Film / Clash of the Titans (2010)

aka: Wrath Of The Titans

“Release The Kraken!”

Titans will clash!

Clash of the Titans is a 2010 Epic Fantasy Action Adventure film with some passing resemblance to the Greek myth of Perseus. It is a remake of 1981's Clash of the Titans, and, like that film contains no actual Titans from Greek myths.

Sam Worthington plays the role of Perseus, the demigod son of Zeus (played by Liam Neeson), who is unaware of his godly heritage. When the mortals foolishly incite the wrath of the gods by comparing Andromeda to them, Hades shows up and gives them the ultimatum of sacrificing Andromeda or being destroyed by the Kraken.

Perseus is forced to go on an adventure with his allies to find a way to save Andromeda and stop the Kraken.

A sequel, Wrath of the Titans,^note which coincidentally is the title used in Brazil and all Spanish versions for the first movie was released in April 2012. It does have Titans in it.

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Clash of the Titans provides examples of:

• Adaptational Attractiveness: Medusa is a complicated example. The first myths of her state that she was so hideous, the sight turned men to stone. Other myths state that Medusa retained her mortal beauty as some kind of cruel irony, and that the powers were in her eyes. A third set offer a compromise and state that Medusa was both beautiful and terrible at the same time. The third appears to be the school of thought this movie is following. Medusa is played by a supermodel — but gets a Game Face when she uses her powers.
• Adaptational Badass: Medusa not only retains her archery skills from the original movie, but she now also adds Super-Strength and Stealth Expert to her assets, is able to strangle people like a boa snake, and keeps fighting after her head is cut off! And now her arrows hit with enough force to chip marble and a glancing hit caused Perseus to be Blown Across the Room into two of his teammates and knocking them away as well.
• Adaptational Dye-Job: Not such a notable thing with most of the human characters, save for Perseus sporting a buzz cut. Pegasus, on the other hand, is changed from a white horse to a black one. On top of being huge as well, he looks quite intimidating in this version.
• Adaptational Jerkass: Medusa in the original was merely a monster who killed the others because they were attacking her. Here, she's shown to be far more malevolent, cackling evilly as she picks off Perseus's comrades and taking great delight in petrifying the terrified Eusebios and Ixas.
• Adaptational Modesty: In the myth, Andromeda was sent out naked to be eaten by the sea monster. In the film, she gets some clothes.
• Adaptational Species Change: The Kraken and Medusa are both considered Titans in this iteration.
• Adaptational Villainy: In the 1981 version, Zeus's punishments were severe and often caused collateral damage, but the people he punished were guilty of acts of cruelty, and he tried to help Perseus as much as he could. In this version, his punishments are just for insufficiently worshiping him, and he is willing to kill his own son for siding with humans.
• Advertised Extra: Promos gave special focus to Danny Huston as Poseidon, Luke Evans as Apollo and Alexa Davalos as Andromeda. None of them gets more than about five minutes of screen time. In the latter two cases, the movie underwent extensive re-shoots and their characters ended up severely cut down. There was also considerable hype about some of the other Greek Gods, such as Hestia and Artemis. They would have had only a couple of lines in group scenes.
• The Ageless: Io was cursed by the gods with agelessness. She mentions the burden of living on while her loved ones grew old and died.
• Alternate DVD Commentary: Courtesy of Rifftrax and DVD Podblast.
• Ancient Grome: Greek soldiers are seen dressed in Roman armour and wielding gladii.
• Archnemesis Dad: Played with — Perseus starts off with a Rage Against the Heavens directed at the gods in general, and his father Zeus in particular, then reluctantly accepts his help against Hades, and eventually forgives/forgets Zeus' numerous crimes by the end, including the fact that Zeus raped Perseus' mom.
• The Artifact: As Andromeda isn't Perseus's love interest anymore, there's very little reason for her to appear — other than to be sacrificed to the Kraken. Likewise Calibos has very little reason to appear, as he's not Perseus's romantic rival — nor is Thetis an antagonist in the story.
• Artistic License – History: Zeus' totem is either a bald eagle (which are native to North America and which the Greeks wouldn't have known about) or an African fish eagle (native to Africa, which they probably would have, but would still be an odd choice).
