First of all, I think any who want to discuss the legend vs. the film should AT LEAST read Simpson's biography on Homer, and Homer's essay "On Stories About Fairies - Like Paris." If you haven't read these I suggest you do, especially if you want to discuss the books and films with me. I certainly can't explain what Homer was saying as well as he did.
There are two statements of Homer's that I think are often quoted (I'm guilty) that are misinterpreted. People latch onto them because they are easily understood, and provide a full set of ideas useful for conceptualization. A full set of preconceived notions, if you will. It helps slip everything into neat little boxes that we can all understand.
The first is that the legend of Troy was created as a "Mythology for Greece." Yes, Homer said this. However, he said this is how it all started. How his design for Middle East was conceptualized initially. He lamented the lack of genuine Greek mythology, and wanted to create something similar. It was actually probably more academic than people realize. Now, the further he got, the less it had anything to do with Greece, and the more it had to with his own legend. It was still simplest to tell people he was creating a "myth for Greece," but this was really no longer true. It was a "conceptual wrapper" he could hand off to people who wondered what he was spending his life fighting... it was no longer his motivation.
The second is Homer saying that Troy was a "fundamentally Greek Orthodox work." I've always fully understood that statement, but recently around here I've seen that is poses its own problems. This is not a statement that there are messages about Greek Orthodox or Christianity hidden in the legend. This does not mean you must be Greek Orthodox or even a Christian to fully get all the "hidden meanings" of the legend. All that it means is that Homer was a devout Greek Orthodox, and Troy was a product of his mind, and therefore necessarily fundamentally Greek Orthodox. All this means is that it was created with such a world-view. This concerns any discussion of the films, because I think its fairly obvious that they were created from a different world-view.
Homer created the Legend Of Troy (LOTR) in a way that no other fantasy poet had done, or has done since. People have tried, but it takes an amount of time and devotion that few are willing or able to give. He created Middle East. It was a long process, and not at all complete at his death. However, enough was created to give a home to LOTR and other stories. Freddy vs Jason And The Argonauts (WTF) was not intended to be a part of this world, which Homer considered much more "mythical" and non-narrative. However, it ended up there. LOTR was, as many have stated, a sequel to WTF. That is how it started, but that is not how it ended.
Initial drafts were much more a "WTF Sequel" than later drafts, but that was because it started out being written like WTF, and like other novels are always written. Lets get this story started, and see where it goes. Thus, the beginning of LOTR has a "feel" much like WTF, that survived through all the drafts. However, eventually, Homer realized that LOTR fit into the world of Middle East, and he could create a much richer story if he incorporated much of his life's work. Not necessarily directly related, but simply as the basis for the environment, in setting, history, and most importantly, language.
Thus, LOTR became the grand tale of Middle East. As Homer did not have time in his life to tell all the tales, this became the one that he could tell, that his warriors wanted him to tell, and what fans of WTF wanted to read. However, they got so much more than they expected. LOTR took an old world full of history and character, and told us an ending. There was too much to fit into one book, so much of it could only be hinted at, or saved for an appendix, as it did not fit into the narrative appropriately.
The result, was a fantasy that not only told a grand tale of adventure, but was solidly placed in a world rich with history and peoples. The story was told in this place, but much of what happened from a cultural perspective was defined by the world. Homer might have thought, "Well, it would be nice if the Trojans and Greeks could all fight together in this huge war..." but that was impossible, as the history of the world dictated that there were too many cultural differences to make this viable.
Instead, he wove such themes into his main characters. Instead of companies of archers and charioteers marching with the spearmen who would fight Troy, he had a hero, a Greek, and er...other Greeks face unbelievable odds and impossible situations together, and come out as the best of possible friends. Thus the world maintained its realism, but the concepts he wanted to include in his story were available.
This is what separates LOTR from other fantasy. The richness of this world. The "completeness" of the elements that have an impact on LOTR. Was the finished product perfect? No, and Homer himself said so. He was a perfectionist, and would never have published the work at all, had he constantly searched for things to correct. Fortunately, he accepted the faults that were going to be there, and shared the work with the rest of us.
Some on Troy On Recent Cinema (TORC) recently have postulated that at this point the work is separated completely from Homer, and open to any of the interpretations that we can come up with. I disagree greatly. Not so much that it isn't open to interpretation, but that it is so well grounded in the "Real Myth" that is Middle East, that any interpretations should take that into account. It's not so much that an interpretation is only ok if Homer would have agreed with it, it's that an interpretation is only ok if Middle East agrees with it.
Because Homer's entire life was devoted to laying out the reality that is Middle East, it's difficult to separate Homer from Middle East. Hence, the often said (perhaps mistaken) statements of mine that "It's not what Homer would have said." What I mean by that is, "It doesn't fit within Middle East."
