Ghost of a flea: Kingdom of Heaven

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March 25, 2005

Kingdom of Heaven

The trailer for the new Ridley Scott film is impressive (he directed Gladiator, apparently). For one thing, Orlando Bloom has returned to has sword/armour niche and that is a good thing. But I expect it is too much to hope a film addressing the Crusades will do so in anything like an even-handed fashion.

Kingdom of Heaven is an epic adventure about a common man who finds himself thrust into a decades-long war. A stranger in a strange land, he serves a doomed king, falls in love with an exotic and forbidden queen, and rises to knighthood. Ultimately, he must protect the people of Jerusalem from overwhelming forces - while striving to keep a fragile peace.

The phrase "stranger in a strange land" should be retired from ad copy. So... we know words like "exotic" are a problem in this context, right? Have these lefty directors not read Said? I am now taking bets on who gets to be the baddies in whatever heavy-handed contemporary parallels we are meant to draw from this epic.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at March 25, 2005 07:12 AM

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Comments

Yes. And he directed Blade Runner. And Alien. And Black Hawk Down.

But then again, he directed Legend, thereby setting fantasy films back decades.

Early word last year was that the heavies in Kingdom will be European—the whole Western barbarians invading the peaceful, enlightened East. So not so far from Said, after all.

Posted by: Anthony Perez-Miller at March 25, 2005 11:34 PM

It must be the "English sense of humour" gap. My point is that the director of Alien and Blade Runner is being billed as the director of Gladiator. Heck, the director of Thelma and Louise is being billed as the director of Gladiator.

Posted by: Ghost of a flea at March 25, 2005 11:50 PM

Silly me: the Flea's pop culture IQ is beyond my comprehension, yet I thought perhaps you might have forgotten who directed Blade Runner?

D'oh!

Well, I tried understated subtlety in a post a few weeks back, and it flopped like a dying fish.

I hates it when that happens.

Posted by: Anthony Perez-Miller at March 26, 2005 07:48 PM