It is a really horrible movie. I just saw the first forty minutes but that was enough.

Making the Trojan war into this trashy Hollywood action flick was a horrible idea. Homer's Epics are an important part of our cultural heritage, pissing upon it like this is despicable. It is not like there are many other recent English speaking films about the subject so this movie will be the main reference most young Americans and Europeans will have about the Trojan war. With movies like Alexander and the anti-historical 300, Ancient Greece aren't doing well at all.

I take Alexander any day however before those two other turds. At least it was trying much more to be historical. I think it could have become a good movie if the director had gotten some decent actors instead of the misfits that were chosen.

Ancient Rome is doing a little better because of the awesome HBO TV series Rome that combined great historical accuracy with some very talented actors, a huge budget and of course a very interesting period of history. I hope some of the people involved could make more TV series about other periods of Rome, Greece or perhaps something more challenging like Phoenicia, The Persian Empire or Assyria.

Alien 4 was really bad. It was mind bending to discover that the director of this movie was the same as of the fantastic Amélie (Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain) which would probably go on my top 10 list if I made one due to it's very unique and uplifting magical romantic humanism. This film should be the standard medication for misanthropy.

But Amélie and the Alien films are so different that it is not really that hard to understand that a director would have problems mastering both types of films. I think if James Cameron had been the director of Amélie it would been really bad as well.

Alien and Aliens are really good. I haven't seen Alien 3 since I was young but I remember liking it too a lot as a kid, although a bit less than the first two.

I hope the long version of the Illyad is not like the abbreviated version I read in my Greek Mythology compendium, because what I read made it seem like a bunch of Gods that behave like spoiled children and drag their mortal pawns along for the game.

I'm so freaking glad they did a version that didn't involve the Gods, you have no idea (yeah, they left out many details or changed some parts, but I think it made for a good narrative).

Also, they never made a statement on the movie that it was a faithful portrayal of the Illyad, nor did they name the movie 'The Illiyad'.

Frankly, if they ever make a faithful movie version of the Illyad, I don't think I'm interested in watching it, because after having read a ~1.5k pages of Greek mythology, I was quite fed up with reading about kids that are given Godlike powers and let loose to wreak havoc over all creation.

This particular narrative has worn out it's welcome.

I'm not demanding a faithful portrayal of the Trojan War, I just wish that the time period and it's many cultural differences to ours would have been taken seriously.
Since this is set in mythic times in a period of history that is disputed, the creators would be required to use some imagination anyway. There are many interesting approaches for that could have been used but I don't think anyone of those involved cared much about history.

I wouldn't have minded a version that left the gods out, but I'm sure that there are a thousand ways of integrating the presence of the gods into the story in a way that even you would appreciate. One of the approaches that I like a lot is where the viewer is left to wonder for himself if the divine presence is real or not. Like in "The Messenger" which is about Joan of Arc she hears voices speaking to her and see visions. But are those visions a product of her own mind or divine?
The only good viking movie that I have seen is called "Den Hvite Viking" (The White Viking) It is a Norwegian movie (sadly not on DVD) that is about a Norwegian heathen who is forced to forcibly convert Icelandic people into Christianity. For most of the film no supernatural forces are shown, but there is a scene which is very memorable to me where a Norwegian minor King\Chief has an idol of the god Odin in his yard, and this idol is alive. When it is offered food as a sacrifice it eats it. The absurdity and strangeness of this scene in an otherwise realistic movie is a bit shocking and makes the idol both repulsive and attractive in an earthy and pagan way.

This more subtle approach to divinity would be a bit more difficult with the Greek gods who are very active than with say the God of the Christian bible but it shouldn't be a problem for a good script writer.

Like it or not, it is an important part of Western culture and it goes right back to our Middle Eastern roots. It really deserves a better treatment.
Egotistical gods that wipes out cities because of offending pillow activities and sneaks up on young maidens in the form of a swan or a holy ghost have captured the minds and pencils of Westerners for centuries. Silly? Yes, but so are many things that are popular in modern culture too.
Besides, this particular narrative seem to be popular among gamers, Sacrifice, Populous, Black & White for example.

Agree with the Star Wars prequels and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
Also, The Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions

Um... sorry, I have to hop the bandwagon.

