Summary
- Disney's Hercules is a fun movie with great music, but it takes many liberties with the original Greek mythology.
- The movie changes key elements like Hercules' parentage, the labors he completed, and the character of Hades.
- Despite the movie being enjoyable, exploring the original myths that inspired Hercules can offer a darker and more complex perspective.
Disney’s live-action Hercules movie, which is in development.
Hercules is wonderful and has great music, but the movie has one big problem – large parts of the storyline are deviated from the original mythology. For people familiar with the original story, the movie can seem comedically tame. Greek mythology can be twisted and cruel, incorporating taboo topics that are most definitely not child-friendly. As such, Disney’s Hercules needed to change some of the mythology so that the movie would be appropriate for viewers of all ages. Still, the original stories and myths that inspired Hercules are worth looking back on.
6 Things Disney's Live-Action Hercules Must Get Right About The Original
Disney's live-action remake of Hercules needs to recapture the most essential elements of characters such as Hercules, Hades, Meg, and the Muses.
10 Hercules Is The Roman Name, Not The Greek Name
Disney Used Hercules Instead of Herakles
It seems out of place to use a single Roman name while all the others are Greek.
Throughout the movie Hercules, the Greek names for the characters are used for all but the titular main character. In the Greek mythos, the hero was born with the name Alcaeus, but he took on the name Herakles. The name means glorious gift of Her, a hilarious twist since he was born to a mortal mother, not Hera. The spelling of Hercules only came when the Romans stole – or synthesized, depending on which classicist you ask – the Greek gods and heroes, renaming them.
While most of the changes in Hercules have some sort of logic behind them, this one is perplexing. The only reason it might be more prudent to use the name Hercules is because of the fact that the Roman name is better known around the world due to the Roman Empire. However, it seems out of place to use a single Roman name while all the others are Greek.
9 Hera Wasn’t Hercules’ Mother In Greek Mythology
Hercules Was Born To Zeus And Alcmene
In Disney's Hercules, Hercules is the child of Zeus and Hera – both of whom are loving parents to the baby boy. However, after drinking Hades' poison, he is left on Earth and adopted by Amphitryon and Alcmene. This completely twists the Greek mythology. The parents of Herakles in Greek mythology are Zeus and Alcmene, and Zeus sired the child, bragging that he would be the ruler of Greece. However, this didn't end up being true due to the anger and vengeance of Hera.
Because Hera was angry at Zeus for having an affair, she dedicated herself to killing Herakles from the time he was born; however, she failed repeatedly. Consequently, Hera set out to ruin his life by making it miserable. Interestingly enough, this backfired to a degree because Hercules became famous due to his overcoming the challenges she caused.
8 Disney’s Hercules Minimizes The Twelve Labors
Disney Shows Four Of The Twelve Labors Of Hercules
One of the biggest reasons Herakles became famous is because he completed 12 labors for the Mycenaen King Eurystheus with the promise from Apollo that he would become immortal. According to The Met, the 12 labors include the following:
- Kill the Nemean Lion
- Slay the 9-headed Lernean Hydra
- Steal the goddess Artemis golden hind
- Capture the Erymanthean Boar alive
- Clean the manure out of the Augean stables in one day
- Scare the Stymphlaian birds away
- Capture and return the Cretan bull
- Bring back Diomedes’ flesh-eating horses
- Retrieve the belt of Queen Hippolyte
- Round up and return the cattle of King Geryon located at the world's end
- Retrieve Zeus 'golden apples from behind the 100-headed dragon
- Kidnap Cerberus from the Underworld
Out of the 12 labors, the only four that Disney’s Hercules shows are the Leonean hydra, the Nemean lion, the Erymanthean boar, and the Stymphalian birds. Instead of including the other labors, Hercules has the titular character defeat the minotaur, battle a gorgon, and stop a volcanic eruption – to name a few.
7 The Muses Are Different In Greek Mythology
The Muses Have A Different Origin And Number Of Goddesses
In Ancient Greek theater, the chorus were singers who told the narration. The muses function as the chorus in Disney's Hercules, singing in all but two of the songs. The muses are a real part of Greek mythology, representing and inspiring all art, literature, and science. However, the movie changes two. major details about the muses. Firstly, in mythology, the muses are the daughters of Zeus, which doesn't seem to be the case in Disney's Hercules. They call Hercules attractive which, while fitting for Greek mythology, would be inappropriate if they were siblings in a Disney movie.
Secondly, Hercules only includes five of the nine muses. The ones that show up are Calliope, the muse of epic poetry; Clio, the muse of history; Thalia, the muse of comedy; Terpsichore the muse of dance, and Melpomene, the muse of tragedy. Disney's Hercules leaves out Erato the muse of lyric and erotic poetry; Polyhymnia, the muse of sacred poetry; Euterpe, the muse of music; and Urania, the muse of astronomy. The live-action Hercules remake can fix many elements, one of the most exciting is the prospect of the movie including all nine muses.
6 Hades Didn't Hate Hercules
Hades Had No Reason To Hate Hercules In Greek Mythology
Hades had a good enough relationship with Herakles that he lent the hero his dog Cerberus for his twelfth labor (at least in some versions of the myth).
The plot of Disney's Hercules relies on the fact that Hades is angry at Zeus for making him ruler of the Underworld, causing him to hate Zeus’ son Hercules. This is incorrect on multiple s. Firstly, Zeus didn't assign Hades to rule the Underworld, so had no reason to hate Hercules. After the defeat of the Titans, Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon drew lots to determine who would rule over which domain, and Hades just happened to draw the gem representing the Underworld.
