Helen’s mother was a Greek and Zeus seems to be Greek in myths where he takes on human forms, so it makes a lot of sense for Helen to be portrayed as Greek
Its the setting not necessarily the historical accuracy. You have dragons in Game of Thrones but that doesnt mean you can have fighter jets and nuclear bombs, it betrays the setting of the movie
Why does it matter though? It's a fictional story, Helen of Troy wasn't a real person, the Odyssey is just a story. It's all a fantasy. Unless a director specifically says they're going for historical accuracy then I don't care how historically inaccurate it is if that was never the point but doubly so for a piece of fiction.
It is an adaption of The Odyssey so you would expect it to be true to that particular setting. There is no indication that this is Christopher Nolans spin on The Odyssey and that he is loosely following the original but writing his own story, its just an adaptation. As an adaptation it has to be accurate to its original and thats what Ive been trying to say lmao.
Has he said it's going to be accurate to the original? The fact he's changed quite a lot of other things shows that probably wasn't his intention. Also, adaptions change things all the time, LOTR, Harry Potter, Marvel, The Boys, The Walking Dead. All different on screen Vs the source material. Some major changes, total different characters and plot points. Very few adaptions are accurate. Sure, some are but it's rare.
That Nolan guy never was and will be accurate. Sadly he will do what he wants..
But I'll take an example with Harry Potter latest issue with Snape.
Snape have been described as a tall white pale man with big nose etc etc etc, you can't change that character's attributes to whatever you want. If you will make anything related it must be a person having these exact attributes.
Now let's talk for Helen of Troy, Achilles etc etc.
If Nolan wants something different he should make all the cast black. I would accept that. But he will give us an Ancient Greek Black (which in history never had), a small skinny Achilles (which in books he was tall af), He gave Steel frickin armor in Bronze age... IN BRONZE AGE and many more incredible bad takes.
If he made a move exactly like the legendary Troy with Brad Pitt I would go with 1000% but now that's Raceslop as latest movies...
Greeks managed to stop a film production cause the actors were bad big time and I believe we can do that again.
If they want to make a movie it should be correct in all aspects adaptation or not.
But it's not a real story, it's a fictional one, there aren't mythological monsters in Greece or Turkey. Why does accuracy not matter there but it matters when it comes to the skin colour or someone? Where do we draw the line? Should they be a Greek actor or would a white Scandinavian woman draw the same amount of controversy because I highly doubt they would
Ok cool. Let's set Harry Potter in LA, make the hogwarts castle a single conference room, and you know, just destroy all the aesthetics of it. It's not real, so it's fine.
That's a much bigger change than just changing the skin colour of a character so it's not really a comparable argument but it would also be fine if someone did that, they'd be a bit fucked given they probably don't have the rights to make a Harry Potter story.
That's not what I mean. Coriolanus from 2011 is a great movie even though Ralph Fiennes is a Roman general with a machine gun. Only an idiot would criticize that movie based on it not being historically accurate because duh, it's not trying to be.
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u/Sagelegend 13d ago
Why would you hire a greek actress? Helen’s father was a swan.