Top 10 Movies That Got Their Mythology Wrong

It was bad enough that Caucasian actors were cast to portray Egyptian deities and civilians. However, the inaccuracies didn’t end with the casting. Although the original Egyptian myth only has Horus losing one eye, the film makes him lose both of them. Set also goes from being a god with complex motivations to a generic villain for the movie. And we can’t even begin to point out all the nuances the writers missed about the afterlife. While those inaccuracies could’ve been overlooked, the appearances of the gods cannot be. Not only did they incorporate non-Egyptian actors, but the production took radical steps to make the gods appear more human and attractive. The amount of mistakes “God of Egypt” made could fill the Nile.

Hey, here’s a question: what’s the most famous aspect of the Arthurian Legend? If you answered “Excalibur,” you’d be correct. In traditional tellings, Arthur typically pulls the fabled sword from a stone or gets it from the Lady of the Lake. But the film largely deviated from the source material by having the once and future king pull the weapon out of his dad’s grave. Outside of that gritty rewrite, Arthur didn’t meet his doomed father figure Pelagius in the original texts. In fact, the mentor wasn’t even executed but rather exiled. Cerdic and Cynric also were supposed to survive the film’s events. All in all, it’s safe to say this film was a very loose retelling of the story.

How close does Aster’s vision get to the real rituals of the summer solstice? Not that close. In reality, the traditional practices are much calmer. For example, a dark romance ritual in the movie involves a woman adding something very personal to her love interest’s food. The actual tradition mainly centers around leaving flowers underneath a pillow. And attendees don’t have to worry about any blood rituals or human sacrifices. According to most historians, Midsummer traditions never included such grim traditions. Honestly, spectators should worry more about if they’re allergic to the numerous flowers that would be present than actually dying.

Both the 1999 film and original 1932 classic were built on one major misstep: Imhotep’s resurrection. In Ancient Egyptian culture, the process of mummification was a sacred process that ensured a safe trip to the afterlife. So when rewatching either film, you have to wonder why they would do this for Imhotep or Anck-su-namun. This duo managed to upset high ranking officials before they died. As a result, it would be unlikely that they would be specifically mummified in a way that honored them and gave them an opportunity to return at a later time. While this fact may be a major letdown to fans of the franchise, they’ll at least be happy to know flesh-eating scarabs were never an issue in the texts.

On one hand, we can definitely appreciate when a film takes artistic license, especially when one of the credited writers is someone the caliber of Neil Gaiman. But there’s also something to be said about adhering to source material as well-traveled and established as Beowulf. The story is pretty straightforward. A warrior is tasked to defeat a monster, he becomes a king and is ultimately slain by a dragon. This cinematic iteration, however, mucks up the waters by having a whole lot of human/monster copulation and propagation. The film also casts Angelina Jolie as Grendel’s mother, and she’s a far cry from what the poem describes as a “swamp thing from hell.”

Well-read students of Greek mythology are well aware of their reputation for perversity and bloodshed. This is partially why it’s so difficult to adapt them for any less than an adult audience. While Disney’s “Hercules” is definitely entertaining, it’s a particularly watered-down version of the myths that ignore some of the gods’ biggest flaws. Zeus’ flagrant and frequent philandering is absent here. Additionally, while Hera seems pretty friendly here, she actually attempts to assassinate Hercules in the source material. Y’know, because the demigod is actually the son of Zeus’ mistress, Alcmene. Disney was definitely aware that they had majorly messed with myth. The company warned Athenian audiences about inaccuracies with written materials during screenings of the film.

2004's "Troy" runs fast and loose with many of the bullet points which were found in Homer's influential Greek poems "The Odyssey" and "The Iliad." One big aspect of Brad Pitt's Achilles that they changed was his relationship to Patroclus. Throughout various works, the duo has been stated to be everything from close friends to lovers. But they were never cousins like they were in “Troy”. Achilles also was respectful of the gods. And during the film, characters like Menelaus, Ajax and Agamemnon are offered early on in the film. This is despite the fact that they all survive much longer into the Trojan War and beyond. It looks like accuracy to the source was the Achilles heel of this movie.

Although casting The Rock as a strong demigod was inspired casting, his muscles couldn’t distract us from this adaptation’s interpretation of events. Throughout the film, the mystical elements are mostly billed as rumors or exaggerations. This artistic decision drains a lot of the myth from the original story and makes everything a lot grittier. Additionally, The warrior Atalanta is turned into an Amazon instead of a hunter dedicated to the goddess Artemis. To be fair, "The Legend of Hercules" [xref] has its own set of inaccuracies to talk about. But the fact that the film still incorporated mystical elements made it feel truer to the source than 2014’s “Hercules.”

There are many differences between how "Immortals" present Greek myths and the actual tales. Just as the film utilizes junky CGI to hide a lack of character development and storytelling, so too does the script try to cover up how fast and loose they play with myth. While Hyperion and his army are made to be big antagonists, they weren’t really part of the original Theseus stories. Their inclusion prevented us from seeing the hero face off against an Amazonian army. Writers also neglect to mention that Hyperion is traditionally a Titan. However, that may be because the movie includes 8 more titans than it should. If you’re looking to cram for a test about Theseus, we wouldn’t recommend relying on this movie.

Both the 2010 "Clash of the Titans" and its sequel “Wrath of the Titans” took some major creative liberties with their original stories. To rip the band-aid off right away, Liam Neeson’s Zeus would’ve never said (insert broll for “Release the Kraken”) A different creature named Cetus was the big sea beast from the original myth. While Hades [2] is presented as an antagonist here, he’s more ambivalent in the original stories. Perseus ends up romantically linked with the wrong mythological maiden at the end of "Clash". Over in “Wrath” the [3] chimera is killed by the completely wrong hero. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Ultimately the biggest clash in these films is between the screenplay and the original myths.