Clash of the Clash of the Titans

On seeing the new Clash of the Titans remake trailer, a small part of me wondered why, oh why, is Hollywood tampering with my childhood?

Remakes are nothing new (no pun intended), but a part of me resists the new interpretations, the retelling of a story that I loved just the way it was, when I first encountered it.

Of course, looking back on things always makes them seem brighter than they were. Case in point, the trailer for the original Clash of the Titans movie, which I loved as a child:

Wow. Just… wow. I knew it was dated, but in looking back on things… the style of the trailer is incredibly dated.

Still though, seeing this triggered waves of nostalgia for me. And I’m remembering more the movie as I saw it, through a kid’s eyes. I honestly don’t know whether seeing this movie triggered my love of mythology, or if I ended up loving the movie because I had already been reading a lot of mythology. I ate that stuff up as a kid, checking out a lot of the same books over and over again from the library.

If I’m actually holding a critical eye to things, this movie was nothing more than a remake/retelling of old mythological tales. And if we wanted to dig deeper, we could talk about how many of the Roman and Greek myths were all based on similar deities, similar stories.

At the end of the day, I guess I’m forced to recognize that if the stories are strong enough… they warrant multiple retellings, multiple interpretations. Even if I’m particularly fond of a specific version of the story.

Three random things that seeing this new trailer triggered in me:

1) I’m realizing how much influence Ray Harryhausen had on me as a kid. His work made a definite impression, and everytime I see his characters I’m instantly transported back to being a kid, sitting enthralled in front of a TV screen.

2) Funny enough, I happened across the Wikipedia entry for Ship of Theseus today. Also known as “Theseus’s Paradox,” it basically asks the question of whether an object which has had all its component parts replaced remains fundamentally the same object.

3) As a kid, I remember buying a “Clash of the Titans” action figure, soon after the movie came out. It was exactly the same as a Star Wars action figure, but my guy had a tunic, a shield, and a small sword. The figure I had was named Perseus, but whenever I played with him… I referred to him as “Clash.”

Sometimes, in the retelling, the stories get messed up.

I guess we’ll see how the new version retells it.

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  1. I almost cried yesterday when I saw this… Derry & I were joking around that it looks more like “Clash of 300”. Where’s Pegasus? Where’s the Kraken? What’s with the bad metal soundtrack? I guess all remakes should be taken with a grain of salt, but this looks particularly painful.I can completely relate to how you said this movie influenced your love of mythology (& vice-versa). The same was very true for me with the movie “Jason & the Argonauts” — another of Mr. Harryhausen’s masterpieces. If you haven’t seen that in a while, it’s definitely worth a revisit! SKELETON ARMY!

    Jane Reply


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