History or Legend (King Arthur potential spoilers)

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-10-21 01:31pm

Simon H.Johansen wrote:
Stormbringer wrote:Mists of Avalon was as historically fucked, if not more so than the mainstream Arthurian legend. The idea of Wiccanism and Druidism existing at that time is silly. The first is a product of new age religion and the latter was wiped out by the Romans.
Well, Mists of Avalon was by no means historically correct - but at least it didn't have plate armour during the 5th century!

Which is about the only thing they got right.

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2003-10-21 01:47pm

Knife wrote:Whooo Hooo. Though after looking at the pics, they might over Romanize it so its a worry. It would be nice to show a variety of styles ranging from Romanized (traditionalists?), Celt style (nationalists?), and the Saxons and such.

I think they did have a mix of stuff. Look at the armor Arthur is wearing as opposed to the knights.

At least to my untrained eye it looks like that.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2003-10-21 02:13pm

Gandalf wrote:
Patrick Degan wrote:About damn time that somebody got around to depicting a Romano-British Arthur and Companions on film.
What about Monty Python and The Holy Grail?

The Pythons set Holy Grail around the same time as T.H. White's O&FK, roughly circa CE850. They of course knew not to have any of the k-ni-gitz wearing plate armour and also that the way you can tell who's a king is if he hasn't got shit all over him.

Actually, they were pretty good with the period details, depicting a Dark Ages Britain which for the most part was a poor, grubby, primitive place with an impoverished, superstitious population and Nobles who weren't much better off. But they were about 300-600 years out on the time schema.

But then, I doubt absolute historical accuracy was uppermost in the thinking behind the project. Also, at the time, there was considerably less archaelogical information about Arthur than exists now. In the 1960s, Arthur and his wars existed almost exclusively in the realm of legend, myth, and faery-tale.

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2003-10-21 02:24pm

Stormbringer wrote:
Simon H.Johansen wrote:
Stormbringer wrote:Mists of Avalon was as historically fucked, if not more so than the mainstream Arthurian legend. The idea of Wiccanism and Druidism existing at that time is silly. The first is a product of new age religion and the latter was wiped out by the Romans.
Well, Mists of Avalon was by no means historically correct - but at least it didn't have plate armour during the 5th century!
Which is about the only thing they got right.

Come on - even though it basically depicted 5th century Britain as run by hippies, it was more historically accurate than "First Knight". (then again, so was "Monty Python And The Holy Grail")

In any case, the MoA adaptation didn't feature Guinevere portrayed by a Natalie Portman lookalike in corpsepaint. (ask the nearest metalhead if you don't know what corpsepaint is.)

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-10-21 03:10pm

Simon H.Johansen wrote:Come on - even though it basically depicted 5th century Britain as run by hippies, it was more historically accurate than "First Knight". (then again, so was "Monty Python And The Holy Grail")

In any case, the MoA adaptation didn't feature Guinevere portrayed by a Natalie Portman lookalike in corpsepaint. (ask the nearest metalhead if you don't know what corpsepaint is.)

First Knight was a chick flick disguised as an Arthur movie. Is there any suprise it screwed history over? It's to Excalibur what Pearl Harbor was to Tora! Tora! Tora! Doesn't mean Mists of Avalon's history was any less crap.

It's still probably closer to the real Arthur story than anything done in a long time, if not ever. Virtually every historical movie has a few anachronisms.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-10-21 03:42pm

The Pythons set Holy Grail around the same time as T.H. White's O&FK, roughly circa CE850. They of course knew not to have any of the k-ni-gitz wearing plate armour and also that the way you can tell who's a king is if he hasn't got shit all over him.

Patrick, are you sure about that? I'm fairly certain that White has the book set at some point after the Norman invasion, in sort of an alternate history with Uther in the role of William the Conqueror.

Of course, the book is absolutely loaded with anachronisms, so trying to analyze it chronologically is sort of an exercise in futility.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2003-10-21 04:05pm

Durran Korr wrote:
The Pythons set Holy Grail around the same time as T.H. White's O&FK, roughly circa CE850. They of course knew not to have any of the k-ni-gitz wearing plate armour and also that the way you can tell who's a king is if he hasn't got shit all over him.
Patrick, are you sure about that? I'm fairly certain that White has the book set at some point after the Norman invasion, in sort of an alternate history with Uther in the role of William the Conqueror.

Of course, the book is absolutely loaded with anachronisms, so trying to analyze it chronologically is sort of an exercise in futility.

The beginning of the movie, after the llama credits, introduces the time period. Just before Arthur gets into the whole swallows-and-coconuts debate with a pair of tower guards.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-10-21 04:07pm

The beginning of the movie, after the llama credits, introduces the time period. Just before Arthur gets into the whole swallows-and-coconuts debate with a pair of tower guards.

Oh, no, not the movie, you're right about that, I meant The Once and Future King.

paladin · Post by **paladin** » 2003-10-21 06:38pm

Durran Korr wrote:
Finally - something as rare as an Arthurian movie which attempts to be even halfways historically correct!! (The last one I recall which tried to be was TNT's miniseries based upon "The Mists Of Avalon")
That was a good miniseries, though I personally never cared for Marion Zimmer Bradley's reimagining of Arthurian myth. However, it was still not particularly close to being historically correct; it was completely devoid of anything Roman.

"Reimagining," is that a nice way of saying distorting beyond any recognition to the original source?

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-10-21 07:28pm

"Reimagining," is that a nice way of saying distorting beyond any recognition to the original source?

That's going a bit far; she certainly did retain some degree of faithfulness to the original characters, at least. I do agree, though, she was obviously out to distort the source material to achieve her own ends.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2003-10-23 01:14am

Durran Korr wrote:
The beginning of the movie, after the llama credits, introduces the time period. Just before Arthur gets into the whole swallows-and-coconuts debate with a pair of tower guards.
Oh, no, not the movie, you're right about that, I meant The Once and Future King.

Looks like we were both a little out on the time period for O&FK. After leafing through my copy of the book, it seems that White put Camelot in the 12th century.

Post by **weemadando** » 2003-10-25 12:16am

The best I've heard on the matter was a combination of a BBC doco and a couple of obscure academic works.

Best guess is King Arthur was a warlord in the late 400s to 500s... Who fought against remnant Roman forces and other tribes and established a "kingdom" in Southern Britain and Wales. He was likely of Roman decent himself and used ambush tactics on larger forces moving along the Roman road systems.