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Joe Fults




Location: Midwest
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PostPosted: Fri 28 May, 2010 7:34 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

David Wilson wrote:
3. Those Lord of the Flies kids. Why did they even exist? What was their point? This was never really addressed. Oh yes, I understand, a bunch of kids from town ran off, and... zzzzz..... what I'm saying is that they added nothing to the story and were more a distraction than anything else.


I think they were added for the merchandising. After all that one kid kept wearing his goofy mask while standing dramatically in the open at twilight for some reason. Repeatedly. And we've all seen how well the mask from Scream sells at Halloween!

"The goal shouldn’t be to avoid being evil; it should be to actively do good." - Danah Boyd
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Edward Hitchens




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PostPosted: Sat 29 May, 2010 3:12 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I haven't seen this film yet, but I still want to, though I've heard it got deplorable reviews - not just from you guys. Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett are two of my favorite modern actors and with Sir Ridley Scott at the helm, how bad can it be? Apparently, a lot of people were asking that...

If the plot and/or dialog was really bad, I wonder if that can be attributed to the screenwriters' strike that occurred about two years ago? If that was already brought up in this topic, I apologize. But while that was going on, I remember thinking "man, the movies that will come out in a couple years are probably going to be really bad!" I figure now is about that time.

"The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest." Thomas Jefferson
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Marko Susimetsa




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PostPosted: Sat 29 May, 2010 9:24 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Edward Hitchens wrote:
If the plot and/or dialog was really bad, I wonder if that can be attributed to the screenwriters' strike that occurred about two years ago?

I think the main reason for the shabby plot was that no one really knew what they were doing. The original script was written from the point of view of the Sheriff of Nottingham and Robin Hood was supposed to be this annoying "arse" who vied for the same woman as the Sheriff. Crowe signed up for that script and the writers got a million dollars for the rights.

Then Scott got interested, wanted to make a sequel to the Gladiator, had the script re-written a zillion times by "incoumpetant basterds" and then one last writer tried to improve the script on the run while they were shooting (because the result of all those earlier writes had left the script in shambles). Unfortunately, it was still in shambles when the movie got out.

Source: http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/05/..._crow.html
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Adam D. Kent-Isaac




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PostPosted: Sat 29 May, 2010 10:14 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

It's utterly amazing to me that huge movie production companies with zillion-dollar budgets and access to every trick on the planet still operate in such an incompetent way. It's proof that all the money in the world can't buy you a good movie.
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Jean Thibodeau




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PostPosted: Sun 30 May, 2010 12:28 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Adam D. Kent-Isaac wrote:
It's utterly amazing to me that huge movie production companies with zillion-dollar budgets and access to every trick on the planet still operate in such an incompetent way. It's proof that all the money in the world can't buy you a good movie.


Competence seems to be a rarity in so many human endeavours it's surprising we didn't die out the first time a civilization invented bureaucracy.

The Roman Empire didn't die out because of barbarian invasions it was taxed and regulated to death and started declining when the citizen soldier became a professional soldier, first a true Roman professional and them mostly foreign mercenaries.

The Barbarians came in as immigrant military auxiliaries and wanted the Roman good life.

Well, a bit cynical on my part but I'm in that mood right now. Wink Razz

Back to the movie I found it mildly entertaining at the time of viewing but have to agree that it seemed directionless and a bit muddled and almost a prequel to what the next movie might be if the script is good next time.

The armour of the background characters seemed maybe 100 years too old ( well poor soldiers might still be using old stuff at least ) but the important characters where using Sallets totally 250 too early plus some odd ideas like ring maille for William Marshal who should have been rich enough not to wear dark ages armour assuming that ring maille ever existed which is very debatable.

The Higgins boats where ridiculous and I would be tempted to rename the film " Saving Private Robin " just on those boats and the underwater shot of drowning soldiers stolen from " Saving Private Ryan " almost as a tribute to that film.

So, in spite of the above when I disengaged my brain I enjoyed the film until I started actually thinking again: With a better story even with the above flaws it might have been memorable instead of forgettable.

At least the Prince of Persia is based on a computer game and totally not related to anything real so the story will determine how I judge it when I see it.

