Another Pass at The 13th Warrior

For those who hoped we were done talking about adaptations of Old English epics… today is not your day. Case and Sam are joined by mediaevalist Jeremy DeAngelo for a look at the realistic deconstruction of Beowulf, The 13th Warrior.

SUBSCRIBE: Apple Podcasts • Google Podcasts • Spotify • iHeartRADIO • Stitcher • RSS

Outline

• Introduction to The 13th Warrior (00:00 - 10:24)

• Introduction to The 13th Warrior and guest Jeremy d’Angelo’s credentials in Medieval Studies.

• Discussion of the film’s troubled production history, early critical failure, cult status, and its relationship to Beowulf and Norse mythology.

Adaptation of Beowulf (10:24 - 19:53)

• Examination of the film’s adaptation of Beowulf narrative beats with timeline compression and monster fight order changes.

• Discussion of film’s linguistic choices: mix of Old English, Greek, and Latin, and language-learning montage.

️ Character Development (19:53 - 29:40)

• Delving into minor characters’ poor development within the warrior party, lack of distinctiveness, and missed opportunities for emotional stakes.

• Appreciation for some ethnographic details such as hygiene practices from Ibn Fadlan’s account.

Wendol Tribe Analysis (29:40 - 39:45)

• Analysis of human sacrifice scenes, their minimal screen time, and cultural whitewashing.

• Contrast between the Norsemen and Wendol (cannibalistic tribe), with critique of the film’s portrayal of the Wendol as irredeemably evil and overly primitive.

Pacing and Genre Confusion (39:46 - 49:48)

• Study of the film’s pacing, genre confusion between action and horror, and specifics of cinematography, lighting, and editing choices contributing to audience confusion.

• Criticism of in-depth character introduction of Antonio Banderas’ character and loss of complexity in the rewritten score and soundtrack.

Historical Inaccuracies (49:48 - 01:00:02)

• Discussion of historical inaccuracies and anachronisms in costuming, weaponry, and horses.

• Evaluation of Ahmed Ibn Fadlan’s selection as the 13th warrior: lack of clear narrative importance for his foreign status but subtle acknowledgement of his reason and logic skill.

Production Insights (01:00:02 - 01:09:38)

• Discussion of Michael Crichton’s involvement, production budget controversies, and film release timing second to The Sixth Sense.

• Pitches for improvement: emphasizing horror elements, Arabic cultural focus, better warrior character building, and deepening thematic elements of cooperation and cultural clashes.

Narrative Depth (01:09:38 - 01:19:49)

• Continued elaboration on narratively fleshing out court intrigue and internal conflicts, enhancing stakes and motivations beyond monster fights.

• Comparisons with other Beowulf adaptations and signal needs for political and social subtext in the narrative for depth.

• ⏳ Final Reflections (01:19:49 - 01:30:10)

• Further critiques of character and pacing issues, underscoring the film’s very tight runtime and action sequences crammed into short duration.

• Reflections on film’s mixed genre identity and cult appeal. Speculation on changes impacting either commercial success or lasting cult status.

Adapting Beowulf (01:30:10 - 01:39:32)

• Reflection on the difficulty of adapting Beowulf fully in one film with its time jumps and historical references.

• Highlights of memorable scenes such as Beowulf’s last speech and warrior camaraderie.

Closing Remarks (01:39:32 - 01:46:27)

• Closing remarks, thanks to guest Jeremy d’Angelo, promotion of his academic book, and mention of future podcast episodes including one on Kingdom of Heaven.

• Audience engagement encouragement and production credits.

Transcription

00:00
Case
Yeah, And I just realized that based on when this episode is going to drop, it's going to be the one. Right after we talked about Alien 3 and I went on my whole, like, tirade about how the Alien movies are Beowulf but in a sci fi setting. So I realize listeners might be very tired of me talking about it at this point, but you know what? We're going to talk about it for this episode because we're Talking about the 13th Warrior, which is directly supposed to beowulf. Yeah. So I'm sorry, guys, like, we're talking about Beowulf again. Welcome to Certain Point of View's another past podcast.

00:28
Jeremy
Be sure to subscribe, rate and review on itun. Just go to certainpov.com.

00:36
Case
Hey everyone, and welcome back to another past podcast. I'm Case Aiken and as always, I am joined by my co host, Sam Alicea.

00:42
Sam
Hi.

00:43
Case
And today we are talking about a critical panned movie, A box office bomb, but a cult classic that I love a lot. Today we are talking.

00:53
Sam
I love this movie.

00:54
Case
Oh, yeah. Today we are talking about the 13th Warrior. And to have that conversation, I could not think of a better guest than Jeremy d'. Angelo. Hello, Jeremy. This. This episode actually is happening because you and I were just chatting on Facebook because went to college together. We used to do theater together. I attended the defense of your thesis, which was on Norse mythology and specifically Loki.

01:18
Jeremy
Oh, my goodness. I must have. I must have blanked that out because I was so. I was so tense and nervous. I did. I forgot that you were there, case.

01:27
Case
Somewhere buried in my documents somewhere. I have a copy of it because you sent it over to me. Because I was like, that sounds dope. Because I actually hadn't read it before I went. You just were like, hey, I'm talking about Loki. I'm like, yes, I love to talk about Loki.

01:39
Jeremy
Yeah, that was before. That was before everyone knew Loki, right?

01:42
Case
Yes.

01:43
Jeremy
And so those of us who actually knew what that name was, very few and far between.

01:50
Case
Yeah, he had not dominated Tumblr at that point.

01:52
Sam
Yeah, he's got that Tumblr money now.

01:55
Case
But specifically, we had done an episode a little while ago on Beowulf, the Neil Gaiman scripted CGI movie that came out in the mid-2000s. And, you know, it was a great episode. I had a really fun time talking to Ben about it, but, you know, it's. It deserved to be on this show. And were talking about like, how, well, hey, you know, it'd be fun to like, do Another, like, Beowulf movie, because you've got a layer of expertise, and it's just fun to talk to you about that kind of literature. And I was like, you know what? The thirteenth Warrior. Critics hated it. I love it. But let's talk about it. I'm sure there's something to talk about.

02:30
Jeremy
Absolutely.

02:31
Case
And, whoa. When I did some research, is there a lot to talk about? But why don't you give, like, just some basic credentials, like, who are you? Why. Why should people listen to you?

02:41
Jeremy
Yeah. So after. After Case and I went to college, I went on to graduate school specifically for Medieval Studies. And as you kind of pointed out, Case, my particular interest is kind of in Northern Europe. And so my degree is in Medieval Studies, but I specifically study Old English, Old Norse, Old Irish Literature, and I got my PhD in 2013. And so I've been teaching as a professor at various places ever since then.

03:11
Case
Yeah. So it's fair to say that you are, academically speaking, the most qualified person we've ever had on an episode to talk about the specific topic of that episode.

03:19
Jeremy
Yeah. Although I found that doesn't necessarily make me fun at parties.

03:26
Sam
That's. That's fair. But. But I feel like this movie definitely needs someone like you to talk about it, maybe.

03:33
Jeremy
So I. You have to. You.

03:35
Case
You.

03:35
Jeremy
You eventually learn that, you know, people don't necessarily want you to tell. Tell them everything that's wrong.

03:43
Sam
I want you to tell me everything that's wrong. I am. I'm here for it. I. I enjoyed this movie, and I think that it's. I mean, like, honestly, I liked it when I saw it when I was a lot younger, and I enjoy it for. For what it is. But I think we can all agree that there is a lot of things that, like, there was not someone sitting here that, like on this, you know, on the set that was really, like, I. Culturally, I wouldn't know, because there just. It wasn't for either culture, whether it be the Arab or the Norse culture. I just feel like there's a lot of missed opportunities. And honestly, this film might have been okay if it was just, like, two, like, space cultures.

04:31
Sam
Like, if it had been like, another planet where there was, like, lightly based on these cultures, maybe.

04:36
Jeremy
So I assume Michael Crichton filled that role. It was his book. He always did. He always did research for the books. And so I could see everyone else saying, well, why do we need anyone other than Michael?

04:49
Sam
Yeah.

04:49
Case
Right. Well, I would argue that Michael Crichton's role in this movie was probably Too big, especially based on later stuff with it. So, like I said, I also really like this movie. It is a cult classic, and I think that it holds up really well if viewed from a very specific lens. But it was a huge bomb at the time. Critics hated it at the time. And I assumed that, like, because I've seen a lot of, like, support on the Internet, that opinion had overall changed. And then when I went looking into it, a lot of critics that I like currently also really don't like this movie. And I was like, oh, wow. Oh, God, what's going on here? And then I started doing some digging and I was like, oh, I see what's going on here.

05:29
Case
Because this is a John McTiernan film in a certain sense. And that's interesting for us because we, at this point, have now Talked about John McTiernan twice on the show, but only in the capacity of fifth movies, where we talk about movies that had adversity and where the creative efforts of the people involved in making the film turned it around and did what we talk about on another pass. Normally, like where the movie got another pass because we talked about it for Die Hard and we talked about it for Predator, but this is not one of those. This is a regular episode. And this movie John McTiernan technically directed, but in a lot of very real ways. It was Michael Crichton who was the director of this movie, especially for the final cut of the movie.

06:09
Case
Apparently when they went into reshoots, Crichton and McTiernan were both shooting the same scenes. And Crichton said, it doesn't matter. I have final cut. And had complete control over how the ultimate movie was shaped.

06:22
Sam
That's insane, honestly.

06:25
Case
But it's not out of this world to think about because, remember, we talked about Congo a few weeks back.

06:30
Sam
Oh, yeah.

06:31
Case
Time is a lake that is impossible to care about.

06:34
Sam
It has no meaning.

06:36
Case
Yeah, Time occurred. We talked about Congo and how. Oh, it's really interesting how they deviated from the books and made it sort of like a fun Pulp Fiction Y kind of romp. And that it had been stalled in production for a long time because Michael Crichton was very specific about what he wanted for the adaptation. This book was written in the 70s and also took a long time to make it to screen. And once it was actually shot and cut, and they gave a test screening in 1997 for a 1998 release, it was terribly received and they had to reshoot a ton of stuff. And that's why it ended up actually Coming out after the Mask of ZORRO and in 1999. So there.

07:14
Case
There's a troubled production history, and if they had pulled it off, this would have been a great candidate for a fifth movie. As it is good and beloved, but there are. There are faults. And once you start seeing them, you're like, yeah, they exist. So, Jeremy, what's your relationship with this movie? Like, I. Sam mentioned she saw it and like, loved it. I saw it, actually. I actually was introduced to it in a high school English class my senior year. So this was 2000.

07:37
Jeremy
That's interesting.

07:38
Case
One 2002. And fell in love with it then and have sung its praises ever since. But what's your association with this movie?

07:46
Jeremy
Yeah, I actually, I didn't see it until graduate school, actually. Medievalists often like to bewail the lack of what we consider any good adaptation of the story of Beowulf. And so it's something that you'll hear at cocktail parties all the time. Oh, there's no good Beowulf movie. But that's usually accompanied then by the caveat. Except for the 13th Warrior. There's something. There's something to be said for the 13th warrior. And so, you know, everyone kind of begrudgingly, I guess I should say those in the know, kind of begrudgingly, kind of nod to the 13th Warrior. And I was like, well, I've heard of this movie, but I've never seen it, so I guess I should take a look at it, you know.

08:33
Jeremy
So I watched it maybe 10, 15 years ago for the first time, and it was interesting revisiting it because my recollection of the film before I saw it again was that I kind of thought the film was done. But then all of a sudden there was far more to it than I expected. Plot wise. And suddenly I think I maybe lost the thread at some point because I just remember being confounded as to why they were suddenly running around underground and getting very confused about the ending. I was able, upon re watching it, I was able to follow it a bit more closely this time. But my initial respons. It was. Well, that was interesting. Which is actually high praise. I was like, it's certainly not. It certainly wasn't boring.

09:24
Jeremy
But I, you know, it went in directions that I wasn't prepared for when I first saw it.

09:28
Sam
Yeah, I mean, antennae Banderas. This is probably like his best movie next to Spy Kids. And. And I say that in all seriousness.

09:39
Case
That's some shots fired at Maskaro.

09:41
Sam
It's okay. It's okay, but I think the order is Spy Kids 13th Warrior, Mask of Sorrow. That's what I think. You don't agree? I haven't seen Masking Zara in a really long time, but I don't remember enjoying it as much as I enjoyed this film.

