The Legend of Zorro

[atreides]

Alexander the great was total s hite, but not for lack of trying, just whoever did the editing on that film should have been shot.

Kingdom of Heaven was a terrific movie, and I think one of the best for a rather egalitarian portrayal of Saracens. It adequately demonized the templars, and had a number of great quotes and themes.

Troy was excellent, everyone around me was saying what crap it was, so I immediately knew it would rock. Sean Bean as the big U ruled something fierce. Menelaus and Agamemnon were portrayed like the psychos they were, as per homers epic. And Ahkilleus was well represented by Pitt who I consider to be an excellent actor re: 12 monkeys, Fight Club and Mr & Mrs Smith. I am a huge fan of war epics, and of all the ones I have seen, I had the fewest qualms about hollywood representation of battle strategy, the same goes for K of H. A truly horrible movie was LOTR the whole series sucked something fierce. After seeing it, I sat down and read the Iliad, and I thought it was an exciting adaptation. Besides, Hector's wife was fizine.

I don't know much about this 300, but I find it humorous that America considers itself anything like the Spartans, if anything, America is the Persians. I think people take movies too literally sometimes, but even if you do, a smaller force defeating a larger force will never be america, it's practically the biggest bully on the block. Iran should stop moaning and try to put a positive spin on things, if you act defensive, people naturally think you are guilty, it's not logic it's psychology, best to take it in stride. Every punch from an enemy is a chance to turn it around, visadario.

All in all, the words of Holden come to mind...my wifey knows what I mean.

 

[GRiM]

Anyone seen xXx? ^_^ (Vin Disel)

 

[Cyre2067]

Because he was sent by his father to earth, and because he saves people, most individuals are quick to jump on the Judeo-Christian band-wagon, forgetting of course that the stories of Christ and of the Law are simply borrowed from the surrounding nations. The garden of Eden, the resurrection and all that jazz are mirrored in thousands of myths spanning the globe, read The Secret History of the World, and you will see that the bible is simply a really bad copy of some really profound esoteric mysteries. Superman, far from being a copy of Christianity should be viewed as Christ Revisted. The mythology of superman, I feel, is far more potent, profound, and true than the Christ myths.

Agreed. And I love the way ya put it. One can't help but draw 'christ parallels' to any superhero of fame. It's kinda annoying infact.

Superman comes to us from an advanced civilisation who's time has come, his world was a paradise lost, his family dead, his people dead. Sent to earth not as its savior per se but as a refugee, his father does not tell him to rule the world, but to help it. Superman is an immigrant who does what he can do to help is adopting world.

He is extremely cool headed and moral, having no vices. He is a pinacle of humaneness, loving everyone without question. He responds to others calls and needs, placing himself in harms way to help those who cannot help themselves. He is the ultimate example of service to others in that he gives without taking.

But how does the mythology of Superman really measure up with older forms of myth, even biblical myths? Just because Jesus and Superman were both saviors don't make them the same. There are some important parallels between the two, both “died� and came back to life, but Superman doesn't really “die,� that story is explained much better than the Jesus myth. Both of their “deaths� are sacrifices, but Superman's is much more visceral and believable, in motivation at least. While Superman can be seen as a more personal and believable version of a messiah, Superman is only a god in so far as he is different from humans in having powers and morality. He is also, an alien, and makes no claim to ruling the earth or being the king of kings, he asked no man to kneel or pray. He promises no judgement, no damnation.

And that is why superman will always be 'cooler' then christ, at least in my mind, mostly because you can't twist superman. He's pure. He's also 'fresh' in a way that christ can't be, superman's books were written 50 years ago, christs a few thousand...

Unfortunately for some of my readers, you aren't going to really get this part, I can't find the sources right now, and since this is only a forum post, you'll have to wait, I am sure some of the responders will have some sources for those who need them.

A lot of you guys are longtime readers, so I will hit you with the obvious and breeze over a lot of important human history in a few paragraphs. We all remember the info pointing to the placement 80k years ago of the tall fair haired peoples from Kantek who were the Celts, extremely powerful warriors who had magic like powers, being super strong, fast, and even shooting energy out of their eyes. Some other sources has indicated that it was the celts who brought a particular brand of martial arts around that we know of as dim mak and kiai-jitsu. Well, not those arts per se, but “energetic� martial arts are supposedly a copy off of said Kantekians whose planet exploded, and only a small portion of the population were saved, brought to the earth by the Orions.

Anyway, so these guys were part of another civilization called Atlantis, which as we might guess, used crystal technologies. Okay, I can't keep this up, do you see? I hope you see what I am getting at here. Now, some of you know of something known as Thor's Pantheon, at least I remember it being called that. So, essentially this is the point. The Muses, Thor's Pantheon, or plagiarism, Superman was an inspired tale which is strangely similar to a pre-everything else mythology. While there are mixes and matches and similarities between a multitude of myths, the core of the Superman myth is not that he is a savior per se, but that he is an alien with super powers who is the last survivor of an ancient crystal using super civilization. I am sorry, but I am not seeing that Superman is based on Christ, I think Christ was based on superman. Not really, I just said that for effect, but you get the gist, there is a lot more than meets the eye when looking at myth.

