This is NOT Beowulf

I was at the bookstore today, just browsing the shelves, when I came across the graphic novel (comic book) adaptation of the new film Beowulf. According to the cover it was based on the screenplay for the new movie. This sort of thing is pretty common these days, especially when it concerns a film with high geek potential and Beowulf certainly fits the bill. Having read Beowulf in high school, college and twice just for fun, I was curious to see how they were going to handle certain parts of the story. What I found was damn near enough to make me vow never to see this film at ALL.

The screenplay was done by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary. Avary is an academy award winning writer and Gaiman has been writing science fiction and fantasy books for quite a long time. They're both VERY good at what they do and I've read almost everything Gaiman has put into print. All of this combined to add to my disappointment when I had a look at the MAN liberties they took with the original source material.

The basic story of Beowulf is pretty simple. You've got the Danes being tormented by a monster called Grendel. He's really a nasty piece of work and tends to rip his victims limb from limb leaving a really nasty, bloody mess. Beowulf is a sort of friend of the family and general seeker of adventure (hero) so he sails over with his men and tells the king he's going to settle this thing for him.

They set up at the great hall, which is where Grendel makes his attacks and during the night, sure enough, here comes Grendel. So far the stories match up pretty well but it's right here at this MAJOR event that the two plotlines start to divert and the heroic aspects of Beowulf start to be watered down.

Beowulf has a nasty honor streak and, well he's pretty damn strong. How strong? Well we're talking Heracles league here. Grendel comes into the hall, starts killing people like he always does and he finds Beowulf there ready to take him on. But unlike all of the OTHER guys in the fight, Beowulf is pretty close to naked. He's in his underwear. Why? Well because Grendel doesn't use any weapons so why should he?

As you can imagine, they get into a BIG nasty fight. There's lots of thrashing around and as Beowulf later recounts to the king, he was trying to pounce on him, pin him and grapple him to death (line 961) but it didn't quite work out that way. Instead, Beowulf just got one HUGE grip on Grendel and refused to let go. Grendel eventually pulled away so hard, and Beowulf held on so tight, that Grendel's arm came off at the shoulder.

Here, we've got two differences from the movie version. In the movie, Beowulf uses chains, wraps them around Grendel's arm (or Grendel gets tangled in them) and he just holds onto the chains while Grendel is fleeing out the door. They then sort of slam the door on Grendel's arm giving him even more leverage until the arm comes off. I was looking at that thinking, "what the hell? Beowulf isn't supposed to need chains for this job. He's just super strong.

Ok, so maybe they don't want him to be quite THAT strong. Maybe they want to make him appear more vulnerable. Add to the dramatic tension. Fine, I'll let that one go. But what happens next REALLY does some damage to our hero's character.

After all the celebrations over Grendel's death, Grendel's mom pays them a visit and she is in a MEAN mood. She sneaks in at night while everyone is asleep and pretty much goes to town, leaving yet another bloody mess. The Danes tell Beowulf what's going on and so he decides that yes, she's gonna have to die too otherwise they're pretty much gonna run out of Danes.

Off he goes to the swamp where Grendel's mother lives. They find her pond and it's teeming with lizards and assorted nasty serpents (she has the power to control them you see). He dons his good armor to protect him from the weight of the water (yes, he intends to fight her underwater at the bottom of the pond) , someone gives him what's supposed to be a super-kick-ass sword and Beowulf dives in looking for Grendel's mom. He finds her, they fight. He uses his super sword on her but it breaks. Guess it wasn't that super. She tackles him, pulls a knife and is going to kill him but he manages to escape. That's when he sees this sword leftover from the time of giants. It's an ancient weapon so big and heavy that only HE can lift it these days. Naturally he grabs it and THWACK! Lops off her head. Now, being a rather nasty piece of work, her blood pretty much destroys the weapon so unfortunately he can't take it with him. He leaves taking the hilt of the sword (which is all that's left) and Grendel's head, just for fun.