09:59
Case
I mean, we don't need to litigate Mask of Zara right now. It's just. It's. I like that movie. And it came out at about the same time, so it was on my mind.

10:07
Sam
I was like, are we. Are we having a war now?

10:10
Jeremy
It's funny. So it's been a very long time since I've seen Mask of Zorro, but maybe about a year ago, one of the film critics at New York Magazine brought that movie up as an underappreciated gem. So at least in case there are some people that would agree with you.

10:28
Sam
I'm still putting in his top three.

10:31
Jeremy
I'm not even going to bring up Puss in Boots.

10:34
Sam
Fair enough. Oh, now, I don't know. I'm going to have to watch Mask of Zara and get back to you guys.

10:40
Case
Yeah. But Jeremy, you brought up the specific thing that we haven't really described for those who don't know about this movie. It is antonio banderas led, John McTiernan technically directed movie that is supposed to be a deconstruction of the Beowulf myth or legend, whatever you want to describe it as. Like, it is taking all of the events of Beowulf roughly and trying to create a realistic framework for them to transpire under. And for the most part, it's fairly one to one with one big caveat, which is that in addition to the time passage of Beowulf, that this all takes place over a relatively short amount of time. They encounter the fire Verm, the dragon earlier in the narrative and then have sort of a second round against it at the very end of the movie.

11:26
Case
Which caught me off guard at first too, because it's like, oh, well, if you know the Beowulf saga, it's like, okay, you fight Grendel, then you fight the mother, and then you fight the dragon. And. Yeah, and like in that sequence. And so it's like, oh, they fought, you know, like up until like the first encounter with the Vindal. The. The equivalent of the of Grendel in this, like, is a pretty like, okay, yeah, here's a realistic depiction of like something kind of similar. Ish. That map that maps pretty one to one. And then it's like, oh, and now they're fighting the dragon. What Holy shit, that got big. Oh, and now they're going to go fight the mother. Oh, that's weird. Oh, they're fighting the dragon again. Okay. Okay.

11:59
Jeremy
Yeah. I mean, if you're. If you're going with the actual order of the story, it takes a lot of time to get there, but then suddenly everything that happens in Beowulf is seemingly happening all at once.

12:12
Case
Yeah. And I just realized that based on when this episode is going to drop, it's going to be the one right after we Talked about Alien 3, and I went on my whole, like, tirade about how the Alien movies are Beowulf but in a sci fi setting. So I realize listeners might be very tired of me talking about it at this point, but you know what? We're going to talk about it for this episode because we're Talking about the 13th Warrior, which is directly supposed to beowulf Wolf. Yeah, so I'm sorry, guys. Like, we're talking about Beowulf again? Fourth time this season.

12:39
Jeremy
Well, you know, it's. We're. We're recording this around the Christmas season. And the Grinch is another Beowulf narrative to a certain degree. You have a home invader who is upset with all of the. With all of the noise that hears coming from the town, and so he invades and attacks it. And so really, Case, you're just seeing Beowulf everywhere? Because he is everywhere.

13:01
Case
Oh, my God, you're breaking my brain with that one. I'm like, I can't dispute that one. It actually makes sense.

13:06
Jeremy
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

13:08
Case
God damn it.

13:09
Sam
The who's in Whoville just, like, singing songs.

13:12
Case
Okay, yeah, the who's and the Hrothgars and Hrothgarsville. Yeah. So, Jeremy, with this rewatch, where did you fall on that one? Like, were you more positive, negative? Like, what. What's your stance in this movie, ultimately?

13:27
Jeremy
I mean, I. I don't think I necessarily have. I don't think I necessarily have high. High standards, or at least I wasn't. I wasn't approaching it with high standards. I once heard somebody describe a hipster as somebody who watches bad movies for intellectual reasons. And I'm de. I'm definitely that. So, like, as. As I said before, I was just like, ooh, this is interesting. I really don't necessarily care. So it kind of met my expectations, I guess I should say. I think that they were doing something really interesting with it, and that in and of itself, I think is kind of a worthy endeavor.

14:06
Jeremy
And so I like that they went there, but I Don't necessarily agree with all of the things that they did, but at least it was, you know, at least it was them trying to do something with it instead of just kind of giving a flat adaptation of the source material.

14:23
Case
Yeah. Next week when we're talking about the Christopher Lambert led sci fi Beowulf movie, you know, we'll see how that comes across. Because we're just doing Beowulf, guys. This is just a Beowulf show now, guys.

14:34
Sam
Oh, my gosh. I will say things that definitely worked in this film is the dynamic from the 13 warriors that go on. You know, it's something that worked well in Aliens, which we've talked about also in terms of like the team, the squad. Right. They definitely. There's like good moments, there's fun moments, there's ways to make you care. Do you care about every single one of them? Maybe not. But they try their best to try to give everyone kind of a moment so you kind of have a moment to do it. And I also like the scene where there's passage of time and he's listening and picking up the language. I thought that was really well done. So things that really worked well.

15:16
Case
You know what, that's a great one to mention because that's always in my notes. I love that scene. I realize that it is heavily edited from the original version. Apparently the test screening was about 27 minutes longer than the movie that we got. And then they either reshot or rebuilt the ending completely because they wanted that sort of square off between Bullweif the Beowulf XP in this with the quote unquote leader of the vindol. Like, that sequence wasn't there. So I don't know if they didn't fight some kind of equivalent of the vindel because that's in the book, the end part of that fight. But it definitely was totally reshot. However it was. And then a lot of stuff that happens earlier is trimmed down substantially.

16:00
Case
And if you look at that montage, which I rather like, you can see that they were definitely parts of scenes that we're not getting. There's a lot of travel stuff where I'm like, that's a lot of setup. And you probably would have had a few more shots in there about where they are in the world to sort of convey it. And it's very much trimmed down that I love it. But it is also very fast. And I am curious if the original version of it had it be a little bit more prolonged so that you slowly were integrated into the character speaking English. Or rather, let me phrase that slowly integrated into the character speaking Modern English from Old English. But I love the fact that they do it that way. I think that's so cool.

16:41
Case
Like, the language in this movie is actually really cool. That sequence is one of the two big ones for me. There's that. And I. And I do really like it. I think it's really cool where they, like, are speaking Old English and random words of Modern English are being mixed in there and you slowly get more and more until you get to the point where, like, Banderas actually responds to one of the characters. And I think that's. I think that's just fun. And like, you sure, if it was like a little more spaced out, probably could have been even cooler. But, like, I dig it because, like, that's my type of nerd.

17:11
Case
The other part of it is when they are first in the camp of the Northmen and Omar Sharif is going around trying to talk to them and he goes up to one and speaks Greek and they like, go and get someone else and he speaks Greek to that guy and he's like. Responds in Latin and they don't say anything about it to anyone. And then Omar Shri's character just, like, continues in Latin and, like, just knows the language, so they move on. And then they're speaking in Latin.

17:36
Jeremy
I'm actually, I'm happy to hear that because I thought they were speaking Latin to each other, but then when I looked it up, it said they were speaking Greek. And I was thinking like, well, I don't know Greek, but I know Latin. It sounds like Latin.

17:46
Sam
Yeah, that was definitely Latin, right?

17:47
Case
No, that. It's a subtle joke that they never comment on, which is that he does speak because he's actually speaking Greek for the first punk, like the first couple lines. And then when it's. He's responded to in Latin, that's when they switched to Latin.

17:59
Jeremy
Okay.

18:00
Case
And it's like such a. It's such a language joke. Like, you have to know what they're. I, I don't know Greek, but I do know what Greek sounds like. And I pick up like, I know Greek words and I. But I do speak a little bit of Latin. Not good Latin, but good enough that I understood what they were saying.

18:15
Jeremy
That actually is also accurate to the area. If someone was coming from the Islamic lands, the Western language that they would be the most familiar with would be Greek.

18:24
Case
Right.

18:24
Jeremy
But Norsemen coming from the west, if they were going to know a Southern European language, it was likely to be Latin. Right. And so that actually is quite accurate as to how they essentially try to. Try to approach one another and try to figure out what. What they can actually communicate.

18:39
Case
Yeah. 100% the most subtle thing in this movie. And also my favorite thing, going back to the other.

18:45
Jeremy
Going back to the other language moment from the movie. I'm glad to. I'm very happy to hear the background that you gave to it, because there's. Because that moment actually kind of frustrates me as it's shot. Because as someone who has to pick up languages in his field, I wish it was that easy to just spend a week with people and then you'd be able to insult them fluently the way that. The way that he does then. And so, you know, I actually understand. I think your average audience would not necessarily have the patience to watch somebody learn a language over time. So I don't think. Don't think it was necessarily the wrong decision for them to do that. But I would have appreciated a much more realistic examination of how it is that he eventually learns to be able to communicate.

19:33
Sam
Yeah.

19:34
Jeremy
These 12 men that he's around, I.

19:36
Sam
Think if they had done that scene where it was like. I mean, I understand stylistically, it looks amazing around the fire, right? Because they're talking every night around the fire. But if they had done it kind of like melding into different scenery, it would have given you a little more, like, context that, like, it's always changing. They're always traveling. Like there's passage of time. They kind of just added rain to be like, this is a different night. And I don't know if that was enough change to, like, really, like, cement the fact that this is, like, this is a long journey. Cause in the book, it's a long journey. So this is a long journey. This is why he's learned this over time. It's not just a week.

20:16
Sam
You know, they're traveling to this space, and it is a longer journey than just a couple of weeks.

20:20
Jeremy
So I've not actually ever read the book. Does the. Do the main events of the book actually take place in Denmark like Beowulf does, or are they in a different place geographically?

20:30
Case
I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be Denmark. I read it a while ago, was looking up. I was trying to refresh myself on it, but I did not have a chance to reread the whole book in the. In the time leading up to this. But. But yeah, it takes, like, they travel to northern Europe. Like, it's, I think, supposed to be Denmark because it's Supposed to be like he. He goes on to write the. The first tellings of the story that becomes the legend of Beowulf. You know, that regardless of if it's perfectly geographically that way, but it's not supposed to be like Russia or something like that, if that's what you're wondering.

21:00
Sam
Yeah.

21:00
Case
Now, I will say, like, with that whole, like the picking up the language sequence, regardless of how it is. Like, it is movie magic, you know, like we. We couldn't have the characters speaking a completely foreign language throughout the whole movie at. Regardless, you know, in the. In the book specifically, he. For one thing, he leans on. On Herger. The. Like his friend. Like the Norse translator. Yeah, he leans on him a lot more during the whole trip. He has his own translator travel with him actually as well. And it's only really by the end of the book that he is able to freely speak with everyone. But, you know, there's no way to really convey that in a movie. Yeah, like, for one thing, they decide, like, all right, we're going to have them all be speaking English, period.

21:44
Case
Like a language that just didn't exist, like, would, you know, would be impossible. And nothing can be really passionate to Christ unless you have some very weird interests making that movie and a very.

21:55
Jeremy
And very dedicated audiences.

21:57
Sam
Correct.

21:58
Case
Yes. So it's a compromise that I'm fairly comfortable with. But, you know, like, your statement is valid and there's plenty of. Of critics who find that the most comical scene in the movie. So, like, it. It's a difficult thing to make work. Precisely. And I. I do think that probably if it was spaced out more and you had like different campfires while they're traveling, that would have been more effective. But the whole front end of the movie is truncated. Like, you can tell from the way that it opens. And then it goes into a flash. Like it opens in media res for them traveling. It goes to a flashback and it's. You know, if you're looking at it, that's a lot of footage to shoot if you're not going to actually use those scenes.

22:34
Jeremy
I was thinking that they have an entire caravan which could not have been cheap or easy. And it really is just for a few scenes. Yeah.

22:42
Case
And one of the biggest actors in the movie, Omar Sharif, is only used in this opening chunk of the movie. And, you know, like, what's up with that? Clearly what it is that they extended the time in Denmark and compressed the time in the sort of Arabian world that it's set in. And that goes along with some other Stuff that, like, I found out when I looked into the. What was done. Like, there's no chance that they're ever going to release the director's cut. Or at least the chance is very small. But McTiernan said that the whole musical score, which they threw out and rewrote was originally supposed to be much more like Arabic in nature. Because, like, the viewpoint character is supposed to be Ahmed. Like, it's supposed to be Antonio Banderas character.

