BeoWulf
Well-Known Member
Background Info
Well here it is finally people of big action movies which rip off of history and literature will have a new chance of finding their own new chance at being the next spartan319931 or beuwolf4554 that seems to haunt the web and online games like a bad joke. Anyway mainstream popularity aside i wanted to share with you the background behind the epic character which i most humbly associate myself with.
Beowulf and Grendel is originally an epic poem which describes the story of a Norse hero and King called Beowulf. The poem itself is of an unknown author and the origin dates back to more than 2 millenia ago. The actual text is the only one of its kind and gives many historians a great deal of background on the early saxons and geats in British and Scandinavian Europe. And what they were exposed to in terms of literary art.
What makes the tale even more fascinating is that it has bold moral, fictional and dramatic influences on many of the great works of the greatest historical periods of our time and many of their authors as well. What adds to the mystery is that the poem and story itself is incomplete and no other sources of literary information have ever been found to complete it and may never be.
This type of story based poetry and what some would enjoy calling "High Fantasy" was the first ever recorded by mankind and hence its importance. Many gifted and well known writers including Shakespeare, JRR,Tolkien "Lord of the Rings" Robert E, Howard "Conan" The Grim brothers "Known Fairytale writers H.P Lovercraft "Cthulu" and many more have created their worlds and most of their lore "monsters / sorcery / magic" by directly adapting it from that of Nordic mythical folklore "Trolls , goblins, orcs etc"and of these the oldest predated work ever to include such creations was attributed to the incomplete epic tale that is "Beowulf and Grendel"
For the history buffs this means a great deal because we are talking about a time long before the Romans or Greeks began cultivating the world with ideologies and philosophical moral based epics like Homers "Oddessy" etc. Therefore your looking at a very complex and unique contribution that changes the face of literature forever.And even more surprising is its origins which stem off of Scandinavian myths a culture shrouded in barbarism and warlike behavior where even the smallest amount of creative self expression was nonexistent till the better half of the byzantine era.
Anyway enough of my endless ranting on how it all began and what makes it so great in my opinion. To sum it up if you ever wanted to know where the dragons and magic comes from in western culture and keeps popping up all the time then heres where it all began as far as organized fiction goes. Beyond that its just word of mouth.
Now as far as the movie goes well i have high hopes and of course very scary conclusions. The only thing they can do at the moment to ruin the experience for me would be if they didn't give you the epic feeling or atmosphere you would give any work of art like lets say Shakespeare. Because trust me its on that level as far as the literary community goes, its a poem that has been studied dissected and analyzed over and over again for any student studying western literature for the better part of 400 years. So if Hollywood just turns it into another cliche historical action story with big boobed celebrities to rack up box office hits then i will officially lose faith in ever taking any one of these movies seriously again.
The Cast
Ray Winston as (Beowulf)
Anthony Hopkins as (Hrothgar)
John Malkovich as (Unferth)
Robin Wright Penn (Wealthrow)
Angelina Jolie (Grendels Mother)
Director:
Robert Zemeckis
Writers (WGA):
Neil Gaiman (screenplay) &
Roger Avary (screenplay)
Now heres where am interested, we have a good set list of big budget actors and i happen to think john malkovich is one of the best of our time. And yet i cant stop shaking since Anglina is a great actor in her own right but she seems too linear to me at times and brings too much sexuality into everything she portrays maybe its good in this role but she will have to do a lot more that that. Ahhh yes and Anthony Hopkins.. well yeah he is highly acclaimed and very good at what he does theres no doubt. But i cant help to think that he is falling into the same curse as Sean Connery did which is they stop being the characters and the characters start being them. In the end of the day its not "Oh look he did Hrothgar so well" it becomes "Oh Anthony was so good" so ya it may be a good performance but not necessarily one that reflects the characters... you know what i mean? O.o
Now the Director and the writers i "am" happy about since they have all shown the guts to stick by their work and protect artistic integrity. Neil Gaiman specifically due to his work on the hit graphic novels "Sandman" and "mirror mask"
So there you have it thats pretty much how its going to turn out. And atleast i hope the background info helped some of you who might care about the origina of a movie and not just generally cram it into the dust and say "omg its uber cool how he hit with that sword" untill the next generic movie comes out to grab your sparkly eyed attention.
