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Line 1: {{work}} {{Multiple Works Need Separate Pages}} [[File:clash_of_the_titans_4524.jpg\|frame]] {{quote\|''"Release the Kraken!"''}} ''Clash of the Titans'' is the 1981 film adaptation of the [[Classical Mythology\|Greek myth of Perseus]]. Stop motion animation was used extensively in many special effects, and the monsters were created by [[Harryhausen Movie\|Ray Harryhausen]], who retired from ~~filmmaking~~film-making shortly after ''Clash'' was released. Stephen R. Wilk wrote in 2000 that "most people today who are aware of the story of Perseus and Medusa [[Popcultural Osmosis\|owe their knowledge to the 1981 film]] ''Clash of the Titans''." A remake was released in April, 2010. Reception has been mixed, but pretty much all have described it as 120 minutes of monsters, with little explanation of the plot. Which only vaguely resembles the plot of the original anyway. And by "vaguely" we mean "the monsters are the same, mostly." [[Just Here for Godzilla\|Whether that works is completely up to you.]] A sequel, ''Wrath of the Titans'',<ref>which coincidentally is the title used in Brazil and all Spanish versions for the first movie</ref> was released in April 2012. Line 12 ⟶ 13: ---- {{tropelist}} == ''[[Clash of the Titans (1981 film)]]'' == * [[Absurdly Sharp Blade]]: Perseus's magical sword can slice through marble. It never really needs to, but it ''does'' need to quickly behead Medusa, whose scales are as hard as iron. * [[Adaptation Distillation]]: [[Alan Dean Foster]]'s novelization goes to great lengths, and largely succeeds, in reconciling the story with more standard [[Greek Mythology]]. Line 24 ⟶ 25: * [[Bilingual Bonus]]: ''Bubo'' is Latin term for the horned owl and eagle-owl genus in standard classification. * [[Bloody Murder]]: Medusa's blood becomes scorpions when it falls on the ground after Calibos stabs her severed head. * [[Canon Foreigner]]: Calibos was designed specifically for the movie, having no mythological counterpart. * [[Caustic Critic]]: David Ansen of ''Newsweek'' memorably titled his review of this, "Thud of the Beefcake". * [[Chained to a Rock]]: Andromeda. Line 33 ⟶ 35: * [[Disproportionate Retribution]]: In retaliation for his lover and son being sentenced to death, Zeus orders the death of their attempted killer, King Acrisius of Argos. Fair enough. But then he orders the destruction of all of Argos and the deaths of all its inhabitants, too. Later in the film, Thetis does the same thing, declaring that all of Joppa must die in retribution for Calibos's maiming and Cassiopeia's insult. * [[Divine Chessboard]]: Perseus and Calibos are both guided by opposing gods, Zeus and Thetis respectively... in a very literal fashion, too! The gods have clay statuettes of their favorites that they move about as they wish in a model amphitheater. * [[Dragon-in-Chief]]: Unlike the Kraken (a mindless beast) or Thetis (arguably the main antagonist, but one Perseus never encounters) Caliban is deadly threat to Perseus, as to him, [[It's Personal]]. * [[Dramatic Necklace Removal]] * [[Dull Surprise]]: Harry Hamlin's performance as Perseus. * [[Dwindling Party]]: All the soldiers end up dead. * [[Engagement Challenge]] * [[Everything's Better with Sparkles]]: Hello, Olympus! (And even ~~moreso~~more so in the 2010 film, with its computer-generated sparkles and shines.) * [[Expy]]: Calibos = Caliban from [[William Shakespeare]]'s ''[[The Tempest]]''. * [[Eyeless Face]]: The three Stygian Witches (i.e. Graeae) had no eye sockets, but they traded a single crystalline "eye" between them. Perseus steals it to get information from them. Line 61 ⟶ 64: * [[Magi Babble]]: {{quote\|'''Stygian Witch:''' [Medusa's blood] is deadly and poisonous. But you have touched the eye. Just as it has the power to give us sight, so it can make your cloak -- your ''red'' cloak -- proof against the blood.