I find the correlations between the various creation stories of different cultures to be very interesting.

In Greek mythology, Chaos gave birth to Gaea (Earth), who gave birth to Uranus (Sky), who mated with Gaea to produce Cyclopes, Hecatoncheires, and 12 Titans. Their children represent the elemental and primal forces that shaped the Earth years ago. When Uranus places the giants back inside Gaea, she is in agony, which is a metaphor for the immense geological action taking place at that time (such as volcanoes erupting and earthquakes).

In the Bible, Earth existed in a state of Chaos before it was brought to order with creation:

“And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. “

Here is an excerpt from the Popol Vuh, the creation story of the Mayans, who
were completely disconnected from the other two cultures:

“Here is the story of the beginning,
when there was not one bird,
not one fish,
not one mountain.
Here is the sky, all alone.
Here is the sea, all alone.
There is nothing more
–no sound, no movement.”

It starts out the same way. The world in a state of Chaos then brought to order with creation by that culture’s deity.

There are even more connections than these, but I don’t want to post the entire story, so here is a link to Popol Vuh.

Actually, the beginnings before things are created always seem like emptiness, to me. Chaos, in my mind, is like a swirling vortex. Not stillness with only see and sky or darkness.

It goes to show how bad my understanding of religious teachings is. I thought this was a line from a Cradle of Filth tune.

But joking aside, I think mythical archetypes will always be around as long as people still wants to hear about ancient tales of magic or heroism. Although Hollywood films usually distort these stories whenever they tell them (e.g. this years Robin Hood film), the fact that people go to see them shows that we in the modern age still take a great deal of enjoyment from them.

To me, they have left too much of the magic out of 'heroic' movies these days. I mean, geez, they're making dumb movies about people who cut their limbs off or stupid 'spies' who get outed. That shit's not worthy of being movie material. I want Spartacus. I want Hercules. I want (a great)Perseus! I WANT WONDER WOMAN!!! But nooooo people want to watch movies about boring, ordinary people like themselves. They don't want heroes.

You need to go see Red. It's awesome.

That is very true. It also seems to be, in my opinion, that the plots seem less about the mythology and the culture and more about the graphics factor and how much violence or worthless shit can be fit into it.

I like movies that are grounded in mythology, and uses it in the way it was meant to be seen and understood. Sadly, Hollywood is so good at distorting the truth that unless you actually knew the history you'd never know they were full of shit.

As for Chaos, like Wolfie said, it is more like emptiness, the gap between the heaven's and the earth (gaia). From her was born some of the first gods- the Protogenoi (elementals who were more like personifications of what was) such as the Goddess Nyx (goddess of the night) and also Erebos (which was darkness, and considered to be Nyx's lover from which Aither (light) and Hermia (Day) were created).

All of it shows how man tried to make sense of the universe, something that we are still trying to do today, adn it could be yet another reason why Mythology is still so prevalent in society as it helps us understand things a bit better. At least it can, for some of us.

No. I can't support a movie with Morgan Freeman. He's marrying his grand daughter.

Midi, I didn't mean Chaos = Emptiness. I meant:

Beginning = Emptiness

Beginning =/= Chaos

An example of distorting an ancient story was when I heard about the film Troy I thought it would be a retelling of Homers Iliad but in the film none of the Greek Gods appear and are only mentioned a few times. It’s more about showing off Brad Pitt and Eric Bana without their shirts.

Traditionally stories do adapt over time with each retelling and with people down the years adding their own style to them but in the modern era we tend to see stories being totally rewritten for the benefit of a company trying to make more money from them.

Gotcha.



One movie that I think depicts the Fall of Troy rather well (maybe not extremely well, but eh, it's good) is a movie called Helen of Troy. If you have not seen it, it is certainly worth the watch.

Also, another movie, which has the gods playing a key role in the movie- is an tv mini series called The Odyssey. I watched it in school, and again though not fully accurate, its very worth the watch and is a great and amazing movie.

Wait... what?

I do like some cases of hollywood "realism" such as the more gritty interpretations of comic book heroes, like the new batman movies.

However, some movies should not ever be made "realistic" - a good example is Troy. The Iliad is about as mythical as you can get, and yet there was nothing like that it the movie. They didn't even have the gods as characters...

If people want to see ancient realism they could make films about real historical people like Roman Emperors or Greek Kings. Not that Hollywood would stay very near actual events. If they’re going to tell a mythological story they should stick to the mythological story.

With Russell Crow in Robin Hood they managed to mix the historical character of King John with the mythological character of Robin Hood. Or maybe no one was brave enough to tell James Cameron that Robin Hood wasn’t a real person.

Ummmm... dethvow... With the greatest of respect, don't all versions of the Robin Hood legend pit the mythical figure against that of the genuine, historical one?

the movie Troy had its good points and its bad points.

Good: I focused much on Achilles and told the story of his 'slave girl'- even if that protrayal was inaccurate. It also made mention of the periods of winning and losing based on Achilles not participating.

Bad: Gods were taken out, and their roles on periods of winning or losing for either side, though in honestly it did have Achilles mother in it. No mention made of Agamemnon killing his daughter. No mention of Aphrodite causing the mist that saved Paris life in his fight with Menelaus. In fact, the mist isn't even mentioned. No mention of the golden apple. Also, I do not think that the movie said anything about the sister Cassandra and her ability to foresee the future.

This is why I like Helen of Troy. I mentions all of that and more, though- like any more it is dramatised and not accurate. For example, in Helen of Troy Cassandra does have the ability to foresee the future, but unlike reality, the people in the movie believe her. In reality Cassandra was once loved by Apollo but reject him so he cursed her. She could see the future and could never lie about it. However, no one would ever believe her and would always do the opposite of the truth she spoke. I think that ignoring that fact did a disservice to the movie and history, but I can see why they did it. I also would have liked it if they had not made it seem as if Agamemnon only had one child, whom he killed when in truth i believe they had 3? I know that the wife was killed by her son for killing Agamemnon.

In regards to Troy, I hate how they should that people escaped. Even if a few did, certainly not most, and definitely not Prince Hector's wife or their young son, whom was thrown from the walls of troy to his death as the wife was taken as a slave.

Yep! He's pulling a 'Woody Allen'. Even though they're not blood related he still raised her! What kind of sicko looks at a child he's raised and says "Yeah, I want a piece of that!"

*squick*