Kingdom of Heaven

[Storm Raven]

I found information on only three of note, IMO -

The Crusades (1935) (blockbuster)

King Richard and the Crusaders (1954) (blockbuster)

Naser Salah el Dine, El (1963) (blockbuster)

Not surprisingly, all have taken some liberties with the facts to craft a story deemed worthy of the silver screen, as the reviews listed above note that Scott has done, as well. I've seen the first two of the three I've listed, years ago, and they can surely be considered some of the largest "spectacles" of their times, though the (second) Butler film was not well-received). I've looked into the availability of the third and have discovered it is highly respected. It might be fun to get ahold of all three as a Crusadathon Weekend follow up to Kingdom.

Alexander Nevsky could also be considered a crusader movie, although the crusaders in the movie are the villains (the Teutonic Knights), and the object of their crusade are Russians who are members of the Russian Orthodox Church. The battle scenes in the movie were considered great at the time.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0029850/

 

[Angel Tarragon]

I'm really looking forward to seeing this flick.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

Yup, it looks cool. I'll probably wait for the video, though.

I wonder what it is about Orlando Bloom that makes movie-makers think, "blacksmith-turned-warrior?"

 

[Banshee16]

Yup, it looks cool. I'll probably wait for the video, though.

I wonder what it is about Orlando Bloom that makes movie-makers think, "blacksmith-turned-warrior?"

According to an interview with Ridley Scott, it doesn't appear to be that he seemed like a blacksmith turned warrior, so much as the fact that Scott was really impressed with him during the filming of Blackhawk Down, and believed that Orlando had the potential to be a leading man.

Probably the fact that he's been in several period pieces helped decide on him being the guy for Kingdom of Heaven.

Either that, or the fact that Kingdom of Heaven was the next film on Scott's slate as he was filming Blackhawk Down, and just wanted to give the opportunity outright.

Unfortunately, possible bad press is starting already. I know that my local paper had a big picture and article about the film, front-page, this morning, asking whether it was smart to release this film right now, and whether it could cause hatred between Muslims and Christians etc. The film goes out of its way to portray the Muslims as heroes, and Crusaders as villains from what I understand, though the truth wasn't so black and white.

In the interview, as I understood it, Ridley Scott mentioned that the film is more about the dangers of religious extremism, whether that is terrorists or Christian fundamentalists, etc.

I just hope it's going to be an awesome movie

Banshee

 

[Dark Jezter]

Yup, it looks cool. I'll probably wait for the video, though.

I wonder what it is about Orlando Bloom that makes movie-makers think, "blacksmith-turned-warrior?"

It's obviously his mighty hurculean physique.

 

[Klaus]

Or hephaestian phisique, even!

 

[Mark]

Word has it that Bloom worked out like crazy for this and bulked up about twenty pounds for the role.

 

[ssampier]

Yeah baby!

I'm anxious to see this movie. I have been in movie duldrums since Sin City (it was okay movie, but not what I was expecting). I was waiting for a decent, historical* movie. The fact the movie is on the crusades is only icing on the cake. I'm somewhat apprehensive since Orlando is in this movie. I liked his performance in LoTR, but didn't care for his performance in Pirates of the Carribean.

As for press, bad press doesn't mean much to me. I tend to love some movies that score poorly and hate the highly ranked ones.

* I mean historical in the movie sense, not the slavish, true-to-history sense. Frankly Braveheart is not historical accurate, but I love it anyway.

 

[Olive]

Unfortunately, possible bad press is starting already. I know that my local paper had a big picture and article about the film, front-page, this morning, asking whether it was smart to release this film right now, and whether it could cause hatred between Muslims and Christians etc. The film goes out of its way to portray the Muslims as heroes, and Crusaders as villains from what I understand, though the truth wasn't so black and white.

From what I understand the film isn't so black and white either, and almost no coverage I've seen has suggested anythign like your newspaper has.

 

[Dark Jezter]

Unfortunately, possible bad press is starting already. I know that my local paper had a big picture and article about the film, front-page, this morning, asking whether it was smart to release this film right now, and whether it could cause hatred between Muslims and Christians etc. The film goes out of its way to portray the Muslims as heroes, and Crusaders as villains from what I understand, though the truth wasn't so black and white.

Damn, some of the reviews that are starting to pop up on the internet already are saying pretty much the same thing. From what I'm hearing, the movie started out distorting history to portray the Muslims as good guys and villifying the Christians. Despite this, the makers of the movie were still attacked by some Muslim special interest groups and even recieved a few death threats. So in response, Ridley Scott slanted the movie's perspective even further until the special interest groups were appeased. And, even though I'm no stickler for historical accuracy, historians have almost universally panned the movie for it's skewed history and romanticized view of Saladin.

I was really looking forward to this film, but now I'm debating over whether or not I should go to it.