Complete with about as much historical plausibility as the real thing– but considerably fewer mead and turkey-leg concessions, unfortunately.
Excalibur (1981), in which John Boorman’s usual approach of smoking half his weight in loco weed before calling “ACTION!” yields respectable results for once…
Flesh & Blood (1985), in which the Medieval landscape is heavily slathered in both of those things…
Hawk the Slayer (1980), in which Terry Marcel proves that the English can make sword-and-sorcery movies every bit as dumb as the Italians’…
Hearts and Armour (1983), in which Giacomo Battiato makes a strong bid to raise the bar on Marcel…
In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2006), in which Uwe Boll raises it even further…
In the Name of the King: Two Worlds (2011), in which Boll’s license-grantors take their toys and go home…
and…
Tales of an Ancient Empire (2012), in which Albert Pyun settles the “Who can make the dumbest sword-and-sorcery movie?” argument once and for all.
#1 by RogerBW on July 22, 2013 - 4:41 pm
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I’d forgotten just how early Flesh and Blood was — it was in my mind as being around five years later, in the Blind Fury and Wedlock section of Hauer’s career. Excellent points on Hawk; it makes much more sense as a Western/Star Wars mashup than as an attempt at epic fantasy.
#2 by Jen S on July 22, 2013 - 5:12 pm
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Excalibur was a movie I saw as a kid, and it’s lingered in my memory as the kind of thing you’re not sure if you saw in real life, or dreamed.
#3 by Blake on July 23, 2013 - 12:22 am
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I’m pretty sure the random ninjas in ITNOTK:ADST is the work of choreographer Ching Siu-Ting, who has been putting ninjas in his films since 1981, both films he’s directed and those he just choreographed.
#4 by El Santo on July 23, 2013 - 12:43 pm
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Somehow it pleases me that “recidivist ninja inserter” is a thing that someone can be in the real world.
#5 by Blake on July 24, 2013 - 9:15 pm
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It would be cool if Ching Siu-Tung showed up on the set of some troubled production and handed the director his business card, which read: “Ching Siu Tung — Action Director – Fight Choreographer – Ninja Inserter.”
My theory is that Ching watched “The Magic Serpent” as a child and became so enamored with the samurai/ninja antics in that film and decided to spend his career throwing in ninjas whenever he could tweak the screenplay enough to do so. Heck, the pretentious martial arthouse film “Curse of the Golden Flower” has guys in ninja pajamas running around with kusari-kama (sickle-and-chain). Sure the movie calls them “the emperor’s guard,” but I know a ninja when I see one.
#6 by Read MacGuirtose on July 24, 2013 - 7:15 am
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Actually, it’s not… the player character in Dungeon Siege is a farmer, but that’s not the character’s name; you get the option to name the character whatever you want (and there is no default). So Boll doesn’t have that excuse.
#7 by Read MacGuirtose on July 24, 2013 - 7:51 am
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For that matter, I’m don’t think it’s the case the movie takes “most of its plot” from the game, either. The game didn’t have much a plot anyway, but what little it did have bears little or no relation to the plot of the movie as you’ve described it, outside of the beginning krug raid on the farm. As a matter of fact, aside from the name of the kingdom of Ehb and the krugs, it doesn’t sound like the movie has much to do with the game at all. (Not that that in and of itself is necessarily a bad thing; like I said, the game didn’t have much of a plot in the first place, and what little there was was pretty bland.)
OK, wait, according to the Dungeon Siege wiki (of course there’s a Dungeon Siege wiki; there’s a wiki for practically everything), King Konreid does appear in the game, though apparently not until the end. (Well, it seems he’s the narrator throughout the game, but I guess you don’t find out who the narrator was, or even that the narrator was supposed to be an actual character in the story, until near the end.) I didn’t get that far in the game — I didn’t find it interesting enough to force myself to play through to the end when I had better things to do — so I was unaware of his appearance in it till just now. Still, unless you count Farmer (and you really shouldn’t), King Konreid is the only character actually taken from the game. (Well, apparently there’s also a Merik in the game, but he seems to bear little relation to the Merick of the movie aside from the name (and even that is spelled differently).)
So yeah, In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale seems to be really In Name Only A Dungeon Siege Tale.
#8 by Ken on July 25, 2013 - 1:36 am
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In fairness, you have to apply a sliding scale when talking about Uwe Boll. Getting two names and one event almost right represents a pretty faithful adaptation compared to, say, House of the Dead or Alone in the Dark.
#9 by Blake on July 26, 2013 - 4:54 pm
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I was finishing up a movie marathon with my sister-in-law whose theme was live-action films that have been Disney cartoons. She suggested that we do this once a year. Her suggestion for next year was Medieval films. I may have to track down Flesh & Blood for us to watch.
#10 by El Santo on July 26, 2013 - 7:56 pm
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What a neat idea! Something tells me your lineup was a little different from the one that springs immediately to my mind, though: Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast, Charles Band’s Cinderella, the Sabu version of The Jungle Book, Bud Townsend’s Alice in Wonderland…
#11 by Blake on July 26, 2013 - 9:01 pm
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The first day was the 1956 “Hunchback of Notre Dame” and “Snow White: Tale of Terror,” which was back in April. Because of conflicting schedules, we weren’t able to finish until yesterday, when we watched the recent live-action “Mulan” film from China.
#12 by PB210 on July 27, 2013 - 12:43 am
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Type your comment here
Some other suggestions:
various Sherlock Holmes films (as counterparts to Basil of Baker Street…http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Basil_of_Baker_Street)
various Tarzan films (one of which, from 1981 with Bo Derek, had an R-rating)
Of course, Disney’s recent purchases of other companies and their properties (e.g. Captain America) makes the situation more complex.
, as I suppose all future animated adaptations of Captain America will occur as Disney efforts.
[Zorro, the Lone Ranger and Dick Tracy present odd reverse cases, in that Disney only made live action adaptations of them, and had no involvement with the various adaptations of Zorro, the Lone Ranger and Dick Tracy in animation. The Zorro films, though, just served as compilation films from the 1957 TV show.]
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon
#13 by El Santo on July 27, 2013 - 12:07 pm
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Somehow I knew there would be a Chinese Mulan movie involved. Technically, I didn’t know for sure that such a thing existed until just now, but the very fact that you were part of this project seemed to indicate that one did, in which case you were certain to include it.
#14 by Blake on July 27, 2013 - 1:44 pm
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My sister-in-law wanted to see it more than I did, but I had brought it to her attention and tracked down a Portuguese subtitled version for us to watch. It was from 2008 or 2009. I’ve found a movie from the early 60s about Mulan on Youtube, although it’s apparently a filmed Peking Opera presentation or something like that.
#15 by supersonic man on July 29, 2013 - 4:13 am
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“I have yet to see a single one of his films that wasn’t pure shit…”
There is one Uwe Boll movie that’s good in an unironic way. Postal.
#16 by PB210 on July 30, 2013 - 11:48 pm
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Quick update on Mr. Ashlin’s digression in the last paragraph of his review of Tales of an Ancient Empire (2012)
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=46987