[ks2048]

[spoiler alert]

> The Trojans are dehumanised by their masks; we know none of them by name or face.

Did she miss the most important scene in the burning of Troy that showed a Trojan victim's face that plays an important role the film?

[jrimbault]

Athena/PTSD-girl being the only Trojan with a face doesn't dismiss that affirmation, only reinforces it. And she writes about her in another paragraph.

[JsonDemWitOster]

Reminds me of when Oppenheimer released, a bunch of people criticized it for not actually featuring any Japanese characters, instead being relegated to mere dream-shadows that Oppenheimer sees once.

It's almost as if a work entitled "Oppenheimer" is not supposed to be a character study of this American scientist during the war named Oppenheimer.

Juuusttt maaayyybeee, an adaptation of The Odyssey is mostly gonna be about Odysseus and his side of the war, and that's when Troy gets narratively involved. TFA justifies this criticism with a polemic about what a "serious depiction of violence" is supposed to include but doesn't pause to consider that maybe that is not the film's point. Even the source material isn't about the Trojan War---there's another epic prequel for that! Not to mention Virgil's sequel.

She also says, in the same paragraph, that the "Homeric poems easily clear the bar". Sure! The other Homeric poem---the one not the subject of this adaptation---did that.

I'm not saying these are not themes worth exploring just that maybe it is not a mistake that it wasn't included here. Not an oversight, but intentional. Maybe a work of fiction is supposed to have biases (gasp!) and that is just fine.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Had Nolan involved the Trojans beyond Zendaya's character we'd be hearing criticism along the lines of the film being "thematically incoherent", "could've had a more focused treatment, easily shaving off twenty minutes to its already unforgiving runtime".