23:23
Case
And thus all the music sort of is supposed to correspond to that. His viewpoint is always supposed to be the one that we share and that everything about the. The Northman is supposed to be Alien and that he comes to appreciate them. The decision to sort of rewrite the score and to like, refocus the. The lens, as it were, more towards just like a general action stuff about Vikings is all stuff that Crichton did in post. Like Crichton brought in his own musicians, he brought in Jerry Goldsmith to do the score. And they redid it with a Viking kind of aesthetic to it to amplify that part. And I think that all goes along with them really compressing that opening chunk of the movie.

24:01
Sam
That makes sense.

24:02
Jeremy
Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, again, I would have been really interested in. In a movie that spent more time in the kind of the larger Islamic world and then transitioning to the other. I don't know whether general audiences would, but it's interesting to hear that was the original plan with the film.

24:23
Case
Yeah, I found a really good quote about it which makes this movie feel really strange and really like anomaly in the context, which is. So this was Sean Kelly writing on the Escapist. The movie feels a product of 1999 in the saddest way possible. Two years later, 911 put a fairly screeching halt to positive, empathetic portrayals of Muslim civilization. Not long after that, coalition forces began bombing Baghdad in search of weapons of mass destruction that never turned up. Nowadays, Norse culture is interwoven throughout the imagery and anger of the alt right. It's shocking to realize that there was a time when were willing to acknowledge the richness of culture of the Islamic world far outstripped that of its European counterparts for much of history. And I think that's a really interesting part there.

25:06
Case
Like, test audiences didn't like having a quote, unquote Muslim protagonist at this time. But they still put that forth in this movie. And it's, you know, there's still that element there, but it was sort of like, well, we can't go Too far. But then it's. Yeah, it's pretty accurate. Two years later, like, we would all feel very weird about making anything that's like kind of like of that way. And it's shocking to think like this movie couldn't have been made two years after that.

25:33
Jeremy
I was thinking along those lines as well. Like it was, you know, he's supposed to be our surrogate in the story. And the way that we are supposed to. Are. The way that we are supposed to identify with him is based on aspects of medieval Islamic culture that don't get emphasized today nearly as much because of the much more antagonistic relationship we have with the Middle East. And so, you know, nowadays, if the movie was being made, the assumption would probably be that Western audiences would identify far more with the northern European characters. But at least the idea behind this was that, oh no, this person is. He's civilized, he's clean. You know, he believes in a single God. You know, he clearly must be the person that a modern audience would identify with.

26:26
Jeremy
And that just would go out the window two years later, as you said.

26:31
Case
And I mean, it's not. Again, this is not the wokest movie of all time, even in its original conception. You know, like, so here, elephant in the room. It's Antonio Banderas playing this character.

26:44
Jeremy
Yes.

26:45
Case
I mean, I will say he's Spanish. And at this time the Muslim world was actually in control of Spain.

26:53
Jeremy
That is true.

26:54
Sam
Which is true. Yeah, yeah.

26:56
Case
It's not completely wrong, but I'm Sicilian.

26:59
Jeremy
And if you came to me and asked me to play an Arabic character, I'm pretty sure I should turn that down.

27:04
Case
Yeah. Or a Greek character, for example.

27:06
Jeremy
Yeah, exactly.

27:08
Case
It's like, well, a long time ago they did colonize this area, but that was a long time ago.

27:12
Jeremy
Yeah, just. Yeah, just because they were in charge of where my ancestors came from doesn't give me a pass.

27:18
Case
Right. It's bad. And his interview is like, I, I watched and he's like, well, I guess I am exotic. You know, I, I have my skin, my language. But like, he's clearly uncomfortable with it too. It, it. And I think he tries to do a respectful portrayal, but like, it's. It is an awkward line to walk. And it is one where I don't think they. I. I don't think that they were like, particularly offensive at this time, but like, God forbid anyone ever do the same again.

27:45
Sam
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I feel like, you know, I think that the. Any other will do in an other role is something that we don't do anymore, that were pretty much okay with in the 90s.

28:00
Jeremy
So I, I, it sounds as if there's a different story to it, but I assume that the reason Omar Sharif wasn't in most of the movie was that they maybe couldn't only get him for a few days or maybe he couldn't do the more physical aspects of it. But I was thinking that also he was maybe a get for the movie to kind of give them more authority, more credibility. Well, both as a symbol of old Hollywood, but also because he is himself. He would be somebody from that part of the world, being asked to play somebody from that part of the world.

28:41
Jeremy
At the same time, I would imagine that Omar Sharif could probably tell all sorts of stories about the ways that Muslims had been depicted and the way that the assumptions that people made about him and his people throughout all the movies that he made in his life.

28:58
Case
Oh, God, yes. I mean, I will say that he's definitely not in the majority of the movie just because they couldn't get him for the majority of the movie. And maybe they wanted to, like, play up the otherness. But we do know that, like, there is a substantial portion that was trimmed down of this, like, opening part where they're traveling in the Arabic world. And Antonio Banderas character is supposed to be more of our viewpoint thing. So, you know, like, he was never supposed to be huge, but he's definitely reduced to a much smaller role and apparently quit acting for a few years after this because he was so embarrassed at the final product.

29:28
Jeremy
Oh, really?

29:30
Sam
That's a shame. That's sad.

29:31
Jeremy
But I mean, he might have seen it as progress. I mean, when he was in Lawrence of Arabia, he was walking, he was acting beside Alec Guinness, who supposed to be a Saudi in that movie. So he's probably looking at Antonio Banderas and going, well, at least he's Spanish.

29:44
Sam
He might, he might have some, like, ancestry DNA kind of.

29:48
Jeremy
We're getting, we're getting closer.

29:50
Sam
But I, I don't know, you know, I, I, I feel like if, you know, if this movie was made today, that would be definitely outrage. I, I do think that he did a good job in the role. I don't have a big problem with him. I just think that, like, there's clearly not any Muslim voices on set. And I, and I think that becomes a little, you know, dangerous when that's supposed to be our focal point. Right. We're supposed to be seeing the Norsemen through this storyteller's eyes. And even if it's sympathetic to them, I don't know, I feel like just. I think that's a misstep, you know, to just make those decisions.

30:31
Case
Well, particularly because it's a real person. Like, Ahmed IBN Fadlan is an actual Arabic historian and ambassador. Like, he. He was picked to be a viewpoint character by Crichton specifically because he was writing chronicles of his travels. And like, the. The book the Eaters of the Dead is presented as. Oh, this was a lost manuscript of one of his journeys.

30:55
Jeremy
Yeah. And so he was an ambassador who was sent north because there were several tribes in the north who had just recently converted to Islam. And so he was essentially strengthening ties between them and Baghdad. But while there, he encountered Norsemen who were known as the Rus in that area. This is ultimately where the nation of Russia comes from. And his account is really maybe is one of the only accounts that we have from the actual time period of what these people were like. And so, you know, ethnographically, it's a really important text to survive, and it's one that Michael Crichton made use of to kind of combine that with Beowulf to tell an epic story. Probably your average theater goer has no idea that it's a historical figure who's being portrayed here, but, yeah, he was a real guy.

31:53
Case
And it's such a cool thing if, you know. But at the same time, it also makes, like, the casting of Antonio Banderas, like, just that much, a little bit worse. And it's rough. Like, it's rough. Like, again, if this was happening today, it would be. There would be so much outrage. But we recently talked about Star Trek, the Wrath of Khan, and a while ago, we talked about Star Trek Into Darkness and how, like, you know, it's really bad to cast an Englishman as an Indian. It's slightly less bad in the 60s to cast a Hispanic actor as one. But, you know, as, you know, at least as brown. But, like, yeah, none of that should be happening now. But clearly Hollywood doesn't learn its lesson sometimes.

32:31
Jeremy
Yeah, I guess. I mean, I. I immediately thought of Exodus, Gods and Kings, which I think came out roughly around the same time as the Star Trek reboots. But similarly, you know, people were upset about English and American actors portraying Egyptians.

32:46
Case
Yeah.

32:50
Sam
We don't learn our lesson.

32:52
Case
Nope.

32:53
Sam
Yay.

32:54
Case
We really don't.

32:57
Sam
You know what I really didn't like, and this has nothing to do with casting or anything like that on the boat, the bright flashes. I know this is meant to disorient me, but I am motion sick, and I did not enjoy that. I get motion sick just in a car. Like, I'm the worst and just the bright flashes in my room. Not a fan of it, and I know it was a stylistic thing, but just wanted to put that out there. Did not like it. I get that he's on a boat.

33:27
Jeremy
It got you to sympathize with Antonio Banderas character, though he was feeling much.

33:31
Sam
The same way he was and neither of us enjoyed it.

33:35
Case
It's a real multimedia experience. We're trying to get you to be experiencing seasickness while we're doing a movie about a character who's seasick.

33:43
Sam
Exactly. I mean, I guess it did what it's supposed to do, but I hated it.

33:47
Jeremy
Imagine if it was like the other Beowulf movie and it was meant to be in 3D.

33:52
Case
Oh, my God, Sam. It's good that you bring up the boat because it's a good segue into one of the. One of the real grapes I have with this movie that can be overlooked somewhat if you watch the movie a shitload of times, but is less okay at a time where, like, who has the attention span to watch the thing more than once, which is the. The characters, the. The actual party of 12 that Antonio Banderas is the 13th member of. So by the end of the movie, you have a pretty good idea of a fair amount of them. And you get this whole sequence where they're all, like, sort of saying, like, oh, yeah, I'll join. So you at least, like, get, like, coverage of each of them. But a lot of them are not really characters. They're. They're.

34:31
Case
They're just part of the party. You know, they're cannon fodder to a certain extent. And while I was watching interviews on this movie, Vladimir Kulich, the actor who played Bullweif, was talking about how he was really trying to get McTiernan just to take, like, a handheld camera and while they're on the boat, just get moments of each of them kind of talking and, like, maybe. Maybe sort of you could use that to, like, add characterization to it, because McTiernan typically pretty good at getting you to care about the characters. Like, one of the strengths of Die Hard is that the. The party of thieves that breaks in, every single one of them has a pretty clear personality. You don't necessarily catch all their names. They're the bad guys anyway. But they all have a very clear personality.

35:11
Case
They all have, like, gimmicks for what they're doing. Like, you have A clear idea of their job in this movie. Some of them do, but not a lot of them. Like, there was one that I noticed on this watch that I had never paid attention to before. I was like, oh, I never saw that guy before. How. And then he was there. He was just in the rest of the movie, but it was like Mr. Poopy Butthole from Rick and Morty. It was like, oh, yeah, there's just a new character there. Okay.

35:34
Jeremy
I feel like at least some of them, they tried to give them a visual. Like, there was one that had a tattoo that went across his eyes. And so, you know, there was like, okay, it's tattoo. There's tattoo guy, except he looks so.

35:46
Case
Much like Tony Curran, another guy in the party. It's just the tattoo is the only difference.

35:50
Sam
Oh, yeah.

35:51
Jeremy
And I forget the actor's name, but the Blackfish from Game of Thrones, the same actor, he wears a ridiculous helmet throughout. And so I was always able to tell that it was him. But some of them didn't even have the benefit of that.

36:09
Sam
Yeah, there was one guy with red hair, so that differentiated him.

36:13
Case
Well, you say that, but there's two guys with red hair with very similar beards, but one had a tattoo.

36:19
Jeremy
One of them is Tony Kern, and the other guy's is the guy with the tattoo.

36:22
Case
Right.

36:23
Sam
One guy with red hair. You guys are wrong.

36:27
Case
No, they're so similar. I actually had to double check.

36:29
Jeremy
But then there's a moment. Then there's a moment in the movie, though, where they point out another character with red hair and tell one character to go and fight him.

36:37
Case
Yes. It's crazy and it kind of sucks. Like, at the end of the movie, they actually have descriptions for each of the characters, like, in parentheses after their names. So, like, so, like, Dennis Storrhei, who plays Herger, who is the cool one, the translator, It's Herger the Joyous. And then Tony Curran, for example, is with the musician. I'm going to note that when I say the musician, if you're like, when did he play music he doesn't like? They don't have that scene. All of these characters, aside from the ones that are, like, really, like, obvious, like, Misha Hauserman is Rafel the Archer. Like, okay, yeah, that's the guy who's always, like, using a bow like that. That part's clear. But they don't really do much with this Clive Russell, who. That's. That's Blackfish, right?

