I heard the exact opposite. I heard that Scott was mad that Fox wanted/ and did the film cut down. It was a stupid move on their part too because once I saw the Director's Cut I was screaming at my tv "Fox you a**holes how could you cut out so much story from this film!"
The Director's Cut is brilliant. A masterpeice. As one would expect from the man who made Gladiator. I actually think Bloom did a good job.
I've heard both stories, I'm inclined to believe either one... Or a mix of both that the screenings went bad, Fox pressured Scott to make changes and he did. In any case KoH DC is indeed awesome
No it doesn't. Art -- any kind of art -- can be an escape. That doesn't cheapen the art at all. Some of us read books, look at paintings, etc. to escape for a bit, and we can appreciate art at the same time. We appreciate and take seriously to different degrees depending on the person.
I love movies, and at the same time while I love to contemplate, debate, and analyze movies, I still see them as a way to escape from a bad work day or a rough week, w/e.
Typical Cruise movie really (he learns a life lesson without losing anything), with top performances, great characters, visuals, action, and music. Cruise spend a year training and it really shows in the fight scenes.
Troy (2004)
Possibly the most entertaining of them all. Great performances all round, real sense of scale and drama, visually wonderful, and Brad Pitt's Achilles is awesome. He recieved some criticism but he's exactly how the character is supposed to be IMO. First time I watched this I fell asleep, now I could watch it twice in a row.
King Arthur (2004)
Actually a really good flick. Owen lacks charisma as the man himself, and there is no real magic or fantasy, but still really enjoyable and exciting with great cinemaography and battle scenes. Plus it feels authetic and English.
And of course, how could we talk about epics and not mention DragonHeart?! (Sure it was 1996 but it's DragonHeart).
Possibly the most entertaining of them all. Great performances all round, real sense of scale and drama, visually wonderful, and Brad Pitt's Achilles is awesome. He recieved some criticism but he's exactly how the character is supposed to be IMO. First time I watched this I fell asleep, now I could watch it twice in a row.
Okay, I'll give you a bad review of 300...it's a video game. It really is.
Kingdom of Heaven I've tried desperately to like but just bores me. However, that's the theatrical release, I intend to see the hopefully redeeming DC cut. A Ridley Scott movie about knights starring Liam Neeson and David Thewlis and Jeremy Irons couldn't not be great. It's not possible.
I think with the critical failings of the epic swords and sandals films have made studios backed off, minus 300 which has had mostly positive results. To be honest I think Hollywood is too interested in adapting books/graphic novels/comic books and remaking countless other films.
Its a shame because Troy and Alexander had its moments, I think a major problem was watching A listers tackle ancient characters, a reason I believe 300 was a success because the cast aren't major stars. I also think the shadow cast by Gladiator looms over all of them, its such a brilliant film it would be very hard to top. I wasn't impressed with Kingdom of Heaven but I hear great things about the DC and I'm planning on getting it. Personally, I'd like to see someone tackle the Egyptians, there are countless fascinating stories to be brought to life. Although judging by track record Hollywood would probably ham it up.
I think with the critical failings of the epic swords and sandals films have made studios backed off, minus 300 which has had mostly positive results. To be honest I think Hollywood is too interested in adapting books/graphic novels/comic books and remaking countless other films.
Its a shame because Troy and Alexander had its moments, I think a major problem was watching A listers tackle ancient characters, a reason I believe 300 was a success because the cast aren't major stars. I also think the shadow cast by Gladiator looms over all of them, its such a brilliant film it would be very hard to top. I wasn't impressed with Kingdom of Heaven but I hear great things about the DC and I'm planning on getting it. Personally, I'd like to see someone tackle the Egyptians, there are countless fascinating stories to be brought to life. Although judging by track record Hollywood would probably ham it up.
I myself think the problem is that audiences didn't want historical epics in the first place. They wanted (and still want) fantasy epics. Despite the success of Gladiator, what people wanted was more films like Lord of the Rings. Epic, absolutely, but fantasy as well.
It's like in the mid-90's when Hollywood mistakenly guessed that disaster movies were back in vogue.
I myself think the problem is that audiences didn't want historical epics in the first place. They wanted (and still want) fantasy epics. Despite the success of Gladiator, what people wanted was more films like Lord of the Rings. Epic, absolutely, but fantasy as well.
It's like in the mid-90's when Hollywood mistakenly guessed that disaster movies were back in vogue.
The success of X-Men and Spiderman opened the floodgates for super hero films and unfortunately historical epics never took off. Another problem with them is that people 'always' complain about their historical inaccuracies forgetting that studios only care about the money shot and bums on seats. I like a good fantasy just as much as the rest but reading stories of ancient times are almost like fantasy.
Personally I was well excited for Baz Luhrman's version of Alexander with Leonardo DiCaprio and Nicole Kidman. I heard it was scrapped, not exactly sure why.
Okay, I'll give you a bad review of 300...it's a video game. It really is.
Kingdom of Heaven I've tried desperately to like but just bores me. However, that's the theatrical release, I intend to see the hopefully redeeming DC cut. A Ridley Scott movie about knights starring Liam Neeson and David Thewlis and Jeremy Irons couldn't not be great. It's not possible.