• Back from the Dead: Io. Because Zeus said so.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Io always looks considerably better groomed than the rest of the men, who are all grubby and sweaty after the fight with the scorpions. Granted she's not involved in the fighting as the others are, but she still looks very good for someone traveling in the wild for a week.
• Bed Trick: Perseus is born as the result of Zeus disguising himself as King Acrisius and sleeping with his wife Danae.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: Giant scorpions.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • How else would you describe Perseus riding in on a flying horse to kill the Kraken, simultaneously saving the girl and the day?
  • The two monster hunters appear in the same scene on one of the scorpions to defend Perseus from some of the harpies.
• Blasphemous Boast: Cassiopeia declares mankind the new gods. Which gets promptly responded to by Hades, who kills a bunch of her soldiers and then her.
• Bloody Murder: An interesting variation. Through the magic of Hades, Calibos' blood becomes giant scorpions when it strikes the ground.
• Bolt of Divine Retribution: Naturally, considering we're talking about Zeus here.
• Broken Aesop:
  Perseus: Screw you, Dad! I'm going to live as a man! [Flies away on Pegasus with immortal girlfriend and magic sword.]
• Calling the Old Man Out: Zig-zagged with Perseus toward Zeus.
• Canon Foreigner: Io is from a completely different myth and is absent in the original film.
• Casting Gag: The original featured Bond girl Ursula Andress playing Aphrodite. The remake also features a Bond girl, this time Gemma Arterton playing Io.
• Child by Rape: Perseus was conceived by a Bed Trick as punishment to King Acrisius for daring to challenge the gods. Zeus disguises himself as King Acrisius and sleeps with his queen, who gives birth almost immediately. Acrisius still has it in for Perseus, even though it wasn't his fault.
• Classical Cyclops: Cyclopes defending the land where Hephaestus lives. They attack the heroes, but eventually relent and guide them to the Smith God.
• Clean Cut: When the hero slashes Medusa, she's standing right up for a few moments before her head finally falls off her shoulders.
• Composite Character: Acrisius, Perseus' father, is melded with Calibos, The Brute, into the same person.
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: Prokopion the zealot.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Hades himself finally enters the fray! Oh this is gonna be the big climactic awesome battle — oh wait, all Perseus needed to do was just toss his sword at him and Hades just.... goes home? Somewhat justified in that it's stated that when Perseus slays the Kraken, Hades will be drastically weakened and Zeus supercharged it with a Bolt of Divine Retribution as Perseus held it aloft. However, this does not make it less of a curb-stomp.
• Cute Monster Girl: Medusa (except when using her petrification powers).
• Darker and Edgier: To the point of only giving Bubo the mechanical owl a cameo (probably as they thought it would be too much of a Joke Character). Pretty-boy Perseus in the white toga is replaced with buzzcut grim Perseus in even more anachronistic medieval leather armor; Bubo is briefly shown then as quickly cast aside; most of the winged horses are white but the Pegasus Perseus tames is jet black; and the toga-wearing Olympian thespians now wear late medieval plate armor. There's also a tone shift from the lighter Heroic Fantasy to grittier Sword and Sorcery.
• Dark Is Not Evil: The Djinn, probably to compensate for Hades being bad. Pegasus is also dark colored too. However, the Djinn aren't good either... So, we can say that Dark Is Neutral, at least...
• Death Is a Loser: Hades is treated as the outcast of his fellow gods and is stuck with a job he doesn't like. Unfortunately for the other gods he doesn't rely on Gods Need Prayer Badly, but mortal fear.
• Death from Above: When the Kraken is finally turned to stone in the climax, the danger doesn't end right away—because the effects of gravity, it immediately breaks into pieces and wrecks more of Argos, crushing people and buildings and creating a huge wave when the bulk of it hits the water.
• Defiled Forever: Zeus knocked up your queen? Kill her to get back at him.
• Demoted to Extra:
  • Every deity bar Zeus (and Hades because he wasn't in the original film).
  • Cassiopeia is killed by Hades very quickly.
  • Andromeda is demoted from love interest and has only a few minutes of screen time.
• Do Not Taunt Cthulhu:
  • Note to Acrisius: when attempting to murder your wife and the bastard son of the thunder god, refrain from doing so on top of a cliff, in a storm while waving your sword around like a lightning rod. The results are... unpleasant to say the least.
