Posted on 07/20/2004 9:45:48 AM PDT by quidnunc
Nobody even knows if there WAS a "King Arthur" much less a Round Table.
You technically can't really make a historically inaccurate movie about King Arthur because nobody really knows what the history is, or even if there is one.
I have been waiting for someone to really do King Arthur, the half-roman warlord defending romanized, half-christianized, celtic Britain against the pagan saxons.
I hoped this movie would be it. But it is so full of unnecessary elements that it is distracted from what it could have been. As others have noted, every Christian in the movie is either cowardly or sick and demented. Only Arthur's christianity is presented in a positive light, and the point is made that he is a heretic who will be killed if he returns to Rome. They have Christians running torture chambers and the obligatory child-molesting bishop (at least thats how I interpreted it, the bishop's exaggerated affection for the boy, the boy's obvious revulsion for the bishop).
The heroes, Arthur's riders, are themselves pagans who mock the christians in the movie, and rightly so if that's what christians are. But since these elements have nothing to do either with the legendary Arthur, nor the historical one, and since they had to be invented from out of the film-maker's own mind, you have to wonder why he went to the trouble.
The script is rather lame, and full of over-dramatic pauses that almost seem silly.
I am still waiting for someone to really "do" King Arthur. Maybe someday Mel Gibson will step up to the task.
I'm also pretty sure that the Woads wouldn't be using makeshift Trebuchets against the Saxons.
Moreover, this Christian bashing is snuck in-- you'll find no images or mention of the evil Bishop or other Christians at the web site. Walt Disney's subterranean RPM's are surely approaching redline.
Is there much real history behind King Arthur? I've always thought of it as more of a legend.
Also, it's unfortunate about the Christophobia...
The infamous flaming arrows (Seemingly required for every Hollywood movie set before gunpowder now) didn't make an appearance, did they?
Sounds good to me.
You have to laugh at a review that condems this movie for it's lack of accuracy, but still uses terms like "William Wallace style face paint" when the blue paint was one of the glaring inaccuracies in Braveheart, as it was given up centuries before.
The best King Author movie was Excalibur. The worst was the one with Sean Connery and Gerbil boy.
In short, Pelagius did not believe that God's grace was necessary to overcome man's sin. Man is free to believe in Christ without God's grace, or not. Taken to its logical extension, as Augustine pointed out, then why is man not free to also avoid sin without grace? Why then is Christ even necessary?
Of course many American Christians are Pelagian, perhaps even more so than Pelagius himself....Charles Finney is one who would have shocked even Pelagius with his heretical teachings.
Only a fool cuts off his nose to spite his face. Vote for Bush anyway.
"Catholic Romans, who are willing to implement any hideous means to convert and enslave the natives"
Oh, this is almost the perfect liberal fantasy nightmare world - Catholic and Roman, the bane of all the world, in 1!
Only thing better for libs would be Catholic Americans. Probably in an Iraq setting.....
No.
Your brother is, frankly, clueless.
This movie was full of painful historical howlers.
No one who has bothered to read even a freshman survey text on Roman Britain would think that this movie had historical value.
But you know how Mel "hates Brits" - LOL. He'd probably make the same kind if they had to show "Brits" (such as they would be) in the film!
It tried to be Gladiator and failed, but I enjoyed it. The themes of country and freedom were heavily played.
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