Hercules is the best, at least he certainly thinks so, but someone else got to be king so he complains a lot about it then does some horrible labors to get his mind off his mother. phelous.com / phelous
Also Herakles means "Glory to Hera." and he was named by his mother that in order to appease the angry goddess. But Zeus naming him that is like. "Yo, Hera, I cheated again and I'm naming him after you."
Another fun fact about ancient Greece I learned recently: Kerberos (Cerberus) means "spotted." So, the terrifying lord of the underworld named his dog "Spot."
So, rather than going through the 12 labours to seek forgiveness after he kills his wife and child in a blind rage, Hercules goes through them, to make up for his mothers death that wasn't even his fault?
I think its implied that he was guilty for not being there to save his mother and does the labors to redeem himself, in this squeaky clean retelling of the story.
Right, because when you murder your wife in a homicidal rage, the best way to atone is to do a rodeo show, and use the same strength you used to kill your wife, to kill a bunch of animals. It's a dumb story no matter how you slice it.
@@heathercalun4919 I mean yes but it's dumb cause hera mind raped him into doing it also once again the goddess of family violates the sanctity of family out of spite
did you know that in the myth Hercules burns himself to death to stop the agony caused by a poisoned tunic he weared and couldn't take off without ripping his own skin apart? Wish that was in the movie.
A good way to make Heracles more human would be to keep megara's death in the story, but have Heracles be framed, possibly even in a way that makes him doubt his sanity and wheither or not he's innocent. The trials are his punishment, because he's too well liked for his cousin to just execute him outright, and if he gives him an "easy" sentence then he'll be seen as week
@@painvillegaming4119 in the myths, he died after having hydra venom get on his skin. This didn't kill him outright, but it was so painful that he decided to make a funeral pyre and throw himself on it.
Hercules at the end: Yay, my cousin and I are best friends again, and I'm not jealous of him being king instead of me now, just like how I always wanted. King: Wait, didn't you want your mom to come back to life or something, and that's why you did all my chores…I mean those tasks I gave you? Herc: Who? King: Your mom, ya know, she was my aunt, I wanted her alive again too. She was the only one who knew how to make golden apple pie that was edible. Plus I miss her, don't you miss her too? Herc: I have no idea who you're even talking about.
Man, at least Disney's Hercules had some flaws like being clumsy with his strength and kind of socially awkward. There wasn't a lot to his character, but he was more likable and interesting to follow than this bland entitled tool.
"My journey for forgiveness is nearly over!" Forgiveness for what, exactly? In the original tale, Hercules goes on these missions as penance for what he did to his wife.
Fun fact: Hercules had a human fraternal twin, born of his mom's husband. He barely gets a passing mention in the myths, so he probably dies at some point before Herc kick-starts his hero career.
Actually Herc's mother was lucky to get killed when she did, because she just picked a rose, and we all know what that leads too... Though come to think of it, Herc getting forcibly engaged to a Beast would probably be the most entertaining variant I've heard of.
Disney Hercules: "But if I don't become a true hero, I'll never be able to rejoin my father Zeus." Beast: "But... I am afraid that while you are embarking on your journey to Mount Olympus, I'll die... OF LONELINESS!!!"
I laughed really hard when you pointed out that most film adaptations of Greek mythology tend to stray very far from the source material to have remotely likable characters, because it is so VERY true. Fantastic review as always, Phelous! I look forward to more.
Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, will always be greatest version of Hercules as it gave us the most likeable version of Hercules... and the even more awesome Xena, Warrior Princess. The Disney version is a close second, though it makes Hera Hercules' mother, cause Disney couldn't have Hercules be a bastard born of infidelity between a god & mortal.
Yeah mythology nerds will argue with me about this. But I dunno. I still feel like the Greeks were space aliens. I get that different cultures have different social norms, and that back then the whole three-act-structure thing wasn't quite figured out. But so many Greek Myths, it's not just that things have cause and effect seemingly at random, but the morality sounds like something that would surface on r/amitheasshole
Not only did Hercules (or Heracles, as the Greek name is known) kill Megara, he also killed all of his children, mistaking them for monsters. 🌈 *For Kids* 🌈
The sudden line you dubbed for Hercules, "N is for Hercules!" had me cracking up so hard the first time I watched this review, and to this day I still keep thinking about that line
He was a newbie, a zero, zero! Now he's a top hits! He's a hero! Here was a Canuck with his comedy shtick down pat From zero to hero in no time flat Zero to hero just like that!