  • Same goes for comparing your daughter's beauty to that of a goddess when humanity-divinity relations are already strained to the breaking point. Cassiopeia learns this lesson the hard way.
• Double Standard: Rape, Divine on Mortal: Medusa and Danae, both of whom get punished for being raped.
• The Dragon: Calibos to Hades.
• Dull Surprise: All of Sam Worthington's performance as Perseus.
• Dwindling Party: Don't get too attached to all those soldiers.
• Dying Moment of Awesome: Draco performing a Heroic Sacrifice, in order to distract and pin down Medusa so that Perseus can kill her. His Last Words? "Let them know men did this." And then he smiles as Medusa turns him to stone.
• Dying Smirk: When Cynical Mentor Draco aids Perseus in his climactic battle with Medusa, he knowingly sacrifices himself to stall her by impaling her tail with a stalactite. As she turns her petrifying gaze towards him, he calmly tells the hero to tell all that "men did this", before smiling smugly as he is turned to stone. An enraged Medusa shatters his petrified form afterwards.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Kraken is an incredibly huge monster older than the entire human race, that sleeps on the bottom of the ocean. It killed the Titans, and even the gods fear it. Plus, there's the fact that its design is rather... alien.
• Extra Eyes: The Kraken has six eyes.
• Everybody Hates Hades: Hades is the villain, but has no more malice towards humanity than any of the other gods. He's only doing what he does because he's tired of Zeus' BS, not For the Evulz. He constantly gloats about feeding off of humanity's fear and making them quake in terror of him, while the others consistently speak of wanting humans to love them again. His anger with Zeus is also purely personal, for being stuck with the sucky realm.
• Evil Slinks: Medusa, snake woman with an attitude.
• Eyeless Face: The three Stygian Witches.
• Eyes Do Not Belong There: The three Stygian Witches' shared eye still has its ocular nerves, which attach in an eye socket in their palm.
• Eye Spy: The Stygian Witches have to share a single (magical) eye between the three of them. The witch who has it is apparently quite capable of seeing through while it's sitting in her hand.
• Family-Unfriendly Violence: While the movie does have a PG-13 rating to it, there is a scene where Calibos graphically rips a man in half with his bare hands. And yes, it is shown on the screen with blood splattering. It's over very quickly (probably how the film managed to keep the PG-13), but it does still cause a "Did they just do that?" moment.
• Fanatical Fire: A rambling preacher burns his own hand in a brazier mid-sermon, showing both his total devotion to the gods and an unstable mind.
• Fauxshadow: The two hunters who join the group proclaim, "It is death who should fear us!" They are the only surviving members of the group who do not journey to the Underworld.
• Game Face: Medusa, when using her petrification powers.
• Genre Throwback: To old Harryhausen movies, obviously.
• Giggling Villain: Medusa laughs frequently as she battles Perseus' squad.
• Gods Need Prayer Badly: One of the main points in the war between the gods and man. Zeus and most of the Olympians sustain their immortality through the prayers of humans. This provides a problem when humans not only stop worshiping Olympus, but actively try and starve the gods of badly-needed prayers through blasphemy. As one would expect, it doesn't go well... especially since Hades doesn't need people to pray to him, as he draws power from people's fear of death.
• Godzilla Threshold: This is the whole reason the gods "release the Kraken". Despite how powerful it is (to the point that even the gods are scared of it,) they decide it's pretty much their only chance by the end.
• Gold and White Are Divine: Zeus' outfit.
• Gorgeous Gorgon: Medusa is a scaly, serpent-tailed thing, but her face is very good looking due to being played by Russian model Natalia Vodianova. However, when she goes to turn men to stone, her entire face changes into something a lot less attractive.
• Guilt by Association Gag: The reason that Persus's family was killed by Hades was because they were within sight of the mob that Hades attacked for declaring war on the gods.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Perseus is the son of a god and a human woman.
• Harping on About Harpies: They show up as the flying, devilish minions of Hades. Although they don't resemble bird-women at all, they do serve the purpose of snatching people up and pulling them into the Underworld.
• Healing Shiv: Sheik Suleiman's blue fire. Except when it's a weapon...
• Heroic Sacrifice: Suleiman and Draco both die to buy Perseus enough time.
