Modern Interpretations of Beowulf

Beowulf in both stories is a human being, thus he is represented as a true hero in the original poem, but in the movie he is made more vulnerable and less brave. As mentioned previously, in the movie there are introduced several new characters – Grendel’s father and Grendel’s son, but there is also another new character – Selma. She is considered to be a witch, thus she is actually a normal human being. There is also a romance between her and Beowulf. She is also a mother of Grendel’s son. Therefore in the end of the movie Beowulf suggests her to keep the son away from the people as they might kill him too, because of his origins. Also the role of the King Hroðgar is changed in the movie. He is represented as the reason for Grendel’s anger as he has killed Grendel’s father when Grendel was a young boy, therefore the audience actually might not be sympathised with him.
Altogether, it can be concluded that the movie Beowulf & Grendel is a vague representation of the original poem Beowulf, as only some parts of the poem are kept as the basis for the movie, but there are a lot of new actions introduced in the movie and a lot of actions not included from the original poem, and also many features of the original characters are different.
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