An adaptation of Homer's great epic, the film follows the assault on Troy by the united Greek forces and chronicles the fates of the men involved.
This is the SFX sword used by Achilles (
Brad Pitt) to give death to Hector (
Eric Bana) at the end of their epic fight.
This sword was originally one of the eight used during the fight and the only sword cutted to complete the VFX killing sequence. Before filming the fight a hurricane destroyed the original Troy set and unit base, the film had to wrap and later a small UK team was deployed in Mexico just to finish the last scenes. These swords were made exclusively in UK for the fight. In Mexico they had a limited workshop with no model or mold-makers, so there was no way to make any more swords to use on the set. All the swords were used by Brad as after each take, they had to change to another one and repair, or repaint the previous one as there would be black marks on the blades from hitting against another rubber sword.
All them were safe versions made of a hard rubber composite, the handle being very hard and the blade a bit softer with a broad metal armature, which runs down the centre. They were good enought to be considered the hero swords during the production as the few metal swords made of bronze were impractical in the set due to an excessive weight and its metal weakness. The rubber versions can be seen in close-ups and in publicity stills. There were no aluminum or foam versions and is not known any use of an Achilles' retractable sword, all the stab effects during the battles were made with a cut-down sword and later edited with computer graphics.
In the Troy director's cut some cgi fx layers were removed from the film and that brought to light some of the original details seen exclusively on this sword, like the whitte tape used to mark the cut that was digitally hidden as with most of the Hector's blood in the censored theatrical version. At the end of the sword's cut some blu-tack was put to avoid the slipping over the Hector's plastic armature, still present but with the gold paint peeled.
Frame by
CLS and Kayser.