• Hijacked by Jesus:
  • As usual, Hades is a villain who acts as a Satan expy who wishes to overthrow Zeus (God) and unleash "hell on earth" and must be defeated by Perseus, the son of God. Given that the original myth specifically states that Hades helps Perseus on his quest (by giving him the invisibility hat) and that in the fables Hades was perfectly content with his position (and is one of the few gods who is all around decent), this comes across as jarring.
  • Accordingly, Zeus represents the Abrahamic God to an iconographically ridiculous degree. Here, he is the creator of humanity, who loves them and wants their love in turn. He is repeatedly merciful, such as not outright destroying Calibos and his entire army instead only embarrassing him, and has allowed humanity to grow advanced enough that they no longer need the gods for survival. His son, born of a human mother, is the one who has to save humanity from Hades.
  • Djinns belong to Arabian mythology, and the ones from this film take a definitely Muslim vibe to go along the Abrahamic line.
• Hollywood Costuming: The gods are wearing medieval European suits of armor! Contrast with the goddesses, who wear classic Hellenic attire.
• Home Guard: The Dwindling Party of soldiers assigned to help Perseus in his mission are from an Honor Guard, distinguished soldiers too old to fight on the front lines or young inexperienced soldiers who look good on display. They are all he gets because the rest of the Argive army had recently been wiped out after picking a fight with Zeus and Hades.
• Human Sacrifice: Zeus should have just asked for a fruit basket.
• Improbable Hairstyle: How does Perseus manage to maintain that buzzcut of his while traveling rough for months?
• It Has Been an Honor: Just before they begin their apparently suicidal quest, Perseus says something akin to this to the companions who chose to remain with him. He remarks that his father was, at least initially, the only great man he knew. Now, he could say he knew four great men. He then directs his attention to Io and the Djinn, amending his statement with: "And one woman. .... and whatever the hell you are."
• Jerkass Gods: To be expected of the Greek pantheon — with the possible exception of Apollo though in Zeus' case toned down from the myths.
• Kaiju: The Kraken. It is a giant beast created by Hades that emerges from the waters to destroy a city.
• Karma Houdini: Zeus. Seriously, he is ultimately behind just about every bad thing that happens in the story, really doesn't suffer at all for his actions, does little to nothing to fix anything, and is even forgiven by Perseus who was calling him out on it for the whole movie.
• Kill the Cutie: Eusebios, clearly the youngest of the group of heroes, is turned to stone by Medusa after watching his companion die, and his body is then smashed to pieces at Perseus' feet.
• Kill the God: Various rulers are trying to do this to the Olympians by destroying their temples and denying them worship. While it does weaken them, the gods are still powerful enough to inflict misery on the commonfolk, whose suffering their arrogant rulers ignore. It also doesn't do anything to weaken Hades, since he draws power from their fear of death.
• Kneel Before Zod: When Hades appears on Earth, he demands that mortals kneel before him.
• Light Is Not Good: The Gods wear really, really shiny armor. They are also selfish beings who cause the humans a lot of suffering.
• Literally Shattered Lives: Medusa does this to her victims. She turns them to stone and then shatters them.
• Loser Deity: Hades gets the short end of the divine stick as the unloved master of The Underworld and is treated like an uninvited guest on Mount Olympus. However, while the other Gods Need Prayer Badly, Hades is empowered by mortal fear, so when The Dog Bites Back, he bites hard.
• Lost Aesop: Zig-Zagged: For the first part of the film, the human heroes are preparing to go to war against the gods in revenge for their tyrannical mistreatment, but then about halfway through Zeus realizes what Hades is up to and decides to secretly help Perseus on his quest to defeat him. After Hades is dealt with, the humans declare their Rage Against the Heavens to be over, even though Zeus, who was acting like a prick and preparing to put the mortals in their place before Hades arrived on the scene, receives no comeuppance whatsoever. On the other hand, the humans did just royally screw over one of the principal Olympians, Perseus winning Zeus's respect in the process. So while the humans didn't actively overthrow Olympus, they put themselves on the map, as it were, and it's heavily implied the Gods won't be as dickish to mankind in the future. As the sequel shows, the fact the humans didn't actively destroy Olympus is a very, very good thing, as doing so would have unleashed something a lot nastier.