I think that the great storytelling and the plausible "worn and used" universe of the original series, and the charm of very well played characters was supplanted by special effects and commercial interest in the follow up movies.

And the characters were just so weak, compared. Or annoying - I quite liked the MAD magazine cover beheading Jar-Jar Binks!

I only saw the first one of them though because that was just enough. But then again, Lucas was never a great director.

Maybe it is good that Disney has taken over the franchise, maybe not.

Hm... have to ask: where is Lawrence of Arabia in your list? Or Wall-E? ;-) I like everything else on the list, except Evil Dead 2 which I have not seen.

While "best" or "greatest" is a fluid definition, one might contest a given film not being on the list of "best" and "greatest".

While Raiders is very charming indeed, I don't think it can be compared with Lawrence, just for the gravity of the story, and the depth of characters - the fact of Peter O'Toole not receiving an Oscar for his performance is unjust, or shall we say "malign".

Where Indiana is easy to play, Lawrence is not.

The latter is passing from a little clownish, insubordinate, ill-fitting junior officer into a shiny, unconventional, larger than life military strategist-hero into a violated man into an egomaniacal war criminal into a sidelined and disillusioned political encumbrance into a legend that ignores the complexity of the man.

Indiana is and remains whatever he is in the beginning of Raiders, however attractive this may be.

Also, the stars of Lawrence were made to ride camels in hot desert of Jordan in long shot pictures, to build on the reality of the story. This I cannot imagine today.

I love Orson Welles, but I also think his "victim" status has granted him retroactive glory beyond the actual facts in Hollywood sentimental style, wistful of what might have been had this great director not been sidelined after his debut.

PS. I do think that the camera cut into the "Paramount" mountain in Raiders of Lost Arc is lovingly borrowed from Lawrence of Arabia, from the visually stunning and quite original cut from T.E. (surprisingly) blowing out a match into a blazing sunrise of North African desert.

At this point, it makes for a better comedy than a serious story as people's sensibilities have changed since ancient Greece.

The Christians, Jews, Muslims & al had already begun to move away from such a narrative with their all-knowing God (who was obviously still very human, because it was written by humans and he definitely made some bad calls, but he didn't stoop to the level of pettiness that Greek Gods were capable off as the writers tried to make him as perfect as they could given their own limitations).

So sure, put it in a comedy so that I can laugh at it, but don't put it in a serious movie.

Games are in a separate category of their own, separate from movies and books.

As a gamer, I find it fun to be all powerful and wreck havoc, but that doesn't mean I'd do it for real if I actually was all powerful in real life.

This is a big part of the reason why games narratives don't translate well into movie or book material (because you do all types of messed up crap in games that you wouldn't do if you were the same character in real life),

"Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me" and I'll give you a twinkie if you have even heard of it lol

+1 for both the Star Wars prequels (I do understand the issues with episode 1, but I still like it) and the depressingly maligned Matrix sequels.

I can understand why Final Fantasy game fans hate on Spirits Within, as a game movie it genuinely is a betrayal, but if taken as it's own movie it's alright. That's what It should have been too, tacking the FF name onto this completely unrelated film is what sunk it and its studio.

Another, for me is Ghostbusters 2. I have never, ever understood why so many people seem to hate this movie, I love it almost as much as the original, and it's simply filled with memorable quotes.

Ray: "You mean you never even had a Slinky??"
Egon: "We had part of a Slinky... but I straightened it."

Honestly, I like Alien 3 better than Aliens. Don't get me wrong, Aliens is a fun movie, but I find it's too... I don't know how to describe it. It's got it's good points, but I guess maybe it doesn't resonate with me as much as the first and the third because it concentrates more on the action than the suspense, maybe? Not sure exactly what it is, but even though I like it a lot, I don't like it as much as the third one.

The others are marginally better. Of course, that's akin to saying rat poison is marginally better than a dog turd.

I was very disappointed with this movie. Heavy handed is putting it mildly IMO. I found it almost insulting.

Anyone that was religiously watching Twin Peaks when it originally aired (and there were a lot of us) has heard of this.

The Cable Guy

I think it was ahead of its time. Maybe people weren't ready to see a dark, twisted, creepy Jim Carrey.
It is one of my favorite movies of all time.

I saw that movie with a few friends and that's the way they felt. It felt wrong for them but I loved it.