The Arthurian legends have historically been much abused to attack different Church teachings. But they also served as instruction and reification of a chivalry that still seems the mark of a brave and honest man.
But that's when told straight up. The Knights had to go through Catholic ritual, so the story goes, and receive the Sacrament, the Eucharist. Arthur was a boy given to Merlin, who had another raise him, obviously Catholic and in teaching tolerance and charity toward women, as well as the martial arts. He does marry Guinnevere, but under the image of a Catholic Saint in a Catholic ceremony of matrimony, not with just a few buddies in some nondescript ceremony at some tiny Stonehenge at the water's edge. Again, so the story goes. Even paganism isn't so impoverished (the budget for this film apparently was). Rome doesn't figure in, which was also refreshing about the Connery/Cross/Ormand version - probably still the closest in retaining a sliver of the Catholicity of the Arthurian Legends as they would have been taught centuries and centuries ago.
The round table was massive and a gift that came with the Queen from her father the King. In First Knight, the guy was dead. In the story, not so. And the round table was so large it could seat 150 people. No film retelling seems to want to tell that, for some reason (budgets again, I suppose).
So what you have, instead, is an enemy Merlin of an already grown Roman soldier, Arthur, the latter stationed to Britain as the 'Empire' is dead, so Gwen insists. Yet, the Roman Empire was not only far from dead, but was reborn just on the other side of the channel not so long afterward to meet the new Islamic expansion. Maybe if it's meant just of Britain, maybe the writers here have a point. But they also want to x-out Catholicism. And that's where they cross the line. The history of the region is still that of a famous Catholic, Bede. And those were Catholic monasteries the barbarians targeted along the coast. So. Anyway, Gwen isn't Catholic. She's some blue-skinned pre-Avatar woman-o-the-woods, not a princess of Leoness, or whatever you want to call it. Merlin looks more the savage than the real enemy in this film, the 'Saxons'.
In fact, Arthur is sort of Catholic. But his men are proudly not. And the one most likely to act the barbarian is, of course, the Roman liege lord who is basically a sadist, calls himself Catholic, and is a 'favorite' of the Pope. Gwen is found locked in his torture dungeon as this Private Ryan detail of Arthur's run into Saxon territory to save this guy and his son. Eventually, the guy flakes out one too many times and they run him through. But his son is 'cool'.
So the blue Stonehenge people, we're led to believe, and commanded by Merlin got together with less than ten pagan Arthurian knights from Rome and beat the Saxons prior to 500AD.
It just doesn't make any sense. Stripping the Arthurian Legend of God, of Catholicism, strips out the very point OF the Arthurian Legend. Again, at least there was a nod in the right direction in First Knight. And admittedly, they had a strong cast (though I still think Gere was mostly lost, in that).
Just another effort in this post-Christian world to rewrite the stories and the histories in pagan terms. And suddenly, the stories don't make sense and worse - they just seem a bore.
But that's when told straight up. The Knights had to go through Catholic ritual, so the story goes, and receive the Sacrament, the Eucharist. Arthur was a boy given to Merlin, who had another raise him, obviously Catholic and in teaching tolerance and charity toward women, as well as the martial arts. He does marry Guinnevere, but under the image of a Catholic Saint in a Catholic ceremony of matrimony, not with just a few buddies in some nondescript ceremony at some tiny Stonehenge at the water's edge. Again, so the story goes. Even paganism isn't so impoverished (the budget for this film apparently was). Rome doesn't figure in, which was also refreshing about the Connery/Cross/Ormand version - probably still the closest in retaining a sliver of the Catholicity of the Arthurian Legends as they would have been taught centuries and centuries ago.
The round table was massive and a gift that came with the Queen from her father the King. In First Knight, the guy was dead. In the story, not so. And the round table was so large it could seat 150 people. No film retelling seems to want to tell that, for some reason (budgets again, I suppose).
So what you have, instead, is an enemy Merlin of an already grown Roman soldier, Arthur, the latter stationed to Britain as the 'Empire' is dead, so Gwen insists. Yet, the Roman Empire was not only far from dead, but was reborn just on the other side of the channel not so long afterward to meet the new Islamic expansion. Maybe if it's meant just of Britain, maybe the writers here have a point. But they also want to x-out Catholicism. And that's where they cross the line. The history of the region is still that of a famous Catholic, Bede. And those were Catholic monasteries the barbarians targeted along the coast. So. Anyway, Gwen isn't Catholic. She's some blue-skinned pre-Avatar woman-o-the-woods, not a princess of Leoness, or whatever you want to call it. Merlin looks more the savage than the real enemy in this film, the 'Saxons'.
In fact, Arthur is sort of Catholic. But his men are proudly not. And the one most likely to act the barbarian is, of course, the Roman liege lord who is basically a sadist, calls himself Catholic, and is a 'favorite' of the Pope. Gwen is found locked in his torture dungeon as this Private Ryan detail of Arthur's run into Saxon territory to save this guy and his son. Eventually, the guy flakes out one too many times and they run him through. But his son is 'cool'.
So the blue Stonehenge people, we're led to believe, and commanded by Merlin got together with less than ten pagan Arthurian knights from Rome and beat the Saxons prior to 500AD.
It just doesn't make any sense. Stripping the Arthurian Legend of God, of Catholicism, strips out the very point OF the Arthurian Legend. Again, at least there was a nod in the right direction in First Knight. And admittedly, they had a strong cast (though I still think Gere was mostly lost, in that).
Just another effort in this post-Christian world to rewrite the stories and the histories in pagan terms. And suddenly, the stories don't make sense and worse - they just seem a bore.
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