# Oliver Stone: Alexander sucked! (and I'm not just referring to Hepheastion)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oliver-stone-alexander-sucked-and-im-not-just-referring-to-hepheastion/283527
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [January 7, 2005, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oliver-stone-alexander-sucked-and-im-not-just-referring-to-hepheastion/283527 "2005-01-07T05:17:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2005, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oliver-stone-alexander-sucked-and-im-not-just-referring-to-hepheastion/283527/1 "2005-01-07T05:17:52Z")
Oliver Stone is blaming the failure of Alexander on fundamentalists. [Story](http://www.canada.com/entertainment/movies/story.html?id=f9353204-d895-4f8c-9c64-254c239a6789)
If anything, the controversy over Alex’s wee-wee probably _helped_ the movie’s box office. I personally thought it wasn’t gay enough, but my main issue is that Alex was a fascinating enough dude that if his sex life was never mentioned the movie could have been great. Instead Stone wasted 150 million, the talents of Colin Farrell and Anthony Hopkins, thousands of extras and left not a cliche unturned in his quest to block historical epics of the ancient world for another decade. The dialogue would imply there was no script but rather the actors were fed lines by romance novelists sitting in the wings, Jolie’s Olympias was written after 10 minutes spent reading “Roots of Homosexuality: 1926 Edition” and “Freud for Dummies”, he totally lacked the courage of his convictions in the Hepheastion relationship, he seemed to repeat the same scene and speeches 15 times, decided that such issues as administering an incredibly diverse collection of peoples and getting declared a god and that whole Gordion knot thing just weren’t important enough to show on film when you could have yet another Val Kilmer flashback, and he didn’t even do enough research to know that he should _PAINT THE F_CKING STATUES\*!
But all this aside, the reason for the movie’s failure wasn’t just American homophobia, but particularly southern ignorance:
> [@](#):
>
> “From day one audiences didn’t show up,” he said. "They didn’t even read the reviews in the south because the Media was using the words, ‘Alex the gay.’
Why do so many liberals have seizures and tear their garments if a comment stereotyping gays, blacks, Jews or three legged Portugese fishermen appears on so much as a locker room wall, but they feel that lumping all southerners together as mouth breathing brow-ridged knuckle dragging cretins is perfectly alright?
Anyway, point: Stone is a veddy veddy bad man who hasn’t made a decent movie since before the Olsen Twins were born. When I side with the Fundamentalists against anybody, there’s a problem.
---
### Author:  [@Orbifold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orbifold)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2005, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oliver-stone-alexander-sucked-and-im-not-just-referring-to-hepheastion/283527/2 "2005-01-07T05:29:18Z")
> [@Sampiro](#):
>
> Why do so many liberals have seizures and tear their garments if a comment stereotyping gays, blacks, Jews or three legged Portugese fishermen appears on so much as a locker room wall, but they feel that lumping all southerners together as mouth breathing brow-ridged knuckle dragging cretins is perfectly alright?
I suspect that Oliver Stone speaks for the majority of liberals about as much as Mel Gibson’s dad speaks for the majority of Christians.
Oliver Stone: conspiracy-obsessed egomaniac. And in other news, water is wet.
---
### Author:  [@Helen\_s\_Eidolon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helen_s_Eidolon)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2005, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oliver-stone-alexander-sucked-and-im-not-just-referring-to-hepheastion/283527/3 "2005-01-07T05:34:58Z")
Hey, don’t be dissing the historical accuracy of the movie. Stone clearly had a deep respect for the real history, and both paid attention to details and stayed consistent with many traditional interpretations of the story (for example, Olympias’ personality).
Don’t get me wrong, as a movie it sucked. But I didn’t go see it to see a movie.
---
### Author:  [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2005, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oliver-stone-alexander-sucked-and-im-not-just-referring-to-hepheastion/283527/4 "2005-01-07T13:13:18Z")
> [@](#):
>
> … in (Stone’s) quest to block historical epics of the ancient world for another decade…
In all fairness, he just put the nail in the coffin that was “Troy.”
---
### Author:  [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2005, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oliver-stone-alexander-sucked-and-im-not-just-referring-to-hepheastion/283527/5 "2005-01-07T13:33:55Z")
> [@Sampiro](#):
>
> Why do so many liberals have seizures and tear their garments if a comment stereotyping gays, blacks, Jews or three legged Portugese fishermen appears on so much as a locker room wall…
Excuse the digression, but there was a fascinating documentary on public TV some years back about Portuguese cod fishermen (two-legged variety). It was better than anything Oliver Stone has done.
---
### Author:  [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2005, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oliver-stone-alexander-sucked-and-im-not-just-referring-to-hepheastion/283527/6 "2005-01-07T14:13:24Z")
I mentioned in another thread about this that I read his interview in Playboy and came to the conclusion that he is just plain old nuts.
---
### Author:  [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2005, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oliver-stone-alexander-sucked-and-im-not-just-referring-to-hepheastion/283527/7 "2005-01-07T14:16:40Z")
The movie was simply crap. I was extremely disappointed, because it could have been, nay, _should_ have been, great.
---
### Author:  [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2005, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oliver-stone-alexander-sucked-and-im-not-just-referring-to-hepheastion/283527/8 "2005-01-07T15:07:28Z")
> [@PunditLisa](#):
>
> In all fairness, he just put the nail in the coffin that was “Troy.”
I pit myself because, so help me, I was about to post “But Stone didn’t direct TROY.”
ooops! 😃
---
### Author:  [@Siege](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siege)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2005, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oliver-stone-alexander-sucked-and-im-not-just-referring-to-hepheastion/283527/9 "2005-01-07T16:50:07Z")
> [@PunditLisa](#):
>
> In all fairness, he just put the nail in the coffin that was “Troy.”
Actually, _Troy_ is the reason I had no intention of seeing _Alexander_ and watched the History Channel show on him instead. I’m sorry. While I’ve liked some of Stone’s work, one bad history a year is one too many and I wasn’t taking a chance on a second one. Not until I’ve recovered from seeing the first one, anyway.
CJ