King Arthur??

[BobV]

When did Arthur become a mercenary of the Roman army?? All of the knights for that matter? I’m not a student of English lour but this movie King Arthur did seem to go astray. Am I wrong? In the end I did like the move but…

[bazooka]

You are correct Bob.

Arthur was never a mercenary of the Roman Army.

[Hardcoreruss]

King Arthur has to be one of the worst films I have ever seen in my life.

[stiltman]

glad I didn't get it...I think the King Arthur stories are getting really lame and tired. Bout the only one I like was Excalibur

[yoda313]

glad I didn't get it...I think the King Arthur stories are getting really lame and tired. Bout the only one I like was Excalibur

Hello,

Wasn't that the one with Sean Connery in it???? I think they upped his roles age a bit...

Kevin

[stiltman]

glad I didn't get it...I think the King Arthur stories are getting really lame and tired. Bout the only one I like was Excalibur

Hello,

Wasn't that the one with Sean Connery in it???? I think they upped his roles age a bit...

Kevin

Nope
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082348/

[yoda313]

glad I didn't get it...I think the King Arthur stories are getting really lame and tired. Bout the only one I like was Excalibur

Hello,

Wasn't that the one with Sean Connery in it???? I think they upped his roles age a bit...

Kevin

Nope
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082348/

Hello,

Oh - well imdb is blocked at work but I know there was a Arthur movie with Connery in it - I think.

Kevin

[HatchetMan]

glad I didn't get it...I think the King Arthur stories are getting really lame and tired. Bout the only one I like was Excalibur

Hello,

Wasn't that the one with Sean Connery in it???? I think they upped his roles age a bit...

Kevin

Nope
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082348/

Sean Connery played King Arthur in Frist Knight.

[flaninacupboard]

King Arthur has to be one of the worst films I have ever seen in my life.

It was pretty sucky. glad i didn't pay to see it.

[smearbrick1]

glad I didn't get it...I think the King Arthur stories are getting really lame and tired. Bout the only one I like was Excalibur

Hello,

Wasn't that the one with Sean Connery in it???? I think they upped his roles age a bit... :D

Kevin

Nope
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082348/

Sean Connery played King Arthur in Frist Knight.

First Knight also sucked ass.

[HatchetMan]

[Capmaster]

I thought First Knight was excellent

[HatchetMan]

I thought First Knight was excellent

I actually wouldn't know, I saw it at the drive in and fell a sleep (damn Mickey's 40oz)

[BobV]

glad I didn't get it...I think the King Arthur stories are getting really lame and tired. Bout the only one I like was Excalibur

Yes Excalibur was very good right up ther with In search of the Holy Grail... funny I would like them both so much.

[Devanshu]

When Kiera Knightley was on leno promoting the movie, she said that this was not actually the real story of arthur...it was a theory that was getting some recognition.

[offline]

glad I didn't get it...I think the King Arthur stories are getting really lame and tired. Bout the only one I like was Excalibur

I was thinking on much the same lines when a friend suggested that
it was much better than I would expect. I saw it and was quite entertained.
The Roman angle, the lack of a magical merlin and a few other discarded
bits made it a better story imho.

Excalibur, of course, is the better film (that breast sucking scene )
and the Crystal Cave, is the better novel.


imo of course

[yoda313]

Hello,

When Kiera Knightley was on leno promoting the movie, she said that this was not actually the real story of arthur...it was a theory that was getting some recognition.

A theory???? Jeesh what a way to ruin a classic legend!

I mean you go to a movie that says "arthur" and you expect to see most of the traditional myths in it. Not some revisionist history mongerer...

Kevin

[bazooka]

Hello,

When Kiera Knightley was on leno promoting the movie, she said that this was not actually the real story of arthur...it was a theory that was getting some recognition.

A theory???? Jeesh what a way to ruin a classic legend!

I mean you go to a movie that says "arthur" and you expect to see most of the traditional myths in it. Not some revisionist history mongerer...

Kevin

I agree yoda. I had wanted to see it, but now I don't.

[mpack]

Not some revisionist history mongerer...

Revisionist history? How can it revise history when there is almost no history?

Actually, I think there is room for a movie that looks at what evidence there is for a real Arthur - after all, if its the myth you are after you are already well served by a host of other movies. Unfortunately this particular movie is IMHO let down mainly by the lead: the guy playing Arthur just doesn't cut it as an action hero - incredibly wooden... and I found his accent disturbing as well, it was just too readily identifiable as a modern English accent, so it jarred with the sense of period IMHO.

Also, right at the start of the movie there is a claim that the story is based on "recent discoveries", but these are not described in the special features, which I was hoping for. AFAIK nothing in the story as told is based on anything newly discovered. Also, I'm a bit of a history buff, and the only recent discovery related to Arthur that I know about was that excavations at Tintagel Castle (one of the suggested locations of Camelot), had discovered that underneath the Norman castle was an earlier native British fortification, which could only have been built by a powerful ruler - no evidence that the ruler was Arthur though. This movie was crying out for a historical documentary among the special features. Pity that all we got was a standard "making of".

Is anyone actually interested is knowing what facts we have about the real Arthur?

I believe the earliest written reference to him comes from a dark ages saga (from about 600AD in Wales I think) - a saga in which a named warrior is contemptuously described as being "no Arthur". That obviously places Arthur prior to 600AD, far back in the dark ages - certainly into the period between the end of Roman rule and the arrival of the Saxons, and about half a millenium too soon for the Norman style chivalric knights of movie myth.

Second, Arthur is a Roman name. Not a big surprise, since Roman names would have been common in post Roman Britain.

Third, the battle of Badon Hill took place c500AD, a big victory by the native British over the Angle and Saxon invaders. Kept the Saxons out for another 50 years. Later chroniclers (native storytellers) claimed that the British side had been led by Arthur, but other chroniclers don't mention him. However, it shows that the chroniclers who did mention him believed he was a British king - ie. he came before the Anglo-Saxon period of domination, but about 70 years after the Roman withdrawal. And, living in that period they would be in a better position to know...

ps. Germanus is a character in the movie, and Pelagius is mentioned as a character - both are real historical figures. But, if Arthur fought at Badon Hill then he couldn't have known either of them, since Germanus visited Britain at about the time of the withdrawal, ie. 70 years earlier.

Thats it for facts and semi-facts I think. Its interesting that the myth itself is inconsistant. The myth of the search for the holy grail depicts a Christian king, but the myth of Merlin, Excalibur, the Lady of the Lake and so on is distinctly pagan (Celtic) and could well have been handed down in oral history. Obviously the myth has been built up over the past 1500 years...

In short, this King Arthur movie is the most historically accurate to date (except for screwing up the dates for the Roman withdrawal and the Badon Hill battle), I only wish the movie had lived up to my hopes for it. I feel cheated that the movie claimed to have been based on new evidence and then never said what the evidence was.

[Devanshu]

A theory???? Jeesh what a way to ruin a classic legend!

I mean you go to a movie that says "arthur" and you expect to see most of the traditional myths in it. Not some revisionist history mongerer...

Kevin

If I remember it correctly, she said that some historians believe that the story of arthur is based on real warriors who lived before the time the arthur legends arrived.

Personally, I liked it. It was different than all the other arthur movies...no wizards, magical lake, magical sword and other stuff. Dont get me wrong, I liked the other movies too but this was a different approach which made the movie enjoyable.

[BJ_M]

well i kinda liked it and the theory angle .. who knows anyway as history is all mucked up ...


Kiera Knightley is hot .

[bazooka]

[quote="mpack"]

Revisionist history? How can it revise history when there is almost no history?

I agree

It is mythology.