• Made of Explodium: The Djinn Sheik Suleiman, serving as a Heroic Sacrifice to distract Medusa.
• Made of Iron: The team members who survive the scorpion fight, having got smacked around by the scorpions. Draco and Perseus take this up to eleven. Perses while an infant survives being locked in a coffin and thrown into the sea while his mother who was with him died. Justified in his case because he is a demi-god.
• Magic Skirt: Io's dress follows the trope during the scorpion battle.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!":
  • When Hades makes his appearance in the throne room scene, it's obvious everyone is thinking Oh, Crap!, especially the queen who had just finished saying that they were the new gods. As if a shadowy black figure materializing in your throne room whilst killing all of your guards wasn't reason enough to have this reaction, Cassiopeia then asks for his name: "I am Hades". Cue Cassiopeia and about half the room looking like they've just soiled themselves.
  • The scene where after a deadly battle with a single giant scorpion, they find themselves surrounded by half a dozen or so giant scorpions. Eep.
  • The arrival of the Kraken.
• Meaningful Rename: Acrisius changing his name to Calibos after he was turned into a demon by Zeus.
• Men Are the Expendable Gender: Almost every secondary character dies over the course of the movie but the death of the Damsel in Distress is a much bigger deal to Perseus; later Zeus brings her back to life, but everyone else stays dead.
• Mickey Mousing: During the battle with the scorpions, the musical "stings" accompany the scorpions' attacks.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Perseus and his men, with great effort, manage to fight and kill a small number of scorpions, which are roughly as big as the ones from the original movie. Then their bigger brother comes out...
  • Perseus finds a small mechanical owl in a box. "What the hell is this?" The commander simply tells him to put it back in. Probably intended as a Take That! at the 1981 film, for which the owl has been disparaged for being included just to ripoff R2-D2.
  • Zeus takes out a small statue of Perseus and says his name, harkening back to the original.
• Nightmare Face: Medusa's face transforms into something like a demon snake when she petrifies her victims (or in one case, tries to).
• No Man of Woman Born: Medusa's gaze can turn any creature of flesh into stone. A Djinn, on the other hand...
• No-Sell: The Djinn is immune to Medusa's gaze because his body is made of wood. When she tries to petrify him, he just laughs in her face.
• Non-Indicative Name: As in the original movie, and despite the advertising tagline, no Titans appear, let alone clash.
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Perseus is played by Sam Worthington, whose Aussie accent remains intact.
• Obi-Wan Moment: Draco is mortally wounded during the fight with Medusa. Aware his time his short, he uses the last of his strength to stall and weaken her. Confident that Perseus could finish what they started, the normally stern Draco gives the hero a peaceful smile, reminding him to tell all that, "men did this." Medusa then turns him to stone and shatters his body.
• Oh, Crap!: Medusa seems to have a double moment of this, first when she finds that her power doesn't work on someone, and then is shown that same one is about to attempt a Taking You with Me.
• Oh, My Gods!: Largely averted, at least with Perseus. Sam Worthington seems fond of saying "What the hell is/was this/that?" instead of "Tartarus" or something along those lines.
• One to Million to One: Hades can teleport by having demon imps fuse into him (and he can de-fuse into said imps).
• Only Sane Man: Andromeda, who is the only one to realize provoking the gods will have negative consequences.
• Opt Out: The monster hunters (probably wisely) decide to leave the party just before they head off to fight Medusa.
• Our Genies Are Different: The Djinn appear as black-colored humanoid creatures with bright blue eyes that use blue fire magic that seems organic based (they tame scorpions, heal the hero and are claimed to rebuild themselves of wood). And they also can suicide bomb themselves.
• Pegasus: The film goes the "entire species of winged horses" route. Pegasus himself is marked out by being larger and a different color.
• Plot Hole: The entire plot of the movie hinges on internal contradictions:
  • The gods supposedly need human prayer to survive, yet they predate humanity and even fought a cosmic war with the titans without so much as a single worshipper to empower them.
  • The Kraken is a monster so powerful that even gods and titans could not defeat it. However, the gaze of Medusa's severed head, whose powers were the result of a curse cast on her by Athena in a fit of pique, can instantly turn it into stone. Somehow it never occurred to any of the gods to just make another such monster in order to stop the Kraken, and by extension Hades.
