Re: Jason and the Argonauts (finally)

moviePig wrote:
On Aug 12, 8:34 pm, "Alric Knebel" <al...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
It looks like a decent remake is on the way. It's one of my favorite
movies, one I've seen too many times to count. . . .

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117990390.html?categoryid=1236&cs=1

It was an f/x movie -- depending on the day, maybe *the* f/x movie --
and the remake'll be worth seeing (imnsho) if and only if the
filmmakers somehow, in this modern day of CGI mummies and scorpion-
kings, manage to recreate, e.g., that peak moment of lean-forward
anticipation when the evil king sows the hydra's teeth and calls for
"the children of the night..." (Was that actually the same line from
Browning's DRACULA?)

What attracted me to the original, aside from the special effects (all of
them; and that was a very good scene, sowing the hydra's teeth), was the
cleverness of it all, how cleverness itself was a feature in the plot. For
instance, when Zeus permits Hera to helping Jason only five times (because
Jason's sister had called upon her five times), in Olympia Jason asked if
the golden fleece really existed, and if so, where was it. Zeus interrupts
the conversation to remind Hera that THAT was TWO questions. Hera replies,
"And I'll answer with one answer. Search in the land of Calchis." Then
Jason says, "Then it DOES exist." And there was Jason himself, using the
gods when he absolutely had to, because he had such disdain for the way they
played games with the lives of humans. He refused Zeus's help toward
finding a crew and ship, preferring to gather the crew himself, by putting
on an Olypmic-style contest, guranteeing the fittest men would be enlisted.
One of my favorite scenes is when Hylas and Hercules throw the discus.
Hercules was amused by the whole idea, and points to a rock far out in the
ocean. "No man has ever reached it," he says. Hylas asks seemingly
naively, "Is the object to HIT it, or pass it up." Hercules laughs, "You'll
be lucky if you get it half way." Hylas declines to go first, because,
"I've never thrown a discus before, and I'd like to see how it's done."
Hercules throws firsts and hits it. Hylas spins it, so that it skips across
the water, strikes the top of the rock then skips over it, to land beyond
it. It was all very, very clever. It's be important to maintain that
cleverness.

And actually that line about "the children of the night" comes from Bram
Stoker's novel, if I remember correctly. I know it's in EVERY Dracula movie
that's not some derivative of the original (like "Son of Dracula" or some
such).
--

______________________________________________
Alric Knebel
http://www.ironeyefortress.com/C-SPAN_loon.html
http://www.ironeyefortress.com




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