Sony's Medusa (2016 - 17???)

Yeah; I mean, Disney made a movie about greek myths already, and I'm pretty sure that wasn't particularly faithful. I don't see why someone else can't do their own take.

I'm pretty sure that they'll go for "maiden cursed unfairly" angle (but a family-acceptable reason- being vain maybe?) As for Perseus, it would be neat if they had him go after her head (spurred on by Athena) but in the end, they end up as friends and she helps him defeat the kraken *willingly* (screw the legends.) Throw in a happy ending with her being restored after learning humility, and (mostly) everyone will be happy.

Maybe anyone else shouldn't do a comedic take on Greek myths for a reason! Because Hercules was a flop and mostly hated by everyone, and historians and mythology buffs kept shouting about it's inaccuracies until they were blue in the face, not realizing it's a goddamn animated movie!!!

When was Hercules hated by everyone?

No. Its reviews were largely positive, and it made over $250 million on a budget of $85 million. Do your research before you start screeching about something.

Even though it's been a while since I've seen Hercules, I think some people not liking it has less to do with the decision to make a comedic Greek myth and more with how they tried to go about it.

edited 16th Jun '14 10:47:47 AM by Mort08

If Disney's Hercules had been intended as a serious take on the myths, I would have been annoyed. But as a parody? I liked it! And let's not forget, it was the *Greeks* who invented satire, mocking even their own beliefs (see Aristophanes, for example). If they are so intent on doing Medusa, I hope it is in this style.

..uuuuuuh... I ... don't know where you were in 1997, but it was hated BY EEEEEEEEVERYONE!!!

Proof, please. That's all I ask. Proof...

I wouldn't expect to get any. It's not true, anyway. Make a smaller assumption next time.

edited 16th Jun '14 2:32:10 PM by Mort08

Understood.

And I actually liked that movie - but it's not the best I've seen, either - so let's NOT get things twisted.

I wouldn't say that Hercules was hated by everyone, but it was seen as part of the decline of the Renaissance age of Disney. It came out after Pocahontas and Hunchback of Notre Dame, when Disney was coming under fire for sticking to the formula of 'Take famous story, replace tale's darkness with goofy sidekicks, musical numbers, and samey romantic heroines'. Hercules just proved the point of the critics, especially since it was released at the time when Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess were popular and got people interested in Greek myths again, so older audiences knew how much it deviated from the original myths (and from what I remembered of the web sites at the time, several people were angry that Disney went with evil Hades since Disney has a lot of influence on how the mainstream remembers old stories). This got reflected in the box office. Sure, $99M domestic and $250M worldwide is pretty big, but it's lower than Disney's box office intake in the previous years.

Of course, then the the new millennium happened and everyone got a sense of perspective of what a true decline of Disney would look like. <<;

That said, this could still be seen in the general media where the general narrative is that The Lion King was the last film of Disney's glory days until the 3-hit combo of Tangled, Wreck-It-Ralph, and Frozen came out, and even positive articles done by writers who take a trip down memory lane refer to Hercules as an underrated film with the assumption that not many bothered to check it out.

edited 17th Jun '14 3:12:35 PM by Servbot

I have to agree with Eagal on the previous page, Arachne would be a better sympathetic film in my opinion.

I didn't encounter anybody who hated it and the only reviews I saw were moderate to positive. It was considered a big success and that is why Disney continued a "wacky comedy" angle with their subsequent films.

Yeah, I find the backlash against Disney's Herc to be pretty overblown when it's Greek Theater Comedy as all hell. You've got a Greek Chorus that pretty much goes right from the start establishing that "Yeah, we aren't doing a tragedy", a comedic satyr sidekick which is emblematic of that entire "Satyr Play" subgenre, and yeah, a lighter goofy take on a legend that's also a riff on the modern Hercules: Superman. Plus you know they did research when you've got so many Greek Mythology jokes in there.

Also, they were rather forward with the lack of fidelity to the source in the release promotional blitz: I remember how they kept pointing towards how the original stories went in both Disney Adventures and Disney Magazine.

edited 9th Nov '14 3:33:02 PM by FigmentJedi

I'd actually much rather an Arachne movie where 1) they keep Athena being an asshole, jealous villain and 2) Arachne comes to terms with being a monster spider and chooses to remain that way.

Why the hell would anyone choose to accept being a horrific spider monster? If there's supposed to be some sort of moral in that idea, it's an absolutely terrible one.

Also, as I recall, Hercules was premiered in Greece and most people who attended hated it since it was a satire of their own cultural myths.