  • Evacuation apparently doesn't exist in Argos' dictionary, since they never try to just book it from their city considering Hades only ever said the Kraken would destroy their home. The best interpretation was that they probably didn't want to risk flipping off the gods even further.

• Properly Paranoid: The Mad Oracle Prokopion is first introduced pleading that challenging the Gods is akin to Bullying the Dragon, and the events that follow quickly prove him right.
• Rage Against the Heavens: Aside from Hades, Zeus and many of the other gods are portrayed as being all-around bastards, which is the primary source of the story's conflict. This leads to Perseus spending much of the film trying to act in denial of his divine parentage.
• Rape as Backstory: Much like the original myth, Medusa was transformed into a monster after Poseidon raped her in Athena's temple.
• Rasputinian Death: Medusa. A magic bomb, pierced by a stalactite, has her head cut off before falling into a lava pit.
• Red Herring:
  • One of those soldiers sounds exactly like Liam Neeson. Considering Zeus' penchant for disguising himself as a supporting character, you'd think something was going to be made of this... But nope, it's just a normal soldier who happens to sound exactly like Liam Neeson.
  • Poseidon is frequently mentioned in the beginning of the film as being one of the gods to stand up to the titans, the ruler of the sea who (at least in the eyes of Spyros) is responsible for the lack of fish, and the guy who raped Medusa. Yet he shows up as often as the other gods, besides Zeus and Hades. Hell, even Apollo had a bigger role in the film than Poseidon, and Apollo had all of one scene of dialogue.
  • The first group of soldiers that Perseus teams up with. They seem to have at least a little bit of characterization. They survive all the way back to Argos, basically the beginning of the First Act.
• The Remake: Of Clash of the Titans (1981).
• Rule of Cool: A lot of the human storylines are dropped to spend more time on Perseus fighting monsters. Which a lot of viewers are perfectly fine with. Oddly, while the monsters are impressively animated, the filmmakers have done relatively little to make them distinctive in contrast to the original. Calibos, for instance, has gone from a deformed half-saytr thing to, well, Two-Face in a tunic.
• Sadly Mythtaken:
  • The Kraken is from Norse Mythology. Though it seems to be a stand-in for Cetus, which was a similar Sea Monster slayed by Perseus using Medusa's head.
  • Contrary to the reference by one of the Stygian witches, Medusa and the Kraken were not Titans. The Titans were Elder Gods, who were overthrown by a race of younger gods, their descendants, a.k.a., the Olympians.
  • The Gods won the Titanomachy by themselves.
  • Io isn't even from the same myth as Perseus. Io wasn't "cursed with agelessness"; she was Hera's priestess at her temple in Argos and a princess of Argos who was turned into a cow by Zeus to hide her from his jealous wife Hera when she caught the two canoodling (she certainly didn't spurn Zeus' advances).
  • The original myth has Perseus seeking Medusa's head for a completely unrelated reasons to Andromeda's plight. He saves her because he happens to be flying home on ' winged sandals and comes across this poor Virgin Sacrifice strapped to a rock.
  • In Greek mythology Hades was not an adversary of the other gods, just a member of the pantheon that oversaw of an area of concern (the afterlife) that most people would rather not think about. He was even married to his beautiful niece Persephone.
  • Zeus revolted against his father, Kronos and the other Titans, defeated them, and banished them to Tartarus, a dungeon in the Underworld. Hades was not banished. He drew lots with Zeus and Poseidon, for shares of the world. He drew the Underworld, making him also the god of the hidden wealth of the earth, including gold and silver. He was cool with it. The movie also says he was not worshiped and while he was seldom worshiped as Hades (that name mostly refers to his realm) he was often worshiped in Greece under the name Pluton, the god of wealth.
  • About three days into their seven day journey (on foot mind you), they enter a desert and encounter Djinn. While there were deserts in the traditional definition of "Greece", which included Turkey (and also explains the Doric ruins), it still doesn't explain how they got there from the Peloponnese in three days, or why they even got that far off course.
  • One thing weirder about Sheik Suleiman? While the title Sheik and legends of Djinn predate Islam, Suleiman is a very Islamic name for something set in the same vague time period as Mythological Greece. The Roman Empire should cover the Mediterranean and Christianity should be around if Djinn have Muslim names.
