Die großen Mythen

Seasons 1 and 2 (General Myths and The Iliad) are fantastic. Very cool animation and concept. Gripping storytelling. Effective music.

Season 3 lands with a thud. After such a great track record, this season was additionally disappointing. The writing in the English version (or maybe translation from the French) were weak (please stop saying stupefying/stupor. There is literally a thesaurus in your word processing program). And the narrator's regional New York state accent is KILLING ME. He's adding "r's" onto everything (Odysseus is apparently from "Ithaker" rather than "Ithaca." Fancy that.) He does not know how to pronounce a lot of words. Listening to him struggle through "impious" and "bestow" is nails on a chalkboard. Where is the Director? The Producer? The Sound Department? The Caterer? Someone please help this guy. Or better yet, get someone else with the Shakespearean voice you need to make classical storytelling work. If I wanted someone to read me bus timetables, I would go to a public transit website. Aaaaaarrrrrggggghhhh!!!!!!

So I absolutely loved this show, but in the third season they continuously call Odysseus Ulysses. This isn't entirely incorrect except for the fact that it is called "Greek myths". The name Ulysses is the Roman name for the Greek Odysseus, so it should call him Odysseus. Also, some of the times in the godly family tree it does say Odysseus and the narrator still calls him Ulysses. Also, the narrator of season 3 is different than the previous two seasons, which is not necessarily an issue, however, he pronounces a lot of words and names differently. It isn't that big of a deal, but I could understand if some people might be confused about it.

Maybe a tad more nudity than is neccesary, but otherwise superb. While not all encompassing, it had a lot to teach someone who has been a fan of Greek mythology for decades. I would recomend to any student who doesnt have an issue with (artistic depictions) of the human anatomy.

I love this series. It makes clear what so many other tellings of these stories does not. Firstly, you get the connective tissue between most of the stories, meaning they mostly work as one big explanatory myth - not just of creation but many other aspects of life. Plus, you get the key characters' backstories and motivations. Be warned: one hell of a lot of those motivations turn out to be sex, meaning that, while not in any way depicted salaciously or pornographically, a lot of this might be a bit much for, say, under-10s.

My personal reaction: pending further learning, all this means this is now my favourite cosmology, presenting us with the uncomfortable notion that a terrible madness composed of lust and vanity maybe at the heart of and inseparable from the life force. No wonder the Greeks gave us the conjoined opposites tragedy and comedy.

I watched it twice and totally planning to watch another time. These series dive with us into the beauty of the Greek mythology. Following a logical sequence of the stories so you can get the whole picture. It allows you to understand the origin of a word a myth through a series of 20 episodes. Added to this the eloquence of the narrator in the original version (which is french). Really excited to watch the sequel of this which is the Illiad of Homer