Agreed. Whole heartedly.

Superman Returns was a wank, an excuse to make money, nothing more. It was kinda dull imho, the only part i liked is where the kid turned out to be his son and launched that piano.

The Superman mythology is wayyy more interesting. I esp like how you discussed it's origins with Aliens from another planet, powers and martial arts.

So another movie i wanted to comment on is 300. Saw it opening weekend expecting, well.. a lot, and i left with just a handful. It was a bit of a let down. I was expecting the demonization of the persians just because of the timing of the movie, but there is a lot of irony in that the US is more like Persia in reality while trying to present itself as sparta using propoganda.

Alot of 'freedom must be fought for' and 'dieing for your country is an honor' crap was thrown in, someone prob got paid off. They also portrayed the congress/parliment as sniveling cowards, traitors, etc. Which would have been an obvious reference to anti-war politicians at home, but the situation is sooo vastly different today then from what it was then, i think any parallels are almost impossible to make.

All in all i was impressed with Leonidas' character, and i respected him. But any comparison to bush is flat out impossible.

The fight scenes were beautiful, and the cinematography excellent. Watching the Spartans fight was entrancing, they moved as one, fought as one, and therein lied their strength. When i think of 300 warriors against insurmountable odds, fighting a behemoth that is evil and restless what come's to mind is us, here, and how with each article, each comment, each new person that shows up and each deviant we expose we are fighting that creature, that dragon and as long as there's breath in our bodies we have a chance to win.

 

[Alana]

After seeing it, I sat down and read the Iliad, and I thought it was an exciting adaptation.

I was personally disappointed when i watched Troy. Though i agree with the portrayal of characters (to some extent) Troy was not Iliad. If you take out the Gods and their fights plus interventions (half supporting the Trojans and Half the Greeks) you destroyed it. It's just another war movie with historic costumes and backgrounds.

Worst movie i ever sit through: War of the Worlds.

 

[Z...]

Well
That was my main problem with Troy. How can you tell the story and leave the most important characters out?!
And then there is a whole list of crucial moments from Iliad which were either ignored or shown with totally inapropriate undertones.
For example, emotional focal point of enitre Homer's epic is the fall of Hector and consequtive events around his remains. Sure this was shown in the movie but how thats the other story.
For me there is a movie poetry and then there are MCDonald movies. This one felt like big MC- greasy, cheesy and undigestable.

But hey, talking about movies can never be anything but talking about subjective impressions. Such is the nature of the media. For example I simply LOVED LOTR.
Yes there is a lot of flops in it, but you can tell that writers poured all their love for Tolkin in it., therefore they were forgiven all crapy-hollywood-Legolas- sliding -down - elephant's- trunk stunts. That didnt bother me. What stayed with me was the emotion.
I cried when Gandalf fell, I felt the chills down my spine in Helms deep - and that can be nothing but movie poetry.

 

[Adaryn]

But hey, talking about movies can never be anything but talking about subjective impressions. Such is the nature of the media. For example I simply LOVED LOTR.

I loved it too. And I was negatively biased before watching it. But I changed my mind : I was really taken in.

 

[Keit]

Anyone seen xXx? ^_^ (Vin Disel)

Yeah, I saw it. If you consider this flm as a comedy and don't judge it too seriously, it turns outs not so bad. Besides, I like the actor ;)
For me Pitch Black is one of the best sci-fi movies. Chronicles of Riddick is also not bad only if you watch the directors cut. Comercial/cinema version is a cheap hollywood crap.

Ohh, but if I have to add one bad movie to the list, it will be "Hostage" with Bruce Willis. It was a very bad collection of movie cliches.

 

[Nathan]

I didn't mind Chronicles of Riddick myself, same goes for Pitch Black. It's probably the only role I can take Vin Diesel seriously in!

Speaking of crap Bruce Willis movies, Live Free or Die Hard (Die Hard 4). Check out the trailer at apple.com/trailers. The flowing American flag made me cringe. I think we could be in store for some 24-grade propaganda here.

 

[Cyre2067]

Pitch Black Rocked, it's pretty classic as far as that genre goes.

Chronicles of Riddick wasn't half bad either, i found the necromonger's left me 'wanting' thou... they seemed like a bad rip off of the borg....

Troy was good, they did leave out the gods which was kinda gimpy, but i think if they threw that it in woulda added too much... never seen the original Illiad thou. I also think they maintained a stint of realism by keeping the gods in heaven sotospeak. And it is fitting how achilles dies after desecrating apollo's temple.

