Category Archives: Beowulf

Beowulf is an epic story about a young, brave warrior who fights demons.  The story starts off with the kingdom of King Hrothgar.  The demon Grendel becomes enraged with hearing loud noise coming from the kingdom and starts attacking and torturing the citizens every night for many years.  Beowulf who hears about this demon, Grendel, is determined to come to King Hrothgar’s kingdom to help slay this demon.  To show his courage and power, Beowulf fights Grendel unarmed as Grendel approaches Beowulf and the kingdom.  Beowulf rips off Grendel’s arm as Grendel tries to get away and slays him.  Beowulf hangs up the severed arm in the mead-hall as a trophy for his victory.  Beowulf’s victory leads to a big feast where he is showered with gifts and treasures.  Everyone praises and thanks Beowulf for defeating Grendel.  Reading both Beowulf and watching the animated version of Beowulf was very interesting to read and watch.  I felt that watching the movie itself really help me understand the emotions of the fight scenes throughout the movie.  It was very interesting to see how one human being, such as Beowulf, can take on demons such as Grendel without hesitating and in the end, Beowulf defeats the demons without much effort shown. 

The film version of Beowulf did the written epic justice. The movie stayed decently close to the real version and the over the top images of the monster and the fight scenes really added to the film. When I first watched the film, I was skeptical of the CGI. I wondered why they didn’t they have the human characters as real people and have the monsters as CGI. Other films, like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, have proved that it could be done right and look pretty realistic. As the film went on I started to get used to seeing the CGI and after a while I started to forget that it was even there. The CGI looked too real and your eyes get tricked into thinking its real people.  The fight scenes must be over the top and dramatic, after all Beowulf is fighting sea monsters, demons and dragons. The scene with the dragon really benefitted from the CGI. The scene itself is so outrageous that if it was a real actor fighting his dragon son, then it would have looked foolish and fake. Since it was CGI we were able to see the fantasy and truly epic side of Beowulf.

Beowulf is a true warrior story. It is all about muscles, gore, killing, and bragging. The epic is very mythical in nature and includes scenes of Beowulf battling monsters and being a general idea of a hero. Unlike Marie de France’s stories, there is not a smidge of femininity in the story. The movie does a good job of putting a face to the villains and heroes of Beowulf. The movie adds an interesting angle by including Grendel’s mother as a powerful force in the story. I really liked how Beowulf is portrayed as a man’s man: he can do any task put before him. Not many stories nowadays have characters like this, except for Harry Potter, but he is a teenager. Beowulf truly stresses the Scandinavian and Danish traditions and ideas of what a hero is. Man power outweighs any other human traits in these stories.

Violence only brings more violence. Men took pride in slaughtering other men in a ridiculous cycle that has no end. Beowulf lay directly in the middle of such a battle with his father’s murder of another warrior. To end the feud King Hrothgar paid the death price. Whether Beowulf came to destroy Grendel simply for honor or repayment isn’t clear. The only thing that is clear that even by Beowulf’s brave efforts of slaying Grendel and her mother there is no happily ever after. Beowulf’s tale is immortalized and he is sprung into profound glory but even after forty years of triumph, war returns to him. There is no solace for Beowulf and continuing to be a man of honor carries him to his death with the slaying of the dragon. The Great Beowulf is defeated. His kingdom, honor, and people no longer have his protection. Tales like these gloried men but Beowulf is no hero just a murderer with a popular cause.[kml_flashembed movie="
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     The movie “Beowulf” presents different scenes where pride and faith go along with the hero. At the begging of the movie, Beowulf is presented as a great warrior who does not fear anyone or anything. But I am going to focus on the consequences of the action taking by Beowulf in order to become a king, the dishonored king. He was very well received by the villagers who had been frighten by the evil of Grendel, a monster who killed many villagers. Eventually, Beowulf defeats him, but after trying to confront Grendel’s mother, he is seduced by her, and falls on the track of betraying the kingdom that had giving him everything. No one in the village knows this until one day, Grendel’s mother attacks the village because the gold horn had gotten retrieved from her cave by a slave. It is noticeable, in the face of Beowulf that his decision was not the right one, and this eventually changed his entire way of living. I can tell that he always lived afraid of the truth, therefore, inside him had always lived the idea that one day he will have to pay this with his life. Even though, the movie has good plot, I would personally like to change the track of the story right when Beowulf sleeps with Grendel’s mother, and I know for sure that his life and the life of his kingdom would have been significantly better.

Beowulf served to be an interesting story both in the original version and the modern adaptations. Beowulf represents the typical Greek story of a warrior-king who meets his demise at the hands of his own ego. Like most Greek stories the main character shares a special relationship with another male character, one which has bonded through the battles they either fought against one another, or have fought alongside one another. Beowulf refers to his male companion as “weak love” throughout the story. What makes Beowulf’s story so unique is the transition Beowulf made to become king, the way he received such a royal position.  Being King was not a position Beowulf aggressively sought after, it was one given by another king to liberate himself of a curse put forth by a demon, Grendlin’s mother. Beowulf not slaying Grendlin’s mother showed the importance of woman. The one thing a man like Beowulf could not beat was her temptation, she wooed him. Although Beowulf to be a mighty warrior he falls short in comparison to the immense power of a demon who interestingly was portrayed by a woman. She proved to be most powerful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoPH7-aMbfE&feature=related