37:22
Jeremy
Yeah, that's Black. Yeah.

37:23
Case
Yeah, he's called the Fat. He's not that fucking fat. Like, he's not fat.

37:27
Jeremy
Yeah, I mean, now, you know, it was quite common among the Norse people to give nicknames like that to one another. The problem is that they were oftentimes ironic. And so, you know, somebody who's called the fat might be called that because he's stick thin potentially. But it's not as if the movie gives us any way to like appreciate or understand that. And besides, they don't use any of those titles in the film, do they?

37:55
Case
If they do, it's only in the old English sections. Okay, we like that. That's the problem. We don't actually get a lot of characterization for them, particularly once they are speaking a language that we, the audience understands, which is kind of a bummer. And then like there's a weird one, Daniel Southern, who is Edko the Silent, which is their scout, their Ranger, who stands out a lot. Yeah, yeah, he's called the Silent. He actually probably talks more than almost anyone else in the party aside from Herger. Like, he probably talks more than bullfights. I looked him up because I was like, oh, you know, he stands out a lot. Like he's a two weapon fighting ranger who is really dope and like very skilled at what he does. Is able to smell perfume on the winds.

38:35
Case
Is like, oh, I can tell by the horse foot, the hoof followed that horse that the person is well fed. Like classic Ranger kind of thing. Like he's dressed. It's great. He. He has done nothing. He, he, that year was in four movies and as far as I can tell, outside of that, he's a rugby player.

38:51
Jeremy
Okay.

38:52
Case
And that's it. Like he, like that year he did a couple movies and that was his entire career. And I'm like, that's weird because I, he has like a pretty distinct voice and I like a good look. And I was like, oh, yeah, I'd like. I, I'm curious what else he's been in. Oh, nothing. Okay.

39:07
Jeremy
I guess rugby was his calling. Yeah, yeah. For the longest time I was trying to figure out which one he was of them. And one of the other ones that I was never able to kind of identify apparently played Lurch in the Addams Family. And so for the longest time I thought he was that guy because he's big and he has a really long face. But then that character died and he was still around and so I was like, okay, so I've got this all wrong. I have to just scramble all of the. All the faces and names that I thought I had. Right. So, yeah, they do a very bad job in. In general with differentiating the various warriors. Even the one that's very distinctive. I got wrong.

39:49
Case
Yeah, it's.

39:49
Sam
It.

39:50
Case
That's a big bummer of this piece because, like, the idea of having a set of 13 men who are going on this. On this adventure into a very dangerous situation, like, each person who dies should feel like a big consequence. You know, like, there. There's a bit when. When they fight Angus and we'll talk about that scene next, because might as well. But when. When there's the fight with Angus and it's like, we'll miss his sword tonight. Like, that's a big thing in the book. Like, they talk about, like, it really sucks right now.

40:14
Jeremy
We're.

40:14
Case
We're really, like, scraping by on the guys that we have. Like, to have a big young dude dead is a huge consequence to their, like, ability to defend themselves. And, like, we should really feel that for the main 13. And, like, it is a giant bummer. Like, there was a suggestion that. That Vladimir Coolidge made when he was, like, talking about, like, oh, you could have these, like, little moments. Like, if one was a blacksmith, how cool would that have been if he was the blacksmith that helped Antonio Banderas make his scimitar?

40:42
Sam
Yeah.

40:43
Case
As impossible and implausible as that sequence is, like, I'm going to admit that's not how metal working works, but at least you could have a blacksmith outside of just your random ambassador being like, no, no. I'm telling you, this is how you make a sword that I can use. Like, it could have at least had some, like, emotional connection with a character who maybe isn't, like, one of the main foreground characters. You know, like, I love her. I think he's such a cool character. I didn't know his name.

41:08
Jeremy
Yeah.

41:08
Case
Until I was, like, looking up the list for this episode. Like, I had no idea. I've seen this movie so many times and always been like, that guy. I like, that guy is a good guy.

41:17
Sam
Yeah. I didn't know his name at all until you just said it.

41:20
Case
Yeah.

41:20
Sam
Like, that's. That's how long I. I. And I've watched this movie before. Never picked up on his name at all.

41:27
Case
Yeah. And, like, we are all like, oh, yeah, he's a good guy. Like, he's the translator. He's cool. He's really nice. Like, he's a little gross. He, like, sneezes into the water and then gives it to Antonio Banderas to, like, wash his face.

41:38
Jeremy
But, like, I have something to say about that moment once you have. Once you're finished with your point.

41:43
Case
But I was just gonna say, he's so amicable, it's amazing that I had no idea what his name is. And that is a weakness of this movie.

41:48
Jeremy
Yeah, absolutely.

41:49
Case
Go.

41:49
Jeremy
So that moment is directly from Ibn Fadlan's account of the Rus. One of the things that Ibn Fadlan, in his account, cannot believe is how dirty these people are. And he describes in long detail about how they have just a basin of water and they do all their disgusting toiletries in it and then just pass it on to the next person. And he, as a Muslim who has very strict rules about how he's supposed to wash himself and cleanse himself, is completely disgusted by these people. And that is like the one specific detail, I guess, that came from Ibn Fadlan's account. Made its way into Eaters of the Dead, made its way into the screen, right into the screenplay, and then survived the editing process to be retained in the movie. Directly from a medieval. From a medieval voice.

42:46
Case
Yeah. And it works really well. Like that sequence in the book. It's like slave girls bring the water and then they bring it to the next person. Them just passing a bowl around works really well. I think there's good economy of storytelling there to convey. Yeah, he's really grossed out by these people in that moment. If you were a screenwriter adapting this, you'd be like, you'd be crazy not to have that scene, I guess.

43:07
Jeremy
But they also. The other thing and the thing that Ibn Fadlan's account is almost always cited for is his discussion of their practice of human sacrifice. And, you know, if you're looking for something to catch people's attention, you would imagine that would perhaps have made it into there, but that maybe it would have made them too frightening for audiences.

43:27
Case
It's there, but it's actually a reshoot.

43:29
Jeremy
Okay.

43:30
Case
So when they're at the camp, that part is a reshoot right there where they have the. So the woman that they actually sacrificed for the old king before Bullivith assumes command, the woman is actually Dennis Storhai's wife. So Herger's wife in the real. In the real world. So that's why they were able to get her for the reshoots specifically. But that was something that Crichton did to, like, bring that back in. And that's actually why, like, one of the things that we can tell was Crichton vs. McTiernan. Because I love the way they use the low there. Do I see my father stuff? It's always been a scene that I've been like, that's a badass way to like set up. Like. Like go into a fight sequence, yada, yada. And they have that scene earlier, but that.

44:09
Case
Those are the only two they have it. That's a Crichton reshoots to try to get that in there as a through line so that you have it for the end of the movie.

44:15
Jeremy
Okay. I must. I'm sorry, I must have missed the. The. The sacrifice. I know that they had. I know they had the. The funeral, but I must have missed the sacrifice.

44:23
Case
Yeah, they just. They don't focus on it.

44:25
Sam
Yeah, it's far into the distance.

44:27
Case
Yeah, it's. There's a woman that they put on the boat and then they set it on fire. They don't have any of the like ritual, like we're all gonna have sex with her. So to pass on our good word to her lover in the afterlife stuff or any of the other weird shit.

44:40
Sam
Yeah, it's. It's basically. And he even says. He's like, this is the old way. You're not going to see this again. As if they've like, yeah, they're going to move on from it. And I was just like, well, no. Well, how do you know you're not going to see this again? Like, wait, what is this changing of. Of the guard of this era? I don't understand. Is it because your king is poor? Can't afford a sacrifice? I wasn't sure about that, but interesting. It's very far in the distance and the focus is really the two of them, the translator and Antonio Banderas sitting there staring into the distance as like she's basically giving the speech and then she's lifted on and then you just see the boat on fire. And it's just said that she's there. So it's not.

45:26
Sam
It's not really the focus of on it, which I think is very interesting because I do feel that like. I mean, things have been leveled at Crichton before about his kind of. I'm not gonna pussyfoot around racism. And I think that there is this feeling of like, oh no, they're moving on from that kind of thing. And oh yeah, it was something that was done, but, you know, it's fine. And I think that there's this feeling often that human sacrifice is something that savages do. Even though almost every culture has had some form of sacrifice. I mean, you can even say the executions, in a way, are a form of sacrifice. So, yeah, it's just one of those things that it's just. I was like, oh, are we just kind of like. We're just. We're just kind of cleaning this up? What?

46:19
Sam
Like, I was like, it wouldn't like. Did they murder her first? Do they just put her on the boat and light her on fire? Death by fire is really terrible.

46:26
Case
Yeah, it's real bad.

46:27
Jeremy
Yeah. I mean, it's really kind of an attempt to kind of whitewash these characters and their history, you know, by making the human sacrifice, you know, only a minor part of what it is that you're seeing. It makes it so it's not central to their identity. But, you know, something that is not made clear in the film at all, but that you can see in even Fadland's account, and really is just the historical fact of the era, is that, you know, most of the commerce that was going on in this area was slaves. You know, all of the people who were being abducted by the Vikings in Western and Northern Europe were sent to this region to be sold as slaves in the Islamic world. And that was the general commerce that was going on.

47:16
Jeremy
That's why these people were in contact with one another. You know, suffice it to say, if you were to make your main characters slave traders, it probably would have backfired if you were trying to make us feel bad about them being killed off one by one.

47:33
Sam
Yeah, probably.

47:34
Case
Yeah. It's a really interesting juxtaposition when you look at then the Northmen, in contrast with Ibn Fahad lad, and then in contrast with the Vendol, which I want to get to, but I did. I did say we should talk about the Angus fight real quick. And I want to mention that one because I actually really like that scene. Like the fight with Angus. So her is told to pick a fight with him and does so, and they make it very clear like he is younger and stronger, like he is going to, like, in a fair fight is going to win. And it's like looking that way and then all of a sudden it's revealed that Herker's just that much better. Like he's such a trained warrior in the situation that he's able to instantly end the fight fatally. A human sacrifice in this situation.

48:18
Case
And I think that scene itself is a. Is a really cool. I like the duel. I don't know the logistics of, like, the breaking the shields stuff and the fight to the death part of it. All. But I do like the. The scene itself and how it works and then setting up how it is their counterfeit to the intrigue, the.

48:35
Jeremy
The.

48:35
Case
The. The stuff that's going on behind the scenes. But it also is a thing that points out a thing that really sucks, which is that whole plot thread stops right there.

48:44
Jeremy
I was wondering if there was more that had been left on the cutting room floor.

48:48
Case
Yeah, they cut out this whole thing.

48:51
Jeremy
I was half expecting it to be revealed at the very end that the King's son had allied with the Vendel.

48:58
Case
It feels like it, right?

49:00
Jeremy
Yeah. He's just so hostile to them. He's clearly meant to be the Unfirth character.

49:05
Case
Right. It's weird that they call him Wigliff, but he's unfurled in terms of his role.

49:10
Jeremy
Yeah. And so, you know, they set him up to be kind of, you know, like the human antagonist in the story. But then you're right. After that fight, he basically. He basically learns his lesson then, I suppose, and then he doesn't figure into any of the rest of it.

49:26
Sam
Yeah, he's not even like, in the throne room at the moment that. That they come back from killing the mother. And I would assume that he would be there and be like, oh, good, that guy's dying. Okay, cool. Like, at least that would have been like something, like, just been like, okay, cool. But he's not even there. Like, it's like he, like, ran away.

49:45
Case
Yeah. But again, the entirety of that last part of the movie is reshoots. And clearly they had cut that plot. It's. It's a bummer because, like, it's a thing that's going on, you know, like, one of the complaints about this movie, and honestly, one of the complaints about Beowulf is that it is a very straightforward. Monster shows up, we fight that monster. Next monster shows up, we fight that monster. Biggest monster shows up, we fight that monster. We die doing it because we're that devoted to doing good. Like, that's. That's the complaint. And in fact, the book was first written as sort of a bet of like, Beowulf is inherently boring. And Crichton was trying to counter that by being like, well, what if you look at it from a different perspective and do this kind of deconstruction?