LOTR was impressive at first, but the true test of a movie for me is it's replay value. And if you've seen clerks 2 you get a good chunk of criticism that left me laughing on the floor! I mean, most of the time, all they're doing is walking and everyonce in awhile you get a cool battle. The frodo/sam dynamic is also a little over-the-top, i was half-expecting them to make out by the end of the movie...

 

[knowledge_of_self]

Pitch Black Rocked, it's pretty classic as far as that genre goes.

Chronicles of Riddick wasn't half bad either, i found the necromonger's left me 'wanting' thou... they seemed like a bad rip off of the borg....

Troy was good, they did leave out the gods which was kinda gimpy, but i think if they threw that it in woulda added too much... never seen the original Illiad thou. I also think they maintained a stint of realism by keeping the gods in heaven sotospeak. And it is fitting how achilles dies after desecrating apollo's temple.

LOTR was impressive at first, but the true test of a movie for me is it's replay value. And if you've seen clerks 2 you get a good chunk of criticism that left me laughing on the floor! I mean, most of the time, all they're doing is walking and everyonce in awhile you get a cool battle. The frodo/sam dynamic is also a little over-the-top, i was half-expecting them to make out by the end of the movie...

I really like Pitch Black & Chronicles too.

As far as LOTR THE MOVIES goes I have to agree with you Cyre. I mean graphically of course the seires is one of the top but i felt like the second movie (Twin Towers) was pertty much 2 hours of orcs killing and getting killed. Not much story or so I thought. And as much as I love what Gandalf stands for symboliclay in the movie he didn't really do much. Like the most he did was shine his staff at those flying guys once, and his fight with Saruman was pretty weak for movie standards. I also felt the same about the Frodo/Sam dynamic.

 

[Keit]

As far as LOTR THE MOVIES goes I have to agree with you Cyre. I mean graphically of course the seires is one of the top but i felt like the second movie (Twin Towers) was pertty much 2 hours of orcs killing and getting killed. Not much story or so I thought. And as much as I love what Gandalf stands for symboliclay in the movie he didn't really do much. Like the most he did was shine his staff at those flying guys once, and his fight with Saruman was pretty weak for movie standards. I also felt the same about the Frodo/Sam dynamic.

Have you seen extended versions?
I am probably a rare geek who went to see a LOTR marathon of all 3 together. Yes, me and another 3 friends saw dancing orcs for 10 hours straight :)
At least I was in pyjamas :D
I also didn't like the second part. I thought it was extremely boring to see fantasy version of "brothers in arms".
But I loved the extanded version of their stay at Galadriel's forest and how they presented the story about Éowyn and Faramir.

 

[sHiZo963]

Have you seen extended versions?

The extended versions of LOTR make the movies much longer than they already are but also, IMO at least, MUCH more enjoyable. The Hollywood-y "orc dancing" (haha) parts get balanced out with additional dialogue and you get more of the "story." The movies - as awesome as they are - still don't do the books justice.

About the Sam/Frodo relationship - the first time I saw the movies, yea it seemed a bit strange, but after reading the books and watching the extended versions, I found that the dynamic between the two is actually quite understandable and touching. I mean, considering all that they've been through together (more downs than ups), that their loyalty and love for one another survived until the very end is quite amazing - and there is no way either of them would have made it very far on his own. The ring of power almost tore them apart by seeding self-importance and suspicion, but by networking they were able to pull through and finally triumph over the demon within. A valuable lesson for us all, OSIT.

I cried when Gandalf fell, I felt the chills down my spine in Helms deep - and that can be nothing but movie poetry.

I agree wholeheartedly. And just like poetry, the LOTR movies are ripe with meaningful, Work-related symbolism. Some examples I thought of:
- the dis-respect and destruction of nature by Saruman to achieve his psychopathic ends resulted in the inevitable conclusion of his enterprise collapsing under forces he could not comprehend (the Ents / the "Living Planet" fighting back)
- Sauron's psychopathic nature made him oblivious to the "creativity" of Sam/Frodo's quest i.e. he could not comprehend nor accept that anyone would want/choose to DESTROY the ring of power instead of using it to further one's own goals. He could be seen as a "petty tyrant" who gave the characters an opportunity to learn the hardest lessons
- the "enlightened" individuals (the elves, Gandalf, Frodo) leaving Middle Earth (3rd Density) for the Undying Lands (4th Density) could symbolize the Accomplishment/Ascension that concludes the learning of all lessons of Middle Earth (Frodo's "There's nothing here for me" attitude and Gandalf's quote: "My work here is now finished")

All of the above are, of course, my own subjective interpretations of the LOTR trilogy.

