Here is a link to the review in The Washington Post by Stephen Hunter, a very capable writer of suspense thrillers in his own right:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/...01836.html
I was particularly taken with his final paragraph:

Quote:

Anyway, the movie really devolves into an infantile hour and 40 minutes of head- and limb-lopping against a fairy tale backdrop (much CGI amplification) of a story that makes "Conan the Barbarian" seem like Dostoevski in its complexity.

I actually enjoyed Conan and I liked "The Thirteenth Warrior." On th eother hand, "Braveheart" and "The Patriot" absolutely stunk for their misleading characterizations. I particularly disliked the portrayal of the British burning a church full of colonials. That was a war crime committed by the SS during WWII and not by the British during the American Revolution. One British commander did burn empty churches and was duly chastised for it by Cornwallis, as much for his stupidity as for his brutality as it made enemies out of possible allies.

You guys think these are bad Viking movies, wait till you see The Viking Sagas with Ralph Moeller. This movie is so bad " how bad is it " you ask, it's so bad it would have to improve 100% just to get up to bad. We are talking bad plot, bad acting, no Viking Longship and sword fights that my Grandmother could still do a better job and shes been dead thirty years now. About the only thing that will keep you from putting this DVD in the garbage after watching it is the two scenes with a cute Viking girl topless. After watching this movie you'll think The 13th Warrior should be nominated for an Academy Award.

I think why people like the 13th warrior is primarily due to the first 15 minutes of it, which were very compelling. Thats not coincidentally because that is the only part from Michael Crichtons "Eaters of the Dead" novel which were actually based in a real historical account, that of Ibn Fadlan. I also liked the casting and much of the acting, but the movie for me at any rate rather rapidly plunged into Xena episode territory as it went on, especially with the inevitable cavemen.

Ok I know neolithic inuit probably finished off the Greenland colony but that was a small starving group of colonists real far from the Norse homeland. I really don't see how some cavemen could have terrorised Norse settlements like that, let alone a whole region. I don't think for example that inuit could have overrun Iceland. Especially since these Norse are portrayed as being so tough. The movie would have been a lot more interesting if he had gone strait to a grendel legend, (like that new Canadian film) or just portrayed rival Vikings terrorising the community as often in fact happened. That would have been much more compelling and probably a lot scarieir than cartoon cavemen.

To me it's yet another example of the opportunity to draw on our rich historical and mythological legacy to make a story better, which was tossed in favor of a real, real silly hollywood writers plot idea.

Sadly those films where they do follow the much more interesting and engaging old plots (like the Canadian Beowulf and Grendel or that German film they did based on the Ring saga) don't seem to get enough funding or marketing support and never have a chance to really show their potential.

One of my favorite movies (though by no means perfect) was the Vikings from the 1950's with Tony Curtiss and Kirk Douglas. Now thats a Viking film!


Jean

I actually found this one entertaining though not too historical. Sort of a funny entertaining, but entertaining all the same. You didn't enjoy The Walk?

Nick B. wrote:

You guys think these are bad Viking movies, wait till you see The Viking Sagas with Ralph Moeller. This movie is so bad " how bad is it " you ask, it's so bad it would have to improve 100% just to get up to bad. We are talking bad plot, bad acting, no Viking Longship and sword fights that my Grandmother could still do a better job and shes been dead thirty years now. About the only thing that will keep you from putting this DVD in the garbage after watching it is the two scenes with a cute Viking girl topless. After watching this movie you'll think The 13th Warrior should be nominated for an Academy Award.

We are living in a post-literate society. By that, I mean that a very large portion of our population do not gain information by reading, they gain it by the images that they see on television and in films. To my way of thinking, this puts a responsibility upon the people who make products for television and films to at least attempt to make their products moderately accurate. I am less concerned when the film or tv show is an animated effort that is clearly animated, as in "THe Prince of Egypt" but films and tv shows that look to be real or that use live action in them should stick to reality as much as possible within the storyline. At least when they are portraying something out of history, they should. Peter Jackson may do whatever he wishes with Tolkien's fantasies and nobody is fooled by what they see but many people believed what theidiocy that Mel Gibson put forth as history in "Braveheart" and "The Patriot" and I will bet dollars to donuts that there will be people out there who will be saying that Xerxes was this metat-pierced exhibitionist sexual pervert as portrayed in "300" while the Spartans are these paragons of heterosexual bravery and patriotism. I shudder to think of what people will come to believe of the Norse settlers who attempted to colonize North America at the turn of the First Millennium after watching 'Pathfinder" and its distortions.