He didn't flood a town. It was a stable. So he didn't drown a bunch of people, he just filled redirected the flow of a river to clean up a bunch of poop and probably ended up killing all the fish downstream later.
I don't wish to appear rude here, but before the times of websites (like the Blacklist aka Hollywood's most liked unmade scripts, many of which later become a movie) such production schedules were announced well in advance, especially because animated movies used to take 2 to 3 years. They either picked up a newspaper or knew someone who knew someone
Can we get a version of the movie where it's just you redubbing the voices? It was funnier than the actual movie. Also fun fact: Some takes on Cerberus actually had a mane of snakes. It was believed the extra heads enabled him to look in all directions at once so no one would ever be able to sneak past him.
Greek mythology also gave us a creature that was part lion, part goat, and part snake that breaths fire and a giant ass serpent that grows more heads every time you cut one off. The ancient Greeks lived for overkill.
Fallout Pewterschmidt I'd like that, but I don't think You Tube's obsession of mistreating the fair use act will let that one fly... Unless Phelous also alter the visuals? Or maybe just redubbing the whole thing will be enough to count as satire? Anyway, YT is already broken he definitely should try...😉
If he did do that and post it on youtube, there's a chance that their algorithms don't really give a shit about a cheaply made Goodtimes movie. It's usually only stuff owned by companies with the money to sue them into oblivion like Viacom and Nintendo that get hit.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who wants a full dub like this XD I was actually disappointed when it would revert back to Hercules' actual movie voice instead of the special ed voice Phelous used for him lmao Also, kinda funny you mention that because the first time I ever saw Cerberus in anything as a kid, he had snakes for tails - basically looked like a three-headed roid rage kitsune
MforZorro | Movesets *Shoves golden films and jetlag movies into trash bag* these are definitely going too. *Throws dingo movies into furnace* they can't just be thrown away. *Tosses bags into ship* they can't just be destroyed. They need to go into space.
Scotty Lewis Eh, before you throw them into space, you should atleast get them wet first. Just to make sure that, if any aliens find them, they won't be able to use them.
If you want to see a different take on the twelve tasks, "Les Douze Travaux D'Asterix" (the twelve tasks of Asterix) sees Julius Caesar challenging the unstoppable Gaul warriors to twelve "updated" impossible tasks that Caesar knows cannot be done by mortals. It has great animation, voice talent and humor. It has aged extremely well despite being well over 30 years old and still gets air regularly on french television networks.
+scithechian Only the general idea. One of the tasks is a Kafkaesque mission to cut the red tape and getting a required form. I'm saying Kafkaesque because for a long time I thought only the successor countries to the Austro-Hungarian monarchy can have this much of a maddening process (imagine all public offices like it were the DMV) and it was a delightful surprise to see the French are familiar with it too. Unlike Heracles (and this particular knockoff is very true to mythology, I'm kind of surprised Brad Pitt hasn't played him, he is in Iliad after all) who really is an obnoxious jagoff, Astérix outsmarted them by requesting a form 139 instead of the 138 and the paper pushers went crazy in the literal sense, it's a very funny movie. Speaking of Franco-Belgian comics, one issue of The Smurfs was put on notice in America as it featured a North-South divide between the villagers, and the watchful at the Comic Book Code thought it was a jab at America... except it wasn't, it was a local jab at the semi frequently reoccurring separatism between the local French and Dutch speakers, and meant to teach children what unites them instead of separating them, not bad for a spin off story about which nobody thought would take off (and virtually nobody remembers what it spun off from)
"The House That Drives You Mad", yes! Definitely my favorite of the twelve tasks, still relevant decades after being created, that place would drive anyone nuts.
