# New Beowulf movie **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 14, 2007, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-beowulf-movie/426439 "2007-11-14T22:24:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Queen\_Bruin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Queen\_Bruin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queen_Bruin)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2007, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-beowulf-movie/426439/21 "2007-11-15T13:07:16Z")
[QUOTE=lissener] Um, has anyone here seen [one of my favorite movies](http://imdb.com/title/tt0402057/) of 2005? [/QUOTE] I Netflixed it last month. I thought it was pure turd. Although the locations were absolutely gorgeous. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2007, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-beowulf-movie/426439/22 "2007-11-15T13:14:29Z")
[QUOTE=GuanoLad] Woah. A hack? He may have lost his edge lately, but I’d never consider him a hack! What’s the reasoning behind accusing him of that? [/QUOTE] Well, there’s the hatchet job he gave to the end of _Contact_, where he turned the entire theme of the novel inside out, making it something that it never was. Sagan is still probably spinning in his grave after that one. I don’t know if I’d go as far as calling him a hack, but it’s blatantly obvious that he doesn’t give a rats ass for the source material in his movies. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2007, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-beowulf-movie/426439/23 "2007-11-15T14:01:20Z")
[QUOTE=JohnT] Well, there’s the hatchet job he gave to the end of _Contact_, where he turned the entire theme of the novel inside out, making it something that it never was. Sagan is still probably spinning in his grave after that one. I don’t know if I’d go as far as calling him a hack, but it’s blatantly obvious that he doesn’t give a rats ass for the source material in his movies. [/QUOTE] That, and he’d rather spend all his time and money on flashy effects. ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2007, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-beowulf-movie/426439/24 "2007-11-15T15:15:31Z")
> [@](#): > > I read an interview that said to keep it consistent with the original story, Beowulf fights in the nude. Is this true? Yes, it is. The movie earns its PG-13 rating with both the bloody violence and the sexual humor and some nudity. For the Grendel fight, Beowulf is completely nude and the but butt area is shown completely. Unfortunately to keep the PG-13 they use Austin Power hijinxs to keep the groinal area off camera. That was a bit distracting. There is also the shown in advertising full frontal nudity of Angelina Jolie, though it is Barbie nudity with the offending areas rendered impotent through smoothness. ---
**Author:** ![Madd\_Maxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Madd\_Maxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Madd_Maxx)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2007, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-beowulf-movie/426439/25 "2007-11-15T15:45:00Z")
[QUOTE=obfusciatrist] [spoiler]There is also the shown in advertising full frontal nudity of Angelina Jolie, though it is Barbie nudity with the offending areas rendered impotent through smoothness. [/QUOTE] But if I squint my eyes I could pretend it was really Angelina Jolie naked, right? ---
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2007, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-beowulf-movie/426439/26 "2007-11-15T16:16:59Z")
Thanks for the responses. That picture of naked-Barbie-doll- Jolie looks so so so stupid to me. Also, Jackdavinci summed up exactly what I’m confused about with this movie: “What’s the point of hiring actors to do all the motion capture, and making the figures look like the actors too? Might as well just have the actual actors.” Seems like the only point is the Director thinks it’s cool. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2007, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-beowulf-movie/426439/27 "2007-11-15T16:32:23Z")
[total geek hijack mode]Ooooooooooh, if they ever do a Coheed and Cambria movie, they should do this sort of effect, it would work really well since the effect it supposed to be almost-real-but-still-doubting-it-all.[/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2007, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-beowulf-movie/426439/28 "2007-11-15T17:17:24Z")
Well, generally, other than faces the characters don’t look like the actors. To make the same physical character with Anthony Hopkins would have him in a fat suit like Eddie Murphy. Ray Winstone has a body that he’d have only dreamed of even 20 years ago. The John Malkovich character evokes the person but I wouldn’t really say he looks just like him and same for Robin Wright Penn. I can’t speak to the actual motivations but one advantage of it is that it allows stylization to match the animation style of backgrounds. Everything doesn’t have to be hyperreal. Rather than have to try and make fake look real you blur the line in the other way by taking the real and blending it to the fake. Most of the time I thought it looked pretty good. Sometimes it was a bit too much like a really big computer game cut scene, but that may simply be because video games are where we’re most exposed to this style of animation. ---
**Author:** ![Waverly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/57b2e6/32.png) [@Waverly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waverly)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2007, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-beowulf-movie/426439/29 "2007-11-15T17:33:00Z")
[QUOTE=Meurglys] **Neil Gaiman** co-wrote the script, if that helps pique anyone’s interest… [/QUOTE] Adapted? I think the story has been around for a while. Gaimen is very over-rated, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2007, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-beowulf-movie/426439/30 "2007-11-15T17:40:48Z")
