King Arthur review in Boston Globe

[Dark Jezter]

Better than Troy? Sure, but is that saying much?

Yes, it actually is. Despite Troy's other shortcomings, it did have some pretty awesome battle scenes.

I've seen a number of reviews that basically trash the movie for trying to find the Dark Ages roots of the Arthurian legend rather than doing yet another Mallory-esque version full of all sorts of high medieval anachronisms. The part I find most cringeworthy would be how a number of reviewers basically said that the version told was a bunch of hooey because everyone knows the real historical Arthur was just like in Mallory.

I especially love it how in movies like Excalabur (which was greatly overrated, IMO. I don't understand why so many people gush over that movie) King Arthur and his knights wear shining full-plate armor despite the fact that such armor wasn't invented until about 400 years after Arthur's time (and didn't achieve widespread use until a few hundred years after that).

People wearing full plate armor in 6th century England is about as historically accurate as George Washingon commanding a brigade of M1A2 battle tanks in the American revolution.

 

[mmadsen]

I've seen a number of reviews that basically trash the movie for trying to find the Dark Ages roots of the Arthurian legend rather than doing yet another Mallory-esque version full of all sorts of high medieval anachronisms.

Has anyone done a good King Arthur film in the "classic" style of Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur?

 

[Storm Raven]

I especially love it how in movies like Excalabur (which was greatly overrated, IMO. I don't understand why so many people gush over that movie) King Arthur and his knights wear shining full-plate armor despite the fact that such armor wasn't invented until about 400 years after Arthur's time (and didn't achieve widespread use until a few hundred years after that).

Because most people realize that the version of Arthur presented in Excalibur is a mythic fantasy. It includes a wizard who works real spells, swords being handed out by watery tarts, a witch, and a cup that magically gives new life to the disenheartened. Because they realize that the Arthur cycle isn't actually set in any particular "time". For example, any Arthur story that includes Lancelot and Galahad are immediately anachronistic, since they were grafted onto the story later, being drawn from French legends.

Talking about "Arthur's time" is about as silly as talking about the "historical Conan", or "the real history of the Lord of the Rings". Arthur is a myth, set him in the version of history you want to set him in.

 

[nikolai]

Has anyone done a good King Arthur film in the "classic" style of Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur?

Not so far as I know. I've heard people say Perceval is the best by far, but haven't seen it. I think part of the problem is the characters are so well known in people's collective conscious that it is difficult to portray them well. Another is that Malory is so huge that you are forced to focus on a small chunk of the story to do it on screen, but then it loses much of it's power.

Despite Troy's other shortcomings, it did have some pretty awesome battle scenes.

I'm very love/hate about Troy. There was glimpses of stuff that was amazing, surrounded by a lot of turgid dross. I thought that some of the battle scenes were very impressive (and very different from LotR), I got a very real sense that lots of people were getting badly hurt.

 

[Dark Jezter]

Talking about "Arthur's time" is about as silly as talking about the "historical Conan", or "the real history of the Lord of the Rings". Arthur is a myth, set him in the version of history you want to set him in.

Most accounts of King Arthur I've seen are stated as taking in or around the 6th century AD. That's why I don't buy it whenever I see King Arthur movies where people are wearing Renaissance-era plate armor.

Think of it like this. Pecos Bill, the legendary Texas cowboy who was raised by coyotes, was also a myth. However, Pecos Bill stories take place in the old west, they don't take place in modern times with Pecos Bill riding a Harley Davidson around.

 

[Storm Raven]

Most accounts of King Arthur I've seen are stated as taking in or around the 6th century AD. That's why I don't buy it whenever I see King Arthur movies where people are wearing Renaissance-era plate armor.

The Arthur cycle is a series of myths that were built up over centuries as more and more was added to them, or woven into them over the years. There is no one "period" of history that Arthur is set in, at least no version other than the recent attempts to try to do a "real historical" version that basically is comprised of creative fiction writing.

Think of it like this. Pecos Bill, the legendary Texas cowboy who was raised by coyotes, was also a myth. However, Pecos Bill stories take place in the old west, they don't take place in modern times with Pecos Bill riding a Harley Davidson around.

Pecos Bill's myth wasn't built up over a thousand years though. So the comparison doesn't really track.

 

[nikolai]

As for the "real Arthur" business. The film set itself up for a fall. From what what I recall there is a reference to someone called Arthur during the 6th century in the Cambrian Annals (a historical document). Whether what it says is historically true is anyone's guess, and any connection to current Authurian stories is going to be very thin. They could have been more accurate by saying the film was "set at the time of the first plausible historical reference to Arthur". But that doesn't sound as good on a press release.

Most accounts of King Arthur I've seen are stated as taking in or around the 6th century AD. That's why I don't buy it whenever I see King Arthur movies where people are wearing Renaissance-era plate armor.

It's ultimately a matter of taste, but I'm all for Renaissance-era plate with King Arthur. There were Arthurian romances published in the renaissance. And they used contempory details in their settings. The whole Authurian cycle evolved over a Millenia, with new motifs being added and contempory stylings keeping the stories up-to-date. I don't think you can discount Malory and the rest just because it is ahistorical with whatever historical "truth" there once was.

It's a bit like James Bond, for a better modern analogy. Is Goldeneye bad, because the original accounts are all early Cold War, and pre-date lasers and micro-chips?

 

[Dark Jezter]

Pecos Bill's myth wasn't built up over a thousand years though. So the comparison doesn't really track.

And your comparisons (Conan the Barbarian and Lord of the Rings) do?

It's a bit like James Bond, for a better modern analogy. Is Goldeneye bad, because the original accounts are all early Cold War, and pre-date lasers and micro-chips?

To be fair, Goldeneye dosen't claim to be set in the 1960s as Excalibur and other King Arthur movies claim to be set in the early dark ages.

 

[Abraxas]

Well I saw it today - I liked it.

They didn't pretend it was historically accurate in any way. They made up their own Arthur story, which was fine by me.

I liked all the characters, I liked the way everything looked, I liked the soundtrack and I definitely liked the battle scenes better than almost every battle scene in Troy (especially since this movie didn't have things like CGI blood sprays fountaining up when two lines clashed or a "remove frames to speed it up" spear throw like Troy) except perhaps the Hector/Achilles fight.

Overall I give it a strong 7 or weak 8, depending on whether or not I'm going to play D&D the same night I see it. It makes me want to play D&D.

 

[Capellan]

Think of it like this. Pecos Bill, the legendary Texas cowboy who was raised by coyotes, was also a myth. However, Pecos Bill stories take place in the old west, they don't take place in modern times with Pecos Bill riding a Harley Davidson around.

Personally, I think a Pecos Bill movie that was re-engineered for the modern era would be pretty cool (consider Ian McKellan's Richard III for an example of this).

What wouldn't be cool is a Pecos Bill movie that used Harleys and then claimed to be the "untold true story".

And this is why Excalibur doesn't set my teeth on edge the way the add for King Arthur does - it never pretends to be historical in any way, shape or form.

I'm still going to see the new film - I'm just going to ignore the pretensions that it is in any way 'more accurate' than the other (wildly inaccurate) versions.