Flame of Udun King MAHGOD: *MAHGOOOLLLYGAWSH!* Mr. Golly Gosh: Excuse me, but that is my line! King MAHGOD: Oh why don't you make like Hercules and hunt other animals, yeeeeesssss? Mr. Golly Gosh: Why that's mighty out of character for you, King MAHGOD! King MAHGOD: Sure is! Heheheheheheh! Okay?
Actually the "N" for Hercules is the Greek letter "Eta", which is the first letter in the Greek way to write Hercules (Herakles). Although it is a small eta. The big Eta is "H", so they had the right thought but should have used the big Eta.
Pretty sure he was a new born baby when the snake thing happened, that was what was supposed to be so amazing about it. He also, I think, had a twin half brother who was born with him.
Chris McWilliams yep he had a twin but he was useless so yeah XD he was the “real kid” of the king Zeus turned himself intoo. So yeah the mom got pregnant twice from 2 diffrent man. That’s Greek myths for ya (wha wha wha waaa waaaaa)
@@SannySparrow As I recall, the twin was fathered by the woman's husband so he was full-on mortal. Only Hercules was fathered by Zuse and thus a demi-god. I checked that is actually possible. It's kind of rare but it is physically possible in real life. :)
You make fun of Hercules' snake tossing but this was actually part of the myth and the first indication of him being demigod and having superstrength. Granted, in the source material he did this as an infant, so it made more sense to be amazed by this story.
How does having superhuman strength help you win a chariot race? Did Herc whip the horses super hard so they’d run super fast? Also, is Athena wearing a King Ghidorah hat?
Superhuman senses is probably a part of Hercules. Something like that applies to Wonder Woman being the best of the Amazons. Some racers in real life also do have innate talents to get the best out of cars/bikes/boats/horses compared to others despite driving it only once.
Having superhuman strength would allow you to run faster because you can generate more power with each stride So you probably wouldn’t need the horses and run the chariot yourself
As far as I remember, his name wasn't Herakles until he became a god. His birth name was Alcides or Alcaeus. He might have gotten the name because Hera was cool with him by the time he died.
Master Markus is right, Hercules isn't his birth name. My classics teachers tended to translate the kleos part as something closer to 'everlasting fame'. So Hera's not cool with Herc, and they're not being sarcastic, he's called Herakles because his myths are pretty much the most famous stories involving Hera. Basically she'd be forgotten without him.
I got this movie and 19 others in a 20 movie GoodTimes pack when my friend and I were at a Family Dollar. I picked it up and she said “Yes and Please. We need this.” So naturally, we’re hyped to watch them all.
Little did you know it was a Disney cash in. How Did they know about the Disney version two years in advance you ask? They had a spy on the inside that's right HERCULES MULLIGAN! I would like to apologize for this comment, and the barely a reference that it contains, I am very tired.
Aries troll cracking up at the little girl's question regarding her daddy to Hercules made me laugh just like he did. X'D And why is Hercules grunting and struggling to needlessly show off his lifting of a park bench?
Hercules and the gods weren't even supposed to be likable. They're basically metaphors of that old proverb ''Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.' And yeah...all those characters kind of blew the test...with the exception of Hephaestus the only somewhat nice god. And he got crippled for ticking off Zeus. Greeks were real pessimists O_o
I always felt Hephaestus was a twofold metaphor for pessimistic thoughts about love and beauty: he is multiply disabled, but he managed to bag the Goddess of Love for a wife because he is the guy who invented jewelry (also all forms of handicraft, but that distracts from the metaphor). The other half of the metaphor is that he was the only really hard-laboring and dutiful God on Olympus, despite also being the only ugly one.
Brandon Lyon yeah why on earth did Disney make Hades a villain? He got stuck with the underworld because Zeus cheated and took Olympus. Hades was supposed to rule Olympus and Zeus took it. Rotten cheater Zeus.
From most of the myths I've read Hades was never really "cheated" out being king of the gods, he chose to god of the underworld, and he seem content on his job, and him and Zeus actually got along quite well (far better then Zeus and Posiden) with Zeus even giving his blessings to Hades for marrying his daughter Persephone.