50:21
Case
And I think it's fair to say, like, you need to do something to make it more interesting than just monster fight, monster fight. Because it's. That part of it is very straightforward. And from a film perspective, you want to have audience expectations you know, wane and then like surge and then you want to have like, twists in there. And you can't have a twist if it's just like, yep, there's a monster. We fought it. Okay, moving on. Like, you have to have some kind of reveal. You have to have like some kind of changing of the stakes. Like, nothing really is. Like, once the, like once they show up and the Vendel is the threat, the only thing that changes is the establishment of how big of a threat they are. But nothing else really changes in this movie.

51:00
Jeremy
Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, the way the history of the way that people used to read Beowulf is that at least scholars used to ignore the monsters completely. And all the tangential parts of the play that people for the most part, tend to skip over or have their eyes glazed over with regards to it. Linguists and historians were always kind of like combing through there to try to figure out what the connections were with regards to it. Then a little known medievalist named J.R.R. Tolkien actually suggested that the monsters were maybe important to the narrative. And so the, you know, the idea that Beowulf is about monster fights is. Is kind of a relatively new idea.

51:41
Jeremy
The political intrigues and the things that are discussed around the monster fights are quite important, but for an audience watching a movie, that's just not going to work. And so, you know, then you are, as you say, case stuck with monsters, and then what is it that you do to make that more interesting? And so the deconstruction route that Crichton takes is the one that he does there.

52:05
Case
Yeah. And, you know, like, I'm not going to pretend that I don't love those kind of monster fights. Again, looking at this movie from the lens of, oh, it's Beowulf being deconstructed is why I love this movie, you know, because I'm looking at it for those things and that's really cool. But, you know, other adaptations, again, I'm gonna cite the alien movies, like, there's a lot going on there in terms of what who is the real terror in this versus who is the wild animal. The aliens themselves are not necessarily a malicious force. They are just something that can never be understood, that will kill you if you interact with it, and that it's best to leave aside. And the true malicious force is capitalism. That is the intrigue of this all. In this movie.

52:46
Case
The intrigue is there should be like, court stuff going on. There should be stuff going on in the bale of text there's all these allusions to actual historical figures. Trying, like, those are the reasons why you're reading it. You're, like, looking for what's alluding to what. What people are connecting to who knows whom in the scenario. Like, you know what, there's the language aspect also, which, you know, is also really fascinating. How are they describing things that we can corroborate based on that we can identify what they're saying? Here is. This is always a fascinating component of that, where what is the state of Old English at this point in terms of, like, its complexity and its ability to convey an idea? Those are all really cool things that you would look at when you're looking at Beowulf.

53:26
Case
And then the metaphor of these monsters is also important. But if you don't have a metaphor to use with these monsters, that's also a thing.

53:34
Jeremy
Yeah, it's like, so in Beowulf, I mean, you know, you can cause all sorts of fights by arguing about what Beowulf is actually about. But a line in Beowulf that is repeated several times throughout the poem is, that was Gud Kuning, that was a good king. And the stories that are told in between the monster fights are often about good rulers and bad rulers and examples of where they went wrong and what they did right. And when I teach the text, I often ask. I ask the students, so at the end of the story, is Beowulf a good king? You know, where does he fit within all of these stories?

54:06
Jeremy
And so, you know, the monster fights serve, if you're looking at it through that lens, to, you know, to give examples of how Beowulf is or is not doing well in leading his people. And so, you know, there's a political element to it. So when you're doing the 13th Warrior and, you know, they are fighting the monsters, including Wiglaf, and, you know, this court intrigue seems to be suggesting a similar type of argument that they're trying to build, but then they just drop it. And so they really ends up not having anything to say on that point.

54:40
Case
And then we're left with just the monsters. Why don't we talk about them for a second? Because I'm really interested in the way that they are interpreted here. I think that there are some limitations by that the reshoot occurred. But, like, so in. In the book. First of all, the book is called the Eaters of the Dead. The cannibalism aspect of this all is supposed to be really front and center. When they went into filming, it was still called Eaters of the Dead. It was a later stage rewrite to change the title to the 13th Warrior in the hopes of making it more marketable. So it's supposed to be about a tribe of cannibals, and specifically it's supposed to be about a tribe of Neanderthals.

55:18
Jeremy
You know what? I got that from the first time I watched it, but then the second watching, I couldn't tell whether that was something I read into it and it wasn't there. But they are meant to be not Homo sapiens, but Neanderthals.

55:34
Case
Yeah, Homo neanderthalensis.

55:36
Jeremy
Okay, I was. Okay, so I was right the first time.

55:38
Case
Now the text itself is. I forget if there's like. So the book has both the layer of Ahmed's viewpoint and then also the transcribers trying to interpret what he's saying. So obviously like a historical figure from the time is not going to be familiar with the concept of an offshoot of Homo sapiens. That's just not in there. But the idea is that they are human, but not quite human. And I think that it's, for the most part abandoned in this, just by virtue that they have human actors and they can't do too much to make them that different in terms of physicality. Like Neanderthal man was already pretty close to humanity. Like, they're a little more muscular than a little bit squatter, they have a little bit of different brow shape, but they're pretty close.

56:24
Case
And there's only so much you can do with an actor to make them not look like that.

56:28
Jeremy
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so I. Because at least in the, you know, the way that they're depicted, Crichton is basically combining all sorts of different qualities from different cultures from all different time periods. You know, they are. They associate themselves with, I'm forgetting the technical term, but the. Those ancient statues of the Venus.

56:52
Case
Yeah, the Venus of Willendorf.

56:54
Jeremy
Yes, the Willendorf Venus. And so that's from prehistoric history, but they also have elements of bear worship attached to them, which is attached to all sorts of circumpolar tribes that one can find even today. And then there's also the tradition of the Berserk that comes from Norse tradition itself. And so he basically just takes all these elements of them and ascribes it to Neanderthals. And to create this kind of. This somehow human but also inhuman tribe of people that are attacking the Danes. For. Is there an articulated reason why they're fighting them?

57:36
Case
Not so much in this. Like in Beowulf, it's that he doesn't have a wall. And they do comment that he is undefended that there's no wall surrounding the. The fortress. But I don't think the. The hubris that antagonized Grendel is. Is an aspect of this. I think it's just that it's easy pickings.

57:53
Jeremy
Okay. So. Yeah, because they're just supposed to be seen as kind of expansionist in a way. It's not that. That, like, they're not defending their territory or anything like that.

58:02
Case
I mean, I guess it's that he did establish this fortress recently. Like, it's not supposed to be an older base that he moved into the space and, like, set it up. So maybe that's like. I guess that's the antagonizing component there. But I don't know if there's like, any interactions or anything like that. It's just like all of a sudden these people showed up and we eat them. I mean, I think that it is really interesting from the perspective of this is a movie being told from an outsider looking at this other culture who is now dealing with an even more primitive, violent culture.

58:33
Jeremy
Yeah.

58:33
Case
And I think that's a really interesting component that is not expounded upon sufficiently for this movie. Like, I think that one of the weaknesses of this movie is a lack of theme beyond just being like, we're doing Beowulf. And I think that would be a really cool thing to sort of expand upon, like, the. The interaction of these different cultures and how the. The true strength here is that Ahmed Ibn Fadhan finds common ground and finds understanding, and these people accept him into their fold. But the Vendol are. Are xenophobic. They are. They do not allow outsiders into their midst. They keep themselves separate and as a result, are regressive. And I think it's almost even stronger if they are humans who are specifically trying to stay away from civilization. Like, I think that's a more interesting stance than just like, yep, they're.

59:26
Case
They're Neanderthal, man.

59:27
Jeremy
Yeah. I mean, I think the problem with. With it is that we. We don't see anything really from their point of view. You know, in. They're just simply depicted as other and hostile in the ways that, you know, other ethnicities are so frequently depicted as other and hostile in genres such as Westerns and things like that. You know, I find the ethnic politics at the. At the end of the movie rather icky in this way. You know, just depicting them as unredeemably evil. It is kind of. It's kind of too easy narratively, I think, especially when they've already done so much to kind of establish that it is possible to bridge cultural differences between quote, unquote, civilized and barbarian people. At the beginning of it.

01:00:16
Case
Yeah. I mean, it would be disingenuous to have them come to an understanding. But I don't know. I mean, we don't know what the actual finale was. There is a part of me that wonders, like, was it something like Zulu, where at the end of the movie they're all like, we respect you. We're gonna back off. Which I'm not saying that is the model of racial sensitivity either. It's called Zulu, but. But it is at least an interesting tact to take. And, you know, instead of. It's just like, nope, we're gonna, you know, like the end of this movie. Like, it's kind of a badass scene, but it is just a bunch of berserkers running with no strategy into a base to all die. Like, that doesn't come across as being a culture that you can reason with. And that's a shame.

01:00:59
Jeremy
Yeah. I mean, but the reason it is because they've just essentially chosen, you know, all of the stereotypical elements of primitives.

01:01:07
Case
Yeah.

01:01:08
Jeremy
As. As. As a way to make them the bad guys. Like, oh, you know, they're. They paint themselves, they think they're animals, they eat people. You know, they've made them over the top evil, you know, Whereas, you know, it reinforces, I guess, stereotypes about primitive people. That is kind of just too easy. Similar to how two years later, they would just simply use shorthands for Muslims to make. To create easy villains in films. I feel like they're doing the same with the Wendell in this.

01:01:44
Sam
I think that's fair. I think it's fair to say that. That they make it too easy. I mean, even. Even the end. Right. They learned from this lady in the woods that they can. They have to kill the mother and then kill the guy with the big horns, and then they're in the clear. And, like, literally, that's what happens. Right. They kill the mother and then they come back out and they kill the guy with the big horns. And even though everyone's there, they just go home.

01:02:09
Jeremy
Yeah. You know, and, you know, similarly, there's no. Unlike the other characters, there's no figures on the other side that. That seem to have their own personalities or wills. They essentially are a hive mind. Once you chop off the head, all the others just pack up and go home.

01:02:25
Case
Yeah, that. That that the Oracle being like, you have to kill the. The leader too. That's such a reshoot right there. But that's why they're like, we have to go kill the mother. Yep. All right. We gotta go kill the mother. It's like, oh, by the way, you also have to kill the leader. He worries the horns.

01:02:41
Jeremy
I was assuming he was Grendel.

01:02:43
Case
I know that's. I mean, they're using that iconography there, but. So as far as I could tell from the interview I watched with McTiernan, one of the big criticisms was that there was not a real duel at the end, that they wanted to have an actual rival for Beowulf, for Bullweiss to fight in the last sequence there. So they established this character and they got a reshoot where they have this sort of like, look of the leader at one point during the fireverm attack earlier in the movie. But that part was added to exacerbate the. The tension between the characters. Like I said, I vaguely recall something pretty similar in the book. So I'm not sure if it had been cut for the original screenplay and then played up in the. The reshoots. I. I don't remember that part.

01:03:27
Case
But that is like a, a note that at least McTiernan cited on that note the. The mother of the window. So I was confused when I was looking into the credits because I was like, holy shit, she was like 70 when they made this movie. And that's because the actor who played the Wendell mother in the sequence that we saw is not the one who's credited in the movie. And that is because they shot the sequence multiple times. And originally they were going to have an older actress who was going to be more full figured and thus looking like the Venus of Willendorf as a representation there. And it was going to be this kind of darker thing. And that's part of the thing that we haven't talked about yet, which is that the movie shifted genre.

01:04:07
Case
So the movie was originally supposed to be a horror movie and it played up. It has become more of an action epic kind of movie with horror elements. But it's a weird thing because it also was originally supposed to be PG13 and then they added bloodshot inserts to make it an R rated movie. But at least when McTiernan went into it, he cites that he really wishes that he had been, like, told that he was making an R rated movie because he would have shot an R rated movie. And instead of just like adding spots where like, oh, that head got Ripped off. Oh, there's a lot of blood over there. Like, that's why, like, Antonio Banderas walks in and then he, like, just comes out and vomits. And then they just have inserts of like, close up of all the blood. Like, it's.

01:04:45
Case
It was all stuff that was done after the fact because they're like, oh, the audience that's going to want to see this is going to want to have the bloody sequences here. And I think that's another thing that's interesting about this movie where if you take it from the standpoint of Ibn Ahmed, Ibn At Falad traveling from what he's familiar with into the space and being beset by various monstrous entities. Like, I don't. I have no idea if they had the scene from the book where they've. Where they're sailing and they get attacked by whales. Like, I have no idea if they ever tried to shoot anything like that. But at the very least they come and like, they deal with the Vendel and they're scary.

