this sucks. if you're going to do new renditions of classical antiquity, don't try to make it look like thundercats with a laurel. make it look surreal and disorienting

what was great about the alexander the great cartoon that ran on adult swim when i was in middle school is the same thing that's great in fellini's satyricon: they recognize antiquity would be wholly, wholly alien to us, despite our imitation of some of their forms

moreover, they both realize (or at least proceed as though) the ancients were seriously committed to and preoccupied in a recognizably rational way with their philosophies. they weren't mindlessly superstitious, as ancients are often depicted. they were intellectually serious.

the film troy tried to thread the needle here by creating an ancient world in which people are recognizably rational, but missing the utterly unrecognizable world that made them so alien to us: the will of the gods, the primacy of fate, the necessity of piety, etc.

anyway, i guess the gulf between them and us is what i'm always interested in sensing when i consume that classical antiquity content, and it's so much more rewarding when the gulf is wide and rich with detail.