BEOWULF - a Robert Zemeckis film

[Mouseferatu]

I wish someone would shoot Beowulf as-written, or close enough to, rather than adding in all sorts of things that don't actually happen in the story, without adding in extraneous characters.

I, too, would love to see this done. Not just with Beowulf, but other properties as well. (I'm still waiting for a true version of Dracula.)

That said, the trailer does suggest an enjoyable fantasy movie, and I'm all over that.

 

[Darth Shoju]

I like Gaiman, but having him write the screenplay hardly qualifies as a slam dunk. Some of his Sandman stories left me cold, and his screenplay on Princess Mononoke was alright, but hardly exemplary.

And I wasn't thrilled with 1602, but I still see his involvement as an encouraging sign. The man knows a thing or two about fantasy stories at the very least.

 

[Wombat]

I(I'm still waiting for a true version of Dracula.)

You and me both!

 

[Mark]

Back in college, our Speech and Performing Arts department drafted a stage version of Dracula from the original text but it was definitely too long. We spent most of the rehearsal period chopping scenes and clipping lines. Not too bad for me, as my character was not front and center all that often, though he was mentioned almost incessantly.


I enjoyed the Gerard Butler version of Beowulf from a couple years ago pretty well.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I enjoyed the Gerard Butler version of Beowulf from a couple years ago pretty well.

Really? I thought it was fairly boring, myself.

I'm also tired of movies trying to humanize the villains from classical literature. Sure, layered villains are usually a good thing. But when the source material is something like Beowulf, let the villain be evil, damn it!

 

[Mark]

Really? I thought it was fairly boring, myself.

I'm also tired of movies trying to humanize the villains from classical literature. Sure, layered villains are usually a good thing. But when the source material is something like Beowulf, let the villain be evil, damn it!

Perspective does not demand the change but it allows for it. My only qualms with Beowulf & Grendel (2005) were that Stellan Skarsgård was a bit over the top at times and that Sarah Polley seems out of step in her early scenes with the direction of the film.

 

[apoptosis]

Really? I thought it was fairly boring, myself.

I'm also tired of movies trying to humanize the villains from classical literature. Sure, layered villains are usually a good thing. But when the source material is something like Beowulf, let the villain be evil, damn it!

isn't that what Grendel is all about

 

[Loincloth of Armour]

I wish someone would shoot Beowulf as-written...

Including the part where Beowulf is challanged by a door guard and goes on for multiple pages about a swiming contest he had? Something that has nothing to do with the story of Grendel itself?

I've read parts of Beowulf, most of The Cantibury Tales, and all of the Lord of the Rings. While I totally agree all are epic tales, they also all could benefit from an editor chopping out unnecessary bits. Good for their times they were...

 

[Mouseferatu]

Including the part where Beowulf is challanged by a door guard and goes on for multiple pages about a swiming contest he had? Something that has nothing to do with the story of Grendel itself?

I've read parts of Beowulf, most of The Cantibury Tales, and all of the Lord of the Rings. While I totally agree all are epic tales, they also all could benefit from an editor chopping out unnecessary bits. Good for their times they were...

Oh, I agree, nearly everything requires some degree of editing/chopping to make the transition from "classic literature" to movie. And some things do, indeed, benefit from more wide-reaching alterations.

But I'd like to see a version of Beowulf (or Dracula, or several other things) that at least tries to remain close to the source material without making wholesale changes.

 

[Dioltach]

I think the only way in which a movie of Beowulf would work as it is written would be to shoot it as a story within a story, perhaps as a group of warriors listening to a skald tell the tale. Preferably with loud and rude comments during the boring, dragged-out descriptions, and calls for the skald to move on to the juicy bits with Grendel's mum.

(I once saw Benjamin Bagby perform about one third of the poem in the original Old English. Every single moment of it was entertaining.)