Anyone read the book?

[gammer]

As you may or may not know, "Beowulf is an Old English heroic epic poem of anonymous authorship".  Read more here.

So anyone read it?

My dad used to teach it in his English class, so I have been exposed to it in print form.
I think they did ok in translating it to film. They took the usual shortcuts to make it more marketable for Hollywood.

[skenderberg]

As you may or may not know, "Beowulf is an Old English heroic epic poem of anonymous authorship".  Read more here.

So anyone read it?

My dad used to teach it in his English class, so I have been exposed to it in print form.
I think they did ok in translating it to film. They took the usual shortcuts to make it more marketable for Hollywood.

Oh yeah.  Anyone who's read The Hobbit will find the third act with the dragon rather familiar...

Of course, this is only true of the literary Beowulf.  The cinematic Beowulf bears no resemblance to The Hobbit whatsoever.

[esoobaC .T bocaJ]

What is with you people and these "Book" things?

I got better things to do than reed






but yeah, I read it last year in English

[MrTorso]

I have read it a couple of times. In High School english class and then I read the Seamus Heaney version that is much more accessible than the version I read in High School.

[Fortis]

I read the wishbone version when I was a wee one, I loved it, then I went to high school, and read the real one, I loved it...

If Hollywood would just stick to the story in the poem, it would be  freaking awesome....we are 0 for 3 right now in Beowulf movies.

[Just Some Guy]

You know, I was going to mention how shocked I was that someone I worked with wasn't aware of the poem.

The changers weren't about "taking shortcuts", the scriptwriter Neil Gaiman has a long history of deconstructionist takes on legends.  I do think that Zemekis botched some of the shooting but the big ideas and changes in the film have Gaiman's fingerprints all over them.

[DoctorZ]

Yes.  Last year of English Lit. in college.

[nosebleed]

Yeah, 11th grade English... our teach was WAY too into it, re-enacting fight scenes and such...

[AmandaGal]

We read this in high school and then we read Grendel.  I actually like them both.

[RoninFox]

Read it back in High School, and I should probably give it another look to refresh my memory sometime.

I still say the best adaptation of this story was the mud show at the Ohio Ren Fest.  Old grey-haired guy as Grendel, covered head to toe with mud, terrorizing the audience by walking on the benches and plopping mud on their heads.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

As you may or may not know, "Beowulf is an Old English heroic epic poem of anonymous authorship".  Read more here.

So anyone read it?

My dad used to teach it in his English class, so I have been exposed to it in print form.
I think they did ok in translating it to film. They took the usual shortcuts to make it more marketable for Hollywood.

Oh yeah.  Anyone who's read The Hobbit will find the third act with the dragon rather familiar...

Of course, this is only true of the literary Beowulf.  The cinematic Beowulf bears no resemblance to The Hobbit whatsoever.

Speaking as somebody who read both The Hobbit and Beowulf,

Whaaaa? o.0

The thing that stands out about the dragon encounter in "the hobbit" is that a relatively unknown character pops out of nowhere to kill the dragon with a black arrow, acting on the advice of a small bird, and the hero is never directly involved. The means of executing the dragon is that The Black Arrow is shot at it's vulnerable spot.

In "Beowulf", the peice of literature, however,  the hero beowulf fights the dragon directly, mano a mano, right at the cave entrance, and the dragon breaths fire on him and bites him with its poisonous fangs, and while he's suffering internal necrorsis and getting boiled alive in his own melting armor, screaming in pain and trying to hit the bloody thing, all of his comrades beat feet and leave him to get fried. Only his Trusty Sidekick stays at his aid, and beowulf, with his help, manages to deliver a killing blow. Then he dies and gets all the dragon's treasure added to his funeral pyre.

I think that the two last third bits are similar ONLY in the respect that there is a dragon, and sure enough, said dragon ends up dead. Aside from that point, they differ in all detail and manner. I think you could also make a good case that the movie had more in common with Hobbit in its last bits than the book did.


Finally, could you just point out these so-called shortcuts? I think that you could have adapted it straight to film without any alterations. and that inventing a whole additional layer to the story is, in fact, the opposite of a shortcut. This, as the protagonist so emphatically and frequently points out, is Beowulf. Beowulf isn't like action movies, action movies are like Beowulf. Beowulf is the ultimate, iconic, sword & sorcery, mythic hero, Beefy Badass Kills Monsters With Forhead story, distilled into its primal and elemental form.

[gammer]

Finally, could you just point out these so-called shortcuts? I think that you could have adapted it straight to film without any alterations. and that inventing a whole additional layer to the story is, in fact, the opposite of a shortcut.

Fuzzy, don't get me wrong, but I only said they did "ok" in making it a film. To be honest, my personal preference would have been that they didn't change anything from the original story.
What I mean by 'shortcuts' (ok, shortcut was a bad word choice) is that they did the usual altercations to make it a product that "they think" people would like better...or what will sell better. In general I don't like when this is done.

Beowulf isn't like action movies, action movies are like Beowulf. Beowulf is the ultimate, iconic, sword & sorcery, mythic hero, Beefy Badass Kills Monsters With Forhead story, distilled into its primal and elemental form.

I agree. That's why I like the story of Beowulf and to be honest I think this movie by itself wasn't _that bad_. It could have been better (if it stuck to the original story) and I certainly liked it better then 300.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Okay. When you put it that way your statement makes a lot more sense. The term "shortcut" to me brings to mind abridgement rather than elaboration or alteration. I can see that.

I think that CGI Beowulf had a cuter butt than any of the spartan guys in "300".

Also, spartans are a bunch of obnoxious, thick-skulled varblenecks.

[PlayMSTie]

Just for kicks, I watched the "Origins of Beowulf" extra on the DVD. It was something to see. The writer and (I think) the director and others all patting themselves on the back, terribly pleased with themselves over what they did to this "boring" old story. I wanted to say, "Did you guys actually watch the movie??"

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Yeah. =/ I must say that one of the things that most disheartens me is hearing that the creators didn't care much for the source material. Same thing happened with the guy who wrote "the dark is rising".

Why is it that hollywood thinks it a good idea for cinematic adaptations of great literature to be make by people who loathe and despise the source material?

I can't see eye-to-eye with anyone who calls beowulf "boring". It is the very wellspring from which the concept of "action" in a film, fiction, or other storytelling narrative arises.