Anyway, I know Medusa is a rather family unfriendly tale, but so are A LOT of animated movies. I'm not sure if that can be expected of Sony Animations, but Hunchback of Notre Dame comes to mind as being a very Dark Animated Movie was all but explicit rape subtext and the comedic side kicks are INCREDIBLY forced in to the point of 'Why did they even keep them?'.

I'm not saying they'll keep the Rape Angle, but considering there are ways of having that be a plot point that doesn't get directly mentioned in dialogue, its not impossible to do.

Dont listen to Kyun. He's ALWAYS like this.

I'd like a arachne film where it tells the straightforward story and the end shows her as a mother with millions of children. Then the ending reveals a family of spiders that tell the story.

If there was a sequel, it would lead into the African story of Anasi.

Could definitely see a series of films just about spider figures in history. That's just me.

So you dislike every series, comic and movie ever made where someone becomes a "monster" and then realizes life isn't all about human beauty standards and that maybe they're still just as much a "person" who can enjoy just as rich a life, despite what they can't change?

Real people age, get in accidents, physically change in ways they can't reverse all the time. Nobody in real life can always control how they look. Emphasizing that you MUST go "back to normal" to have a good ending is what's a "terrible moral." Having a character transformed into something initially "horrific" and then liking themselves anyway would be a beautiful story for all ages.

I mean, what if she befriends other hated "monsters" along the way, and they turn out to be wonderful friends, and she's only even able to save them in the end because of her abilities as a spider?

MUCH better moral than "NOOO, now I'm UGLY! I HAVE TO BE A PERFECT PRETTY HUMAN AGAIN."

On a personal note, I and many, many, many people I'm acquainted with would much rather be a bizarre monster than a human any day.

In fact, I'm counting on this Medusa movie to turn out that way. I'll be really disappointed if the ultimate goal of it is to be human again and she goes back to a boring mundane life all because the idea of "normalcy" is being romanticized. That's not only overdone, but it was always always a bad lesson.

edited 10th Nov '14 11:35:59 AM by scythemantis

Not turning people to stone seems like a good enough reason to want to be human to me. Being "unique" or "special" at the expense of everyone you meet isn't a good thing.

That brings up a good question. Is Medusa going to end up hurting innocent people in this movie? She probably should, if her curse is going to be sufficiently dramatic. If so, then is it all going to magically go away? How do we choose who gets to be saved and who doesn't (if anyone), in a way that doesn't either break/strain the aesop or make the ending too depressing in hindsight.

edited 10th Nov '14 12:39:09 PM by KnownUnknown

Hardly. I would have no problem with a narrative of Arachne accepting her situation and learning that she can still live a fulfilling life. Putting her in a situation where she chooses this undermines/ruins the whole idea and frankly makes it borderline offensive.

You're talking about someone being mutilated. It's well and good to come to terms with being "different," whether you were born that way or made that way, but that's a whole different idea from someone having something objectively horrific done to them and ending up being happy about it. If you construct this scenario some sort of metaphor for disability or attractiveness, it completely falls apart because people in real life usually do not get a choice in the matter. (Furthermore, it also completely undermines the responsibility the antagonist has for putting someone in that position. Why is what Athena did so wrong if Arachne ends up happy with it?)

In a real-world context, choosing to be a horrific spider monster speaks of either a bizarre romantization of disability, or an outright indicator of mental illness. It's disturbing, and it's not much less disturbing when transposed into a fantasy cartoon.

I'm not going to weigh too far into this one way or the other (since I think there are points on both sides), but stories where a character undergoes some kind of transformation, accepts their lot in life (and, if the transformation was a punishment, realizes their folly and begins redeeming themselves), reaffirms their self worth and even becomes happy with their lives / becomes a better person not just despite but through the transformation are a thing, you know. They were arguably a theme in the Grimms story tales, and were typically reverted more because Beauty Equals Goodness than anything else. Beauty And The Beast is one such story, but it's by no means the only one (The Witches is a more recent story that uses it, and only the film version ends with the main character turning back).

And to bring up the disability comparison, tales of people "choosing to accept it" and becoming happy with their lives when stricken with a disability are often considered inspiring. Not that an Arachne story would even necessarily be a story even vaguely reminiscent of disabilities in the first place.

edited 10th Nov '14 1:03:48 PM by KnownUnknown

Back in the day, people thought hair made of venomous snakes, green reptilian skin, blood-red eyes, and raptorial claws were hideous on a woman.

Nowadays, it's considered attractive. Beauty is a social construct.

edited 10th Nov '14 1:33:50 PM by CassidyTheDevil