My all-time favorite quote from LOTR comes from the Two Towers. When Theoden, King of Rohan gets ready for the Battle of Helm's Deep, he says the following as images of hundreds of marching orcs in black armor contrasted with young, innocent men/children being handed axes, swords, and spears appear:

Where is the horse and the rider?
Where is the horn that was blowing?
They have passed like rain on the mountains, like wind in the meadow.
The Days have gone down in the West, behind the hills, into Shadow.
How did it come to this?

Very powerful part, IMO, because it relates directly to the kind of Shadow that has overtaken OUR world and how the situation is so very dire - almost hopeless - with all the odds being against us. So much restless, conscious-less evil and unnecessary death and destruction! At least a few of us have come to know and understand "HOW it came to this" - perhaps now we can figure out ways to DO something about it, however "small" we may feel amongst all that is happening.

When the fortress of Helm's Deep is almost taken by Saruman's forces and all hope for Rohan seems lost, Theoden adds:

So much death.
What can Man do against such reckless hate?

So true - the psychopaths are NOT human, and are the root cause of most, if not all, of the unnecessary suffering. Mankind may get paralyzed by the full realization of this pure evil - I know I was when I first read about and understood the implications of psychopathy and the pathocracy - but the awareness of the terrible truth also gives us the strength and willpower to "ride out" against this "reckless hate".

Worst movies ever? Gotta be stupid horror movies: Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the like. It's all just blood and gore... getting people desensitized to the utter wrongness of bodily mutilation. Just like my co-worker said rather indifferently about REAL photos of REAL dead, mutilated people from Iraq: "I've seen worse in movies."

 

[Beau]

I agree Shizo. The dialogue from LOTR is excellent at times. Those quotes you posted were great examples. Plus Gollom is just funny to watch! He's a downright psychopath but he can mimic a souled being pretty darn well when he wishes. The symbolism of LOTR is what I really liked. I think that a lot of the characters represented certain archetypes. Frodo and Sam were successful because of their heart. It is natural that they would show this trait in their interactions with themselves. Clerks 2 used it for a joke, but Kevin Smith could be culturally influenced to think of their interactions as too weird for a couple of guys.

Pitch Black is also a favorite of mine. They keep the cliches to a minimum ;)

Another terrible flick - Hostel. I felt like I was being set up to get used to torture.

 

[Z...]

I am probably a rare geek who went to see a LOTR marathon of all 3 together

You think thats geeky?
What do you say to spending almost 2 months preparing for LOTR party. Making exact replica of Eomer's costume, assembling chainmail ring by ring, and sculpting the helmet out of cardboard and clay.
And the geekiness didnt stop there I almost went to the castle on a horse but luckily common sense prevailed :)

Yes, exteneded version made much more sense. Actually it is very wrong to judge this movie on cinema version.
I think P. Jackson and his team had very difficult if not impossible task to turn the whole mithology of Middle Earth which is as complex as any real mithology into cinema movie.
And I think they did pretty good job considering that they had to flirt with Holliwood audience in order to return all the money that was poured into the project.
But it is true , they did loose steam along the way - hence the part I is most faitfull to Tolkins Middle Earth, and Gandalf the Grey rocks, while Gandalf the White is slightly irritating.
But there are other things which more then make up for this. For example only those who read Silmarilion know the whole personal history of Galadriel and that she was once banished from Valinor and sent to Middle Earth to reedem herself.
In her delivery as Galadriel. Cate Blanchet has diabolical hint and even in her minute movie role manages to give alot about her character.

I totally resent implications of homo-erotic undertones between Frodo and Sam which was suprisingly brought up even on this forum of all places.
How can you approach Tolkin's work from sexual centers?
Tolkins work is asexual, its all about higher emotions and noble ideals. Not to mention work -related symbolism as Shizo nicely noticed.

Hobits as a race are quite childlike in their naievety and also very affectionate. The relationship between Frodo and Sam is nothing but friendship pure as gold full stop.
Any other interpretation is most probably wishfull thinking.

Interesting trivia:

"Into the West" is a song written by Fran Walsh, Howard Shore and Eurythmics member Annie Lennox, and performed by Lennox herself during the closing credits of the movie The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.The song was conceived as a bittersweet Elvish lament for those who have sailed across the Sundering Sea. Several phrases from the song are taken from the last chapter of Return of the King.
What most of the people dont know is that this song was inspired by and dedicated to the young New Zealand filmmaker named Cameron Duncan, who died at 17 of osteosarcoma and never seen the movie.


What can you see,
on the horizon?
Why do the white gulls call?
Across the sea,
a pale moon rises.
The ships have come,
to carry you home.

And all will turn,
to silver glass.
A light on the water.
Grey ships pass
Into the West.

 

[Z...]

Plus Gollom is just funny to watch! He's a downright psychopath but he can mimic a souled being pretty darn well when he wishes.

Or maybe he was souled being in a struggle infected by the power of Evil.
The power so big that even the most wise as Gandalf and Galadriel are afraid to face.