"Beowulf" being made into a movie?

[Liar]

Re: Jeez ...

... and I thought you were talking about Beowulf clusters Wrong number, sorry!

Are you a geek for posting that, or am I a geek for chuckling?

 

[SnoopDog]

Well, I just read the first part of it and liked it.
Ok, you have to look beyond all this 'who's the son of who?' stuff but if you're having the pictures in your mind I think it's awesome that such an old poem can provide some nice things. Though I hope the best is yet to come.

But with adapting this thing into a movie one has to be careful. Because a true-to-the-poem adaption is impossible because it would be rather boring and cliché (as far as I can tell from what I've read). But if you make a 'movie-inspired-by-Beowulf' you can truly make a great fantasy flick. But it's gotta be made in a serious way. Making this a LOTR-copying action flick qould just suck.

Then again, it's not impossible. IMDb.com already has taken notice.

'Beowulf & Grendel'

starring someone called 'Gerard Butler' (I don't know him) and due for 2005, directed by a, Icelandian.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0402057/

Snoopy

 

[Remec]

Re: Re: Re: "Beowulf" being made into a movie?

E.g., "Troy". It's a matter of intent and artistry. I doubt Beowulf will be more than a costumed action flick.

You're prolly right, unfortunately. Which is too bad, since it would actually lend itself nicely to film.

I mean, look at it.

Fierce warrior, reluctant though he may be, gets call to come to distant clanhall of some relative (a cousin, I think) where he discovers there is a mysterious secret involving intrusions into the hall and deaths of warriors there.

Finally gets told the tale of the monster...lies in wait for monster...beats monster and sends it running...hunts monster down and kills it thus irritating monster's mother who come out for revenge (ie, SEQUEL$!$!$)

Of course, the third part, where he kills a dragon, but succumbs to his injuries and dies as well, prolly wouldn't go over too well, but it could also make for a pretty cool movie...

 

[Remec]

In "Annie Hall", Woody Allen tells Diane Keaton (as she talks about going to college), "Just don't take any course where you have to read Beowulf." It's a slap on the too average type of English class where the classics can be made utterly meaningless and boring by an academic.

When I was in the eighth grade, my teacher used "Beowulf" as the prime example when we did our section on epic poetry. As a class project, we divided up into teams and worked on our own poem that incorporated the different concepts we had studied.

We elected to use the repetitive descriptive phrasing for our hero, and the mostly alliterative, growing string of adjectives for the main nemesis. And thus was born the tale of Beomutt and his battle with the monster Schmendel...<g><wink>

 

[Guest]

Remec, the rub is that outside of indies or films made by real artists, great works of literature (no matter the form) are "novelized" in order to be turned into "stories" that will sell; and so you get banality mostly. I doubt that whoever wrote the script for Beowulf-the-Movie tried to transpose its poetry, its particular use of language as a form of expression. Same is done with Shakespeare all the time, and was done with The Oddysey recently.

Perdita

 

[cloudy]

The cool thing, tho, Perdita, is that seeing this stuff coming out may tempt the interested to dive into the classics.

After seeing the ads for Troy, I decided to read the Illiad and the Odyssey again....much like Snoopy's reading Beowulf now.

 

[SnoopDog]

I completed it today (I know it took me a while but it's not too easy to read something not written in your native language plus written in a rather old-fashioned style, so it takes time) and I liked the thing as far as you consider it as a poem and it's date.

But I think no one could ever call a movie about Beowulf an adaption of the poem. The only thing you could do is a film inspired by it.
But that could be done though it might be difficult.
You would HAVE to hange major things.
Because you couldn't really have both stories (Grendel&mother and the Dragon), that would just be not satisfying. Having killed the main villain we jump to a lot of years later and then he has to kill a dragon. That's two different stories.

So you would normally chose just the first one. Then again it would be interesting to tell Beowulfs demise as well.

And you'd have to bring extra characters other than Beowulf, Grendel, Grendel'S mother and the guy that helped him in the end with the dragon.
And Beowulf would have to be a different character as well. I mean this all-self-confident super hero guy that is always bragging about how good he is wouldn't really pay off on screen.

Tough but not impossible.
I'm interested in the outcome of the movie.

Snoopy

 

[Guest]

Snoop, your movie pitch made me laugh. You're, um, so cute.

Perdita

 

[Lord Naraku]

Anybody remember the movie the 13th warrior? Well it's loosly based on Beowulf. My two cents.

 

[SnoopDog]

Snoop, your movie pitch made me laugh. You're, um, so cute.

Perdita

Gracias, amiga

Snoopy

 

[SnoopDog]

Funny thing:

I just noticed that 'Beowulf' is on tv. It's just 15 minutes into the movie so I'll go off and watch it now.

I know it probably sucks but I wanna look at Grendel and his mother to see how they did it, how do they look llike, etc.

Snoopy

 

[SnoopDog]

Ok, three posts in a row means a killed thread. *makes mark on his thread-killer-list*

But I just wanted to add, that I watched about 20 minutes of that flick before I couldn't stand it anymore.

Horrible, painfully horrible. Stupid writing, stupid dialogues, stupid characters, stupid costumes, stupid music, stupid actors, stupid everything. And it had nothing to do with the poem, just the names.

Snoopy