Jolie to play evil Queen in Beowulf movie.

[trancejeremy]

No, no, it's

Beowulf 2: Electric Carribou

 

[Heretic Apostate]

Shouldn't they get someone who is really ugly then? Or will they be using alot of make up?

Haven't seen Christopher Lambert's "Beowulf," have you? Grendel's mother, when showing her illusory form, is quite yummy...

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

AJ ... drool.

 

[Ranger REG]

I don't get it. What's so exciting about a cartoon? I mean, the last time Ms. Jolie was animated she wasn't that hot a tuna in Shark Tales.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Polar Express utterly underwhelmed me. Gaiman and Roger Avery as writers make me think it could be very cool. Of course it will be a re-imagining, but with those two, I can see possibilities...

 

[Aulayan]

From Neil Gaiman's blog, last night:

"Two days ago we got a Variety article and a Hollywood Reporter article. Variety described Angelina Jolie as playing "the Queen of the Night" or somesuch, and added some details that I think they'd either made up or misunderstood or just got from someone who hadn't actually read the script. The Hollywood Reporter simply described her, accurately, as playing Grendel's Mother." (emphasis mine)

Source

 

[AFGNCAAP]

Eh... not really that much hope for it, myself. But, then again, that's because I'm curious about seeing this rendition of the Beowulf tale.

 

[Dioltach]

No! I had such high hopes for this movie! I mean, in order to film it, they'd need a bit more of a plot that "burly guy finds monsters, kills them", but "the epic poem tells of the tragedy of a man condemned to eternally err because he was born of a prohibited love between a mortal and a devil. His only possible salvation lies in a constant struggle against evil within him and in Grendel, a terrible and apparently invincible creature."?!?! No it doesn't! Burly guy finds monsters, kills them!

Actually, I believe it was a Dutch scholar, Jan Visser (though I may be wrong, since it's been a few years since I studied Old and Middle English) who argued that the tragedy of epic heroes (and to a lesser extent heroes of romance) is that they live between two worlds, the world of mortals and the supernatural world, and are doomed to a lifetime of conflict where the two meet.

I'm not saying that this makes Beowulf a half-demon, but I suppose it does provide some grounds for adding an element of supernatural birth in a modern-day movie adaptation. In fact, it restores some of my faith in moviemakers doing a bit of research.

 

[Sir Brennen]

I'm not saying that this makes Beowulf a half-demon, but I suppose it does provide some grounds for adding an element of supernatural birth in a modern-day movie adaptation. In fact, it restores some of my faith in moviemakers doing a bit of research.

If I remember correctly from my high school english class, the original poem also illustrated the conflicts and contridictions of european pagan beliefs overlain with christian ones. Inferring Beowulf is half-demon might be a metaphor for this.

 

[BrooklynKnight]

If I remember correctly from my high school english class, the original poem also illustrated the conflicts and contridictions of european pagan beliefs overlain with christian ones. Inferring Beowulf is half-demon might be a metaphor for this.

Does that mean he has the Half-Demon template? Or is he perhaps a unique creature? Or maybe a Teifling?