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2 Review »

1. 

   Troy: Age of Achilles

   Review by Captain Khajiit

   **Warning!**

   **This review contains spoilers!**

   I went to see this film in the cinema just to see the spectacle of the huge Greek fleet sailing to Troy and fully expected the film itself to be rubbish. Instead I found the film to be a pleasant surprise, and became one of the few people who loved the theatrical version of this film and intensely disliked the director’s cut – considering the majority of the added material unnecessary and needlessly graphic. I read the description of this edit a number of times without downloading it, as it sounded like a pure action edit and nothing more; but I downloaded it on a slow Sunday afternoon, when I was bored, and received another pleasant surprise.

   Gekko maintains that there were 200 edits and I can believe it. There are numerous trims to scenes, all implemented in a masterly fashion, and the action speeds along at a terrific pace. While I personally enjoy long sprawling films, people who found that Troy dragged will enjoy this considerably tighter cut. The cuts also serve to add small but perceptible nuances to interactions between characters, or alter slightly those that were already present, and this was as refreshing to me as it was unexpected. Moreover, while action is emphasised, the rest of the plot is not neglected, and the viewer still has sufficient explanation of the events, the characters and their motivations. Even the battle scenes are subtly trimmed, and this edit is not a simple wallowing in the bloodbath of the graphic carnage of the director’s cut.

   This is not my ideal version of the film, which will always be the theatrical cut, or else a hybrid that adheres closely to it; but it is unrealistic to expect one’s ideal version of a film from another faneditor’s work anyway. Instead, I expect the faneditor to have a coherently implemented vision for a true fanedit, from which he does not waver, and to provide an alternative experience of the film. Gekko succeeds admirably here, and I enjoyed the edit immensely.

   Nonetheless, I did feel that the edit was a little too short given the amount of time covered by the subject matter. The end of the film seemed to come extremely quickly. Action movie fans will love this though, and I did like the retention of Sean Bean’s narration at the beginning and end.

   I have one nitpick. The moving of the introductory text and map until after the initial fight between Achilles and Boagrius creates a minor continuity error. The text still states that only Thessaly remains unconquered, but as Achilles has beaten the king’s champion and the king has relinquished his sceptre in order to yield suzerainty of Thessaly to Agamemnon in accordance with their agreement, this is no longer true. I would imagine this is a result of the difficulty of recompositing the map and the text though, and it is admittedly a quibble.

   Editing: 10 out of 10 for the editing itself

   Entertainment: 9 out of 10 (theatrical – 10 out of 10; director’s cut 7 out of 10)

   Image and video quality: The video – based primarily on the director’s cut with its enhanced color palette – was of excellent quality. 10 out of 10

   Audio editing and audio quality: There is clear audio with no hard cuts at all. 10 out of 10

   Presentation: I watched the MP4 – actually a .mov – so I will not give a rating for presentation. I shall say that the new “Age of Achilles” title was skilfully integrated with the opening sequence though.

   Overall: 9 out of 10

   Gekko’s “Age of Achilles” is that rarest of action movie animals: a beast with a touch of class.

   Review by Captain Khajiit — October 21, 2009 @ 6:57 pm

2. 

   Been meaning to watch this for a long time. I was somewhat amused by troy when I first watched it, and I thought that there were some really great scenes in it, unfortunatly surrounded by a lot of boring conversations and only ok acting. I did enjoy most of the scenes with Hector in the original, as I think that his side of the story actually is interesting. Paris and Helen are very annoying at most times.

   This edit then. Much much shorter, thank you. We get to the war in just 18 minutes, something I was very happy about. In general Gekko has made a lot of choices that I agree with. The beginning with Achilles flowed much better when he just shows up and kills the other guy, and then we cut to the title. Really good start of the edit, a little marred by the follwing exposition text. Was that really neccessay? Couldn’t we have done without knowing all of that? We get that Agamemnon is a power greedy king, we get that Achilles doesn’t really like him. We get that Sparta and Troy are making peace. We understand that Menelaos and Agamemnon are brothers. I would have just skipped the text part, most likely.

   Removed Ajax in combat: very good, not missed at all. We get to see him swing at someone once in the movie, that’s quite enough. Silly character.

   Trimmed Paris/Menelaus fight for less cutaways to spectator reactions: haha, I was like wtf, why are there so many spectator reactions in this fight? And that was in your edit! Well done I suppose if there were even more to begin with.

   Trimmed Hector/Achilles fight for less cutaways to people’s reactions, removed close-up of rock that Hector trips over: excellent. Worked so well.

   Removed Hector’s funeral pyre: ok, not so happy about this choice. He has been given room in the movie, so this scene should have stayed in some manner, especially after the agreement between the king and Achilles.

   Those were some specific comments, in general I found this to be so well executed and a great improvement. So many right choices going on here! The movie hasn’t become good…but it’s damn well entertaining. Idea and execution: great. Editing skills: great. Overall effect on the movie: improvement. Have to rate this 9/10.

   Review by spelledaren — July 2, 2010 @ 9:49 am

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