Additionally, the ruler of the Underworld never tried to kill his nephew. The only reference to the two ever fighting is their battle at Pylos, but this battle has no mythological roots (via Cambridge). In fact, Hades had a good enough relationship with Herakles that he lent the hero his dog Cerberus for his twelfth labor (at least in some versions of the myth). Additionally, the god gave his nephew permission to marry his daughter Hebe after the hero gained immortality.
5 Pegasus Didn’t Belong To Hercules In Greek Mythology
Pegasus Wasn't Made Of Clouds And Gifted To Hercules
In Disney’s Hercules, Zeus makes Pegasus out of the clouds as a gift to his son Hercules at his birthday party. Pegasus goes on to become Hercules’ best friend and companion after the hero reunites with his father. This origin story for the winged horse is a major deviation from Greek mythology. Rather than being made out of clouds, Pegasus was a winged horse created from the blood of Medusa after Perseus cut off her head.
The only hero who famously rode Pegasus is Bellerophon, not Hercules. In Greek mythos, the creature that Zeus created out of the clouds was Nephele, a nymph made in the shape of Hera. Despite not being mythologically accurate, Disney made the right choice to include Pegasus in Hercules because he became one of the most likable Hercules main characters.
4 Disney Massively Changed The Titans
Disney's Hercules Didn't Include All 12 Titans
In both Disney’s Hercules and real Greek mythology, the Titans ruled the earth before Zeus defeated them and sent them to Tartarus. However, when they are released from Tartarus, the movie deviates from the original mythology. The Disney movie showed five titans named Lythos, Hydros, Pyros, Stratos, and Arges. The first four are manifestations of the elements – earth, water, fire, and wind. The last one, who goes after Hercules, is Cyclops.
Hercules' Biggest Plot Hole Proves Hades Is Really Bad At Being A Villain
As fun as Hades is, he's pretty incompetent as a Disney villain, as highlighted by a big plot hole in Hercules regarding his plan against his nephew.
The closest Greek mythology equivalents to the Titans shown are Oceanus, the Titan god of water, and Prometheus, the Titan god of fire. The god of Earth in Greek mythology is Gaia, the mother of the Titans. Meanwhile, the winds are controlled by four wind gods, and Cyclops is a one-eyed giant. In addition to Oceanus and Prometheus, there are also ten other Titans.
3 Narcissus Couldn’t Have Been At The Top Of Mount Olympus
Narcissus Wasn't A God In Greek Mythology
Only the gods and goddesses were allowed a place on Mount Olympus, and Narcissus was a mortal based on his genealogy.
One of the funniest lines in Disney’s Hercules is Hermes saying, “You know, I haven’t seen this much love in a room since Narcissus discovered himself.” The movie even shows Narcissus blowing kisses at his reflection in a hand mirror. This is a great moment in the movie, but there’s one major problem. Narcissus would never have been on Mount Olympus. The story of Narcissus is told in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, “Book III.” The mythological figure was the child of the river god Cephissus and the nymph Liriope.
Only the gods and goddesses were allowed a place on Mount Olympus, and Narcissus was a mortal based on his genealogy. Moreover, after he fell in love with his own reflection, he became stuck at a body of water staring for the rest of his life. He never traveled again, meaning he wouldn't have been at Mount Olympus even if he was somehow a god. Regardless of the true mythology, the presence of Narcissus in Disney’s Hercules added to the pantheon and allowed Hermes to make the great joke, though.
2 Hercules Kills Megara In Greek Mythology
Hera Drove Hercules To Kill Megara And Their Kids
Throughout Disney’s Hercules, Megara is clever, funny, and all-around one of the best unofficial Disney princesses (even though she technically isn’t a princess in the movie). As time goes on, she becomes so compelling that it’s exciting to see her end up happy with Hercules. However, Greek mythology has a much more tragic and disturbing ending for the couple. Herakles does marry Megara, the Theban princess, after the hero defeats the Minyans and restores King Creon to the throne. The pair had somewhere between three and eight children.
Why Disney's Hercules Changed The Original Hades Plan
Disney's Hercules is so humorous because James Woods plays the hot-headed, wise-cracking Hades, not Jack Nicholson like Disney first intended.
Unfortunately, Hera decided to torture Herakles, so she drove him out of his right mind, leading the hero to kill his entire family. The decision to remove this part of Greek mythology from Hercules makes sense because it is entirely too dark for the hero of a Disney movie to murder not only his love interest but also his children.
1 Disney Completely Erases Hercules’ Brother
Hercules Had A Brother Named Iphicles
While most of the changes from Greek mythology have a clear purpose within the narrative, a strange oversight is the fact that the titular hero didn’t grow up as an only child. In a strange twist, Herakles had a mortal twin half-brother named Iphicles. Herakles’ mother, Alcmene, was impregnated by both Zeus and Amphitryon on the same day through heteropaternal superfecundation (via Historic Mysteries). Technically, because Alcmene was the granddaughter of Perseus, Herakles and Iphicles were also cousins, to some degree.
The two brothers were extremely close and went on many adventures together, including some of the labors. With how significant of a relationship Iphicles had with his twin brother, it seems odd that Disney would leave him out. However, at the same time, most Greek mythology also forgets that Iphicles existed. As such, it’s possible that the writers of Disney’s Hercules didn’t want to confuse fans who were loosely familiar with the mythos.
Hercules
- Release Date
- June 13, 1997
- Runtime
- 93 Minutes
- Director
- John Musker, Ron Clements
Cast
Hercules
Young Hercules
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