Clash Of The Titans (2009)

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

This is the original Medusa scene. It's so restrained, and therefore so much great can be found within it. But it's not just this scene alone. It was all the great mini-cliffhangers that led up to it and followed it.. there was a lot of suspense from the multi-headed dogs and the snake that wrapped around Perseus' sword..

but even watching this scene, you can clearly see why the original is so much better. I love the grand music at the end as he hold up the head.

 

[JD]

And what is with Pegasus? He just swoops in at the end and picks up Perseus just in a nick of time. Why?

I just assumed he was sent by Zeus.

 

[God Magnus]

I just assumed he was sent by Zeus.

Same here. By that point, Zeus knew Hades was up to something and he was going to try to back up Perseus however he could.

That said, I do agree with one AICN reviewer (it may have been Harry himself) who said that having the scene with Perseus taming Pegasus would have been cool and added something to the relationship between the two characters.

Nice touches: showing us "classic" Pegasus and the way this Pegasus woke Perseus up at the end.

 

[davejames]

Complete, utter and total crap. It's a $2 movie with a $10 price tag.

There is never any opportunity to give a crap about any of these characters. Why should we care about Andromeda? Why do we care about Argos? There's no substance there. I'd care about Perseus if he weren't so much of a prick. And what is with Pegasus? He just swoops in at the end and picks up Perseus just in a nick of time. Why?

The original was a love story and, while it may have had its flaws, it produced characters that you actually gave a shit about. This modern re-imagining takes way too many cues from 300 and pays no respect to the original material.

I thought it was a bit better than just a 300 knock-off, but I do see your point. The biggest problem was making Perseus too much of a badass from the start. I actually LIKED the fact that he was kind of a wimp in the original who was infatuated with a beautiful girl-- you could actually relate to him and imagine yourself in his shoes.

Not to mention the cool shield and helmet and power of invisibility that were given to him.

The other problem is that, by this point, giant CGI creatures just aren't all that impressive anymore. At least to me. And certainly not without a really good story supporting them. And this movie clearly didn't have that.

 

[exodus]

I liked it for what it was.
....but there's one thing I don't get.


How is Cassiopia still a constillation if she was cursed by the Gods?

 

[Gojira]

Completely agree.

1) I wanted her to talk! All she did was hiss and giggle ominously.

2) For someone who was supposed to be hideous, her face was way too pretty.

Medusa was actually cursed for being beautiful. So depictions always have been of mixed opinion, either horrifiyingly ugly or beautiful but with the turn to stone gaze.

Well, giving her a pretty face made her a lot less scary in this movie.

But with a pretty face she was more tempting to look at. Plus when someone did look at her she turned ugly which I really thought was a nice touch.

 

[Gojira]

Complete, utter and total crap. It's a $2 movie with a $10 price tag.

There is never any opportunity to give a crap about any of these characters. Why should we care about Andromeda? Why do we care about Argos? There's no substance there. I'd care about Perseus if he weren't so much of a prick. And what is with Pegasus? He just swoops in at the end and picks up Perseus just in a nick of time. Why?

I cared about them! Perseus was being raised in a loving family and then was victimized because his family was unjustly murdered by Hades just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Andromeda is unjustly being sacrificed to the Kraken to save the city of Argos which is also being unjustly singled out by Hades.

I don't view Perseus as being a prick, he is a person with some justified anger and is motivated to see that further injustice is not done to people by the gods.

The original was a love story and, while it may have had its flaws, it produced characters that you actually gave a shit about. This modern re-imagining takes way too many cues from 300 and pays no respect to the original material.

This movie has a love story, it's just not with Andromeda this time its with Io. I liked this movie much better than 300 and I will own this when it comes out on DVD, while I do not own 300.

The movie is an action adventure/fantasy movie and on that level it works very well and was enjoyably entertaining....for me.

 

[RoJoHen]

Medusa was actually cursed for being beautiful. So depictions always have been of mixed opinion, either horrifiyingly ugly or beautiful but with the turn to stone gaze.

Well, giving her a pretty face made her a lot less scary in this movie.

But with a pretty face she was more tempting to look at.

I'd buy this if her whole body was beautiful, but a pretty face is just weird when you're a monster with snakes coming out of your head.

 

[exodus]

Well, giving her a pretty face made her a lot less scary in this movie.

But with a pretty face she was more tempting to look at.

I'd buy this if her whole body was beautiful, but a pretty face is just weird when you're a monster with snakes coming out of your head.

Sirens & Mermaids??

 

[RoJoHen]

Mermaids can at least have a hot torso...and don't have fucking snakes coming out of their heads!

 

[exodus]

Mermaids can at least have a hot torso...and don't have fucking snakes coming out of their heads!

That is why no man that seeks out Medusa does so to fuck her.
Medusa isn't meant to be a sexual conquest.

 

[LaxScrutiny]

Mermaids can at least have a hot torso...and don't have fucking snakes coming out of their heads!

Man, you need to check out some tentacle monster porn.

 

[John Picard]

Well, giving her a pretty face made her a lot less scary in this movie.

But with a pretty face she was more tempting to look at.

I'd buy this if her whole body was beautiful, but a pretty face is just weird when you're a monster with snakes coming out of your head.

Read up on some Greek mythology before being so critical.

 

[RoJoHen]

Mermaids can at least have a hot torso...and don't have fucking snakes coming out of their heads!

Man, you need to check out some tentacle monster porn.

No, I really don't think I do.

