The film sets the story background in an incredible era, where brave knights and evil monsters are everywhere, fantastic adventures and brave stories are everywhere, and of course, there is also the temptation of wealth and glory ... There seems to be only one person here who seems to be out of tune with the whole era, and that is Beowulf, because he annihilated a horrible creature, then saved an ancient Danish kingdom and made him a hero admired by thousands of people in return.

For the saved kingdom, Beowulf has become synonymous with praise and courage. After he saved the kingdom that was being fatally destroyed by grendel and the ruler King Hurusga, people there kept beautifying his extraordinary achievements and strength with hymns-the residents of the whole kingdom have been in panic and terror because they have been tortured and swallowed by grendel, a cruel monster for a long time.

Not only did a country get rid of the ravages of wild animals completely, but Beowulf himself also gained fame and fortune. Great money charm and endless temptations came at him from all directions, but he seemed more interested in how to deal with his new power. Beowulf finally fixed his destiny on a soldier, a winner, a leader and an eternal husband ... Most importantly, he was a man.

In the history of English language development, the narrative poem about Beowulf should be the oldest existing record. This adapted film directed by robert zemeckis contains many characters and themes in the original work-great demons, eternal heroes and, of course, endless disputes between good and evil, all of which are exploring everything about courage and glory step by step. However, one thing is very clear here. Beowulf in the film is by no means what your history teacher said in middle school. RobertZemeckis admits: "Frankly speaking, the original poem has nothing that appeals to me. I still remember when I was in junior high school, the poetic version of Beowulf was a reading task assigned to me by my teacher, but I couldn't understand it at all, because it was all old English ... for me, yes. To tell the truth, when I read this script written by neil gaiman and Roger Avari, I was immediately fascinated, so I asked them,' Why does your script make a story that I think is extremely boring and terrible so attractive?' Their answer is,' Well, let's make a simple guess for you, because poetry was written between the 7th century and12nd century, but before that, the story of Beowulf has been passed down from mouth to mouth for hundreds of years. At that time, the only person who could write poetry was a monk, so we have reason to think that many interesting parts of the story were artificially edited out. "Indeed, the scripts of Gaiman and Avril have made a deeper excavation of the overall content, and have re-mended and edited the imperfect and doubtful parts of the original poem. By analyzing the habits of monks, they guess some stories that may be hidden, and on the basis of maintaining the basic essence of poetry, they make it appear in a brand-new way to cater to the preferences of modern audiences. I believe that so many revolutionary changes and extensions have been made in the film, which may even cause academic controversy. "

When robert zemeckis and two screenwriters continued to delve into this story about Beowulf, he almost became a good studious student, and his thirst for knowledge was enough to make his junior high school teacher feel extremely proud. RobertZemeckis said, "When I was stuck in the script, I went back to look at the ancient poem that had been circulating for a long time and talked with scholars who had studied it specially. Completely immersed in this legendary story. It turns out that many themes in poetry are actually evolved from the Bible. For example, the legendary experience of a brave man, the battle between good and evil, and the price paid for glory ... Of course, you can take Beowulf as the most basic reference for modern heroes, from Conan to Superman to Hulk. "

Capture the great historical moment

Producer Jack Rapke added: "The legendary story about Beowulf is so attractive because it is hidden in a world of great adventure myths and epics that will never fade, full of monsters, witches and some strange creatures that only exist in human consciousness and imagination."

Looking back, neil gaiman and Roger Avari seem to have a perfect intuition about such a story theme, as Gaiman introduced in his autobiography: top 10, as a modern living writer, is listed in the dictionary of literary biography, and at the same time, is a prolific literary master, including prose, poetry, scripts, magazine columns, comedies, operas and dramas. At the same time, Gaiman is especially loved by comic book fans, because he is one of the creators of the DC comic book Sandman. This comic series has won 9 Will Esna Comics Awards and 3 American Harvey Awards, among which 19 Story also won the 199 1 World Fantasy Award for Best Short Story, which is the first one.

As for Roger Avari, he is famous for his dark, marginal and innovative plays and movies, including Pulp Fiction, which won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay-Sharing with quentin tarantino. In addition, he also directed several very influential cult films, namely "The Desperado" which was famous at Cannes Film Festival and "The Magnetic Field of Love" which was adapted from Bret Easton Ellis's novel of the same name.

At first, neil gaiman and Roger Avari came together, because they decided to write a script for Sandman together, and the cooperative relationship began. It's a pity that this plan didn't come true, but it doesn't affect two like-minded people to become friends. However, whether for Gaiman or for fear, it is a long, strange and ultimately extremely meaningful experience to adapt Beowulf from a poem into a play. Gaiman said: "During Sandman, I hit it off with Avril Lavigne. I really like him and the way he conceived his works. I don't remember when. I'm afraid I mentioned that he always wanted to put Beowulf on the big screen, but he couldn't find a suitable way to connect all the clues together, because everything started with the battle in Beowulf, first with Glendale, then with grendel's mother, and 50 years later with the dragon. You know, for a script, this is no ordinary' three-stage'. I made many suggestions to him. I was afraid of hesitating and suddenly asked me,' When are you free?' "

Roger avary recalled: "Basically, neil gaiman put forward the key operation method that can unify all Beowulf's theories, but I have been thinking hard for 65,438+00 years, but I have no clue. For me, the style of poetry is always out of touch, especially Beowulf, whose narrator's credibility is highly doubted. For example, why didn't grendel attack King Hurusga and just torture him? Then I asked a simple question, because for some reason, no one had ever questioned this question before-who was grendel's father? Grendel's actions, which have been bothering me all the time, have finally begun to make sense after repeated academic verification. Later, Beowulf defeated grendel's army, and grendel fled back to his cave and died ... After experiencing the crazy revenge of grendel's mother, Beowulf ventured to the cave and killed grendel's mother. However, when Beowulf came out of the cave, it was grendel's head in his hand, not his mother's. When I read this part, I was really confused. Although Beowulf insists that he killed the woman, what about the evidence? In my opinion, Beowulf was obviously tempted by the same witch as King Hurusga, and Beowulf made a devil's contract with King Hurusga. Then, the poem enters the second half. After Beowulf became king, a dragon attacked him and his kingdom. I really can't understand how all this happened. I told Gaiman what I thought, and he gave me a very surprising assumption: the dragon is Beowulf's son-his sins have returned and tormented him. Suddenly, the first two and a half paragraphs of Beowulf, which used to make people feel chaotic and disorderly, now have the most perfect sense of story. Hundreds of years later, the key elements of these story structures are likely to be lost in the process of oral narration, and then Christian monks artificially supplemented it through some religious elements. "

Neil gaiman and Roger Avari are not the first people to notice the imprecision of the original poem. David Wright once pointed out the problem in the "Penguin Classic Series" version of Beowulf: "Early critics and commentators, including later ones, of course, sneered at the incoherence of the plot of Beowulf."