01:05:19
Case
Like, like they go into a cave and like, you know, kind of a semi climax of the movie is them being chased into the darkness and like, they can only escape by like, holding their breath and going into the water below. Like, that's scary. Like, and you can play that up to be really scary instead of having big action scenes. And most of the fights up until that point are all in poorly lit settings. It's perfect for a horror movie. And then the last fight is actually well lit because it's daytime and it's like, oh, it's raining, but it's. You know, there's no fires and it's not crazy camera work. A lot of slow mos. You can clearly see what's going on in a way that no sequence up until that point was.

01:05:55
Case
Because up until that point, like, all the original shooting is still framing it like a horror movie. Like Alien.

01:06:00
Jeremy
Yeah.

01:06:02
Case
And I, I think that's another thing where it's like, oh, that's weird because, like, we hadn't gotten to the point in our culture yet where, you know, a couple years later we get Lord of the Rings and like, epic movies became real big, but we're. We're not quite there yet. You know, we're. We. We hadn't started to develop some of the. The, the 20th or the 21st century language for epic movies. And so this movie isn't really using any of those kind of shots. Like, it's not shot like Braveheart. It's. It is shot like a horror movie up until the end of the movie where it's a lot more static shots, a lot less dynamic camera work. And I'm kind of.

01:06:33
Case
I'm kind of curious, like, if that kind of played into the audience, not loving it because they didn't know what kind of movie it was supposed to be.

01:06:38
Jeremy
That's interesting. Maybe so. And it didn't occur to me to think of it as a horror movie going into it. But it, you know, I go into it with all sorts of expectations about the classic material. But at the same time, you say that the first section of the movie was meant to be longer. Was that going to be horror inflected?

01:06:59
Case
I think it's a scenario of. You have them sort of, here's the calm and they travel into the terrifying place. But this movie, that's all the montage opening the sequence. We're 10 minutes in here and we're traveling to the north. Okay, cool. If that was a full half hour and you get very calm and comforted by the, like, here's a guy, he is making flirtation or flirtatious acts with this woman. Oh, that woman's wife doesn't like it. Or that woman's husband doesn't like it. Like, that all would have been a different kind of vibe. And then all of a sudden, he's thrust into a situation that's much more terrifying and potentially supernatural. I think that fills more of a horror movie style.

01:07:36
Case
But because he starts off so early on in the movie in this sort of setting, it doesn't feel like you have that shift that should accompany a horror movie where when Michael Myers makes it into town and, like, actually starts killing people, like, there's. There's a good amount of lull before you get to, like, just the murders, even alien. Like, it takes a while before. Before the thing bursts out of Kane's chest.

01:07:58
Sam
Yeah, yeah, there's. There's definitely a build there. I mean, I. I think now that we're talking about it, that it would have been nice to see more of Antonio Banderas before. Because there are moments in. I, like, I was like, as I was re watching it, I was just like, oh, they're just choosing him as the 13th warrior. But how do they know he can fight? Like, yes, maybe we assume that everyone in this era has some sort of fighting ability. Like, maybe we just make that assumption. But did we know, like, do, like. I was like, we don't really know that. Like, I know that he, like, basically fell in love with a married woman and so he could be Like I'm a lover, not a fighter, you know, Like, I don't know if he's really, like.

01:08:46
Sam
As we don't really know a lot about him other than he's cast out and kind of sent away because this guy's mad that he fell in love with his wife.

01:08:58
Jeremy
Yeah, it's. And I guess it's. It's. It's relatively unclear. And I mean, we really actually know virtually nothing about Ivan Fadlan himself. But they don't really establish, you know, what his place actually is in Baghdad. I mean, if he's a member of the upper classes, he definitely would have known how to fight at least by. At least. But we don't actually know if that's the case.

01:09:20
Sam
Yeah, we only get in terms of reference, like. Like anything. Right. We got his ability to horse jump, which, you know, clearly you would have to be an experienced horse rider. So you kind of have that. Right. Which, which is actually a good scene because there's a callback later on in the movie where he saves a child with that. And then his insult to the guy at the. One of the redheads because apparently there were two.

01:09:47
Case
I swear, there are two.

01:09:48
Sam
Supposedly. Supposedly. I don't know. But. But the insult that he kind of says, he does say that his mom was a pure woman from a noble family. So like, that's like the only inference that we kind of get. But like if you're not someone who knows medieval history and you're not someone who like. Like there's just. We don't know that he really knows battle and he's just kind of like, oh, I get. I guess I'm going because I qualify for the norseman part.

01:10:21
Jeremy
Yeah, it's the. Like you get the impression that he doesn't know how to fight, but then they seem to kind of change the implication halfway through the movie, which is not that he didn't know how to fight, but that he was given the wrong equipment. And then we're back to that scene where he fashions a saber out of the broadsword that he was given. But that doesn't seem to be his objection to it when it's handed to him. His objection seems to be, I don't know how to do this.

01:10:47
Case
Well, his actual line is, I can't lift this.

01:10:50
Sam
Yeah, he says it's heavy.

01:10:51
Jeremy
Okay.

01:10:52
Case
But this gets into the anachronisms of the salt, which is. So a couple of things on this one. Like the relative weight differentials for the swords, relatively non existent scimitars didn't exist yet. And talking about the joke they keep making about his horse where they said only an Arab would bring a dog to war. So in terms of the actual breeding of horses at this point, Arabian stallions were bigger.

01:11:17
Jeremy
I mean, the Norse in general, they had rather small horses. So, yeah, that. I mean, that. All of that. I mean, if we're talking about the material culture that's depicted in the film, it's all over the place and just a complete mess. So.

01:11:30
Case
Yeah, yeah. And some of that's just movie stuff, you know, like the armor pieces being from the wrong eras there. There's some that's too early and some that's too late. And the early ones, I'm like, well, you know, they're just, you know, they're holding on to shit as it. As it goes, but whatever. Like, there's only so much you can do because I'm sorry, the breastplate wasn't right.

01:11:50
Jeremy
I took my family to colonial Jamestown this summer. You know, so the period of colonization in North America. And one of the characters is dressed exactly like they were dressed in the 1600s. So, yeah, it's all over the place.

01:12:07
Sam
Hey, listen, I have a pair of overalls that I had in high school still. So I get it. I get it. Sometimes you just. You find something that works for you and you just keep it for 20, 30 years.

01:12:22
Jeremy
It was maybe supposed to seem like, you know, they're. They're Vikings. They steal from people, and so their armor is just stuff that they had taken from the various cultures that they had conquered. But like I said, like, it's just what they really plundered was the prop closet. And they just, you know, came out with what they.

01:12:40
Sam
What they could.

01:12:40
Jeremy
Yeah, with what they could.

01:12:42
Case
Yeah. Which. Which is Hollywood. Like, honestly, that's one of the ones where it didn't really bug me because, like, that. That's just like. Yep, they. They had those props that they could use. It's the same thing about how, like, the armors from Starship Troopers just keep getting reused in sci fi movies now because, you know, like, they showed up in Power Rangers at one point because they're just there and they look good enough for a lot of different things. Cool. Those are the ones I'm not too worried about. Sure. The, you know, the metal working thing with the sword would take forever and, you know, or at least like several days. And also, like, the way that would work, you know, it's okay. Whatever. You made a sharp little sword. Okay, cool. The horses are the wrong side.

01:13:17
Case
I get the joke that they're trying to make, it's not. It's. That's not the important part here. So those are. Those anachronisms are usually the ones where I'm like, it's not a big deal. It's not. You know, they're not trying to be the most attentive to detail. They. The fact that they have any attention to detail is a good thing. And otherwise they're just trying to do, like, they're doing Beowulf, you know.

01:13:37
Jeremy
So with Ivan Fadlan's selection as the 13th warrior in the film, are we really given any indication in the movie as to why it was important for him or why it was important for the 13th Warrior to be someone foreign to them? Like, is there any point in which his background or the fact that he's not one of them ends up saving the day? Because I found that really unclear in terms like.

01:14:08
Case
So there's obviously. The oracle says it's important. I. I took it as. He's smart, and he definitely has points where he figures out things like he. He figures out the cave part, for example. And I think that those are elements of, like, oh, he's learned that sort of play to it. But. But most of those are not really that he's educated so much as that he is inherently smart. So, yeah, I think that you lose some of those because the. The abilities that are required of him are not the particularly ones that his background brings. They're ones that just is who he.

01:14:37
Sam
Is brings as an individual.

01:14:40
Jeremy
Okay. Yeah. Because I think I like, you know, he uses deductive reasoning at various points and, you know, and it's. He proves his worth that way. But I didn't know, you know, I was kind of expecting a moment in which, you know, he comes to the rescue. It's somewhat interesting that, you know, it's. It's not him who ends up fighting the Big Bad at the end. You know, he doesn't, you know, come to. He doesn't come to the rescue at the very end, even though the movie's named after him. You know, it's, you know, when they do things at various points in the film to suggest that he is important. And there isn't any one moment in the film where he. Where he demonstrates that if it wasn't for him, they would have completely failed.

01:15:25
Sam
Yeah, I mean, I think there are just small, subtle moments where he just sees things that others don't see. He is the person that spots both children running. He does see the cave more. He's the first person to realize that the Wendell really are human. Right. Or that they're not supernatural, that they're really something. So I guess, like, in subtle ways, they're telling you that, like, because he's. He's not super. Like, he doesn't carry the same superstitions as the group that he's with. And, and his faith, and not just his faith, but like, his. His being prone to reason. Right. And to looking at things with a reasonable eye makes him an asset because he always kind of. Of sees beyond what they're. What they see because he doesn't necessarily believe the things that they believe. Right.

01:16:20
Sam
Like, he's kind of like, what are you guys talking? No, like, you know. No, I. That. No, that doesn't sound right. You know, also, he's pretty much sober most of the movie, so, I mean, he's possibly the only sober character. So maybe that's part of it. Like, they were like. She was like, you need a desk native driver. Yes. That's like, trust me, you have to. You have to have one. That's norseman.

01:16:47
Case
Yeah. I looked into that mead loophole, by the way, and it's one where, like, a lot of. A lot of people have debated it after the fact. Like by. By people, I mean Muslim scholars or religious leaders of Islam. And so it's one where now it doesn't cut the mustard. But actually, at the time that it was technically okay because no one had really said anything because it just hadn't come up. It's the same way that coffee for a time was like, being like, I don't know about that. And I think it still is for some people.

01:17:15
Jeremy
I know, I know traditionally in the Muslim world, date palms, alcohol derived from them was a loophole. Again, I don't know if, like you said, I don't know whether it is now, but at least. At least historically. So there are at least some substances that historically Muslims were able to, at one point or another, imbibe alcohol from. So I don't. I don't know the actual Islamic rule, but with this, the specific prohibition that he gives that he can't eat ferment, they can't drink fermented wheat or grape suggests that it maybe is rooted in that.

01:17:51
Case
Yeah. So basically it's a loophole that had not been closed yet. And so at the time it's fine. And then when he came home, everyone's like, oh, you're just drinking mead this whole time, like boozy.

01:18:03
Jeremy
Well, I mean, the implication seems to be that they would have Responded with, what is this mead that you're talking about? Which I don't know if that's accurate, but it suggests that he had never actually heard of that beverage before.

01:18:16
Sam
I mean, to be fair, it was like he drank it on a night he thought he was gonna die, and he pretty much only died it once. So, like, I feel like, you know, I think if there's any time to use a loophole.

01:18:29
Jeremy
Yeah, I was gonna say on another night, he would say, I'm going to abide by the spirit of the law rather than the letter.

01:18:34
Case
Right.

01:18:35
Jeremy
You know, he was told that it wasn't. That it wasn't grain or grape, and he was like, you know what? Okay, good, fine.

01:18:40
Case
Yep. Rules as written as opposed to rules as intended. We're gonna go with that.

01:18:45
Sam
He's kind of like facing a doomsday situation there. You know, Like, I get it. I get it. We all. We all bend the rules sometimes.

01:18:55
Case
So, speaking of bending the rules, we're going pretty deep on just, like, our conversations about this, because I think there's a lot to talk about. We should get into pitches just because it's been a little bit of time. But first, we should take a break and then listen to some of the great ads for shows on our network.

01:19:11
Jeremy
Video games are a unique medium.

01:19:12
Case
They can tell stories, immerse us in strange, fantastic worlds, blur the very boundaries of our reality. But at the end of the day.

01:19:21
Jeremy
Video games are fun. Whatever fun is to you.

