Kingdom of Heaven

[Jaron Bernstein]

Just saw the movie Kindom of Heaven. Leaving the political/religious/historical issues aside (not really on topic), what did y'all think of how they did the fighting in the movie?

[M Wallgren]

I like that it was an embryo of understanding that there was fighting systems in Europe, but I know that there is no evidence of the term Posta di falcone in 12th c. Europe. but that was good. And I like trebuches ...

Above average film for the genre. I think.

Martin

[Jaron Bernstein]

Lots of edge-on-edge, unfortunately. However, I was thrilled to see halfswording and when he fought the fellow on the horse that looked a hell of a lot like an einhorn to me. The other thing I liked is that this wasn't "clean dramatic" fighting. It was fast and there was grappling along with the swordwork. Now if we could just get someone to make a movie without the "banging blades just for the noise" thing.

[M Wallgren]

To the poor actors defense Most of the edge to edge was desperate men on the ground shielding themselfs from bashing... I imagine those things could happen if the fighters weren´t that experienced or just sceard ****less...

but I agree ... it was to much of it!!

At least my new training partner Adrian (reinactment guy turned to our dark side of the force) had found that EOE hacking didn´t looked cool or sounded cool. He had trained his group of Vikings to parry with the flat, he liked the hissing sound... hehe

And forgive me for turning this into a EOEish tread. For my part this was the last comment on it in this tread. <img src="/forum/images/icons/blush.gif" alt="" />

Martin

[Matthew_Anderson]

Overall, I thought the fighting looked better than most medieval fighting shown in movies. I thought it was a little weird that the main character went from being a village blacksmith to an expert on the arts of war in such a short time. I mean, that guy (can't remember the characters name) was hell on wheels! He took out Saracens and even Templer Knights two or three at a time and even led the defense of Jeruselem! But the fighting in general looked pretty realistic to me.

[JeanryChandler]

I liked the costumes and armor (even if not 100% accurate) and I liked the supporting cast.

I liked the one -guard fencing lesson.

I liked a little of the fighting at first, but hated:

People wearing armor for regular clothing like at dinner (very silly)

Big cavalry charge with no lances, just like the really dumb one in the lord of the rings. Flags on pennants, but no lances. WTF?

Knocking out helmeted templar with a rock and then a piece of pottery. I'm tired of villains wearing helmets that dont protect them.

Too many cliche fight moves (way too easy to duck that sword swing, from a veteran fighter no less)

Armor mostly not working (one nice scene where it partially worked which was cool)

Actors taking off their helmets in combat

and MOST of all, the thousands of super Trebuchets which hurled bathtubs full of napalm several miles. My guess is if they had ten of those things with that much flaming ammunition they would have burned Jerusalem down to a fine layer of ash on the ground in a few hours.

I am not an expert on trebuchets but i don think they had that many (usually a couple major siege engines like that are prominently mentioned in any siege) and I dont think they could hurl bathtubs full of napalm, rather small stone cannonballs were more likely, over and over again at the same section of wall. Less dramatic I'm sure, but...

All in all, the failure to portray lances, and the effects of the crusaders heavy armor, had a bad effect on the movie.

Made the battle of hattin at the end not make any sense.

The dynamic of the military balance was that the crusaders had the heavy armored cavalry which always won if they could come to grips with their enemy. The saracens had the numbers and the archers, and the mobility. It's like Mike Tyson vs the old Mohammed Ali / Cassiuss Clay.

This is why the crusaders were always chasing the arabs all over the desert trying to come to grips, and knowing that they could win if they did so. It's why they sometimes could get reckless.

This was what was used so cleverly by Saladin at Hattin, and it it is also why Saladin had to pick his fights, probably why he didn't fight at Reynald de Chatillons castle earlier in the movie.

I think realistically portraying this dynamic would have been very cool and it would have helped the plot make more sense.

Similar to his Roman movie where the opening battle LOOKED fantastic right up until the fighting started, but the fighting was totally unrealistic (bathtubs full of napalm but no pilums thrown, Legionaires charging as a whole army instead of in individual cohorts...)

Jeanry

[Justin Blackford]

