It has to be better than the recent BBC version of Robin Hood (although that had one of the best Sheriffs of Nottingham ever.)
It’s the Dark Ages, it’s supposed to be dark, right? :p
This is just like the point I made in the Holmes thread: People have this notion of what a particular character should be like (like Dorothy in the 1939 version of The Wizard of Oz, people are thinking it should be like the 1938 version of Robin Hood,) when there is no actual basis in the stories for it to be like that.
Besides, everyone knows that this is the best version.
The Duellists was Scott’s very first movie which he made coming straight from advertising. It’s based on Joseph Conrad’s novel about two Napoleonic officers. Like Alien and Blade Runner, it’s a great low-budget movie with an excellent script, rather than an expensive showpiece with a retarded script like his later works. Also like Alien and Blade Runner, you’d never guess how low the budget was from looking at the lavish scenery and beautiful period costumes. The Duellists is the best Napoleonic epic that isn’t actually epic!
Kingdom of Heaven is a bit of a mess, if it wasn’t set in places I spent the summer scrabbling over I’d probably have given up halfway through as it spends a lot of time not doing very much or explaining itself very well, especially in the beginning but I’ve got no problems with Gladiator.
Is light-hearted action really the core of the Robin Hood tale? I thought it was robbing from the rich and giving to the poor with Friar Tuck and Maid Marion at his side…
I wish there were more movies made like The Duelists. Sadly, they’re pretty rare.
Ridley’s Robin Hood looks like it might be a good movie, although it’s hard to tell from such a cheezy trailer, complete with crappy rock music. If you looked for it though, there were elements of Robin Hood, and the period look could easily play well if it wasn’t constantly jump cut together.
What it really comes down to is the quality of the screenplay; Gladiator was a great movie in many regards, but fell flat due to the story, especially the ending. Hopefully having such a classic story to draw upon will help in that regard.
I don’t know about Alien, but from what I remember, didn’t Blade Runner go way over budget?
Nothing about going over budget, but wikipedia lists this:
aving invested over $2.5 million in pre-production,[15] as the date of commencement of principal photography neared, Filmways withdrew financial backing. In ten days, Deeley secured $21.5 million in financing through a three way deal between The Ladd Company (through Warner Bros.), the Hong Kong-based producer Sir Run Run Shaw, and Tandem Productions.[16]
I don’t consider 21.5 million low budget for a film, even by todays standards. Low budget perhaps for a sci-fi action extravaganza. In the side box for the film description, it lists the final budget as 28 million (though, I have no idea where they got that number).
I have some degree of affection for the director’s cut of Kingdom of Heaven, although it does have an unsurmountable problem in having Orloondo Bland as the main character. He doesn’t have nearly enough gravitas for that kind of part.
Interesting, I didn’t recall that the budget for Blade Runner was that high. What I recalled was Ridley Scott’s commentary on the director’s cut where he mentioned that most of the outside shots were made in a single short road of building facades because that was all he had! Creative use of camera angles did the rest.
The Duellists was definitely made on a shoestring budget, though, and Blade Runner as well as Alien fell well short of the kind of money he gets to throw at a movie today.
