The Last Legion

[history_spork]

Happy New Year, everybody! We're back with the sporking of Doug Lefler's The Last Legion. No grinding of teeth here, just a lot of giggling and a bit of headdesking :)

( Once upon a time in Britannia )

Since we already sporked the original "Elizabeth" movie a while ago, of course we won't spare the sequel either - Shekhar Kapur's Elizabeth -

Comments

[sollersuk]

And a Happy New Year to you too! What a perfect start to the new year!

(I wanted to comment on my favourite bits but I sort of lost count)

[history_spork]

Thank you! We're glad you enjoyed it!

The whole movie is just one gigantic joke...

[aulus_poliutos]

Oh dear. I supposed that was going to be bad, but I had no idea how bad. Saves me another movie ticket.

Dang, I should write Hollywood scripts instead of historical fiction novels. Would save me a lot of research. :)

[history_spork]

*g* We've to confess that we liked it quite a lot - it's just too silly to take it seriously, it doesn't annoy with modern issues that have been transferred back into the past; it's just pure, unadulterated fun for one and a half hours!

Actually, Hollywood's for once innocent here: this one's mainly a British-Italian-French production (with some US money, though), basing on a novel by the Italian author Manfredi.

[aulus_poliutos]

Ah, that's why there obviously was no Braveheart style Freedom speech.

What I'm missing his some hot actors to make up for the mess (it was the saving grace of that horrible King Arthur flick) except McKidd, and he looks better as Roman. :)

[history_spork]

That's true - the movie suffers from a severe lack of eyecandy! Save Aishwarya Rai, that is, who's teh beauty with some real curves, but as for the male side... just no. You can't even make out McKidd's considerably nice body under all that fur!

[valis2]

A hilarious sporking as always!

Ambrosinus: Only one man could have done this.

cloudlessnights: Only one man in mid-fifth century Britain would burn villages?

I laughed and laughed at that line--that was hysterical!

[history_spork]

Thank you, we're glad you liked it!

That was one of the most stupid lines in the whole movie, and there were a lot of them... ;D

[elanor_pam]

That sword was forged from star iron, cooled in the blood of a lion.

Just like Sokka's sword in Avatar! Except they used water, and Sokka is actually cool.

[history_spork]

:DD This tale from Ambrosinus had us going O_O with it's kind of a... um, fantasy quality. But then, so did the whole movie.

[cheryl_bites]

Avatar and Redwall? Must be a fairly popular idea.

[pepperjackcandy]

And I've seen it somewhere else relatively recently, too. I can't for the life of me remember where, though.

ETA: I think the sword and hilt were made from two different meteors? They're two pieces, at any rate, and one can take the blade off of the hilt and have it go back together like they were never separated . . .?

[silverwhistle]

Ambrosinus: Shush, you. As I said, a Celtic name, Pendragon.

cutecoati: Which is Welsh, which fits with Arthurian legend, but not with a story in which all the action was up at Hadrian's Wall!

Quite easily, because the Brythonic language (Early Welsh) was spoken all over what is now England and beyond Hadrian's Wall into Lowland Scotland. It was the language of the kingdoms of Strathclyde (capitals variously Govan and Dumbarton - the latter meaning Fort of the Britons), of Gododdin (capital = Din Edin, now Edinburgh), and others. Y Gododdin, the great series of Early Welsh elegies by Aneirin, was composed probably in Edinburgh c. 600.

[history_spork]

All the literature we've consulted refer to the name as being of Western Brythonic origin (some even claimed it to be Cornish) - or at least the name that is mentioned in medieval literature, be it applied to Ambrosius Aurelianus or Uther.

[silverwhistle]

I don't think the dialects were that distinct in the actual time-period in question. When the written literature appears, yes, there are distinctions, but it would not have been so at the time when the characters are supposed to have lived.

And "Western" in this time-period would also apply to the kingdoms of Rheged (source of all those marvellous poems attributed to Taliesin, for King Urien) and Strathclyde.