In one scene, Achilles and his young cousin are practicing sword fighting on ancient Greek ruins. Since this movie takes place during the classical era, there should not have been any ancient ruins yet. [What about the Minoan civilization? They came before the Greeks and could have left ruins.]

Throughout the movie, the armies combine to fight Troy together as "Greeks." As well, there are many references to Greece. Greece was given its name by Alexander the Great (a Macedonian) many years after the Iliad. As such, there were no "Greeks." [The name 'Greece' comes the Latin word 'Graecia'. The Romans first used this name for a region in the north of present day Greece, where a people, the Graekoi, lived. Later the name was used for all the parts of the known world where 'Greeks' lived (e.g. the Greek colonies in Italy). Greeks nowadays call themselves Hellens and their country the Hellenic Republic or just Hellas. The term 'Hellenism' is closely linked to Alexander the Great, but was actually invented by J.G. Droysen in 1836 to describe the Greek culture influenced by the Eastern world (Persia).]

Troy was a natural harbor, but the shots of the sea show waves breaking against the sand, which would indicate a beach. It would be impossible for the Greeks to have sailed their ships onto the beach, they would have been overturned by the changes in tide. [There are no tides in the Mediterranean Sea. It is too small and is choked off at the Straits of Gibraltar. It was common in Classical times (and even up to the present day) to beach ships during a prolonged stay on land.]

At the beginning of the film, when the Trojans meet the Greeks, the subtitles says that it's the port of Sparta. Sparta is at least at 25 km from the sea. [The ancient story, which LONG predates this movie of course, refers specifically to "the port of Sparta," which is actually in Gythium. If you have a problem with calling it the port of Sparta, you have to go back to the legend because that's where it originated.]

When Hector is about to meet Achilles in a duel, after killing Achilles cousin, he walks out the gates with a spear, and he has no sword... Lately when the spear breaks in the fight he draws a sword to fight with... [He has a small sword, but it is hidden by shield when he first walks out.]

When Brendan Gleeson figures out that his wife is gone, he travels to his brother's palace, taking about a day. His brother then sends notification to all the kings in Greece, a very large empire, to prepare for battle. This would take from a day to two weeks to deliver. Each of these states must then prepare all their arms and men. So how is it that the large, heavy fleet arrive at Troy only a day after Paris and Hector's small fleet? [The Greeks were hurrying, rowing fast, maxing out their sails etc etc. Paris and Hector were taking their time, relaxing and so on.]

There are numerous historical mistakes in the art. Much of it is Minoan, not Greek, or Greek of a later period than the Trojan War of the 11th or 12th century BC. [While modern archaeological evidence suggests that Troy lost a war (not necessarily *the* war) around 1180 BC, the Iliad was almost definitely a work of fiction, not a historical record of events, and was not necessarily set when the historical events happened. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy, and http://www.archaeology.org/0405/etc/troy.html/.]

When we see Agamemnon on his throne at Mycenae, there are ships virtually outside the door. Whilst the sea at Argos is just visible from the hill of Mycenae, the citadel is several miles inland. [Yes, Mycenae is now several miles inland, 3000 years ago though it was a harbour city as the water level was much higher.]

Achilles lets Hector go, then gets really annoyed, and cut the head off a statue. You can't cut gold in one hit. [It's not solid gold; as was extremely common at the time, its a wooden statue that has been gilded (coated with a small amount of gold via gold foil rubbing). This is confirmed by how you can see wood splintering in the neck/head.]

After the first battle on the beach, Achilles goes to his tent and, while talking to Briseis, cleans himself up. Although the water doesn't really have a significant effect (he looks as dirty as before), he goes to Agamemnon when summoned and looks totally clean. [There is no evidence that Achilles leaves immediately. The messenger would have been sent for him at the same time all the kings were summoned to see Agamemnon. He finishes cleaning himself off before going to see Agamemnon, as you can see the king's are mostly finished giving Agamemnon accolades for "his" victory.]

Before the fight between Paris and Menelaus, as they square off we see Paris' helmet has a nosepiece on it. In the POV shots (from inside the helmet) during the fight itself, there is obviously no nosepiece. [Yes there is. This is called the 'binocular effect' - the nosepiece is directly between the observer's eyes and isn't visible. It was actually much closer to realism for the film-makers to leave the nosepiece off the prop helmet for the subjective (POV) shots.]

When Priam goes to Achilles to claim the body of Hector, he asks to have the body in order to perform the funeral rites and specifically mentions "let me place the coins over his eyes for the boatman". This references the belief of the Greeks that one had to pay the ferryman Charon to get into the underworld. However, at Hector's funeral, there are no coins on his eyes, nor does anyone place coins there as he is lit on fire. [There are coins on Hector's eyes. You can see them as the camera pans over his face.]

In the shot of the Greek camp at dawn, the sun is seen rising over the ocean behind the ships on the beach. As the beach and ocean are to the west of Troy, this would have the sun rising in the west. [The beach is to the north of the city, not west. The sun is rising in the north-east.]

This movie is spoken in English however, when the Greeks invade the beach at Troy and the camera pans over the ships you can hear another language spoken that sounds like Ancient Greek. This seems illogical considering none of the primary and even secondary actors even attempted a Greek accent and this movie was not one that proclaimed the need for subtitles. [This is just the submitter disagreeing with what was probably an intentional decision by the film makers (or garbled dialogue).]

When Achilles' walks into his tent to find the cousin of Hector tied to a pole, her hands are tied behind the pole. In the next shot, if you look to the bottom of the screen, you can see her hands in front of her. [Achilles unties her hands, and then she brings her hands forward to rub her wrists.]

Eric Bana's hair is seen as a dark auburn brownish color all through the movie, however, it's easy to see that he is naturally short haired and that they had to weave in extensions to make his hair longer. In certain scenes, these weaves are blatantly obvious because the color of the weaves are more of a flat dark brown color, and don't match his natural hair color. This is most obvious in the scene near the end where Hector turns to kiss his father goodbye before going down to fight Achilles. There, the audience can see that his natural hair color ends somewhere a little above the neck, and from there the dark flat brown weaves take over. [He has naturally long hair in this movie. He grew it out. Eric Bana was on HBO and a few other TV shows recently and his hair was as long as it was in the film. All the characters grew their hair out for this film.]

There are no trees around, but they seem to have plenty of wood to burn the dead bodies with. [There is a large forest just right of the main gate along the city wall. You can see it although there is no scene in the forest itself. There was also a lot of wood available from the boats - given the number of men who died, not all the boats would be needed for the journey back.]

Just before Achilles (Brad Pitt) is killed, he kills two guards who were about to kill the girl who stabbed the king. When he is being shot by Paris (O. Bloom), he walks a few steps forward and then dies. In the next shot, the camera zooms out from his body, and all you can see is his body in the middle of a patch of grass. What happened to the bodies of the two soldiers and the king? [The king and the guards are all killed near the altar where the girl was praying. When Achilles dies, he has come forward onto the grass so their bodies are no longer visible - they're behind him.]

When Hector is tied to Achilles' chariot he has the broken spear still in his shoulder. When Achilles gets back to the Greek camps with him, the spear is no longer there. [After being dragged around for a while, the spear could have easily fallen out.]

In the film, the Greeks placed coins on the eyes of their dead. In reality, the Greeks placed the coins under the tongue of the dead. [The coins could be placed in either spot.]