Switch over to the movie version. First sign that things are not quite right is that Grendel's mom is played by Angelina Jolie. Why is this the first sign? Well, here's how she's described in the original:

• in line 1259 she's called a monstrous hell-bride.
• Line 1292 she's a hell-dam.
• At line 1330 it talks of how she took one of the dead guys with her and is now eating him in her lair.
• Line 1391, troll-dam.
• Line 1518, swamp thing from hell.
• Line 1520, tarn-hag.

Now, I ask you, does that sound line the woman you've seen in the previews for this movie? Most you can say is that she's got a sort of lizard tail on the back of her head. Not exactly very hag-like.

And here's where we take the BIG leap, the one that totally changes Beowulf's character completely. They start having a conversation about Grendel. She offers him a deal. She tells him that since he took her son, he should give her BACK a son. In other words, she wants to sleep with him. Ok, so he does that, sure, why not, he's a single, successful Geat working as an adventurer. She then also takes a golden horn from him and tell him that as long as she gets to keep that horn, she'll make him the greatest king ever. What can he say? He's human, he accepts.

Now, in the original, Beowulf does become a great king but it has NOTHING to do with anything Grendel's mom did. In fact, as you'll recall, he lopped her head off. No, Beowulf became a great king by saving pretty much everyone so many times that the old kings decided that yeah, when they die he'd be a good replacement.

What next follows in the original is a rather long account of the wars that Beowulf has to deal with. It's the slowest part of the story really. I figured they'd cut that from the movie and as far as I can tell, I was right. So we skip ahead to the end. Grendel fights the dragon.

Original version: someone accidentally steals a cup from the dragon's treasure hoard. Dragons are notoriously greedy critters and do NOT like it when anyone takes ANYTHING from their hoard. So what happens? Dragon goes nuts, starts torching the city and generally being nasty. Beowulf and company go out to slay it. Beowulf being rather old now, isn't quite as great as he used to be but he still manages to kill the dragon. Unfortunately, the dragon is somewhat poisonous, manages to get a bit on him and they both die. Everyone else finishes up with the wars they were in and later give Beowulf a great Viking-style funeral and that's pretty much it.

Needless to say the movie takes things in a bit of a different direction. Years after fighting Grendel's mom, someone brings him that horn she was keeping. Beowulf goes to give it back, at which point she introduces him to his "son," the big ass dragon. Say what? Yeah, I know, I was wondering why that was necessary too. Dragon goes around torching things, much wailing and gnashing of teeth until finally Beowulf delivers the fatal wound and pushes him off a cliff where he does, body broken among the rocks. There's the usual "sorry father" kinda stuff at the end and then he dies and gets washed away by the surf.

Of course, at this point Beowulf is ALSO near death. They take him to the water, he floats away as well. Angelina Jolie appears again, gives him a smooch and off they go to the land of the dead or something like that. I'm a little confused on that part because it wasn't very well done in the comic.

So, there you go. Just a SLIGHT difference between the two right? What I don't really understand is why they did it that way. The original story has more than enough action and intrigue in it. Why mess up the hero by belittling his accomplishments, saying he gained greatness because he nailed Grendel's mom? What's really wrong with making him a self-made hero king?

I CAN understand why they pretty much erased all the Christianity in the movie. Hollywood never wants to be religious unless they have to or unless they can make religion look bad. You see, in the original, Beowulf is pretty damn Christian and there's one section that goes to great lengths to explain that Grendel and his mother were descendants of Cain who was cursed because he killed his brother. Line 1265 sums it up that from Cain sprang all the misbegotten spirits.

Now, having said all that, and yes, I've said a LOT, I can't say that the movie will be bad. You've got two great screenwriters. You've got an accomplished director. You've got some pretty wild CGI and 3D effects working there plus a whole bunch of great voice actors all working together on this. So yeah, maybe they did a great job and the movie will be pretty good and it'll be a huge hit. After I see some of the reviews I may even go see it myself. Just remember though, if you see the film, this is NOT Beowulf. It's really more of a . . . I dunno, a What If? Some of the pre-release material calls it a re-imaging or a re-telling of the story but come on, they've made WAY too many changes for that. They're really pushing it when they use the "based on" label.

And as I've said, the shame of it all is that it just wasn't necessary, all the changes I mean. They had a chance to FINALLY make a really great version of this wonderful epic poem and they chose not to.