Come now Martin you cannot be racist against Caucasian cultures ;)

An intelligent history major over at BladeForums recently asked if the portrayal of the British burning churches filled with colonials in the Mel Gibson film, "The Patriot," was accurate. His area of history was not American history. Now, if he could actually ask this question, how can we expect others with less historical knowledge to even try?

Hello
I just rented pathfinder on DVD. If they`d just called the Vikings,"Orcs",and said it was a fantasy peace,it would have been a semi-descent movie. The vikings, had to be big, I guess.From rowing ,all that tonnage, of horse flesh ,across the Atlantic :D I guess horses, didnt come with Cortez ,afterall. :)

Rented the movie yesterday - gave up on historical accurracy 5 minutes in - seemed like a " 300 " clone. I'm too old for graphic novels I guess.

Re the depiction of the Norse - I prefer the F G Bengsston novel " The Longships" it strikes me as probably pretty close to real.

As to the general premise - American Indians killed the Vikings - not Norse foundlings. By the way we also killed scads of Frenchmen - Spaniards-Dutchmen and Englishmen using our stone tipped arrows and war clubs. Swords and armor didn't conquer us - smallpox and measles did.

Re the usage of Indian vs Native American - I'm an Indian because my mother was a Cherokee woman - I'm a native American because I was born here.

Sorry,

But I thought this was a stupid movie. The end is so dumb the audience moaned aloud in the theater. I cringed and shut my eyes it was so bad. If you have an IQ above 99, don't waste your money

Not even close to the 13th Warrior.

Regards,

Charlee

Mikko

Pathfinder was a Dark Horse graphic novel; DH also put out Sin City and 300.

I loved Sin City and 300 as great movie adaptations of graphic novels I loved as a teen; I went into 300 expecting no history and it did not bother me one bit. What bugs me is when Hollywood takes a historical tale and does nothing historical with it; Troy and the Beowulf 3D comes to mind. Then again some movies are so strong I can get past the historical non sense like Gladiator and Braveheart.

Mikko,

That was a statement of personal preference for straight prose over graphic arts story telling, not a value judgement of graphic novels. It's a generational thing. There were no computers, no video games and no graphic novels when my tastes were being set. Therefore, I have a preference for the straight forward story told in good prose over a visual depiction because that's how I best enjoy a story.

I've had this same conversation with all of my four sons - mid twenties to mid thirties in age - they are all talented artists and enjoy the graphic arts more than prose and were enchanted with "300", "Sin City" etc. because it brought their art to life. I think it's wonderful that people your age have an art form that pleases them, but it is still not nearly as entertaining to me as a good novel, or a historically accurate movie.

Curt

I saw the previews and that was enough for me. To be honest, it reminded me of “Roots”. Does anyone else remember this farce of a movie? The Africans were depicted as living these peaceful, idyllic lives in beautiful (and spotless) tribal clothing until the savage Americans came to steal them away. Never mind that the African tribes were selling each other into slavery long before the Europeans came on the scene. We caught a glimpse of their peaceful lives a few years back when the Hutus were slaughtering their Tutsi rivals by the hundreds of thousands with machetes – a conflict that predates American culture by a good 500 or so years.

As others have said, I think it’s in vogue to think of the Native Americans in this same peace-loving fashion. From what I read, it was the Native Americans who killed off the Norse settlers (as well as internal conflict). The stories about the early fur traders in the American west paint a very different picture of the Native American than what is considered politically correct these days – replete with savage betrayals, brutal tortures, and sadistic practices. One of my ancestors was ambushed and killed by Native Americans while trying to move from Tennessee to Texas. I read a scanned image of a letter from his wife expressing her sadness and outrage over the incident.

This isn’t to say that the Native Americans were any worse than any other culture during that time period. But to portray them as tree hugging pacifists is grossly inaccurate.

I had not seen any of the trailers on Pathfinder, so on Tuesday 7/31 when I bought the double DVD disc set of The 300, I also bought Pathfinder.
Pathfinder ridiculous? Absolutely! Horned viking helmets, ridiculous fantasy swords the whole nine yards. But then again it is also a fantasy type of movie so to speak but I certainly am not real thrilled with it. The 300, I like that one.

Bob