}} * [[Mama Bear]]: Thetis' true motive is revenge against Perseus for maiming her son Calibos. * [[Mauve Shirt]]: Thallo. Up until Calibos deals with him. * [[Meaningful Name]]: [[wikipedia:Great horned owl\|Bubo the Owl]]. * [[Medusa]] * [[Mr. Exposition]]: Perseus learns quite a lot about the backstory from an unnamed [[City Guards\|City Guard]]. * [[Ms. Fanservice]]: Danae and Andromeda show some T&A. * [[Non-Human Sidekick]]: Bubo. * [[Non-Indicative Name]]: The title would seem to have you believe that at least two titans will clash at some point in the film. No actual Titans from Greek mythology show up. The Kraken is, at one point, called "the last of the Titans," which would seem to preclude it from clashing with any others. They might has well have left that line out and just tried to play off that "Titan" is supposed to mean "monster." ** More likely, the Kraken was referred to as a "Titan" purely for literally-minded moviegoers. The figurative titans that clash are Perseus and all the powerful foes arrayed against him... larger-than-life figures of myth fighting it out. Line 72 ⟶ 77: * [[Overprotective Dad]]: The film's explanation for why Acrisius "grew jealous and kept [Danae] guarded from the eyes of men, locked behind iron doors" (in the original myth, this was partly due to a prophecy that his grandson would kill him, but [[You Can't Fight Fate]]). * [[Owl Be Damned]]: Subverted by the serene Bubo the owl and his comic relief robotic counterpart. * [[Papa Wolf]]: Zeus orders Poseidon to sic the Kraken on the entire city of Argos when their cruel king has Danae and the infant Perseus placed in a chest and thrown in the sea to drown. * [[Pegasus]] * [[Pet Owl]]: Bubo, Athena's owl, whom she duplicated as a robot that she dispatched to accompany and advise Perseus. It's debatable whether robot!Bubo actually qualified as a pet, at least to Perseus. * [[Poison Is Corrosive]]: Medusa's blood. * [[Race Lift]]: In all versions of ''Clash of the Titans'', Andromeda is portrayed as a white European. In the original Greek myths, she was from Ethiopia, a sub-Saharan African country. * [[Red Shirt]]: Any soldier who goes with Perseus on his quest. * [[Robot Buddy]]: Bubo, crafted by Hephaestus by Athena's request to be this for Perseus. * [[Sadly Mythtaken]]: Amphitrite is the wife of Poseidon in Greek mythology, while Thetis is generally a sea nymph, though some suggest that she was a full goddess, as the film portrays, although she was certainly not among the central circle who dwelt on Olympus.▼ * [[Sadly Mythtaken]]: Several: ▲* ~~[[Sadly Mythtaken]]:~~* Amphitrite is the wife of Poseidon in Greek mythology, while Thetis is generally a sea nymph, though some suggest that she was a full goddess, as the film portrays, although she was certainly not among the central circle who dwelt on Olympus. In the original story, and Andromeda didn't even meet until after he had slain Medusa; her mother's boast came when she was about to be married to a noble via [[Arranged Marriage]], and said noble ran like a coward when she pleaded for help. On the same note, Perseus did not intend to use Medusa's head as a weapon, having been tasked to gain it by Polydectes, ruler of Seriphos. He told Perseus he wanted it as a gift for his bride-to-be, Hippodamia, but in truth, he actually wanted to marry Perseus' mother, and gave him the task [[Uriah Gambit\| hoping to get rid of him]]. Also, Perseus did not use Medusa's head to slay Cetus, doing so the old fashioned way with his sword. (The act given as the reason why the body of water is now called the Red Sea.) He ''did'', however, use it to petrify the aforementioned cowardly noble and his entourage when they appeared and demanded Andromeda returned to him, and then used it on Polydectes when he discovered the true intent. The Stygian Witches seem to be [[Expy]]s of the Graeae, daughters of the Titans Phorcys and Ceto. They were not cannibals in the original myth, and they not only shared an eye, but a tooth. How many of them there were depends on the version, Hesiod names two (Pemphredo and Enyo) while the Pseudo-Apollodorus lists Deino as a third. Perseus was indeed given gifts by the gods, but received the helmet from Hades, not Athena, while Athena gave him the shield. Also, Hermes (who wasn't present in the movie) gave him winged sandals; this omission was replaced with Perseus taming Pegasus. ** And speaking of which, Pegasus was born from Medusa's cloven neck when she was slain; some versions do dramatize it a little by having Perseus mount him in order to escape, but most simply have him ignore Pegasus and fly away, to be tamed by Bellephron later. * [[Shadow Discretion Shot]]: Calibos' transformation from man to monster. Necessary in that such effects were otherwise impossible to render cheaply in 1981. * [[Shout-Out]]: The Kraken bears a strong resemblance to Ymir from ''[[Twenty Million Miles To Earth]]'', also animated by [[Ray Harryhausen]]. In the remake there was also a brief scene where Perseus was getting ready to depart from Argos with the rest of the group, he pulled out the mechanical owl from the original film and asked what it was, to which was the response "it's nothing, leave it". * [[Snake People]]: Medusa. * [[Standard Hero Reward]] * [[Stay