PHELOUS WHAT THE HELL??? We all know Raiden is the real god of useless. Also yeah knowing how much of a monster Dickcules is that kind of makes the Disney version something of a small miracle. Though please tell me that Dingo did their own spin on Heracles.
Old Man is secretly Hades, god of the underworld! Think about it: Hades rules a RIVER of the dead...arguably also a JUNK PILE! Hades is in charge of all things no longer worthy to continue living! The god of death deems your life useless. Wabu is obviously Dionysus; Old Mayor is Fortunata (insert drag joke); scene-interrupting-bear is Ursa Major, and King MYGOD! is Leo the Nemean lion.
"Now you can sit in the shade instead of the sun" he says while putting the bench in the sun in front of the women currently standing in the shade of the tree.
Ah yes, I remember this tale well. Megatron's war against Zeus and the Greek Gods reaching it's tipping point when the Decepticons murdered the baby Hercules at sunrise. Truly, one the greatest classics of it era.
"Hercules is a pompous jerk who gets away with everything thanks to his half god status." The dude accidentally killed a man by carelessly stretching his arm out to get something. He went berserk and killed his whole family and was so overcome with remorse that he performed his twelve labors. The Queen of the Gods kept trying to kill him for something his FATHER did. He died a horrific death because he messed with the wrong centaur. Hercules was a hot-headed douche, true. But it seems to me that his half god status made his life worse, not better.
Why can't Herc have a more wholesome love story like Achilles, who found his love during the Tojan War by killing her entire family, taking her captive, then forcing her to be his. And you say none of them are relatable, ha!
I... I don´t remember reading anything about Hercules killing Patrokleses family and forcing him to be his... Yeah, in the beginning of Illias, they raid a town, he gets the second most beautiful woman as his slave, but Agamemnon takes her after he is forced by gods to release the girl he got, saying as the king he shouldn´t be without spoils. Achilles of course throws a fit, but not because he loved that girl, but because he it was HIS prize! He didn´t particulary care about her, which is shown when later Nestor and Oddyseus go to him with message from Agamemnon, that he would return her (still a virgin), and add some other super nice stuff, like horses, chariots, etc., if he stops skulking and go fight, or at least allow Myrmidons, which were under his command, to join the battle, and he refuses. But to be fair, Achilleus kinda had a reason. When recruiting for the Trojan war began, the gods revealed to him, that there are two possible futures for him, and that he can choose whichever he wants. Either he goes to Trojan war and die there a hero, but his name will be remembered for eons to come, or he would refuse Agamemnon and stays at home, in which case he would have long, happy life, but no one will remember him in the future. So, basically Achilleus knew he was gonna die soon, so he won´t have much time to enjoy the spoils he wins, so he wants to make the most of it, while he still can. That´s why he was so upset, when Agamemnon took the girl. He still behaved like a dick, tough, instead of handling it like a man.
fun fact in the myths zeus has several moments where is clearly cowardly and mocked as such such as the time he played wingman for hades taking all the heat and simply away faster than persophonies mother could chase him
Funny fact: Hera gave Heracles/Hercules his powers. Athena took him to Hera and Hera didn't recognize him and nursed him out of pity he got powers from it.
I would say Edith Hamilton's Hercules, based of previous sources of course, being a man of virtues though as passionate and flawed, is a decent and faithful representation of Hercules based off of ancient sources.
Thanks so much for pointing out the fact that Hera has Heracles murder Megara because even though those "THE DARK TRUTH BEHIND DISNEY MOVIES" people love focusing in on that on specifically I still think it needs to be said more. But thanks for pointing out the Vast amount of wtf in Greek Mythology because, really, that puts the Megara murder into so much more context than just the clickbaity 'Disney movies come from messed up sources!' thing.. I think I accidentally wrote my point in this comment backwards OH WELL.
Yes, and in the original story, Heracles doesn't just go to fulfill his tasks just because someone told him to do so or because he wanted to be popular, he specifically did so in order to redeem himself after Megara's murder, which makes for a far more compelling story. This is a problem you see in adaptions of Bible stories too, the cut out anything that's deemed too violent or flaws that would prevent the characters from being good role-models for kids, and so the movie ends up with an incoherent story with bland characters.