You can easily give up your freedom. You have to fight hard to get it back!
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Joe Fults




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PostPosted: Sun 30 May, 2010 1:32 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I actually watched Prince of Persia yesterday and enjoyed it. Fast paced and the story was simple but it held together and the lead characters actually seemed to be enjoying themselves and each other. The film was clear about what it was and refrained from trying to be more than it could be. Pure action adventure...simple. No mistaking it for an epic film or story but it wasn't trying to be epic.
"The goal shouldn’t be to avoid being evil; it should be to actively do good." - Danah Boyd
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Walter S




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PostPosted: Sun 30 May, 2010 5:09 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I watched Prince of Persia and found it quite enjoyable - my only gripe is that I found combat to be shot in confusing way, with many close-ups and weird angles that made it hard to tell what is going on.
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Christopher H





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PostPosted: Sun 30 May, 2010 5:22 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Walter S wrote:
I watched Prince of Persia and found it quite enjoyable - my only gripe is that I found combat to be shot in confusing way, with many close-ups and weird angles that made it hard to tell what is going on.
Probably easier to do this than actually teach the actors how to do believable action shots Wink
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Dan Howard




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PostPosted: Sun 30 May, 2010 3:02 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Walter S wrote:
I watched Prince of Persia and found it quite enjoyable - my only gripe is that I found combat to be shot in confusing way, with many close-ups and weird angles that made it hard to tell what is going on.


It is a cheap cop-out for fight choreographers who don't know how to do their job.
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Jean Thibodeau




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PostPosted: Sun 30 May, 2010 11:59 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Dan Howard wrote:
Walter S wrote:
I watched Prince of Persia and found it quite enjoyable - my only gripe is that I found combat to be shot in confusing way, with many close-ups and weird angles that made it hard to tell what is going on.


It is a cheap cop-out for fight choreographers who don't know how to do their job.


Also unsatisfying to those who have an idea about how a real fight would go and not very useful in impressing the viewer with an understandable and surprising looking technique.

Doesn't even have to be real fighting but only well thought out stage fighting.

I remember the first Steven Segal film I saw: The moves where done fairly slowly so that the audience could follow the action but looked effective and awesomely impressive at the time even if an expert in that style might find things to criticizes.

Fast chaotic cutting could be O.K. if alternating with understandable moves so that one would assume that the chaotic ones where the same king of stuff done super fast: Film fight choreography should be an art not a way to hide incompetent fighting, incompetent acting or muddled " artsy " script writing. Wink Razz

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Craig Peters




PostPosted: Mon 31 May, 2010 7:23 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I enjoyed the new Robin Hood. Yeah, there was a lot of stuff they got wrong, but I really enjoyed what they got right, or in some cases, attempted to get right.

There's a scene where Robin is drinking from a glass that's clearly patterned off of a 13th century example. I loved seeing the rushes on the floor of Lord Loxley's castle, and the hounds by the fireside. It was also cool to see Robin leaning over to remove his mail when Marion is unarming him, as we see depicted with David in the Maciejowski Bible: http://www.medievaltymes.com/courtyard/images...amp;d.gif. It was also great to see a peasant plowing in the fields, even if there should have been a whole team of peasants with him, since such an activity was ubiquitous in medieval Europe.

My biggest complaint plot-wise was the whole Magna Carta thing. Honestly, the idea that Sir Walter Loxley and any of the other barons would support a document that would give more priviledges and rights to common men is nonsense. Moreover, the filmmakers clearly bought into the whole myth of Magna Carta, a myth where men believe that the document says what they want it to say, wherein it is a great protector of liberty and justice for all of the realm. Obviously, this was not the case when it was drawn up.

Another moment that stretched credibility for me was when John stripped William Marshall of his offices. If that had happened historically, you could be that Marshall would have gone into revolt, with a good portion of the earls and barons along with him, rather than meekly acquiesing to John as he does in the movie. "Meek" is not a word I would use to describe Marshall.

In terms of arms and armour, since that's what this forum is about, they obviously should have gone with mail armour, including chausses and gloves for knights; Norman spangenhelms or early flat topped helms; kite shields (with mostly flattened tops); Type X, Xa, XI, and XII swords with either disk pommels or tea cosy/brazil nuts; bows; crossbows; spears/lances; clubs; staves and perhaps an axe here and there.

Get rid of the great helms, sallets, kettle helms, the "ring mail", the scale armour- in fact, anything other than mail armour, Robin's warhammer, and the silly maul that Little John carries. Also, I'd probably remove the daggers from the movie, keeping things like knives and seaxes, since there's a lot of uncertainty about the carrying of daggers, as we'd recognize them, in this era.

