Chen G.

Like fine wine!

Yeah, Gladiator on the page has its fair share of clumsiness, too. But I feel like the raw power of the story and the strength of the performances (excellent across the board) push it to a point where those things just...don't matter anymore. There was an interview with Russel Crowe recently that I found strangely moving: "We made Gladiator over 20 years ago, and I guarentee you somewhere right now, its playing on primetime television. It has the longest legs."

Balian is from France, yes. And an inordinate and far too long part of the film takes place still in France and in Italy, before Balian gets to the Holy Land. Another one of the my issues with the film. But yes, the film takes place in the Crusader kingdom, with Morrocco standing-in for it. So Hattin is a desert plain, when in actuality THIS is Hattin:

I've heard of people sitting down to watch Braveheart - which a 172 minute affair sans credits - thinking they had only been sitting down for twenty minutes. Can't say its like that for me, but I get it...

Oh yeah! That's part of what I don't like about it. Not so much the historical inaccuracy in and of itself - although as someone who lives within 90 minutes' drive of both Hattin, Jerusalem and Ibelin, its pretty funny to see them look NOTHING like themselves - but just the lack of potential conflict. I find the King's "safeguard in particular the Jews and the Muslims. All are welcome in Jerusalem, not only because it is expedient but because it is right" hard to swallow, and likewise that the Muslim populace of Jerusalem, hearing Balian's rallying speech on the battlements, would find it at all compelling is baffling to me. They're just missed opportunities to have more conflict: the film just needed a bastard like Proximo, or at least a real-politik figure like Robert the Bruce Senior, to generate more conflict. As it is, the only conflict is with Guy and then later on with Saladin. They should have been more tension WITHIN the kingdom.

You know, I like Kingdom of Heaven, but I feel like it really doesn't compare - in any version - to either Gladiator or to Braveheart, mostly thanks to its subpar screenplay. Also, while Juaquim Phoenix and Patrick McGoohan made absolutely blood-curdling antagonists, Marton Csokas in Kingdom of Heaven is absolutely godawful, I always thought.

Jus think of it as "Game of Thrones from the 1990s", as I once heard it described.

In a thread like this, there's only one piece of advise to be given: "Braveheart - if you didn't watch it, go ahead. If you did watch it...just watch it yet again." Contrary to what the naysayers are saying, its absolutely, positivelly one of the greatest of all motion pictures.

Quite. Given that Mel Gibson had directed one - just one - movie before Braveheart, it would have been a small miracle that, in taking on this gigantic movie and unwieldy screenplay, it would have turned out just half-competent and vaguely comprehensible. That it was in fact to be so great that even Sir Ridley Scott couldn't better it (in spite of making a superb and sublime film in its own right) takes it out of the realm of a "small miracle" and into the cinematic equivalent of the parting of the red sea. I mean, imagine yourself back in 1995. There's another Scottish movie, Rob Roy, by a director with a good deal more experience, a seemingly much better cast (I mean, John Hurt, Liam Neeson AND Jessica Lange? Beside Gibson, the only person one might have recognised in Braveheart's cast was Patrick McGoohan), a script that was considered far stronger in the casting circles, was much more wieldy story-wise AND it was going to release first...anyone in their right mind would bet on Rob Roy winning that race. But Braveheart, through sheer force of its greatness, wiped the floor with Rob Roy, itself a perfectly respectable movie. And yes, it was very much a model to so much of what we know and love today in film and television: The influence of Braveheart is just about in every frame of The Lord of the Rings. Films like Gladiator are obviously modelled on it, and so are television series like Game of Thrones and Vikings.

Did you watch it?

It'd be cool if he did. But unlikely.

Well, I'll be! It is! They refer to it in the audio commentary. It never occured to me! Cool!

You know, I don't believe he is. My memory is Aragorn sits near the fireplace, whereas this guy is sitting perpendicular to it. I even think they remark on it in the director's commentary.

I prefer it more like this: "What is true in a man’s life is not what he does, but the legend which grows up around him. You must never destroy legends." Chen: Oh yeah? Watch me, Oscar Wilde!

He's just a mercenary that serves as an informant for Azog in the opening scene in Bree. Pretty cool scene.

Chen, biting his lips to stop himself being Cato about how Star Wars owes a lot less to Kurosawa than George Lucas would like us to think, and a lot more to Barsoom and Lensmen than Lucas would likewise have us think.

It doesn't help that the premise of Mangold's film sounds TERRIBLE! Yeah, the discovery of the Force, founding of the Jedi order, presumably the Republic, and I'm assuming the Sith splitting from the order. That sounds totally filmable!

Honestly, Williams scoring or at least contributing material for the Mangold film - which is effectivelly Episode 0 - wouldn't be the worst idea. Embryonic form of the Emperor's and the Jedi's music galore!

I think so, too. But I'd be happy to be proven wrong. I mean, its Episode X in all but name, so there would be some sense from Williams' standpoint to want to at least do something for it, and if he does it'll be pretty cool!

Very interested to see what insight into the process of this film they can uncover. I've done a fair bit of research into it myself. I'm willing to bet good money George Lucas wrote this story outline.

It helps that its "The greatest achievement of any artist in any form of human endeavour whatsoever." Yes, its slow. But its deliberate. It is assured. And, for a film so unrelentingly grim and intense, there's no other film in the whole world that leave me feeling uplifted in quite the same way.

Its less influenced by Dune than one might think, because Lucas was more influenced by some of the books that were the antecedents of Dune itself: so, sure, both Dune and Star Wars has a desert planet with two celestial bodies in its sky - but then so does Barsoom. And sure, Dune may have a Senate that rules over the known universe, aided by an order of psychics, but does EE Smith's Galactic Patrol.

There was always a wee bit of Dune in Star Wars... Tolkien (which is also referenced for this show a lot, and which I know Filoni is a big fan of), too!

Terrible production, superb musicianship:

I would agree, but I think there are ways to dance around it some: I never felt that Tauriel diminished Eowyn, because we can accept Elves being more progressive than Men, certainly the very Dark Ages Rohan. AND in the case of Héra, the fact that Eowyn is narrating her escapedes, is (or could be) a pretty clever way to present her as something of a projection of Eowyn's.