in the Kitchen]]: "Too perilous [a journey] for a princess." Line 89 ⟶ 103: * [[Team Pet]]: Bubo the robot-owl. * [[This Way to Certain Death]]: The statues outside Medusa's lair. * [[Throwing Your Sword Always Works]]: How Perseus finishes off {{spoiler\|Calibos}}. * [[Title Drop]]: Close -- one of the Stygian Witches refers to Perseus using Medusa to defeat the Kraken as "A Titan against a Titan!" ** [[Sadly Mythtaken\|Yet neither is a Titan...]] (it's a Gorgon vs. a sea monster) * [[Traveling At the Speed of Plot]]: Perseus' journey back to Joppa on Pegasus as Andromeda's sacrifice is being carried out. * [[Trope Maker]]: As far as is known, this was the first time Medusa was depicted with the lower body of a snake, a trait usually attributed to the [[Lamia]]. This inspired quite a lot of future portrayals, because, [[Sadly Mythtaken]] as it was, ''it was just so cool.'' * [[The Unintelligible]]: Bubo, except to Perseus. ** Ammon eventually figures out what he's saying. * [[Virgin Sacrifice]]: Thetis demands Andromeda remain a virgin, an unsubtle way to punish Perseus as well by ensuring he can't marry her. * [[Virgin Sacrifice]] * [[Walking Shirtless Scene]]: Harry Hamlin as Perseus. * [[Wax Museum Morgue]]: Albeit stone instead of wax. Line 102 ⟶ 117: * [[Your Princess Is in Another Castle]]: Yay, Joppa's free of its curse! Let's throw a party!... == ''[[Clash of the Titans (2010 film)]]'' == * [[3D Movie]]: Although it wasn't filmed that way. * [[Adaptational Attractiveness]]: [http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.99245.1313907675!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_630/image.jpg Medusa] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20100408221202/http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/galleries/clash_of_the_versions_which_titans_is_better/clash_of_the_versions_which_titans_is_better.html#ixzz1Uq0GAc5x the source of that image] - page 5 of the slideshow - even asks "why is a monster whose face is supposed to be able to turn any man into stone being played by [[wikipedia:Natalia Vodianova\|one of the world’s most beautiful models]]?") ** This becomes [[Fridge Logic]] if one knows that Medusa received her curse ''because she was so very beautiful'' [[Unfortunate Implications\|driving ~~Posiedon~~Poseidon to rape her in Athena's temple]]. Whether or not she was made so grotesque that her face turned men to stone - or retained her beauty but had her gaze cursed so that "no man could look upon her" is a matter of interpretation. * [[Anachronism Stew]]: The gods are wearing medieval European suits of armor! Contrast with the goddesses, who wear classic Hellenic attire. * [[The Artifact]]: Andromeda. There is no real need for her to appear in the remake given she has [[Demoted to Extra\|lost her role as Perseus' love interest]] and her city has already done more than enough to anger the gods even without her mother's hubris in proclaiming her beauty. She only seems to have been retained at all because Perseus rescuing Andromeda is such a big part of the original story. Meanwhile, Io seems to have been added in as the [[Promoted to Love Interest\|replacement love interest]]. Line 116 ⟶ 131: * [[Broken Aesop]] {{quote\|'''Perseus:''' Screw you, Dad! I'm going to live as a man! [''Flies away on Pegasus with immortal girlfriend and magic sword.'']}} ** This was in the ~~reshoot~~re-shoot 'final' version, originally... He was meant to fly into Olympus and throw down the sword to his feet as a big [[Shut UP, Hannibal]]. The gods that helped him were Apollo and Athena, and Zeus (not Hades) was cast more in a villainous light. * [[Cold Flames]]: Sheikh Suleiman. * [[Composite Character]]: Acrisius, Perseus' father, was melded with Calibos, [[The Brute]], into the same person. Line 123 ⟶ 138: * [[Cursed with Awesome]]: Perseus thinks Io is this 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: [[Who Wants to Live Forever?\|watching her loved ones die while she continues to live]], explicitly comparing it to the death of his family when Hades first appeared. * [[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 ~~armour~~armor; Bubo is briefly show 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 ~~armour~~armor. Of course, as the original was Extremely Cheesy, the remake has only been bumped down to a Quite Cheesy. * [[Dark Is Evil]]: Hades. * [[Dark Is Not Evil]]: The Djinn, probably to compensate for [[Everybody Hates Hades\|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... * [[Defiled Forever]]: Zeus knocked up your queen? Kill her to get back at him. * [[Demoted to Extra]]: Literally the case with every deity bar Zeus (and Hades because he wasn't in the original film). Also Cassiopeia and Andromeda -- the former {{spoiler\|is killed by Hades very quickly}} and the latter {{spoiler\|is demoted from love interest and has only a few minutes of screen time.