We just can't seem to get away from our western heritage -not that it is necessarily a bad thing, but when done poorly I am sure there are many an ancient Greek turning in their graves.
I went through a Greek Myth phase after encountering and being enthralled by the D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths (Ingri and Edgar Parin d'Aulaire - 1962) in my elementary school library. This opened my interest in myths from other countries and cultures. I started running into mythological characters like Hercules in movies and comic books. When DC Comics had George Perez reboot Wonder Woman, he took her back to her Greek roots with major arcs involving gods and creatures from Greek myths while he was involved in the title from 1987 to 1992.
As I have mentioned before, Jim Henson's Storyteller (1987) series is one of my favorites. The second season of covered four Greek Myths. Michael Gambon, who took over the role of Professor Dumbledore after Richard Harris died, is the story-teller in these four episodes.
Watching Star Trek reruns with my dad, I remember seeing the episode Who Mourns for Adonais (1967) in which Captain Kirk and company encounter a being who claims to be Apollo, the last of the Greek Gods.
Eventually I read Homer's Iliad (ca 800 BC) and the Odyssey (ca 800 BC), as well as Edith Hamilton's Mythology (1942), among other books that included Greek myths. Knowing even the basic myths, you begin to see their influence in stories everywhere. I would bet that at least 80% of fantasy games (especially role playing and video games) and fantasy stories include creatures, plots and characters from, or inspired by, those in Greek myths.
As a child I became a fan of Ray Harryhausen movies, many of which draw upon mythological creatures and stories. In his Clash of the Titans (1981), we actually get to see the Greek gods messing around directly with the lives of mere mortals, or at least half-mortals and the mortals they are involved with. As with most projects Harryhausen has been involved in, he took many liberties with the actual myths. In spite of these changes, it is still fun to watch - especially the imaginative interpretations of most of the creatures. It is also interesting to picture Laurence Olivier as Zeus (although he is underwhelming in this role), Ursula Andress as Aphrodite and Maggie Smith, who went on to play Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter movies, as Thetis. According to IMDB, there is a remake of this in production that is due to be released in 2010, for what that is worth.
Earlier this summer, I had the chance to play Risk: Godstorm. It is a great variation of the classic Risk board game set in ancient Europe and, among other modifications, players get to use gods from the Greek, Egyptian, Norse and other pantheons to affect the play of the game. A couple of other twists include the ability to draw troops back from the afterlife and the opportunity to sink Atlantis - killing any armies on it and taking it completely out of play for the rest of the game.
For a fun, quick, twisted light read, or if you are looking for something a six to eleven year-old would like that includes Greek gods, try Its All Greek To Me (2001), book 8 in the Time Warp Trio series written by Jon Scieska and illustrated by Lane Smith. It follows the exact same formula as the rest of the books, but instead of just traveling through time, Fred, Sam and Joe end up dealing with the gods on Mount Olympus. It includes a glossary of gods and monsters with a pronunciation guide.
Right now I am in the middle of Rick Riordan's young adult series Percy Jackson and the Olympians. I read the first one, The Lightening Thief (2005), out of curiosity, with mild to strong recommendations from a few people I knew. The idea behind the series is that the Greek gods still exist and meddle in human affairs, which intrigued me. The gods, monsters and other creatures followed western civilization to the United States of America, but we don't recognize them due to a combination of a magical mist and our own unbelief. There is a summer camp for the various half-bloods the gods continue to sire.
I was not really impressed with the first book - I found elements of the plot awkward as it tried to cleverly force Greek monsters into modern-day settings, all while attempting to be a Harry Potter-type story without being Harry Potter (as I mentioned in this previous post). I ended up reading the second book, The Sea of Monsters (2006), anyway and I felt it was better than the first. It didn't consistently force the Greek elements, but it did still suffer being in Harry Potter's shadow. On the other hand, it fleshed out many of the characters from the first, introducing new characters that seemed to start off being more likable.
