WARNING: This is a high volume ping list
Posted on 05/06/2005 10:24:23 AM PDT by Cool Chick
“Kingdom of Heaven”: Bin Laden’s Slanted Crusade Movie May 5, 2005 By Debbie Schlussel
Mark Twain said, “History tells us that the truth is not hard to kill, but a lie told well is immortal.”
“Kingdom of Heaven,” Ridley Scott’s extremely boring movie version of the Crusades, is Twain’s words in action. Scott is serial killer of truth—giving immortality to 1,000 lies—in this propaganda film.
The wannabe-epic is being panned for its lack of accuracy by a host of Islam experts, like Robert Spencer. Crusades expert Jonathan Riley-Smith says it’s basically “Osama bin Laden’s version of History.”
But the folks at HAMAS-front group CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) and ADC (American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee) just love “Kingdom.” That speaks volumes, since both groups never met an Islamic terrorist group they didn’t like.
Perhaps Scott is doing penance for having the chutzpah to make “Black Hawk Down,” about which they still whine incessantly.
But one needn’t be versed in the history of the Crusades to see that this Riefenstahl-esque drama is agenda-laden fiction.
Here’s the Cliff’s Notes version:
Christian Crusaders are crass, violent murderers. They lie, sleep around with multiple women, and father multiple illegitimate, abandoned children. They are stupid, foolish, power-hungry, and vengeful. They are boors warring for land, not principles, and kill fellow Christians—even priests—over nothing.
Muslims, especially Saladin, are honorable, devout, decent, peaceful people. They just want to be left alone and only attack when attacked upon. They are wise, honest, kind, generous, and even offer Christians safe passage.
(Excerpt) Read more at debbieschlussel.com ...
National Review is not the gospel, but are you calling Schlussel and Robert Spencer "clown reviewers"? Roger Ebert loved it, like he loves all liberal movies. Maybe he is a "serious" reviewer and all conservatives are clowns. That's what it sounds like you are saying. Robert Spencer is only a respected expert on Islam (author of many best-selling books on it), and he pointed out what a piece of crap this "film" is. He's a clown?! Come on.
According to many Muslims, they see the film as being anti-Muslim.
Then we have people saying it is anti-Christian.
Frankly, I don't know this woman, so I will wait for Medved or somebody else to review it.
Here is one take:
"Saladin and most of the Muslims are presented as essentially good guys. They don't provoke war, but they don't run away from it, and they repeatedly agree to "terms" that spare lives. Saladin's final decision in the story is a truly noble one.
The Christians, though, are a mixed bag. Further, the more religious they are, the more fanatical they are likely to be. Balian complains he can't connect with God in Jerusalem, and the Hospitaler (David Thewlis) is a decidedly irreverent "spiritual adviser." These are our heroes. Meanwhile, the clerics are depicted as thieves and fanatics, and the true believers among the Christians are the most violent.
Then there's Balian's odd speech about how Jerusalem is just a lot of stones, and he'd rather burn it all down if it would save lives. Given the present war in Iraq and the hot-button issue of Jerusalem in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, "Kingdom of Heaven" seems ready to anger everyone but the atheists and the action crowd. A little more thought and a little less blood might have made for a better movie."
This review indicates some things were left out to make the Christians look better.....and he later says the same happened to the Muslims:
"Balian held Saladin’s forces at bay, ultimately threatening to destroy the entire city (and, in a detail omitted from the film, kill all the Muslims in the city) rather than let the Christian population fall into Saladin’s hands."
Who knows. I will have to read some more before I decide whether to see it or not.
My daughter, who is 18, is a big fan of his. Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean, etc.
However, this movie is shaping up to be a big disappointment even for her because of its apparent anti-Catholic revisionism.
Hey go see what you want, I know enough about the crusades and Saladin in particular to know he was a not as they say he is portrayed in this movie. He massacred many thousands of Christians and burned and looted many Christian towns and tribes.
On top of the fact that while he faced a army which was greatly out numbered and was hundreds of miles from its home, when travel of tens of miles was a major chore. He never really defeated the Christian army.
Saladin is a hero in the middle east although if he were alive today, being a Kurd he would have zero rights except in Iraq. So I really don't care if you or thousands of people like this re-write of history.
Its still just a re-write and from the sound a poor one at that.
Agreed, Troy was very well done in parts. At least Brad Pitt surprizingly (to me) showed he could carry a film, even though his character, Achilles, was odd for a modern day audience to identify with.
Alexander, on the other hand, was one of the most horrid bits of bad casting, lack of charisma and poor blonde dying I ever hope to see. A whining gloomy world conqueror!
He played a good elf in LOTR but he didn't have to talk much and he looks like a fairy anyway.