01:19:24
Case
I'm Jeff Moonan.

01:19:25
Jeremy
And I am Matt, AKA Stormageddon.

01:19:27
Case
And on Fun and Games, we talk about the history, trends, and community of video games.

01:19:33
Jeremy
It's a celebration of all the games we play and all the fun we find within them. And there's so many more games out there, so we hope you'll share in.

01:19:41
Case
That conversation with us.

01:19:42
Jeremy
Fun and Games podcast with Matt and Jeff. Find us on certpov.com or wherever you.

01:19:47
Case
Get your podcasts and happy gaming. And we're back to continue bending, if not breaking the rules of this movie. Because it's a movie. This is a weird movie to talk about here because I just. I do like it a lot. Like, the finished product, I still really adore. Even if there's potentially a better version out there. Even, like, whether it's like, the McTiernan Cut or just like, what we're speculating on. I. I do really like this movie, but I am curious where. Where you all would. Would fall on that spectrum. Jeremy, you are the guest. If you had to take a crack at it based on what you know and what you have thought about it and what we've talked about. You're welcome to. Or one of us can go first, but you're the guest, so I give you first right of refusal.

01:20:27
Jeremy
I haven't. I haven't solved this. This. I haven't cracked this nut. But I do have a suggestion as to a direction to go. You know, we said earlier that, you know, Beowulf doesn't really work if it's just about the monster fights, that it has to be about something, or the monster fights need to be in the service of something else. I was saying that one of the ways to read the poem is that it's about how to be or how not to be a good king. And Beowulf's conduct during the fights demonstrates his fitness or unfitness for the role.

01:21:02
Jeremy
And so if the 13th warrior were to do the same and make its adventure in the service of some larger idea, you know, whether it be about, you know, how cultures can or cannot get over differences in order to work together and what the limits to that are, or whether it be about the court intrigue that the screenplay makes feints towards, that doesn't really pay off at the end. You know, those are ways that we could end up caring more about what happens to these characters and have more use for the fights that they get into. More than just simply, as you said, Kayce, it just being about, hey, we're doing something different with Beowulf.

01:21:43
Case
Yeah, I think that's where I'm roughly at, too. Like, this movie needs to say more. I'm not sure what it needs to say, but it needs to say more.

01:21:50
Jeremy
Yeah, I mean, because, like, you used the example of the Alien franchise where they have essentially the Beowulf story, but it's saying things about capitalism and feminism and other issues like that, you know, they've taken the story of fighting a monster and they've made it about something. So I guess the question, at least from my perspective, would be, given what the movie, the elements that the movie has, what is it that they could say using this, using the materials that they have at their disposal?

01:22:17
Case
Yeah, that's. That is definitely a thing. I keep going back and forth on this movie. Like, I. Again, I don't have a set answer either. And I think the normal rules of what we talk about is, like, it has to be hypothetically possible. Like, you can't say, like, let's do a crazy reshoot that costs a ton of money. This movie already had that. One of the Reasons why it's considered a bomb is because there are unsubstantiated rumors that the reshoots doubled the budget of this movie, which I don't think is true. I think that they're factoring in marketing budgets, which probably the rescoring also is a big part of that. But getting a movie up to 165 million for a budget is pretty high at this time of production. We're just not quite into that window. And its original budget was 75 million.

01:23:01
Case
So I don't think that. That I. I don't think they literally doubled the movie like, or. Or more than doubled the movie, like. I think that's. I think that's crazy. The figures where they're like. They cost them US $85 million. I think that those are also folding in costs that you normally just don't discuss. But it. It is suffice to say that people didn't respond to this movie. It didn't do well in that regard. And, you know, is it Michael Crichton that's the issue? I don't know.

01:23:32
Sam
Maybe it's possible.

01:23:35
Case
Sam, what are your thoughts on this one? Because I'm not allowed to go before you.

01:23:38
Sam
Yeah, that's true. Usually it's very detailed. Although today, maybe I should take a chance, but I won't. You're just always too detailed.

01:23:46
Case
I'm not tonight, I'm going to be honest.

01:23:50
Sam
No, I think that generally I feel that I would love, now that I know that there was a score that had more Arab influence to it. I would have kind of. I kind of would like to hear that and see that version of this film. Not that there's anything wrong with the score as it is, you know, now, but I think that if we can actually make Antonio Banderas character.

01:24:24
Jeremy
More the.

01:24:24
Sam
Focal point, give him some more footing in the beginning, it would be really lovely just to kind of like, know who he is. Also, I kind of just like, want a little more like Lord of the Rings action, but like campfire Lord of the Ring action, if you know what I mean. Like, let's have the guy who's the musician, like, play a song or strum, like, while they're waiting, you know, there's always that lovely. I mean, that's the best parts of the books, right? When they're. When they're bonding, waiting for doom, kind of. And so I think that would have made some of the losses mean more. Just kind of having everyone, not just during the language potion, but just. Just. Just a scene or two.

01:25:11
Sam
Wouldn't even have to be large or long or anything like that just to give us a little more depth in the group. Other than that, I really do like this movie still. I enjoy it. And I often wonder that if some of the. The actual, like, cultural elements or like, not necessarily the signature of the cultures, but had this been like, a different, like an alternate planet or something like that, if some of the criticism would have fallen to the wayside because people wouldn't be so focused on, like, the fact that these are, like, Norsemen and Arab and specific, you know, like, and then it could just be creatures and that kind of stuff. But yeah, and I would also just make sure that someone besides Michael Crichton and someone who's very well versed in medieval Islamic culture is on set so that.

01:26:04
Sam
That didn't kind of fall apart for that character.

01:26:07
Case
Yeah. I don't know if we could get away with recasting Antonio Banderas.

01:26:11
Sam
No, I don't. I don't think. I don't think you could. But I think as, like, again, like, I'm not recasting anyone because generally our rule is, like, we don't recast. Right. But, like, having an expert on there to be like, oh, hey, Antonio, like, just so you know, like, this is something that would happen. Oh, no, that's not. You know, actually, this is just to. To. To flesh out a little bit of it and maybe even make. Antonio was not quite as comfortable, as you said in the interview, feel a little more comfortable with what. What he was working with. Right. Because I. I think, like, just having Michael Crichton there to tell him what things are, is. Is not the same as having someone that actually knows that time period and the actual culture that he's representing.

01:27:01
Jeremy
Yeah. I would have been really interested in a movie that was just simply IBN Fanlan, you know, encountering different peoples of Central Asia and, you know, having adventures in which, you know, his encounter with the Norsemen is just one of several very interesting, you know, episodes in his. In his ambassadorship. But that's an entirely different movie, I.

01:27:22
Sam
Think, from what they have.

01:27:24
Jeremy
I mean, honestly, you can't just, like, reduce Beowulf to just simply one, you know, one episode that was really weird.

01:27:31
Case
How we bought a monster, its mother and a dragon. Oh, yeah. Well, moving on to the next thing.

01:27:35
Jeremy
Well, yeah, but now, you know, you know, trade deals among the Volga, Volcan. It's just as gripping. Everyone loved those parts in the Star wars prequels that were about trade deals.

01:27:47
Sam
Absolutely. This best part.

01:27:51
Case
Yeah. So looking at this and looking at what we actually got, I think that the 13th Warrior as a title was made to make it a. I mean, I know because I watched the interview with Crichton where he's like, yeah, I wanted it to be like more mass appeal kind of thing. And I think that it came out at the wrong time for the type of movie it was going to be. And it honestly should have not been that type of movie. Like it came out at the end of August of 1999 and it opened second in the box office after Sixth Sense, which did not open the same weekend. It was just a juggernaut at the time and was continuing to dominate the box office that summer. And I think it should have been held for the summer.

01:28:26
Case
And I think he should have played up the horror aspect and I think that it should have just kept the name the Eaters of the Dead and leaned into that aspect. Because I think that the idea of how horrifying is the unknown is not focused on enough in this ultimately for the lack of humanity that they're going to instill in the Vendel. Like they're too much generic bad guys as opposed to a truly alien culture. Not trying. Pardon the alien reference there.

01:28:56
Sam
Again, I'm sorry, but just can't help yourself.

01:28:59
Case
Well, because I think it would be nice if, you know, we have a moment where even tries to go and reach out to the Northman. He's like, I'm supposed to be an ambassador. I'm supposed to talk to people. That's a good moment at the beginning of this movie. I wish he had stuff like that with the Vendol. Like, I think that would have been a good spot there. And if they spat in his face and like, you know, murdered his friend, like that would be a good way to convey that. That like, oh, we can't reason with them. Like it's maybe in the future, maybe if we prove ourselves and they back off, like there could be future diplomacy. But at the moment they're, they're focused on our death. Like have that element there. Have them be really scary.

01:29:38
Case
Make an R rated movie from the get go and really play to that. Be like, hey, we're going to go for an October release. We're going to have really scary people. And part of the conversation is going to be about how you bridge those gaps and where it works and where it falls. And I think maybe the Act 2 thing, the end of Act 2 should be. They Start to almost get to a point of sort of reasoning with them. The Vendel back off. They figure out a way to scare them enough and maybe it fails. And that's how like the Vendel, like, try again or they, like, they breach their side of it, you know, like, that's when they attack the mother.

01:30:16
Case
They figure out where the mother is and like, you know, like, what if Bolvife goes off without Eben and goes and slays the mother because he thinks that'll end it and that's what brings on the end conflict right there. Like, those would be kind of cool ways to make it work because there's this element of honor and like where he falters or, you know, someone else, you know, if it's Wigliff or if it's Unferth. And they actually go with the name from the.

01:30:38
Sam
The.

01:30:39
Case
From the original text, like th. Those would be spaces where you could have that sort of support this thing as opposed to just like. Yep, yeah, we're just going to keep fighting these guys and it's going to get better lit as we go to the end of the movie. Play that up. Because we. We should care about our. Our people. We should care when they die. We should. We should feel like this party is getting smaller and that all these people that we really cared about over the course of this movie were losing. But as it is, we. We honestly don't. Enough. Like, again, there are two redheads in their party.

01:31:08
Sam
Are there? Are there though?

01:31:12
Jeremy
I think that would have addressed some of my concerns with the way that they were depicted as well. Like, if you had a point in the story in which they try to open lines of communication with them and you see what works or does not work with them, it essentially, you know, makes it very clear, actually. It probably would have gotten rid of the element of the story in which there's the confusion over whether they're human to begin with, essentially. You know, in general, you know, we're. I think we're supposed to understand them as like in some. In some way actually believing they're bears to a certain degree.

01:31:46
Case
Yeah. Or at the very least, they've internalized it a lot.

01:31:49
Jeremy
Yeah. But they don't really act like bears very much. They wear bear skins. But like, oh yeah, they're bears. That's why they're coming at us with.

01:31:56
Sam
Fire on horseback, like bears always do.

01:32:01
Case
From the cave that they made a bridge that. That you cross with, you know, and.

01:32:06
Jeremy
So like, if they were to establish at the beginning, you Know that no, these are. These are humans. And that we have a very human. You know, and if we first try to deal with them as humans, I think that would have ended up working. Working better, too.

01:32:19
Sam
I mean, this. You just, like, sparked this to me. They knew that old lady was in the woods the whole time, or at least the queen did. And she never went to her ever, like, to be like, hey, like, what's up with these people? How do I fix this?

01:32:34
Case
Well, like, what's going on up until the point they arrive? Like, they talk about how there's no fortification. Was there fortification that was destroyed? Because, like, it was a long journey. Like, they're coming from, at the very least, Russia to Denmark by boat and horse. Like, that's not, like, a couple days. That's, like, months. It's. And that's. It's long enough that he learns goddamn old English. Yeah.

01:32:57
Sam
And they get there, and by the time they get there, they're like, it's. It's just women and children. Like, it's like, clearly whoever was defending this has been picked off. So it's like, why didn't these people fortify? Why did they need these 13 men to come in and be like, hey, you should build a fence and a moat? And they were like, oh, yeah, well.

01:33:20
Case
And you can explain some of it by, like, they had tried to fortify, but they're bad at it. And every time they try to fortify, it gets destroyed. Like, that works okay. For, like, some basis of that purpose. Like, you know, but that's. That's a line of text, you know, that's our line of dialogue. And it's like, oh, you can see how they tried, but they're like, they did this all wrong.

01:33:38
Sam
Yeah.

