People have been telling me that Neil Gaiman is a Serious Writer, not one of those writers of mere childish comics, but this movie does nothing to persuade me that I should bother to read any of his novels.

Also, while I really hate the idea of Grendle’s mother surviving (the most egregious and pointless alteration, IMAO), the way she tempted works well with the notion of offermod. Conflating fame with sex, and fame was what she more directly offered, is a good way to convey its appeal visually. (Note that hubris is a fault when presented this way.)

I think the Hollywood deep thinkers have no idea what a ‘hero’ is.

Well, when they worship worthless douchebags like Michael Moore, George Clooney, Awrec Bawrin, Jane Fonda etc. as heroes, what should we expect?

You give an example: …the Danish warriors chant, “Hrothgar, Hrothgar” as if they’re cheering on a friend trying to win a drinking contest …

Then say you could go on (and on and on)

I wish you would have. I could have more of that.

As for Cliff Notes, they’re written by people deeply immersed and expert in the material they love, like yourself, often more interesting than the original work under review, especially when it comes to whatever literary movement it was that Ford Maddox Ford and the like belonged to.

“Offermod” was a North pagan virtue, but a Christian vice, closely akin to pride. Beowulf was written in a unique space, written by Christians putting a veneer over the pagan heroic mythos. Retelling must try to capture that conflict. I understand the temptation to use sex as their metaphor, but I condemn it.

We ‘created’ OBL with our callus treatment of the Palestinians

Bullshit. The Kingdom of Jordan killed more Palestinians in Black September then Israel has killed in the entire history of the Israeli conflict.

In any case, it’s just a pretext. The key grievance is that Israel sits on land that was part of dar al islam and it must be reclaimed. All the Arabs know that the so-called Palestinians are the group of people to be dehumanized so that the neccesarry cruelty in destroying israel can be implemented.

Because the Multiculturalists don’t believe in good/evil or right/wrong.

I also agree the manipulators of the script had anti-Christianism in mind as virtually every ‘epic’ released follows the same path of egotistic indulgence.

Troy? Alexander the Great?

Trashed… then Hollywood simply dismisses their own failure by blaming the audience with the claim ‘well, they don’t want epics’.

Even as LOTR and Narnia gross 1/3 of a billion domestically for each release…

Now consider how many films they haven’t made…

Manipulation by omission.

Then: some idiot made “Troy” WITHOUT THE GODS, depending on the beautiful Brad Pitt, and made nada.
Then, there was “Alexander”, reducing one of the most interesting, fabulous characters in history (Caesar wept because he hadn’t lived up to Alexander’s example), into a San Francisco study in sensitivity. Gosh, it lost money, too.

I think the Hollywood deep thinkers have no idea what a ‘hero’ is. Yet, out there, there are great stories, told around bonfires FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS, because they are dramatic, interesting and uplifting… and now, we have the technical capability to put those stories on film… and complain because their ‘industry’ is collapsing.

[Well said, very well said. But, once upon a time, Hollywood did have an idea what a hero was. Maybe today's filmmakers don't need look further than their studios' vaults or their DVD collections. --Dan]

The naked battle was ridiculous. Yes, it’s the kind of think Beowulf might have done, but the “strategic object” treatment badly undercut it. That worked in Austin Powers because that was a *comedy* and it was *funny*. They should have either done for the ‘R’ rating, or have kept it to “I will fight him without weapons” rather than “I will fight him without clothes”.

Also, the storyline with the nasty, brother-killing, Christian convert was underwritten. I kept thinking that he was plotting something, but apparently he was not. I wonder if he had a bigger part in the initial script? If he had been goading Grendel somehow to prove that calling on Odin couldn’t help or some such thing that would have been better. As it was, his presence was a red herring.

It would have been a good move if they had called it “Alphawolf and the Seductress” or some such. Beowulf is most certainly wasn’t.

I noticed they couldn’t allow Beowulf to be a Great Hero either, they cast doubt on his killing of the sea monsters (‘last time it was three’) and allowed him to kill Grendel due to the fact he had a cauliflower ear (I have racked by brain, and I know it was 30 years ago, but I swear I couldn’t remember that part). I thought he ripped the suckers arm out by shear heroic ability, whereupon Grendel ran off and died.

Also, he didn’t inherit the kingdom in Denmark, but went home to Sweden and inherited the kingdom, and the Dragon was an entirely separate incident.

My friend donna suggedsted we invite you up over thanksgiving weekend to see it. I said “I think he’d rather be waterboarded.”

[Good point. --Dan]

This is Hollywood after all.