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Boy doesn't it!? The epics of today really suck. (Troy, Alexander)
Darn. I would have liked to go to see a balanced movie about that era.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Since Gladiator was one of my favorite movies of all time, I really have wanted to see this film. If it is as bad as some say, it will be hard to watch. However, I have sometimes seen movies that had caused a similar uproar which I went on to enjoy. Hopefully this movie will be like that. Or maybe I can go see it as if I was watching pure fiction, like a sci-fi movie..
Here’s a “Kingdom” reality check. The “chivalrous” Saladin was as intolerant and sadistic as they come. His principal secretary and historian, Imad ad-Din (who was gay) describes their view that “while several circles of hell prepared to receive Christians . . . the several ranks of heaven joyously anticipated the Muslim dead.”
Unlike his portrayal in “Kingdom,” Saladin:
Personally beheaded many of the Crusaders living in and around Jerusalem, and watched while his soldiers cut the bodies to pieces to satisfy their lust for revenge;
Sent poisoned wine and flour to a Greek leader to distribute to Crusaders;
Fought violently with rival Shi’ite Muslims, dissecting one of their leaders, and keeping his hands and head as trophies (Saladin, a Kurd, was a Sunni);
Persecuted Jews and Christians, denying them even the basic dignity of riding on horses or mules, requiring they ride in humiliation on donkeys and painful pack saddles. “Kingdom” shows Saladin allowing them to ride on horses. But even his own physician, the scholar Maimonides (a Jew forcibly converted to Islam) was forced to ride a donkey to and from Saladin’s palace. (Saladin stoned and blinded a Jewish doctor for daring to ride a horse, according to “Saladin and the Jews,” by E. Ashtor-Strauss.)
Sowed the seeds for Muslim Crusades, resulting in the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews and Christians. That’s the other interesting point “Kingdom” conveniently omits. At the time of Saladin, the 12th Century, there were Muslim Crusades in Spain and North Africa. This century-long massacre of Jews and Christians by the Berber al-Mohad Muslims (or al-Muwahideen), which began in 1113 AD, doesn’t exist in “Kingdom.” Yet it was so bad that “Sephardim” (Oriental Jews, primarily from Arab countries), who were once the majority of the Jews, were almost wiped out and remain a small minority, today. By the end, there were no churches or synagogues (or open Christians or Jews) anywhere in Western Islam.
Where is Ridley Scott’s epic about that?
It was so horrific that Saladin’s physician, Maimonides, wrote, “We were dishonored beyond human endurance. . . . This people, the Arabs . . . never did a nation molest, degrade, debase, and hate us as much as they. . . . No matter how much we suffer and elect to remain at peace with them, they stir up strife and sedition.”
“Kingdom’s” phony quote about Christian enthusiastically killing infidels? Here’s a real one from Saladin’s time, uttered by a Muslim historian: “It is permitted to kill the unfaithful or reduce them to slavery for opposing themselves to the true faith. . . . There were no Christians to be seen.”
Movies & TV are the propaganda tools targeted at the masses. I know of a church group planning to go to this movie and I'm going to try to stop them from PAYING to be lied to, with this article. Thanks for the post.
Why are you making the generalization? While all muslims weren't peace loving, Salaudin surely was. And he was a great ruler.
And its a historical fact that he allowed the christians safe passage. Was it becuase the city defences forced him to, or his kindness we shall never know. But none the less, he did.
Whatever. Still going to see it. :-)
This really ticks me off. When Hollywood is so bereft of ideas that it's remaking movies that were dogs decades ago, and there's so much riveting history to choose from, why do they do this? Why do both fact and fiction have to be distorted and butchered with all of this political spin? I guess I'll just stay home and watch Lawrence of Arabia...again.
He didn't the ones that couldn't pay a ransom, where put into slavery.
Of course his decedents are still doing it, can't pay a ransom we will enslaver you.
One of the greatest sins against civilization is the twisting, warping, and revision of history, particularly for some social or political agenda. Accurate history, because of the lessons we can learn from it, is akin to truth in its purest sense. The accuracy of historical events should be protected as nearly sacred. Hollywood, however, either to push an agenda, or to make a buck, constantly perverts history in the movies it produces. Ridley Scott didn't produce a movie here; he apparently produced a lying abomination.
A little off top, I don't get Orlando Bloom. they want him to be a star so much, but I think he's just SOOOO boring.
Saddam Hussein liked to refer to himself as the 2nd coming of Saladin. That should tell you something.
I wouldn't watch this movie if they sent it to me free of charge, anything that cair says is alright has to be a lie.
I expected as much when I first saw the movie pre-views. The movies sole purpose is to make me feel guilty and feel I should apologies for being what I am.
Such is the amazing and bitter hatred the left has for our nation and the love they have for third worlders and dictators.
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Awesome! I have a new tagline.