As far as warfare goes, have the swordsmen deal vertical and diagonal descending strikes, rather than the unterhauen and weird middle cuts- I guess you could call them mittelhauen- that are commonly seen in the movie. I agree that we should see way more usage of lances by the cavalry, and the cavalry charge, particularly in the final scene of the movie, should have been tighter. I also agree that the mail needs to have more protective value- we should see guys riding around with several arrows stuck in them. Also, where were the infantrymen in the final battle? The French seemed to have a few- although it wasn't clear if they were simply knights who had not mounted yet, but the English force seemed to be comprised entirely of mounted knights and mounted archers.

For the sieges I'd remove the exploding bladders, and the sequence where Godfrey's knights kick open the gates to the town with their destriers, and replace both with more conventional, and accurate, siege engines.
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Thom R.




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PostPosted: Mon 31 May, 2010 4:35 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I finally went to a $5 matinee this morning with the kids. I thought the movie failed on many levels. But..... afterwards when we were driving home and we were discussing the movie I realized that there was no way that this movie, as scripted, was ever going to succeed. I have a hard enough time trying to explain the Angevin Empire, Baron Wars and the events leading up to Magna Carta to my kids - and I know English history fairly well - for it to work as a background story for this type of movie.

Historical accuracy aside - as already pointed out there are good things and bad things in that regard - the plot is a muddle and when Marion shows up in armor with the lost boys the movie jumps the shark. The final climactic battle scene is horrible film. just terrible. the parallels to other movies have already been mentioned and even my daugter said, is this private ryan of the middle ages? what a shame. I actually thought the casting was good, the initial story of the archers in Richards employ in France, Richard being killed by the crossbow, the archers happening upon an ambuscade, Loxely getting Robin to swear him an oath to take the sword back to his father was all good. Max Von Sydow as the elder Loxely was good. but from the time they arrive in England the story goes awry for me.

and although I really llike Crowe, I thought his acting was rather uninspiring and flat in this movie. when given good material he and Cate both can be great actors. Sorry Ridley this one is a failure.

as always just my 2 pence tr
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Jimmie Johansson





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PostPosted: Tue 01 Jun, 2010 12:44 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I saw the movie last week and all I can say is "meh...".

I thought of the movie as some sort of medieval gladiatior without any deeper meaning or thoughts. I never understood the thing with the children in the woods, in the end arising out of the woods on ponnies with the "strong testosterone filled female actor" as their leader.

Interesting that the sheriff of Nothingham didn't get so much attention in this movie.
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David Lohnes




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PostPosted: Sat 02 Oct, 2010 12:45 pm    Post subject: Saving Privat Robin         Reply with quote

Eric Allen wrote:
I enjoyed, even thoroughly, the first 1/2 to 2/3 of the film. Having Robin not be "of Loxley", but just a yeoman who through various circumstances ends up sort of taking the real Loxley's place was a unique twist, I thought. I was expecting them to continue with that plot hook. But then we got to the sacking of Nottingham, and the film just sort of... falls apart.


I completely agree.

I enjoyed the unique twist, and I thought Blanchett was compelling as Marian. The Robin/Marion plot had potential for some real development. Instead, we got this unecessary backstory and political plot with a D-Day landing thrown in.

I wish Robin's roots would have stayed lost, that the Magna Carta hadn't been mentioned, that the French (and their ridiculous landing) had stayed out of it, and that Nottingham had been the villain instead of John. Give Robin/Robert a small local tyrant to take care of while he wins the heart of Marian. Movie over, everybody happy.

Movie had huge potential, but as a coherent piece of entertainment, Costern/Mastrantonia wins.
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Martin Whalen





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PostPosted: Sat 02 Oct, 2010 1:22 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Uggg, watched this like a week ago, horrible film.

Even my friend, who is easy to please, thought it was horrible! Eek!

I can't put my finger on why it failed so badly, it just sucked, to be blunt.

They did a bad job making the plot clear, barons, what? The kids, as was said earlier, made no sense and just sucked up time. (who lets forest kids charge into a battle anyway, and when were they trained? I don't even remember!)

Utterly forgettable. Buy Gladiator and call it a night.

Luceo Non Uro.
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