"Troy" feels like a truly grounded war film depicting a moment in history. But in all actuality, it's an adaptation of Homer's "Iliad," the first in a pair of epic Greek poems authored by Homer in the 8th Century B.C. The film shed Homer's use of the gods in the tale and only depicted the men in the story as god-fearing. Furthermore, "Troy" took a few other liberties with the material.
In the film, Patroclus (Garrett Hedlund) is the cousin of Achilles. The warrior acts as somewhat of an older brother to Patroclus and teaches him all that he knows in the art of combat and war. When Patroclus is killed, his death inflames Achilles who kills Hector in retaliation. The "Iliad" never mentions that Patroclus and Achilles are related. In fact, it often depicts them as close friends and potentially even romantically entwined.
The length of the war is, perhaps, the most egregious alteration of Homer's original work. The film depicts a war that lasts days, maybe weeks at best. Troy is a city with mighty walls and is primed for a lengthy defense during war. "The Iliad" shares that the siege of Troy lasted an entire decade. Furthermore, the film depicts Agamemnon's victory as short-lived when the priestess Briseis (Rose Byrne) unceremoniously ends his life. But in the actual story, he survives the Trojan war and is only later murdered by his wife.
Helen, the queen at the center of it all is said to have been married off to Menelaus at a young age by her parents. However, Helen was actually the daughter of the king and queen of Sparta, making her royalty before her nuptials with Menelaus.