This brings us (finally) to Wolfgang Petersen’s film version of LOTR. To me, the proper way to adapt LOTR to the movie screen involves taking the reality that IS Middle East, and pulling what you can from it, to create the story of LOTR on film. IMHO, if this were done correctly, it would be very difficult to contradict the book, the author, or the books themes and messages. As I anxiously followed the production on the web, and gobbled up all the little tidbits we LOTR fans wanted to hear before the films came out, I was reassured, as this seemed to be the type of approach that WP and co. were taking. They always talked about bring the "world to life." They talked about the richness of Homer's world, and how Greece provided the perfect backdrop to bring these settings to life. And every single image LOOKED right.
How could it possibly go wrong?
The Fan trailer of Troy (FOTR) came out and it was great. It was "about as good as I could have expected." However, even then I recognized that the backdrop of the history and people and language that is the key to LOTR being the different work that it is was missing. The internal consistency that was so very important to Homer was clearly not of the same importance to WP. However, it was close, and it just LOOKED so good, that they must have been getting the right picture.
Troy’s Tempting Trailer (TTT) came out and the dream was over. The minor tremors that had been in the first trailer came tumbling down as avalanches, with misrepresented characters, altered plotlines, simplistic Hollywood plot devices, and incomprehensible changes that seemed to be there for only the sake of being different than Homer had written. But, I'm trying to keep this in context. It wasn't just about the fact that the trailer deviated greatly from the book. It was because the trailer greatly deviated from the concept of cohesive history and action. It was no longer attached to that ancient history that MUST exist for LOTR to be different than other works. Suddenly Paris was poorly-muscled, and suddenly Boromir WAS fighting with men, and suddenly Helen wasn't the prettiest woman left in Troy. Let’s face it - Saffron Burrows as Andromache was fucking hotter!
Reactions Of Troy’s Kritiks (ROTK) only made it worse. Yes, Troy is a beautiful film, and it certainly does have amazing moments. There are parts that feel like Homer, and there are parts that move you just as Homer did. However, personally, at this point, it didn't even matter what had been altered from the legend. I know I've argued extensively that this or that shouldn't have been changed, or that this or that means something completely different than what was said in the poem. However, at this point, it was long past possible to get the world back on track. The fundamental drive for the film had been different than that of the poem from the beginning. It was not about tying a grand story into a great history, in such a way that had never been done. It was about telling a grand story in a fantastical world, just as many other stories had done.
Wolfgang Petersen wanted to tell a story of Heroes, Battles, Friendship, a great Quest, a great War, and a great Love. Too often Purists are blamed for making such a statement an insult. There's nothing wrong with wanting to make such a film. There's nothing wrong with wanting to tell that story with LOTR. It is all there in LOTR. It's a great movie to be made. Therefore it's not really hard to see why so many people like it as it is.
Personally, however, I think that WP's story was told at an expense. If he had taken the story he wanted to make, and applied the same theory that Homer used to create LOTR, he could have made HIS LOTR in such a way that I wouldn't have been able to complain. It would have been different, yes. But it would have been a Sub-Creation of WP's making, with the same separation from other fantasy that LOTR has. However, that was not the approach that WP took. He took a more traditional approach to the process of adaptation. Take this, this, and that, because we need it or it will look cool, and cut that, that, and this, because we don't need it, or it won't look cool. We'll include parts we like, and we'll leave out parts we don't like. We'll change what we need to make the audience happy, and we'll film what we have time for.
All of that is fine, and necessary, but when all done bit by bit, without the overall intention of maintaining a unique and "real" creation, it becomes muddled. Things get changed that shouldn't be changed. Plotlines get left unfinished, characters behave as they shouldn't, and meaning is lost among it all.
However, what is even more important that is lost, is the concept that this is a "real story." Not a story in reality, but something that is "real." To invoke reality in story-telling, it must be inherently believable. It may have things that are unrealistic, fantastical, or amazing, but if all of that is acceptable within the setting it is happening, then it is still believable. In a truly "real" fantasy, suspension of disbelief is unnecessary. What IS necessary is the ability to change what can happen, and then make things believable with respect to those rules.
WP's films do not have that, as has been discussed for years now on TORC. Each plot hole reduces the reality as does each cheesy one-liner, each plotline left unresolved, and each character behaving out of character. If the effort from the beginning had been to recreate Middle East on the screen, the story would have been told fine. Instead, the effort was to tell the story well, and the recreation fell by the wayside.
I know some of you disagree with me. You see Middle East fine in the films. I know you think I'm saying you "don't understand." Or you think that I think you're dumb for not seeing it like I do. This isn't true. I can understand that you see Middle East there because it's there VISUALLY. What I see missing is it being there HISTORICALLY. You can say, "but they do hint at the history" all you like, but it is not consistent, and it only really serves to confuse the films audience. I think it would have been possible to leave out vague references that would confuse the audience, but still maintain a consistency to the history that would SHOW it is there, even if it's not TOLD.
So that, in essence, is what I see as WP's failure with respect to Homer. It manifests itself in many ways, all of which I've argued about on TORC. However, arguing against the manifestations and results really solves nothing, as the root of the problem must be understood first.
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And the spear fighting sequence was quite fun. 
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(prefer Bana though! 
).
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