Well I'll have to wait till 300 comes out on dvd to se how I feel about it. The trailer looked awesome and I wanted to see it in theaters but never got the chance.
As for KOH, the theatrical release is crap because so much of the story has been cut from it and the film doesnt make nearly as much sense. The Director's Cut redeems it though. It's long but definitly a masterpeice.
The director's cut of Kingdom of Heaven is brilliant. Not as good as Scott's previous epic, the masterpiece known as Gladiator, but still a great and underrated movie thanks to studio interference by Fox (surprise, surprise!) by thrusting Bloom on Scott and even after making that work cutting his 3:10 opus down to 2:15 for theatrical run.
The rest are either okay (Troy) or suck (everything else).
The director's cut of that piece of **** was an even bigger piece of ****. It made an already tedious film even more tedious.
Gladiator is quite good, but not nearly as far above Alexander, Arthur and Troy (the first two being very underrated, and both way, way, way better than KOH, not that it takes much since that was nothing but an inferior rehash of every other, better ancient battle epic since Braveheart, which blows all these films out of the water).
The director's cut of that piece of **** was an even bigger piece of ****.
Gladiator is quite good, but not nearly as far above Alexander, Arthur and Troy (the first two being very underrated, and both way, way, way better than KOH, not that it takes much since that was nothing but an inferior rehash of every other, better ancient battle epic since Braveheart, which blows all these films out of the water).
I just want to point out the only person here saying the KOH DC is **** thinks Alexander, King Arthur and 300 are good movies. No offense, Stormy. I respect your opinion, but I want to make it clear we value different things. I would consider two of those movies (KA and 300) mindless action movies with no soul, depth or character. Bot hare very pretty to look at and have pretty men and women running around (who didn't appreciate Knightley in leather bondage?). But are empty movies.
I know we disagree and I respect your opinion. I"m sure you will call KOH stil la p.o.s. if we continue this just as I think Alexander and KA are. I also will rephrase and say that 300 has the faintest of souls, but that is the soul of a neo-nazi and special effects. I don't think we need to do this song and dance again as we did it in 2005 when KOH was released and again in 2006 when the DC DVD FINALLY came out.
With that said the story of the KOH fight as seen on the in-depth DC DVD. Apparently William Monahan (the same screenwriter of The Departed) wrote an amazing screenplay, probably better than what the actual film was, because everyone just said yes and loved it.
But in getting Fox to sign on it Scott had to meet some conditions. Fox wanted a 2:30 movie. They also didn't like the idea that
Sybilla, the main love interest, would poison her own son and kill him to prevent him suffering from lyproacy
.
Scott and his team fought it and then wrote two new drafts of the screenplay that dealt with all the major scenes involving Sybilla's son into a major portion of the movie and one without.
They shot hte movie with the son and thought it worked amazingly well (and I agree). But then that cut of the movie was around 3 hours or 2:50. Fox was aggrevated and asked Scott to cut it and held the contract of a movie under 2 and a half hours overh is head.
He relented and was very displeased to do so. In the process Sybilla's character got butchered to where she doesn't really have anything to do and her descent into madness makes no sense. Eva Green was furious and outsideo f the premiere refused to promote this movie. Something tells me she and Tom Rothman are not on good terms.
Other things were also subtracted to get the movie down to 2:15 including Balian killing his brother at the beginning of the movie because "that was too dark," and key exposition scenes like how Balian knew how to engineer for warfare were cut out to make the rush to the action get quicker.
Scott did this knowing he would get a fina lcut DVD and then spent an extra 5-6 months recutting the movie into his final vision which is now the 3:10 director's cut.
I and many (though not all) who have seen it feel it is superior. It returns pace which was not in the TC and a depth to all the characters including Balian, Goddfrey (Bailian's father), even minor hcaracters like the priest at the beginning or the villain in Guy having sympathetic moments was back. Sybilla benefitted the most becoming the best female character in an ancient epic....probably in the last 40 years.
Also it was uncensored. As the events in Iraq that included the beheading of soldiers and American citizens was happening near the release of KOH several scenes involving decapitation executions, including the historical and personal execution of Renyald de Chatian at the hands of Saladin were removed for the theatrical cut were also restored.
I and many (though not all) who have seen it feel it is superior. It returns pace which was not in the TC and a depth to all the characters including Balian, Goddfrey (Bailian's father), even minor hcaracters like the priest at the beginning or the villain in Guy having sympathetic moments was back. Sybilla benefitted the most becoming the best female character in an ancient epic....probably in the last 40 years.
I remeber Eva Green refusing to promote the film and after seeing how her character was butchered with the theatrical cut I understood why. As you said with the theatrical cut her decesnt into madness made no sense but once you see what happened with her son, with her and Balian, with her and her brother and with her and Guy it make sense.
Why do people look down on 300 because of its thin plot? Why do films have to have a traditional narrative structure? You don't go to an art gallery to read a book. Is music worthless when it doesn't have lyrics?
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