01:33:38
Case
You know, they should have put a moat there and then the spikes, as opposed to. They just put spikes right there. Like, they. They're clearly just burned down.

01:33:45
Sam
You can even have the prince be the person who's like, well, I put spikes there. And they're like, you're a fucking idiot. And that's why he's, like, so angry at them for, like, not wig.

01:33:55
Jeremy
Laugh. You pointed them towards us.

01:33:58
Sam
Exactly. It would just be like, you know, like, you're a dunce. You know, I think that would have also given, like, more reason for him to then be going and just speaking into the king's ear, trying to kind of be like, oh, they're here to take over. Blah, blah, blah. Because then there's resentment, right? Because it's like, oh, like, they Think they know everything. They don't know everything. Spikes should be pointed at you.

01:34:26
Case
Right. Because they leap the spikes and then you drive them into it. And that's how it works.

01:34:30
Sam
Right, Exactly.

01:34:32
Jeremy
Am I misremembering, or do they mention at one point that there had been settlements even further north, that they had lost contact?

01:34:38
Case
That sounds right. I don't remember.

01:34:41
Sam
The first child that they see running is from a settlement further north.

01:34:46
Case
Was it from a settlement or just a house?

01:34:47
Jeremy
Oh, and then they. Yeah, and that's where they.

01:34:48
Sam
They say that there was a settlement off to the north and the house is there. So it's just the house that's left. But, like, I'm. I'm thinking that those are just like. You know, there's always those people that just refuse to move no matter what. You know, let's just stay behind even though there's a natural disaster coming. I figured that those. Without those people, like, the settlement had long been abandoned.

01:35:08
Jeremy
Yeah.

01:35:09
Case
And I think those would all work, like, to sort of justify it. Like. Like, they've been beset. They've lost contact with other buildings, and they've been terrible at actually building their defenses because Wigliff or, you know, unfortunately, whatever, is just terrible at it. But he insists that he's good.

01:35:23
Sam
Yeah, he insists that he's good. He insists that he's doing everything that he needs to do and that people just need to follow the rules and follow what he says. And then you can just be like, oh, this little does deserve to have his friend be killed. And. And, like, you know, give him a little. You know, give him a little Joffrey. Give him a little, you know, Mad King, Mad Prince energy. And. And then you've got something cooking. Really.

01:35:49
Case
Yeah, it's. It's interesting to look at this movie in comparison with having just looked at Beowulf, where they're trying to do the. They're trying to do the beats as it was, and then add this, like, extra layer of, like, thematic components that I. I think was a little awkward in that production. And this one. I mean, it's hard to hate a movie that's as tight as it is. It's, like, only an hour 40 for, like, a big. Like, lots of armies on horseback fighting. Kind of like there's, like, four or five big battles in this movie. Like, that's. That's a lot for this runtime. So it's hard to hate a movie that is that tight in that regard. But it is also still not, like, it doesn't say a Lot beyond being like, look how cool we are at doing Beowulf in this way.

01:36:30
Case
And that's kind of, that's the bummer that keeps coming. Like, I wish that was saying more in all of those moments.

01:36:36
Sam
Got lots of good speeches and lots of good swords. You're welcome. That's pretty much it.

01:36:43
Case
Yeah. And like, I don't know if like making it a full on horror movie, like an R rated movie was going to make it a cult classic in the same way, which is kind of the problem here. Also, like, again, I think that there's not a lot going on in that last duel when they like when they, you know, attack just like without any kind of strategy. And Beowulf poisoned fights the leader. Like, but it is a cool scene. Like him saying like low there do I see my father? That whole speech is really cool. It's a good, it's a good goddamn moment. Him rising up and like even, even the kill itself is really good. Both, both when he knocks him off the horse. And then we does the finishing blow.

01:37:20
Case
Him sitting down and just like being dead with like his work done. That's a, that is a Beowulf kind of moment right there. Like, like I've done my labors.

01:37:29
Sam
That, that climax is beautiful. I mean the fact that every single member that's still alive joins him in the speech at some point, you know, and you know, then they're all saying it in unison by the end, you know, and they're like, okay, this is it. We're gonna, we're gonna meet our maker. We're gonna do this. Like it's coming for us. It's amazing scene. I mean that's probably why I like this movie.

01:37:52
Case
Yeah. Not to mention the fact that Beowulf's goodest boy, his wolfhound is with him this whole time and continues to be a badass even up until the end.

01:38:02
Sam
Yeah. And then, and he's the one that like lets everyone know because he said it's the goodest boy, that Beowulf is done and his work is done. You just, you just hear this little cry from the dog and everyone turns, it's like, oh, he's dead. Looking all majestic and shit. Like, not like a real dead body because he's sitting up straight with his sword right next to him.

01:38:23
Case
But it's, it is an awkward reshoot. And like that's the problem. I don't know if we would have made a movie that I would like as much and want to talk about as much as what we ultimately got, because I don't like horror movies.

01:38:35
Sam
Yeah, I don't either. Anyone listening to this actually mean either. I've talked about it a lot, so.

01:38:43
Case
It'S just a weird challenge of the. Of this film. So I don't know. I think this. You know, it's kind of like when we talked about Buckaroo Banzai, where I'm like, I. I'm too close to this movie. Like, it's. That was a movie that I would have made. I don't know how to make a better one. Like, that's the movie I aspire to make. And this is one where I'm like, no, you know what? I. Because I. I am that history nerd that really appreciates the deconstruction of a myth and, like, trying to do, like, a realistic version. Trust me, if you ever find me drunk in a room, like, I'll talk to you about my deconstruction of Hercules. I want to do, like, that's, like, again, it's just my type of thing.

01:39:19
Case
So I don't know if it would be more of a cult classic. I mean, I think it might have just been, like, a little bit better commercially with a better box office and with better critics, but, like, maybe people wouldn't talk about it in the same way if we did these changes. So it's just kind of a weird balance there because, like, I like so much of this movie, but it definitely works for me because it's a short movie that I like a lot of things, and then I don't have to think too much about the things that, like, aren't being said.

01:39:46
Sam
Yeah.

01:39:47
Jeremy
And to echo what you just said, I mean, you know, I said that at least among medievalists, this movie is. Is brought up quite often, you know, but if it had been, you know, a competent but not necessarily great horror movie or a competent but not necessarily great historical drama or any of the other, you know, things that it could have been. I'm not sure that it would have been talked about as much as it actually ends up being talked about, at least in certain circles.

01:40:13
Case
Yeah, it's a tough balance. Beowulf is really hard to do, y', all, especially all as one movie, you know, like that. Like, we talked about both Predator and Alien having elements of the Grindel element to it. And, you know, Alien then gets the benefit of the trilogy kind of having those components, like Aliens, they fight the mother, and Alien 3, they fight. They call it the Dragon. Like, that's. Those are still separate movies and, like, you can have stakes and twists and so forth in there. Like, you know, having. Having so many big encounters means that it is difficult to add nuance to the individual encounters.

01:40:48
Jeremy
Yeah, that's true. And, you know, and there's things about the. The poem that are just uncinematic. I mean, the fact that it jumps 50 years at one point in it, which is an awkward thing to do in a movie. You know, the fact that it keeps referring to these in this North European history that the original audience would have known, but is completely mysterious to us. These are just aren't things that are going to translate to cinema.

01:41:12
Case
So this is a tough one for us to talk about, but I'm really glad that we did talk about it. Jeremy, thank you for coming on and chatting with us.

01:41:19
Jeremy
Thank you so much for having me. Yes. It's great to catch up.

01:41:25
Case
Yeah, man, I'm so glad to talk. Hopefully we can talk again soon, either off mic or. Would love to have you back on at some point if you've got anything.

01:41:32
Jeremy
Absolutely.

01:41:34
Case
Especially if you have a movie where you're like, this is a really good version of it.

01:41:37
Jeremy
Oh, I was going to say, if you ever do Kingdom of Heaven, I'm definitely on board.

01:41:41
Case
Oh, my God. We have to at some point. Because the director's cut versus the original, like, theatrical cut are so different.

01:41:48
Jeremy
Oh, yeah, absolutely.

01:41:49
Case
We might have to book you down for that one. Just, just. Now you heard it here, listeners.

01:41:53
Jeremy
Yeah.

01:41:54
Sam
Case just got so excited and. Listeners, I am afraid. I am afraid.

01:42:00
Case
No, Sam, you don't understand. When I came back from seeing that in theaters with a bunch of my friends, we're like, okay, so we're all just going to pretend that we didn't see that movie because we're embarrassed that we saw it. And then we saw the director's cut later, and we're like, what the fuck happened?

01:42:11
Jeremy
Yeah, absolutely. It's one. It's one of those. Absolutely. Where the. Well, you know, we've been talking about MC Tiernan way. His vision might have been Ridley Scott. When he was finally able to share what the movie was supposed to be, people were like, oh, my goodness, it's actually a good movie.

01:42:27
Case
Yeah. So it might be the shortest episode we ever do where it's just like, well, here's all the problems with theatrical cut. What's. What's your pitch? Do the director's cut. Oh, there we go.

01:42:36
Jeremy
Yeah, let Ridley Scott do what he wanted to do in the first place.

01:42:39
Case
But as for today, Jeremy, if people wanted to find you, follow you, or just check out stuff you've worked on, whatever, give your plugs, talk about yourself.

01:42:49
Jeremy
Yeah, I'm not extremely online, so I don't really have much to share for people to follow me. I did publish a book a few years ago, ready for a very long academic title, but it's called Outlawry, Liminality and Sanctity, and it's about outlaw traditions in the literature of the North Atlantic. It's an academic book, so you should not buy it yourself. It means it's very expensive, but you should tell your library to buy it. And so it's out of Amsterdam University Press, if anyone's interested.

01:43:29
Case
All right. Yeah. So anyone who is interested should reach out to your local library and see if they can get it, because libraries are good.

01:43:37
Sam
Yes, we love libraries.

01:43:39
Case
But if that's what you got, they should go check that out. Sam, where can people find and follow you?

01:43:45
Sam
They can find me here, and they can talk to me on our Discord, and they can't find me anywhere else because I don't exist in real life. I'm just a figment of Keis imagination. And, you know, he's just really good at throwing his voice.

01:44:03
Case
Well, it's wonderful what we can do in post, but after this podcast, so in post, you should go check out certainpov.com, where you can find more episodes of this show. You can find other awesome podcasts, like, say, for example, Fun and Games with Matt and Jeff. Matt, our editor, and Jeff Moon and one of my dear friends are just wonderful people who think deeply about the culture and creative process of video games and have done a great job of cultivating a positive space where they can talk about developments in video games. They get to interview creators and really get into the creative aspect of video games. And then to further that positivity, they do SideQuest, which is a series where people contribute five to 15 minutes, where they just ramble about why they like a game. And that positivity is really infectious.

01:44:49
Case
And I have been very happy to see both of those projects develop. They're all in one feed. And if you. If you like SideQuest, we. I actually am the editor for the video versions of that we have on our YouTube channel. So, you know, check out our YouTube channel. I do animated ones for it. Like, those are fun. But then after that, you can find me on Twitter A Saigon. You can find the podcast on Twitter N other pass. I think that wraps it up. We've been talking about this for a while, so I'm a little burned out. Sam, what is coming up next?

01:45:17
Sam
Next time on Another Pass, we'll be talking about Highlander 2 the Quickening. But until then, if you enjoyed this, pass it on.

01:45:30
Jeremy
Thanks for listening to Certain Point of.

01:45:32
Case
View's Another Pass podcast. Don't miss an episode. Just subscribe and review the show on itunes. Just go to certainpov.com.

01:45:43
Sam
Another pass is a certain POV production. Our hosts are Sam, Alice and Case Aiken. The show is edited by Matt Storm. Our logo and episode art is by Case Aiken. Our intro theme is by Vin Macri. And our outro theme is by Matt Brogan.

01:45:59
Case
I was just talking up your improv skills to Sam.

01:46:02
Sam
He was, he was. And he was like, he's really responsible. I was like, I'm sure, like this happens.

01:46:07
Jeremy
Yeah, sure. He. Sure he is. Yeah.

01:46:09
Sam
No. Case was like, no, I swear. He's a very responsible person. He's a professor.

01:46:14
Jeremy
They're not absent minded.

01:46:16
Sam
And I was like, well, you know, he's got kids now. Kids melt brains.

01:46:23
Case
Cpov certainpov.com.