Comparative Essay - Troy & Braveheart

A lot of movies in today's society can be easily compared to one another in multiple ways. Two inspirational movies that fall under this category is 'Troy' and 'Braveheart'. There are many key similarities in these two movies that are going to be identified and compared to one another. A couple of things that will also be related to one another is the setting in both these film and the main characters 'William Wallace' and 'Achilles'.

Both of these movies were set between 1200 AD and 1300 AD, in a time of great wars. In these two movies the setting were also very much the same. Although 'Troy' was set mainly on open, arid, sandy locations and 'Braveheart' was set in open, wet, muddy grasslands, they both had the same sort of locations. Main battles were taken on flat open spaces with quite a lot of flat ground and there were some battles throughout the movie that were fought in locations with many different obstacles, surface areas, points of advantage, etc. Even though the imagery and texture of the area is different in these movies, the actual fighting area was quite the same.

Having these different areas throughout the movie gave the viewer more excitement for they did not know what to expect. At any time someone had the easy opportunity to jump out and attack an enemy for an easy surprise kill or there could have been points of advantage such as high ground for archers, this would then cause the opposition to have to come up with something to get part this particular obstacle but then that would lead to something else happening and soon a chain reaction of events would come about. An example of this was in a scene from 'Braveheart' where there Scottish army was pressing an assault on an English castle. The Scots had to get passed the main gate, so they made a ram although then they are the problem of archers shooting down on them and other soldiers throwing down stones. So they had to make a cover to stop these weapons hitting them. They made a shield cover over the top of the ram and continued but yet again had another obstacle. The Englishmen started pouring over large buckets of hot oil, when it was poured onto the ram it would leak through the cracks and burn the Scots or pour over the sides onto the Scots along the side of the ram. Events like this keep the audience intrigued for they do not want to have to view the same thing over and over again.

The viewer also loves a main character that they can love and feel emotion for, both of the main characters had this aura about them. William Wallace (the main character of 'Braveheart') led his men to battle with courage and for freedom, he would never turn his back on his men and he would never charge them into a battle that could not be won. He was a very noble man and when he spoke his men just felt encourage to continue. Achilles (the main character of 'Troy')

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