The movie releases on the 15th of November
And heres a link if you need to check out the trailer or something
http://wwws.warnerbros.co.uk/beowulf/
Well here it is finally people of big action movies which rip off of history and literature will have a new chance of finding their own new chance at being the next spartan319931 or beuwolf4554 that seems to haunt the web and online games like a bad joke. Anyway mainstream popularity aside i wanted to share with you the background behind the epic character which i most humbly associate myself with.
Beowulf and Grendel is originally an epic poem which describes the story of a Norse hero and King called Beowulf. The poem itself is of an unknown author and the origin dates back to more than 2 millenia ago. The actual text is the only one of its kind and gives many historians a great deal of background on the early saxons and geats in British and Scandinavian Europe. And what they were exposed to in terms of literary art.
What makes the tale even more fascinating is that it has bold moral, fictional and dramatic influences on many of the great works of the greatest historical periods of our time and many of their authors as well. What adds to the mystery is that the poem and story itself is incomplete and no other sources of literary information have ever been found to complete it and may never be.
This type of story based poetry and what some would enjoy calling "High Fantasy" was the first ever recorded by mankind and hence its importance. Many gifted and well known writers including Shakespeare, JRR,Tolkien "Lord of the Rings" Robert E, Howard "Conan" The Grim brothers "Known Fairytale writers H.P Lovercraft "Cthulu" and many more have created their worlds and most of their lore "monsters / sorcery / magic" by directly adapting it from that of Nordic mythical folklore "Trolls , goblins, orcs etc"and of these the oldest predated work ever to include such creations was attributed to the incomplete epic tale that is "Beowulf and Grendel"
For the history buffs this means a great deal because we are talking about a time long before the Romans or Greeks began cultivating the world with ideologies and philosophical moral based epics like Homers "Oddessy" etc. Therefore your looking at a very complex and unique contribution that changes the face of literature forever.And even more surprising is its origins which stem off of Scandinavian myths a culture shrouded in barbarism and warlike behavior where even the smallest amount of creative self expression was nonexistent till the better half of the byzantine era.
Anyway enough of my endless ranting on how it all began and what makes it so great in my opinion. To sum it up if you ever wanted to know where the dragons and magic comes from in western culture and keeps popping up all the time then heres where it all began as far as organized fiction goes. Beyond that its just word of mouth.
Now as far as the movie goes well i have high hopes and of course very scary conclusions. The only thing they can do at the moment to ruin the experience for me would be if they didn't give you the epic feeling or atmosphere you would give any work of art like lets say Shakespeare. Because trust me its on that level as far as the literary community goes, its a poem that has been studied dissected and analyzed over and over again for any student studying western literature for the better part of 400 years. So if Hollywood just turns it into another cliche historical action story with big boobed celebrities to rack up box office hits then i will officially lose faith in ever taking any one of these movies seriously again.
The Cast
Ray Winston as (Beowulf)
Anthony Hopkins as (Hrothgar)
John Malkovich as (Unferth)
Robin Wright Penn (Wealthrow)
Angelina Jolie (Grendels Mother)
Director:
Robert Zemeckis
Writers (WGA):
Neil Gaiman (screenplay) &
Roger Avary (screenplay)
Now heres where am interested, we have a good set list of big budget actors and i happen to think john malkovich is one of the best of our time. And yet i cant stop shaking since Anglina is a great actor in her own right but she seems too linear to me at times and brings too much sexuality into everything she portrays maybe its good in this role but she will have to do a lot more that that. Ahhh yes and Anthony Hopkins.. well yeah he is highly acclaimed and very good at what he does theres no doubt. But i cant help to think that he is falling into the same curse as Sean Connery did which is they stop being the characters and the characters start being them. In the end of the day its not "Oh look he did Hrothgar so well" it becomes "Oh Anthony was so good" so ya it may be a good performance but not necessarily one that reflects the characters... you know what i mean? O.o
Now the Director and the writers i "am" happy about since they have all shown the guts to stick by their work and protect artistic integrity. Neil Gaiman specifically due to his work on the hit graphic novels "Sandman" and "mirror mask"
So there you have it thats pretty much how its going to turn out. And atleast i hope the background info helped some of you who might care about the origina of a movie and not just generally cram it into the dust and say "omg its uber cool how he hit with that sword" untill the next generic movie comes out to grab your sparkly eyed attention.
The movie releases on the 15th of November
And heres a link if you need to check out the trailer or something
http://wwws.warnerbros.co.uk/beowulf/
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