But with a pretty face she was more tempting to look at.

I'd buy this if her whole body was beautiful, but a pretty face is just weird when you're a monster with snakes coming out of your head.

Read up on some Greek mythology before being so critical.

I'm not even sure what you're trying to say here. I know the story of Medusa. I'm just saying as a critique of this movie that any of the fear they were trying to convey with the Medusa sequence in this movie was dwindled because they gave her too pretty of a face. The version in the original movie was much scarier.

 

[Base_Delta_Zero]

And an R rating would have allowed for some more brutal kills and nudity wouldn't have hurt, either.

The original film had some nudity and it was rated PG. Standards have changed.

Uh ... I agree?

Seriously, out of all the random shit in my post, you single out this line to make a stand on?

I know the first one had limited nudity and was PG. I wanted this one to also have nudity and more brutal violence, thus necessitating an R rating ... by today's standards.

----------------

Anyway, just saw it again. It holds up to a second viewing well enough. Gemma's still smokin' hot and the monsters are still sweet. Definitely needs more gods doing shit, though. I really hope the DVD will have some cut scenes with these guys. A couple times it seems like one god or another is about to say or do something before cutting away during the Olympus scenes.

I thought Medusa worked pretty well, but the CGI was off just enough to be noticeable - probably to do, as was mentioned above, with her essentially human form and features standing out versus practical effects of similarly-scaled characters.

Echo the appreciation of the petrifying gaze morph from beauty into horror effect.

And maybe I'm just not finding the right pictures, but the end-stage CGI Medusa actress appears to be much more attractive than the flesh-and-blood template. Bonus points to the tech guys there, I guess.

 

[Lapis Exilis]

I know some reviewers are giving the story and acting crap, but I had no trouble with them keeping in mind that this is a "reimagination" of the original, basically.

Not to mention that the so-called "original" was a rather loose reimagining of the actual original myth of Perseus, with bits and pieces of other Greek myths thrown in (such as Pegasus, which was the steed of Bellerophon, not Perseus, and was actually born from Medusa's dead body).

Actually, Perseus does ride Pegasus in the original myth. After he hacks off Medusa's head, Pegasus springs from the stump of her neck and carries Perseus on his way back to his kingdom. It is from this mount that Perseus spots Andromeda being sacrificed to the Kraken. After Pegasus drops Perseus off, the horse remains wild until Bellerophon tames him with help form Athena and the two go off to kill the Chimaera.

Always hated Clash of the Titans (and have zero interest in seeing the new one which just looks like 300 all over again - loud, badly acted and stupid), precisely because they didn't know their mythology and screwed it all up. I was a big time reader of Greek myths in 1980, was very excited about the film and then furious that they did such a horrible job supposedly making a movie about Greek mythology. Loved Harryhausen's Sinbad movies though.

 

[exodus]

Mermaids can at least have a hot torso...and don't have fucking snakes coming out of their heads!

Man, you need to check out some tentacle monster porn.

No, I really don't think I do.

I'd buy this if her whole body was beautiful, but a pretty face is just weird when you're a monster with snakes coming out of your head.

Read up on some Greek mythology before being so critical.

I'm not even sure what you're trying to say here. I know the story of Medusa. I'm just saying as a critique of this movie that any of the fear they were trying to convey with the Medusa sequence in this movie was dwindled because they gave her too pretty of a face. The version in the original movie was much scarier.

You have to forget the original film going into this one, it's a completely different story, tone and feel than the first one. You can't expect Medusa to be the same as in the first. The original "Clash" was the first to ever interpret Medusa as half snake and not walking on two legs. In the first, she had to even use her hands to crawl which is stupid if she's part snake. In this one she's faster, so the fright comes when you realize you have less of a chance of escaping her than in the first.

 

[RoJoHen]

Man, you need to check out some tentacle monster porn.

No, I really don't think I do.

Read up on some Greek mythology before being so critical.

I'm not even sure what you're trying to say here. I know the story of Medusa. I'm just saying as a critique of this movie that any of the fear they were trying to convey with the Medusa sequence in this movie was dwindled because they gave her too pretty of a face. The version in the original movie was much scarier.

You have to forget the original film going into this one, it's a completely different story, tone and feel than the first one. You can't expect Medusa to be the same as in the first. The original "Clash" was the first to ever interpret Medusa as half snake and not walking on two legs. In the first, she had to even use her hands to crawl which is stupid if she's part snake. In this one she's faster, so the fright comes when you realize you have less of a chance of escaping her than in the first.

Well, I guess I just don't find fast things that scary.

 

[JD]

Really? I've always found fast alot scarier than slow. When something is fast your chances of getting away are alot less. IMO of course.

 

[stonester1]

No, I really don't think I do.

I'm not even sure what you're trying to say here. I know the story of Medusa. I'm just saying as a critique of this movie that any of the fear they were trying to convey with the Medusa sequence in this movie was dwindled because they gave her too pretty of a face. The version in the original movie was much scarier.

You have to forget the original film going into this one, it's a completely different story, tone and feel than the first one. You can't expect Medusa to be the same as in the first. The original "Clash" was the first to ever interpret Medusa as half snake and not walking on two legs. In the first, she had to even use her hands to crawl which is stupid if she's part snake. In this one she's faster, so the fright comes when you realize you have less of a chance of escaping her than in the first.

Well, I guess I just don't find fast things that scary.

Obviously, you have never dealt with a fast, dangerous animal in the wild.