  • Mankind was created by a Titan called Prometheus, not Zeus. By some accounts, Zeus delegated the job to brother Titans, Prometheus (the wisest Titan; his name means "forethought") and Epimetheus (the stupidest Titan; his name means "afterthought").
  • Perseus was Acrisius' grandson, not his stepson.
  • Zeus impregnated Acrisius' daughter by appearing as a shower of golden light, not as her husband. She was never married, due to this wacky prophecy about her son being the one who kills Acrisius (some versions make the murder intentional, others account his death by Perseus pulling out Medusa's head at a dinner party. It makes sense in context). Coincidentally, Hercules (aka Heracles, the great-grandson of Perseus) was the one created by Zeus masquerading as some woman's husband... Still another holds that Perseus entered a discus competition and his discus went astray and killed a spectator, Acrisius.
  • Medusa doesn't live in the Underworld.
  • There was only one Pegasus, not a herd, who sprang forth from Medusa's neck after she was killed. (Indeed, "Pegasus" actually means "he who sprang".) Pegasus was also not ridden by Perseus, but his paternal cousin (in some sources) Bellerophon.
• Scary Scorpions: Massive killer scorpions caused by the blood of Calibos, who has been given godly powers by Hades. The scorpions seem to be better at the job than Calibos was. The scorpions kill two Argosian soldiers (as opposed to Calibos's four), but they tend to make more of an impression, being, you know, giant scorpions.
• Screw Destiny: The three witches predict that Perseus will die in trying to kill the Kraken. He doesn't. In fact, it's never mentioned again. Unfortunately, the Djinn largely give up on the quest hearing the witches' prediction, leaving only one still backing it; this ends up making the battle against Medusa significantly more costly than it could have been, as Djinn completely No-Sell her petrifying gaze.]]
• Shining City: Argos (somewhat). Olympus takes it up to eleven.
• Shout-Out:
  • The super-shiny armor of the Olympians? Apparently, they were modeled after the "cloths" of the Saints of Saint Seiya.
  • The Stygian Witches look like Xenomorphs.
• Single-Stroke Battle: The fight between Perseus and Medusa where he finishes her with a single Clean Cut.
• Snakes Are Sexy: Medusa is half-woman, half-snake, all sexy.
• Taken for Granite: Medusa's victims as seen in Greek Mythology
• Taking You with Me: The Djinn does this to Medusa. It doesn't quite work, but does provide a crucial distraction.
• That Man Is Dead: "There is no Acrisius. Only Calibos!"
• Those Two Guys: Those two hunters who tag along with Perseus and the soldiers from Argos. They chicken out when they head to kill Medusa, but show up again, riding one of the Djinn-trained scorpions to help save the day at the end of the film.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Perseus chucking his Olympian sword at Hades. Thankfully, Zeus helps out with some lightning assistance, otherwise it probably wouldn't have succeeded.
• Truer to the Text: Extremely small, but rather than dying during Perseus' infancy at Zeus' hand, Acrisius lives into Perseus' adulthood and is killed by Perseus, albeit in battle rather than accidentally like in the original myth, somewhat zigzagging this trope.
• 24-Hour Armor: The gods always appear dressed in their super-shiny armor — though gods can presumably wear whatever they want regardless of the occasion.
• The Unintelligible: The Djinn, sort of. Sheikh Suleiman was speaking Arabic in some scenes, especially when the Djinn saved Perseus and Co. from the scorpions.
• Was Once a Man: The djinns: as their injuries in battle add up, they replace busted parts with deadwood laced with dark magic, until that's really all that's left of them.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: Perseus thinks Io is Cursed with Awesome when she tells him she's cursed with agelessness because she rejected a god's advances (which she didn't do, in the actual myths). Io then tells him the tragic consequences of bearing such a curse: watching her loved ones die while she continues to live, explicitly comparing it to the death of his family when Hades first appeared.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Medusa. Rape victim, cursed by a Goddess of Wisdom for being raped, and sent to the underworld to dwell in squalor. Is it any wonder she spends her time gleefully hunting any man stupid enough to try to kill her?
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: "Huzzah! We've set fire to a bunch of temples and knocked over statues of the gods! That'll show 'em! Let's throw a — Oh, hi there, Hades. What are you doing here? Man, this is awkward..."

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