I would give the movie 3 stars out of 5(I use a 5 star system).
Considering the amount of overall crap concerning Medieval history as it is often portrayed in motion pictures, I think it shows signs of hope for the future, although it was still more of a "What if" storyline.
At least they showed a really good shot of the siege with the towers and catapults as the camera panned over the walls of Jerusalem, with the whistling sounds of arrows and the thunderous "boom" of catapult and trebuchet projectiles making impact with the earth.
One other thing which I felt showed a sign of realism is the fact that not everybody was as clean as they are usually portrayed. No war in history could ever be rated PG-13. The guys in the battle were downright dirty, covered in blood, gore, and dust, and so were their weapons.
Overall, I was suprised that they did decide to rate it R considering that the Lord of the Rings showed violence that they got away with for a PG-13 rating. This one didn't even compare. I didn't hear any swearing, either.
I think that it was at least worth the $7.50 to investigate it. I don't know what everybody else paid to see it.
The swordsmanship was still inaccurate because there was some edge-on-edge, but also because they were using hand-and-a-half swords in an era before they were developed. I think Liam Neeson was the only actor who even somewhat looked like he knew what he was doing. But, I don't see how Orlando Bloom's character went from a newbie to an expert after one day of training and then being shipwrecked in the Middle East. Even the battle of the Horns of Hattin was totally cut out, which I thought was a total drag, since it took so long to get to the action to begin with. But, Ridley Scott is known for just cutting things out of his movies for some pretty strange reasons. I can give you an example of that.
For those of you who saw his movie "Gladiator", the scene where Maximus was in the desert arena and he went out alone and chopped up five people in less than a minute and then shouted "Are you not entertained?!" I could never figure out why he was so pissed and why he said that. It turns out that there was a thirty second part of that scene where he was sharpening his swords and Proximo said, "The crowd doesn't want a butcher, they want an entertainer, so ENTERTAIN THEM!" That little scene totally explained why Maximus went nuts and wiped all those guys out really quickly, but for some unknown reason, Ridley Scott decided to take that part of the scene out.
So, because of that, I would not be suprised if he took out several elements of scenes in the Kingdom of Heaven for the time consideration or whatever else. Who knows, there could have been lots of good stuff. Guess we'll have to wait for the DVD to come out.
The one other inaccuracy, which I don't know if anybody noticed, was on the Knights Templar. They portrayed everybody with long hair and beards, but this is incorrect. Most Feudal Age knights were known for letting their hair grow long and shaving their faces, but Templars were required to cut their hair short and let their beards grow. Not to mention the vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience to the church. Man, I couldn't do that stuff. Those guys were really disciplined. Although, I would wager that at least a few of them were not totally chaste or poor or obedient. But, at least the movie showed them in their correct white surcoat with the red Maltese cross.
That's my two cents.

Justin

[Aaron Pynenberg]

I was kind of disappointed I thought it was a big yawn fest- I expected more out of Mr. Scott maybe my expectations were to big. I also agree with Matt all of a sudden the blacksmith is the toughest guy in the world---yawn--

[SzabolcsWaldmann]

We have to look at Posta di Falcone with more respect in the future. It does not only win you all fights, but teaches you how to swim, how to defend Jerusalem, how to lead a heavy armour battalion, how to properly use a trebuchet, how to get water in an area your father owned for some 30 years, and not to forget, speak 3 languages <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />

all in one, one of the best medieval films in the market. But above that? Not much. Too much hollywooodish, unbelievable, unthinkable, unremarkable s**t.

Okay, Mr. Scott used 'one' posta, but that is not enough to to fall on my knees. I suggest listening to Leftfield's song 'Open Up'. <img src="/forum/images/icons/cool.gif" alt="" />



Szabolcs

[Patrick Hardin]

One of the few things I liked the look of was the short scene when the Muslims breach a section of the walls at Jerusalem and attempt to take the city. There is a brief overhead shot where you see the Muslims and the people of Jerusalem pressed together like sardines. This short 8-10 second shot is probably the most accurate depiction of Medieval combat I have seen in a movie. Usually, you see armies rush at one another and then it's like everybody pulls back and gives each other plenty of space to swing their big weapons around and do all sorts of fancy manouvers. Braveheart is a good example of this. But for a few seconds in this movie you saw everybody pushing at one another, making a very tight press of men, where they couldn't do anything but hold their weapons above their heads and strike at what was in front of them. I thought that looked pretty realistic, brief though it was.

Patrick Hardin

[Matthew_Anderson]

That's a really good point Patrick, I liked that scene too.

[Jay Vail]

I haven't seen the movie, but years ago during antiwar protests against the VN war, I witnessed what can only be described as a battled between the police and the protesters, where everybody was shoulder to shoulder and whacking away at each other with no room to maneuver. I watched this from the roof of a car nearby and it struck me at the time how close this must have been to how the ancients fought.

[Jake_Norwood]

On the contrary...sort of.

I think this is how ancient battles often were, but it's not what commanders and experienced soldiers wanted. I think that the "art" of war is largely avoiding that mess by training to maneuver, etc. It's part of what made napolean so good later on.

I think that ancient battles did often look this way...and ancient generals hated it.

Jake

[JeffGentry]

Hey Jake

"shoot, move, comunicate" It's the only way to fight .

Jeff

[Jake_Norwood]

That's a fact.

In fact, although I'm not generally one who cares too much about full-blown battlefield stuff in "our" time period (RMA), deep down inside there has to have been a good method for communication and movement...at least better than "hey, look Guy's men are going that way! Maybe we should keep on fighting here so that they can flank." I'm sure that pre-battle plans had a lot to do with it (as they still do now), but there also must have been some kind of signalling system. We should always avoid that victorian trap of thinking that we came up with the obvious in our time now.

Jake