 196 minutes). The DVD was released on September 18,
2007 in the USA. The score of the film was changed dramatically,
with many of the female vocals being cut. Various shots were recut
and extended. For instance, the love scene between Helen and Paris
was reframed to include more nudity of Diane Kruger. The sex scene
between Achilles and Briseis is also extended. Only one scene was
removed: the scene where Helen tends to the wound of Paris is taken
out. The battle scenes were also extended, showing much more of
Ajax's bloody rampage on the Trojans during the initial attack by
the Greek Army. Perhaps most significantly was the sacking of Troy,
barely present in the theatrical cut, but shown fully here.
Characters were given more time to develop, specifically Priam and
Odysseus, the latter being given a humorous introduction scene.
Lastly, bookend scenes were added: the beginning being a soldier's
dog finding its dead master, and the end including a sequence where
the few surviving Trojans escape to Mount Ida. In one of the
commentary sequences one of the film editors said that when it came
to deciding whether to follow Iliad, or do what was best for the
movie they always decided with what was best for the movie.
Awards (wins and nominations)
2005 ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards
* Won - Top Box Office Film James Horner
2005 Academy Awards (Oscars)
* Nominated - Best Achievement in Costume Design Bob Ringwood
2005 Japanese Academy Prize
* Nominated - Best Foreign Film
2005 MTV Movie Awards
* Nominated - Best Fight Brad Pitt, Eric Bana
* Nominated - Best Male Performance Brad Pitt
2005 Motion Picture Sound Editors (Golden Reel Award)
* Nominated - Best Sound Editing in Foreign Features Wylie
Stateman, Martin Cantwell, James Boyle, Harry Barnes, Paul Conway,
Alex Joseph, Matthew Grime, Steve Schwalbe, Howard Halsall, Sue
Lenny, Simon Price, Nigel Stone
2005 Teen Choice Awards
* Won - Choice Movie Actor - Drama/Action Adventure Brad Pitt
* Nominated - Choice Breakout Movie Star - Male Garrett Hedlund
* Nominated - Choice Movie - Drama/Action Adventure
* Nominated - Choice Movie Fight/Action Sequence
High School Musical - Get'cha Head in the Game
Troy Movie Sound Track - Horner
MP3 format songs
can be played in Windows Media Player, Jetaudio, Winamp or any other
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Thuraya, Telit, Toshiba, VK Mobile, Vertu, WND and XCute.
Disclaimer: These songs are for evaluation purpose only and valid
for 24 hours, after that you must delete them. They are copyright of
their respective labels. We request you to buy original CDs.
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