[QUOTE=Madd Maxx] But if I squint my eyes I could pretend it was really Angelina Jolie naked, right? [/QUOTE] Go rent the movie _Gia_. She’s totally naked and there’s a small lesbian sex scene with her. ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2007, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-beowulf-movie/426439/31 "2007-11-15T17:54:10Z")
[QUOTE=Queen Bruin] I Netflixed it last month. I thought it was pure turd. Although the locations were absolutely gorgeous. [/QUOTE] That was my reaction, too. I got the whole “suppressed text” thing, á la _[Snow White](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119227/)_, which I usually like, but I though this sucked. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2007, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-beowulf-movie/426439/32 "2007-11-15T18:15:25Z")
[QUOTE=Waverly] Adapted? I think the story has been around for a while. [/QUOTE] Huh? I’m not sure what you mean by that. What has the story’s age got to do with adapting it for the screen? ---
**Author:** ![Random](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/57b2e6/32.png) [@Random](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Random)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2007, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-beowulf-movie/426439/33 "2007-11-15T19:14:32Z")
In movie-ese, you write original scripts, but you adapt an already-existing story. In other words, he&s saying that Gaiman adapted, rather than wrote, the script. ---
**Author:** ![Wee\_Bairn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90db22/32.png) [@Wee\_Bairn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wee_Bairn)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2007, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-beowulf-movie/426439/34 "2007-11-15T19:17:10Z")
[QUOTE=Big Bad Voodoo Lou] Crispin Hellion Glover learned Old English to do Grendel’s minimal dialogue. I was iffy on the movie before, but that’s a pretty cool selling point for me. [/QUOTE] Crispin Glover is the coolest guy, ever. I have seen the commercial for this at least a dozen times and thought it was a regular live action with cgi movie. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2007, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-beowulf-movie/426439/35 "2007-11-15T19:32:28Z")
[QUOTE=Random] In movie-ese, you write original scripts, but you adapt an already-existing story. In other words, he&s saying that Gaiman adapted, rather than wrote, the script. [/QUOTE] :smack: I totally missed the context of the post **Waverly** was responding to. Never mind. ---
**Author:** ![Rucksinator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/898d66/32.png) [@Rucksinator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rucksinator)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2007, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-beowulf-movie/426439/36 "2007-11-15T20:25:00Z")
[QUOTE=lissener] Um, has anyone here seen [one of my favorite movies](http://imdb.com/title/tt0402057/) of 2005? [/QUOTE] I saw it on the shelf at Blockbuster and thought to myself "Somebody saw that Gerard Butler was in a blockbuster movie and decided to throw this previously-unreleased turd out there to see if they could reap any money off the success of _300_ ". **Queen Bruin** seems to agree. But if you recommend it, I’ll check it out. [/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2007, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-beowulf-movie/426439/37 "2007-11-15T22:04:41Z")
I LIKE the Gerad Butler version. Sarah Polly not being able to do an accent but still delivering ridiculous lines that only work WITH an accent was the only negative. ---
**Author:** ![Yeeter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/96bed5/32.png) [@Yeeter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yeeter)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2007, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-beowulf-movie/426439/38 "2007-11-15T22:36:19Z")
I am going to go see the 3D version tomorrow. The reviewers seem to agree that this is something you should see in 3D in the movie theater and skip the DVD when it comes out. I’m easily persuaded (especially for 3D stuff). My theory as to why Zemeckis used the motion capture and CGI was so that he could do it in 3D. Didn’t we have a discussion about his announcement of the [new camera technology](http://cinema.usc.edu/about/news/capture-this.htm) a while back? My search for the thread on SDMB isn’t coming up with anything, but I’m pretty sure I participated in a discussion on this earlier this year. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2007, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-beowulf-movie/426439/39 "2007-11-16T03:49:36Z")
Here’s [Ebert’s review](http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071114/REVIEWS/71115001/1001). He seems to have liked it okay. As for the question of nudity, first I see the film is rated PG-13, so that tells you something. Then there’s this from Ebert’s review: “When the king offers his comely queen Wealthow as a prize if Beowulf slays Grendel, the hero immediately strips naked, because if Grendel wears no clothes, then he won’t, either. This leads to a great deal of well-timed Austinpowerism, which translates as ‘putting things in the foreground to keep us from seeing the family jewels’.” As for seeing it 3D in Imax, We have two Imax theaters in Bangkok, but we never go to them. Thais think nothing of having whole conversations with each other or using their cellphones during films, so we sit WAY down front to avoid that. Not possible to sit away from most other in the Imax theaters. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2007, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-beowulf-movie/426439/40 "2007-11-16T05:33:22Z")
Beowulf is my first stop after work tomorrow. And I added B&G to my Netflix queue, as well. Thanks for that tip. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-beowulf-movie/426439.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-beowulf-movie/426439.md?page=3)