What I don't get about those click-bait Disney videos is why people seem to find it so shocking and hard to believe that stories, fairytales, and mythology can be dark or disturbing XD "OMFG! Are you telling me Ariel turns into seafoam?! How DARE they not completely rewrite the original novel to coincide with Disney's forced happily ever after! Wait... Quasimodo and Esmeralda die too?! THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!"
+Silver Feral Thunderbird I like how a lot of those clickbaity assholes make it out like they braved great dangers to learn the truth. Like bitch, please, most of this stuff can be easily gleaned from a simple Wikipedia or Google search. Get off your high horse. Love your username by the way!
Except most of this stuff wasn't known to people who thought the disney movies were original properties, so could you get off your high horse. Also why wouldn't people be suprised that a kids movie had some messed up origins.
Yeah, but Disney's Fantasia is many times less popular than Hercules, hance it earned less money. You can make things accurate but that doesn't mean they'll sell.
Neither is the Prince of Egypt to the original Exodus story. Having studied the actual Book of Exodus in school, I can safely say that the changes they made turned it into a more conventional (and more satisfying) cinematic narrative.
Frizzurd Er... It helps? Having a subsequent budget to put your ideas on film's and buy good equipment, as well as hiring good animators is important! Those things aren't cheap... Granted, it doesn't mean the final product will be great but you seem to forget that Transformers movies attracts a certain demographic... A dumb demographic but still they're loyal to Bay and his repetitive crap.
Actually, driving away the birds would help the ecosystem, because they are an invasive species. At least in the original myth. Honestly, all those helpless animals are creatures that invaded some land and started murdering every human that came into their sight. So Hercules killing them is doing something useful. And when that's not the case, his task is to capture them, not kill them
Why does Herakles so rarely have a beard in modern depictions when ancient artists pretty much always showed him with one? It's not a big gripe, just something I always found unusual.
Ancient artists tended to make the characters as grand as possible. Their heroes were drawn muscular, mature and respectful mainly because they were supposed to be the pinnacles of perfection, something people could worship or look up to. Modern heroes are the opposite. People want imperfection and someone they can relate to. These protagonists tend to be revised as young people, being a teenager or a young adult at most, because they are supposed to represent audiences (the target demographic) taking on a journey to learn more about about life and stuff. Also, anime-like arts usually make handsome, clean-face hero some kind of standard. Superhero is a mixture between ancient and modern hero, thus you still see Thor having epic beard and Superman being handsomely masculine despite them being aimed for teens.
One thing - in Ancient Greece, the ideal was generally a smooth-faced, muscular young man, but Herakles is still usually portrayed as "mature", as far as we know. Regardless, I'm just wondering why _in general_ not specifically in this low-quality movie. I know Hercules had a beard when Dwayne Johnson played him, but that's the only time I can think of.
Certain variations of the original Greek myths also describe Cerberus as having bunch of supernatural snakes on his body like a mane, allowing the beast to see in all directions and prevent anyone from sneaking past him.
To be fair, it is closer to the original mythology. Only broblem is he had help from his child nephew and part time lover wjen fighting the hydra and it was his wife and kids who he killed in a fit of rage brought on by Hera
Actually Heracles can be relatable and steak to the original source material if it is done right. Just think that he wasn't able to control his strength as a teenager and he accidentally killed his teacher which caused him highly. He was exiled from his home and after the labors he was selled as a slave which brought him to more trouble (Google it if you want). Even though he was son of Zeus he did suffer a lot because his blood line had a lot of enemies. Also the η is a Greek letter and it stands for Heracles= Ηρακλής.
Not only did he kill his wife, he also killed their kids too. He did greatly regret it afterwards though, and (in some versions of the myth at least) took the twelve tasks he's famous from to make amends for what had happened.
11:16 , this is not an "n". In Greek "η"= ήτα which is the first letter of the name Hercules = Ηρακλής, so...he uses TMNT logic, has a belt with his name!