}} Line 140 ⟶ 155: * [[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. * [[Faux Action Girl]]: Io, who does next to nothing. She does cut the tail off a scorpion and help Perseus train to fight Medusa, but the first incident was brief and at long range while the second ended up with [[Not What It Looks Like\|Perseus on top of her]]. * [[Fauxshadow]]: The two hunters who join the group proclaim; "It is death who should fear us!" {{spoiler\|They are the only surviving members of the group who do not journey to the Underworld}}. * [[Game Face]]: Medusa, when using her petrification powers. * [[Giggling Villain]]: Medusa. Line 146 ⟶ 161: * [[Gorgeous Gorgon]]: Medusa. * [[Half-Human Hybrid]]: Perseus gets double points, as he is played by [[Sam Worthington]], who's pulled this off [[Terminator\|twice]] [[Avatar (film)\|before]]. Also, Io. * [[Healing Shiv]]: Sheik Suleiman's blue fire. {{spoiler\|Except when it's a weapon...}} * [[Heroic Sacrifice]]: {{spoiler\|Suleiman and Draco both die to buy Perseus enough time}}. * [[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 Argosian army had recently been wiped out after picking a fight with Zeus and Hades. Line 219 ⟶ 234: * [[You Fail Biology Forever]]: Zeus' totem is a bald eagle. Bald eagles live in North America. The ancient Greeks would not have known about bald eagles, since bald eagles do not live anywhere known by the ancient Greeks. [[Somewhere an Ornithologist Is Crying]]. Could be [[You Fail Geography Forever]] and [[You Fail History Forever]] as well. The movie flunked out of history on a dozen points, not the least of which being ancient Greek gods in medieval plate armor. In-universe, this would be okokay, since the Gods would have had knowledge of any creature, and the Greeks would have just carved/sculpted/whatever any animal they were told/shown. ** Our-of-universe, it's probably [[Viewers are Morons]] at work, as it's the one species of eagle the filmmakers could be sure audiences would recognize ''as'' an eagle, rather than some kind of hawk. * [[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 Crap\|Oh hi there, Hades. What are you doing here?]] Man, this is awkward..." == ''[[Wrath of the Titans]]'' == * [[A Load of Bull]]: Perseus fights a Minotaur in the Labyrinth. The Minotaur has a more human, yet deformed, face than the more common bull-headed depiction.▼ * [[Antagonistic Offspring]]: Ares to Zeus, Zeus and Hades to Kronos. For that matter, Perseus still isn't all that thrilled with his dad. * [[Anyone Can Die]]: Unlike [[Classical Mythology]], in which the gods are completely immortal, the gods in this film ''can'' be killed. And some ''are.'' Line 264 ⟶ 278: * [[Last of His Kind]]: By the end of the film, there's only one real god left, and even he is no longer immortal. * [[Legendary in the Sequel]] / [[Remember When You Blew Up a Sun?]]: Perseus is still hailed as a great hero for his victory over the Kraken and is given a salute of honour by Andromeda's army. ▲* [[A Load of Bull]]: Perseus fights a Minotaur in the Labyrinth. The Minotaur has a more human, yet deformed, face than the more common bull-headed depiction. * [[Love Redeems]]: {{spoiler\|Hades of all people.}} * [[Made of Iron]]: Compared to the first movie, Perseus takes ''a lot'' of punishment, and it shows on his body, yet it's still much more than a normal human would be able to take - [[Justified Trope\|he's a demigod after all]]. Line 281 ⟶ 296: * [[The Other Darrin]]: Rosamund Pike replaces Alexa Davalos as Andromeda. * [[Too Dumb to Live]]: It's really a very ill-advised idea to pray to the same gods you're presently fighting. * [[Took a Level Inin Badass]]: Andromeda in the first film? [[Damsel in Distress]]. Andromeda in the second? Leader of an entire army. * [[The Unfavorite]]: Ares views himself as this. * [["Well Done, Son" Guy]]: Ares betrays Zeus because he loathes that he casts his favor and affection more on Perseus, his mortal half-brother, instead of him. Line 291 ⟶ 306: {{reflist}} [[Category:~~Clash of the Titans~~{{PAGENAME}}]]▼ [[Category:Fantasy Films]] [[Category:Films of the 2010s]] [[Category:Films of the 1980s]] [[Category:Sword and Sandal]] ▲[[Category:Clash of the Titans]] [[Category:Film]] [[Category:Riff Trax]] [[Category:Memetic Works]]