I just finished the third book, The Titan's Curse (2007), and it feels like Riordan has finally hit his stride. This was the best, most original book of the series so far. Everything feels organic and unforced, the characters and events flow naturally and I really started to care for all of the characters.I hope The Battle of the Labyrinth (2008), the fourth book, doesn't fall back into any previous patterns, and that The Last Olympian, the final book due out next May, continues along an original path, free of the problems that plagued the first two books.
At this point, I would recommend this series to those who are new to Greek mythology, or those who enjoy seeing slightly different interpretations of familiar characters and ideas from traditional stories. (If you do read these, keep in mind they are written for tweens and if you are older and have read this type of story before, you will be able to foresee how some of the elements will be resolved, but starting with the third book I experienced a few more pleasant surprises.)
If you are enjoy stories that include the Greek gods, and you have already read or seen these that I have mentioned, the CW network has another show you might be interested in. This series, Valentine, premiered Sunday night on the CW (you can watch it on Sunday nights at 8/7 Central for as long as it lasts). In it, Aphrodite, Hercules, Eros and others are undercover in modern-day Los Angeles and have to help others fall in love or they risk becoming mortal.
It reminds me of the short-lived ABC series Cupid (1998-1999) in which Jeremy Piven played a character who claimed to be cupid, sent among mortals to help 100 couples as penance. As Cupid only ran one season we never found out if he was, or not cupid after all.
If you are drawn to stories with the Greek gods, but a romantic comedy like Valentine doesn't really pull you in, you can always watch any of the five stand alone made for TV shows in 1994 starring Kevin Sorbo as Hercules, or episodes of the subsequent series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (1995-1999) or Xena: Warrior Princess (1995-2001). In fact, there have been dozens of movies and TV shows with Hercules and consequently the Greek gods, including Arnold Schwarzenegger's unforgettable (and embarrassingly, badly dubbed and acted) movie debut Hercules in New York (1970).
I think these stories and characters are, and will continue to be used over and over and over again because they are recognizable and they are in the public domain - so there are no royalties to pay or copyrights to worry about.
In the sea of many poorly done versions of Hercules and Greek Myths, Disney's Hercules (1997) stands out and is one of my favorite animated Disney movies in the post-Little Mermaid period. Besides some great songs, and a story that works on several levels, it also has Charlton Heston as the narrator, Rip Torn as Zeus, Paul Schaffer as Hermes and James Woods perfectly plays Hades. It is not perfect show - I could have done with smaller doses of Danny DeVito, but it is better than most movies that are out there.
Mentioning Hercules actually brings up an observation I've made. In reality, if these are stories with Greek gods, shouldn't it be Heracles - his Greek name as opposed to Hercules, the Roman version? Or, if he is going to be called Hercules, shouldn't we also call Zeus "Jupiter", and Hermes "Mercury" in the same stories? Over time it seems we have combined the Greek and Roman names, preferring some over others and interchanging the two sets. You can even see this in the latest incarnation of Battlestar Galactica (2003+) where the gods mostly have Greek names (like Zeus and Ares), yet some places or items use the Roman names Jupiter and Mars. I would bet that eventually, in popular usage it is going to be a mix of the two and most people won't even realize it.
I am sure I have missed stories with the Greek gods, so please let me know if there are any that you have liked (or hated), or if you have any thoughts about Roman versus Greek names.
2 comments:
Good post. But I am not sure how you can manage to include Xena the Warrior Princess in this list, when the tv shows only tie in to Greek history is that it managed to use some of the Greek gods names correctly. As you can tell I am not a big Xena fan when it deals with anything relating to Greek history. Pretty good eye-candy though.
I realize Xena is a stretch, but even Hercules veered away from his Greek origins in the later seasons. I can't say I was huge fan of either series - I watched episodes of both here and there, sticking through more of Hercules' then Xena's. I can't always remember which specific episodes were Hercules and which were Xena, which is why I lumped them to gether in the post.
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