I heard he was an atheist so why play a crusader?
there was violent and ruthlessness on both sides, no doubt. You can get into an endless argument "what side" did what. I think her main point is this movie is fiction and will only cause more rankling on both sides. She's right, the Crusades are over. lol
Medved? You mean the friend of lobbyist Jack Abramoff (guy who is now responsible for getting DeLay in to all the hot water he's in)? If you read his review, you are reading a repeat of Schlussel's review, just like what he did on "Million Dollar Baby" -- lifted her review. Why read the copy, when you can read the original. Schlussel wrote that CAIR and ADC love the movie. Which Muslims didn't like it? I saw some Muslim Arabs on MSNBC and FOX News and they all loved it.
Unfortunately this type of propaganda is very effective at turning the rest of the world against us. The reason is purely economic. Hollywood makes only 30% of its money from the US. Therefore it seeks to be as anti-American as possible as the rest of the world is that way.
I hate censorship, but there is something very wrong with a country producing propaganda for its own destruction. It seems like almost every war movie made after Vietnam is an anti-American propaganda movie.
I read enough about Alexander to not waste my money. Comments like yours reminds not to even rent it. Thanks.
Such is the amazing and bitter hatred the left has for our nation and the love they have for third worlders and dictators.
I wouldn't call it noble. Maybe he was tired of the endless battles. We will never know his true reason. Maybe he thought the next battle with King Richard would leave him defeated. I don't believe his "reasons" were recorded anywhere?
The Muslims that don't like it are some Muslim viewers...not really famous reviewers or anything. Just did some more searching, and one Muslim on the Yahoo movies board says it portrayed Salidin as willing to do anything for revenge and he said the movie treated Salidin too harshly. The same reviewer said the movie helped him look more positively toward Christians though.
Based on this action in the movie, it may portray the Christians positively according to Christianity Today:
"Guy de Lusignan (Marton Csokas), a Templar who is married to Sybilla and is thus poised to sit on the throne himself, insists that God wants the Christians to slaughter the Muslim hordes. But Baldwin refuses to comply, even going so far as to hang knights who would pick fights with their putative enemies. Witnessing one of these executions, Balian remarks to a Hospitaller (David Thewlis), a member of the military-religious order entrusted with the care of unwell pilgrims, that this seems odd: "They are dying for doing what the pope would tell them to do." The Hospitaller replies, "Yes, but not Christ, I think."
This movie looks like it gives the good and bad in both sides. I am worried it will show more bad in the Christians, so I am leery of going to see this.
I don't want to waste money on pro-Muslim propaganda.
this one from decentfilms.com:
"Still, the film cross-examines the Christians in a way it doesn't the Muslims. “At first I thought we were fighting for God,” says Tiberias, “but then I realized we were fighting for wealth and land.” Oh. What are the Muslims fighting for? What were they fighting for when they captured Jerusalem in the first place?
More than once we see Muslims engaged in daily public prayers, but we never see Christians similarly engaged. Prayer for the Christian characters is only a solitary struggle with the sense of God's absence.
Despite these contrasts, Kingdom of Heaven makes an uneven effort to bring a measure of even-handedness to the religious divide. The film’s perspective, though, is ultimately more secular than religious. Even the Hospitaler, the most positive religious character, is more a spokesman for conscience than for faith per se. Kingdom of Heaven isn’t anti-God or even necessarily anti-faith, but there’s an element of anti-religious sentiment at work here. “Thank you, your Eminence, you've taught me so much about religion,” Balian sneers after the Jerusalem Patriarch has alternately suggested abandoning the Christian populace of Jerualem to slaughter or converting to Islam and repenting later as a means of saving their necks."
WARNING: This is a high volume ping list
Awesome! I have a new tagline.
The Crusades took place in a completely different era under completely different circumstances, and a presentist interpretation does that particular era no justice. In 1095, when Pope Urban II preached the first Crusade, Europe was finally emerging from the so-called Dark Ages and entering the Middle Ages. At that time, Islam was in fact a most tolerant and enlightened religion, and Muslim civilization, which was far advanced over that of western Europe, stretched from Moorish Spain to India, whereas Christian Europe was bogged down in internecine war, strife, and ignorance. In fact, the Muslims at that time had saved much of the science and mathematics of ancient Greece which had heretofore been lost to Europe. While the Islamic world of that time did have its share of fanatics, the religion itself was hardly the death cult that it has become today. Saladin was in fact a great leader who, during the 3rd Crusade, fought King Richard Couer de Lion to a standstill. And his actions were generally much more honorable than Richard throughout their battles, especially at Acre, when Richard had 3,000 prisoners beheaded in a single day. In short, the European Crusaders were nasty and brutish, as demonstrated by their massacre of both Christian and Jewish civilians at Jerusalem in 1099 and their sack of Christian Constantinople in 1214. I'm no apologist for the Muslim world, but folks just need to keep this stuff in its proper perspective and remember that classical Islam was far different than the Islam of today.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.