05-003 Earnest Arthurian adaptation

05-003
Earnest Arthurian adaptation

As a father of two, there is not much of time for me to read books. To learn more on King Arthur, I turned to those Arthurian screen adaptations. Below are some of my selections. They are all earnest creations with settings in the medieval period. They are adaptation of the original Arthurian legend with storyline mainly follows Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d'Arthur.

Excalibur at London Film Museum
Image Source: Wikipedia 

The Sword in the Stone (1963)

The first Arthurian movie that I watched in the 1963 Disney The Sword in the Stone. I read other commentary saying, for most people, this classic cartoon is their introduction to the Arthurian legend.

I am not sure of the accuracy of this saying. Maybe this statement is true for Westerners. But for a person that grew up in Hong Kong, I cannot remember I have watched this cartoon before. But anyway, I got Disney+ at home. So, why shouldn’t I give it a chance? To my surprise, there is a Cantonese dub for this movie.

The Sword in the Stone

Image Source: Disney

The movie begins with a 3-minute song that briefly explains the death of King Uther Pendragon and the mystical appearance of the sword in the stone. Then we saw Merlin, preparing a cup of tea for Arthur to turn up in his hut at any time. Meantime, Arthur, an orphan, was hunting with his older foster brother. He accidentally scared off a deer and his brother forced him to go inside the forest to retrieve the lost arrow. Arthur found it stuck on a branch. While climbing up the tree to get back the arrow, he felt onto a hut below, broke the roof and dropped directly onto a chair in the dining room, unhurt. And it happened that it was the very hut where Merlin lives, and the tea was just ready. Yes, it is Disney. What can you expect?

The remaining of the movie is about how Merlin trained up Arthur, though numerous humorous ways and magic mishaps. Just 10 minutes before the ending, Arthur arrived in London with his foster brother, and he accidentally pulled out the sword from the stone. Arthur was then crowned to be the king of England and the movie ends there. No Lancelot, no Guinevere and no round table.

This is an enjoyable movie, but it just merely touches the core of the Arthurian legend.

Excalibur (1981)

Movie Poster of Excalibur

Image Source: IMDb

Excalibur is one of the “most faithful” Arthurian movie ever produced. Story starts from King Uther Pendragon, then follows the birth of King Arthur, the pulling of Excalibur from the stone, the affair between Lancelot and Guinevere, the incestuous birth of Mordred and the quest for the Holy Grail.

Merlin and Uther Pendragon, with the Excalibur on his hand

Excalibur is filmed at a time when computer graphics were generally nonexistence. The movie is no way visually comparable with those modern-day epic fantasies, like The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Golden Compass, etc. Critics also criticized its plot. Nevertheless, Excalibur is still a quick walkthrough of the story Le Morte d'Arthur.

Arthur, about to pull out the Excalibur from the stone

Lancelot and Guinevere

I personally found this movie quite “educational” also. As a non-Westerner, I am not used to medieval warfare, moment of truce, rite of military alliance, medieval joust, accolade of knight, duel over someone’s innocent, etc. This movie teaches me all these. Watching it is a real culture shock to me, but I enjoyed.

The Holy Grail

This movie is R-rated with some short yet unnecessary scenes of nudity. Don’t watch it together with your kids.

Lancelot du Lac (1974)

DVD cover of Lancelot du Lac

Image Source: IMDb

This movie is even older than me. It is a French movie, but I do not speak any French. I picked this movie is because I found some comments saying that it is one of the best Arthurian movies ever produced.

The Holy Grail (French version)

Lancelot du Lac is filmed in 1974. The version that I watched is digitally remastered in 2018. So, the picture looks better than that of Excalibur, which was filmed almost a decade later than this movie.

Gawain, Lancelot and King Arthur

Same as Excalibur, there was no such thing as computer graphic at the time of its production. And in fact, CG is actually not necessary at all. Lancelot du Lac is not an action movie. It is a romantic fantasy movie, retelling the love story between Lancelot and Guinevere.

Gawain and King Arthur, watching a joust

When we see the word “epic”, many may immediately expect to see something stunning and massive, with abundant fast action fighting, riding on dragon’s back, flying through canyons, and powerful magic casting that can blow up a whole castle in a second, etc. Lancelot du Lac is a good demonstration on how a non-action movie can become a part of an epic fantasy. Even at its final scene, the Battle of Camlann, the movie is just showing a group of knights riding their horses out of the castle and came back one after the other, dying. Not a single shot of battle was filmed.

Lancelot and Guinevere

I like watching different kind of movies. Although not exactly my favorite, I do watch romantic movies occasionally. However, because I don’t speak French, I need to rely on subtitles to understand the dialogues. And it is not easy to follow through the emotion of different characters from subtitles.

So, if you speak French, it is a movie that should not miss. If not, then watching this movie or not is up to you. It is only 85 minutes long though.

 

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017)

Movie Poster of King Arthur: Legend of the Sword

Image Source: Wikipedia

Finally, we have something that is really “epic” here. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is a 2017 epic action-adventure movie produced by Warner Bros.

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is planned to be the first in a six-film franchise. Unfortunately, the movie turned out to be a box office bomb, causing Warner Bros. lost more than 150 million US dollar. Subsequent sequels were therefore cancelled.

The opening scene of the movie is gorgeous

Arthurian legend is an old school topic. Stories are well known and have been adapted numerous times by numerous production companies in numerous ways. Why Warner Bros. still wants to develop a new movie franchise on top of this already perpetual topic? Its production year may be an answer.

Just 2 years ago, Warner Bros. has enjoyed their success in the last movie of The Hobbit trilogy, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. And The Lord of the Rings trilogy was already done a decade ago. Copyright for other Tolkien works maybe quite costly. Develop a new epic fantasy franchise base on the free-to-adapt Arthurian legends can be an economy and sensible way to keep up the passion.

Thanks for CG. A medieval London is beautifully reproduced

However, audience think otherwise. The plot deviates too much from the original legend. In the movie, there were King Arthur, his father Uther Pendragon & his mother Igraine. But also, a lot of new characters were introduced. Merlin was just mentioned but never appeared in the movie. Rumor said he was supposed to be the protagonist in the second movie of the series. All these settings were disliked by most King Arthur fans.

Kung-fu George, a character created for the movie.
As a Chinese myself, I am happy to have this character here.
But I don't think we guys travel so far at that time of the year.

However, maybe I was not grown up in a Western background, I do not have any presupposition on King Arthur. I can accept any modification on this legendary Briton king. To me, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is a gorgeous movie with vivid computer graphics, lots of action fighting and spell casting, fast-pacing and attractive storyline. It is more like an Arthurian take of The Lord of the Rings. I quite enjoy watching it. 

The making of the Round Table and the movie ends here.
Merlin should join the party but unfortunately, he missed the boat.

That is all for this post. I will share more of my ideas on King Arthur when I dig deeper into this topic. Most works in the Arthurian literary cycle are in the public domain. Anyone is free to adapt and modify them. I hope one day we can see another take of Arthurian epic action adventure. Even though that would be another flop, at least we would have 1 more movie on hand.

Go back to the Lobby ...