Warning, I paid no thinking if this post contains spoilers, so read ahead at your own risk!

I don’t get out to the cinema as much as I did before we had kids, so I generally catch up on movies on my birthday and Christmas, by giving my family a list of movies, available on DVD, from the year I haven’t seen. Easy presents. And so I finally got to see Clash of the Titans last week, one of my Christmas presents.

First off, I will say that this is a bad movie. There is no getting away from it. I didn’t really expect anything else. But it’s about mythic heroes and Greek Gods! I’ve got to find something in this movie I like, right?

Well my own Lost Heroes is about mixing up different mythologies, with Odin’s warriors fighting Olympian monsters or along side Ares’ centaurs. But I still found it jarring within the first few minutes of this movie, a Kraken (a Norse monster) is claimed to come from Hades, though I’ve been informed since that this is in the original movies. I put that aside while watching, giving it a chance.

What I did like was the monsters: the harpies, the kraken itself, the witches, the giant scorpions, Charon, the Jinn and the Medusa and the ensuing battles between the heroes and the monsters. (FYI, the witches, harpies, Charon, Jinn and Gorgons are all in Lost Heroes!).

But everything else felt like a missed opportunity. Take the Olympian Gods themselves. Why are they all wearing armour, though none of them ever take to battle? It felt like the Gods had been made more masculine. Why does the whole plot resolve around just Hades and Zeus? Apollo is featured in the deleted scenes, but he just comes off as a brat (rather than the beautiful youth I’d imagine him to be). Poseidon seems sheepish, despite being the God of Earthquakes. And where was the intrigue between the other Gods? Surely Hera might align herself with Hades to bring down Zeus? Why doesn’t Athena don her armour and go to battle against Hades to protect her father?

On a side note, why does Perseus have a shaved head? He looks like a US marine in roman armour. All the other male characters have long hair and fancy beards. Couldn’t figure that out. I’d imagine in that sort of culture, having your head shaved and beard cut would be a mark of shame. Fun fact, Spartan men would have half their beards shaved off as a punishment.

And all the characters were moaning about how awful and unfair the gods were, blaming them for the lack of fish, the  plague, poverty, etc. and how they should revolt against the bad gods. I kept thinking is that these problems are not the Gods fault, but are social and technical problems. We, the audience, were never shown the tyranny of the Gods, except that life was hard back then. Not that I had a problem with a humanity battles gods theme. In fact, it appeared to be the opposite as half-way through the movie, Zeus refused to destroy the human army that had laid siege to Olympus, because he loved them too much! Zeus got off on their love, not their torment.

What it felt like was a pilot to a really cool fantasy-hero TV series, a gritty and darker Hercules or Xena. Or rather what those two series would look like if they had been created after the movie 300. Because in a TV series, the different gods could be explored and their complex relationships and politics exposed a bit more.

And I’ve just read a sequel is in the works: Wrath of the Titans. Might be fun.

Related Posts:

• Ulysess 31, live-action intro!
• Ulysses 31, 30th Anniversary
• Imagining Clash of the Titans movie if it happened in the world of Lost Heroes
• Treasures of the internet
• Will Lost Heroes RPG be yet another stock fantasy RPG?

The internet does throw up some wonderful things:

• Are anagrams the key to the Voynich Manuscript? The Voynich Manuscript Decoded?
• A lost culture? Culture of Old Europe Is Uncloaked in an Exhibit at N.Y.U. – NYTimes.com
• Christmas wasn’t really a pagan feast originally you know: How December 25 Became Christmas
• The Ancient Greeks had incredible devices! Advanced Imaging Reveals a Computer 1,500 Years Ahead of Its Time
• Was there really a race more intelligent than us? What Happened to the Hominids Who May Have Been Smarter Than Us? (Note: a good friend pointed out to me that the evidence for this “smarter” race is pretty dodge and has long been discredited. Still the idea is quite cool)

Related Posts:

• Yggdrasil and Ragnarok Infographics
• Immortals movie teaser trailer
• Imagining Clash of the Titans movie if it happened in the world of Lost Heroes
• Clash of the Titans, a missed opportunity? (a short movie review)
• 7,500 Online Shoppers Unknowingly Sold Their Souls!

Krampus, the nastier version of Santa

I came across this today from wikipedia: Krampus.

According to wikipedia:

Krampus is a mythical creature who accompanies Saint Nicholas in various regions of the world during the Christmas season.

Krampus acts in conjunction with Saint Nicholas; the latter gives gifts to good children, while the Krampus gives warnings and punishments to the bad children…

Traditionally, young men dress up as the Krampus in the first two weeks of December, particularly in the evening of December 5, and roam the streets frightening children and women with rusty chains and bells…

A rather cool seasonal monster!

While St. Nick doesn’t actually feature in Lost Heroes RPG, he could easily exist as a Dreamling or even minor God-like being with his home being an icy Island on the Sea of Dreams. The Krampus would be his Nightmare equivalent.

Related Posts:

• Clash of the Titans, a missed opportunity? (a short movie review)
• Treasures of the internet