MovieChat Forums > Excalibur (1981) Discussion > The blatantly aluminum "armor" sucked

The blatantly aluminum "armor" sucked

posted a year ago by MaximRecoil (4617)
50 replies | jump to latest

Did they really think that aluminum could pass for steel onscreen? It has a completely different color than steel does. How are you supposed to suspend disbelief when something with so much screen time is blatantly fake? They might as well have made the "armor" out of cardboard or plastic painted with rattle-can silver.

Aluminum sheet would make for terrible armor, plus aluminum wasn't even officially discovered until the early 19th century. And even when it was discovered it was so difficult to isolate that it was more rare and valuable than gold. It wasn't until the late 19th century that a method of smelting it was discovered, which allowed it to become a commodity rather than a precious metal.

[–] DarthAckbar (2044) a year ago

now you're making me doubt the Dragon's Breath was real

[–] MaximRecoil (4617) a year ago

Your post would earn me yet another dollar.

[–] doctorc1970 (278) a year ago

Bah. You speak as one who has obviously never ridden the dragon's breath.

[–] Mustang (5421) 10 months ago

I got the impression that from an aesthetics point of view the armour fit in with the dream like look of the film and it shines a lot highlighting them as the good guys. It was probably lighter and cheaper too.

[–] whynotwriteme (7720) 4 months ago

[deleted]

[–] whynotwriteme (7720) 4 months ago

I never thought of it as fake aluminum armor. I thought of it as the armor of Camelot being polished and shined steel as opposed to the dull blackened iron of the earlier knights and Mordred's warriors.

[–] MaximRecoil (4617) 4 months ago

Polished aluminum doesn't look like polished steel. I could immediately tell it was polished aluminum because only polished aluminum looks like polished aluminum.

All metals have a unique color, even the ones that are roughly categorized as "silver" color. Chrome doesn't look like nickel, which doesn't look like tin, which doesn't look like zinc, which doesn't look like silver, which doesn't look like lead, which doesn't look like aluminum, which doesn't look like iron, which doesn't look like magnesium, and so on. There are some metals that have a very similar color (such as palladium and platinum), but aluminum looks very different than steel.

[–] whynotwriteme (7720) 4 months ago

I used to allow anachronistic firearms to detract from my enjoyment of old Western movies. Then I realized I was too smart for my own good in that regard. I was missing out on some otherwise perfectly good entertainment by focusing on trivial matters of historic accuracy that would have been impossible for the moviemakers to achieve. Now, I just let the 1894 Winchesters and 1873 Peacemakers in movies about the 1860s slide, and I enjoy a lot more films as a result.

I imagine the same would apply to someone with a deeper than average knowledge of metallurgy.

[–] MaximRecoil (4617) 4 months ago

Any movie is better if they get things right. That doesn't mean that an anachronism or other type of error necessarily ruins a movie, but it does take you out of the movie, i.e., it breaks immersion which breaks suspension of disbelief. And if you notice something you can't "unnotice" it, no more than you can "unring" a bell.

I can't think of any specific movie that has 1894 Winchesters and Colt SAAs in an 1860s setting, though I've heard it was common in older western movies and TV shows, like from the 1950s and '60s. Most of the gun anachronisms I see in newer movies are more subtle, but no less distracting when I notice it, such as an M1911A1 in a World War I movie. Even worse than that is a non-Colt commercial 1911-type pistol with slanted slide serrations and a lowered ejection port (like a Springfield Armory, Inc., not to be confused with the real Springfield Armory which made real USGI M1911s, but not M1911A1s) in any war movie, which I've seen more than once.

Aside from breaking immersion, I'm also just not a fan of shoddy work in general. Choosing or creating props for a movie is someone's job, and they half-assed it.

[–] DancingintheDark (1614) 4 months ago

Excalibur is a masterpiece, and this thread sucks.

[–] Heisenberg (6730) 4 months ago

The armors in this movie are, literally, its highlight.
They MAKE this film.