thetrooper said:
Which names are messed up?
There were many, but from the top of my head Guy Lusignan was no Templar grandmaster, much less a Templar. Guy was a minor noble with amibitions in outremer, Gerrard de Ridefort was the head of the Templars at that time.
Orlando Bloom's character Balian was not a pivotal historical figure and was definately not a love interest of Sibylla. Also Godfrey was not his father. Balian's older brother Baldwin was favored by the leper king of Jerusalem (BaldwinIV) to marry his sister Sibylla. Unlike how she is represented in the movie, Sibylla actually supported the Knights Templar and against her brother's wishes, wanted to marry Guy as opposed to the elder Baldwin.
Unlike the movie, Balian actually accompanies the Jerusalem army that confronts Saladin and does
not advise Guy and Gerrard against marching to the horns of Hattin, Raymond of Tyre actually pleads with the now king Guy not to go. Balian escapes the battle and returns to Jerusalem to take part in its surrender to Saladin.
Every source I've seen so far portray Saladin as a noble man Mott1 so this is hardly a plan that Scott hatched all by his own. And don't forget that the Balian character is also portrayed like a noble man.
I am not only speaking about Saladin, but how the movie potrays the Muslim as the good guys and the crusaders (especially the Templars) as the bad guys. Unlike his predecessors, Saladin was actually practical and pragmatic. This does not define someone as noble, I doubt anyone was entirely noble at that time by our standards.
After the Battle of Hattin which seen the defeat of the army of Jerusalem, "noble" Saladin had all captured Templars and Hospitaler knights beheaded one by one. Saladin gave the privilege of execution to the most fanatical non-combatant Muslim clerics who answered the call of jihad, these beheadings were often gruesomely botched by these amatuer swordsmen of the mosque. I recall watching the history channel special called the
The cresent and the cross, in it an Islamic historian described this systematic execution as the Muslims version of
shock and awe used by the U.S. on Saddam. He was absurdedly presenting this execution by Saladin as a brilliant tactical move as opposed to what it really was, a brutal act of villainy.
The rest of the regular Jerusalem contingant prisoners were sold into slavery, while all the lay nobles were spared by a "gracious" Saladin. This is actually a pragmatic Saladin not a noble Saladin for he knew he could exchange them for great sums of money.
In the movie Saladin kills Reynaud de Chatillon himself but this is not entirely true. Saladin first offers Reynaud to convert to Islam in classic Islamic fashion, when Reynaud refused Saladin stabbed him in the shoulder, he watched him suffer for awhile then a bodyguard decapitated him. Guy falls to his knees fearing he is next but Saladin assures him that "kings do not kill kings", that is if the enemy king is worth alot of money of course.
Rambuchan: I don't see how my supposed biased position alters the historical facts. You want my objective opinion of that time period? Ok.
Atrocities existed on both sides of the conflict, no one side was the heroic good guys while the other the villainous bad guys which is clearly portrayed in the movie.
Plotinus said:
There's nothing wrong with doing that in a film unless you actually claim that it's historically accurate.
I agree, however the producers make claims that the movie was historically accurate. The New York Times basically gushed that the Muslims at that time were bent on coexistence until the Crusaders ruined everything. And even when the Christians are defeated the Muslims were so so generous to give them safe passage back to Europe were they belong. Which is absurd and untrue.
The whitewash of Kingdom of Heaven was made for the purpose of promoting the false notion that all the troubles between the Islamic world and the West has been caused by Western predatory colonialism, and that the glorious paradigm of Islamic tolerance, a "beacon" to the world, could be reestablished if only the wicked Westerners would be more tolerant.
I don't understand the claim that the Muslims are represented as good and the Christians as bad. There were plenty of positive and negative characters on both sides (King Baldwin was incredibly positive, for example, far more than he probably was in real life). The problem with this film was the same as with all of Scott's films: every character is either completely good or completely evil, without anything in between.
I disagree with you, what Muslim character in the movie was portrayed in a negative light? What Muslim character was portrayed as a warmonger like so many are portrayed by their Christian counter-part? Yes the leper king Baldwin was portrayed as a positive character, thats probably because he was in fact a very positive figure in that time period. Historical documentation, both Islamic and Christian, demonstrate this.
Why did the Producers feel the need to demonize the Templars? Historical documentation present a different picture.
Latin and Templar/Hospitaler Middle Eastern intigration and religious tolerance is demonstrated by many Islamic documents. We owe many of these observations to Usamah ibn Munqidh, a Muslim diplomat from Shayzar.
Munqidh sheds a different view of the Templars than the one given to them in the movie, he writes:
When I used to enter the Aqsa Mosque, which was occupied by the Templars, who were my friends, the Templars would evacuate the little adjoining mosque so that I may pray in it. One day I entered this mosque, repeated the formula, "Allah is great," and stood up in act of praying, upon which a Franj (Muslim name given to crusaders, regardless of their European origin) rushed on me, and turned my face eastward saying, "This is the way thou shouldst pray!" A group of Templars hastened to him, seized him and repelled him from me. I resumed my prayers and the same man rushed on me once more. The Templars again came to him and expelled him, they apologized to me saying, "This is a stranger who has only recently arrived from the lands of the Franks and has never before seen anyone praying except eastward."
I have a problem with any historical based movie which falsifies and distorts history for the purpose of persuing an agenda.
