Joseph Fiennes and Eva Green cast in Camelot TV series
- Thread starter Out Of My Vulcan Mind
- Start date
Sometimes they mix it up and the good guys speak with British accents and the bad guys with French accents.
Sometimes they mix it up and the good guys speak with British accents and the bad guys with French accents.
I was particularly amused by the JOAN OF ARC miniseries a few years back in which all the French characters were played by Americans! But how else do you get an American tv audience to root for the French against the British?
The ultimate brother battle
Joseph Fiennes as Merlin
VS
Ralph Fiennes as Voldermort
That's what I mean by modernizing a story to get the audience to buy into it. Actual early medieval people wouldn't have a "progressive" or "democratic" mindset - those ideas weren't valued until very recently in human history (even the ancient Greeks were an oligarchy, not a true democracy that shared power with everyone in a society) - and their idea of benevolence would be a benevolent absolute monarch who was just and kind, and didn't charge around lopping off the peasants' heads, but there was no expectations that the peasants should be free or valued as human beings. Benevolence was also what you could expect in the afterlife, assuming you adhered mindlessly to the religious dogma of your day.
A good example of the "honest" way to do an ancient historical story is Rome. The characters were never written with any sop to modern sensibilities, and that probably contributed to the early cancellation of the series (plus the exorbitant expense). There were two stories: one, a power struggle among sexy, famous people who behaved deplorably; and the other, the saga of an abusive, egotistical jerk who drives his wife to suicide and causes disaster for his entire family. Who is there to root for? I watched it for the costumes and the sets, but after two seasons, I was pretty much done with the whole bunch of them.
Similarly, I'm sure I'd have fun with Camelot, assuming it has a lot of surface glitz and sensationalism, but I don't expect to relate to the characters any more than I relate to the characters on The Tudors, who are all either grotesque victimizers or pathetic victims.
I have a hunch that he was simply miscast. He shouldn't try to play Americans. But playing an ancient wizard who is a bit oily and duplicious might be more up his alley.
Remind them that we'd still be British subjects now if the French hadn't saved our hides in the Revolutionary War?
Oh, I absolutely agree. It drives me nuts that the average American seems to have forgotten this.
True story: I was visiting a famous Revolutionary War battlefield a few years ago when I overheard a father helpfully explaining to his children that Lafayette was the commander of the British forces . . . .
The pain, the pain!
I didn't see this when I was skimming so I thought I'd let everyone know that coming soon.com posted the official description in the past couple days. Here's what it says
From what I know of the stories, it sounds like they might be kinda changing things around. Still sounds interesting to me though.
I posted the link like two pages ago...and yes I agree it does sound interesting.
Sorry, when I came in the thread was already four pages long and I just barely skimmed.
Doesn't sound like it. It's still got the same old accretions from over the centuries -- Merlin, Guinevere, etc.
Just once, I'd like to see a King Arthur story that strips away all the magic and myth and legendary stuff added on by English and French storytellers over the centuries and depicts an Arthur as close as possible to what history and archaeology can establish. Say, Arthyr as a Cornish chieftain in Britain just after the end of Roman occupation, banding other chieftains together to battle their mutual enemies, the invading Anglo-Saxons.
(And yeah, I know there was that King Arthur movie some years back that alleged to be a historically realistic depiction of Arthur, but that was total BS.)
I don't think that sort of anachronistic approach necessarily strikes audiences - or at least most in the audience - as an implausible, cheesy turnoff, though, especially in the context of a fantasy. How successfully the tone of the movie or series is executed and whether it's sold as serious historical drama or simply as fantasy entertainment makes a big difference.
I think the need for characters to be relatable is somewhat overblown. Characters just need to be entertaining to hold an audience's interest. Plus, as I said before, audiences will often root for characters who in a real world context have much that's negative about them. Al Swearengen was a bastard, but he was a hugely entertaining bastard who wasn't as bad as the really evil Cy Tolliver, so audiences often found themselves rooting for Swearengen. I expect Camelot will have a much more straightforward good guys versus bad guys set-up than that and a rooting interest won't be a problem.
Eva Green is hot.
I'd love a straight up adaption of Jack Whyte's Arthurian books. Or better yet, Bernard Cornwell's The Warlord Chronicles. Some of the best Arthurian fiction out there. Period.
Eva Green is one of the reasons why I immediately took notice of this series. I thought that was inspiring casting.
Eva Green is one of the reasons why I immediately took notice of this series. I thought that was inspiring casting.
I don't know why I never made the connection, but I never realized they were brothers before.
Verily.
I'd be happy with a film or TV adaptation of Bernard Cornwell's Warlord Chronicles. It's pretty much just like what you described, except told from the viewpoint of one of Arthur's war chiefs rather than from Arthur himself. Although Merlin and Lancelot do appear in the story, though they're not interpreted in the same fashion they typically are.
Chris Chibnall bad, Eva Green good.
Read the Warlord Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell.