MovieChat Forums > Camelot (2011) Discussion > Points that ruined this series

Points that ruined this series

posted 13 years ago by princeariom
26 replies | jump to latest

1. This Arthur would have never carved out a new kingdom at the time. He lacks every quality a king that rises from nothing must have. And as a character he wasn't even likable. I half hoped Leontes would clean his clock...

2. The battles were done with no more than 20 guys trying to look like they were more and the props used looked so fake i'm pretty sure the producers don't have a clue on what a real shield and sword look like;

3. Lots of illogical attitudes from the characters hurting credibility;

4. Arthur, a dark age king worrying about what everybody thought about him and Guinevere. He would have gone to the Oprah Show and talked about it if it had been invented;

5. Cliché death of Leontes after he played the "nice cuckhold" and saved the life of the guy who took his wife's virginity in their wedding day, this at a time when people killed each other with swords over nothing;

6. Vital passes into Camelot being guarded by 2 guys and a kid...

7. Total confusion between adult scenes and juvenile plot. Got the sensation that producers aimed to get teens into this. Wrong bet i'll say...

8. Finally, this Arthur... Could they have chosen a weaker looking guy to handle a sword and shield? When he tried to look hardened he looked like a pompous fool. A total miscast.

There's more, but i don't want to waste more of my time.

[–] rs_cyr 13 years ago

I definitely agree with no. 8. Total miscast of the lead character. Eva Green and Joseph Fiennes were fantastic in this show but not enough for a second season I guess.

Another point I would add that it was apparently very expensive to shoot in Ireland.

[–] wiltvid 13 years ago

To answer your "1."

I love this series because it does not portrait a "perfect character" King.
I'm bored stiffed with good perfect characters.
They barely exist in real life politics, and they barely existed in the past.
I would wager, that every "great King" also had a dark side.
So why not portrait King Arthur with a more realistic profile ?
Or are you in need to view role-model protagonist's in every production ?
Try the Disney Channel !

[–] pol-edra 13 years ago

Don't know about the OP but here's my take:
I liked the young Arthur, clueless king in the making take. I thought it was bold, innovative and refreshing, and I liked the actor they cast in that respect. However, I disagree with you that the fact this character had a dark side made him more realistic. I found his actions and his evolutions completely random and artificial. Everything about him and Gwen and Merlin screamed "bad writing". None of them were remotely believable, they were like cardboard puppets jerked around by very bad puppeteers.

"Occasionally I'm callous and strange."

[–] wiltvid 13 years ago

Well, real life is sometimes stranger than fiction.
Who would have guessed, that a former drunkart, womanizer, failed businessman,
later born again christian, would become one of thre most powerful elected ruler
of the globe. Would you call him a good actor ?
I loved the fact, that young King Arthur came along quite unpolished, that why I voted 10/10 for this series, besides other interesting features of the series in general. Face it, the world is full of cheap and poor acting: Berlusconi,
Sarkozy, Gaddaffi, Saddam .......
Why not reflect that on the screen ?

[–] poem 13 years ago

Berlusconi, Sarkozy, Gaddaffi, Saddam .......

I dont like any of these, but comparing them to the King Athur of this show is really too much.

Berlusconi etc are still able to give the impression of a statesman. The King Athur of this show really cant.

---
Always listen to your own advice.

[–] princeariom 13 years ago

You didn't get my point. I did not want him to be a role model. Qualities to make a kingdom out of nothing are not what you find in role models. A would be king in this scenario would have to be ruthless and a figure of authority. Not even peasants would respect this kid. In fact they would probably turn to his brother. Much more charismatic and looks like a man.

The Arthur they built here was the only one who would not be king because any of his opponents would just not fear him at all.

"So why not portrait King Arthur with a more realistic profile ?"

Indeed. This Arthur was the most unrealistic character. This Arthur was the Disney version.

[–] wiltvid 13 years ago

History is laced with much weaker characters, ruling over a peasantry with little education, strong religious and superstitious leanings. No mass media to inform them aboute the state of the king. Yes, it was possible that a weak King
ruled for a long time. Ruthless may have been the movers and shakers that put such a King into position. And No, this is not the Disney version.

[–] princeariom 13 years ago

Name me one king that carved a kingdom out of nothing that is a weak figure of a man, soft on his enemies and has the commanding presence of a chicken. Yes, there were weak kings. Men unfit to rule. But those who were and survived were monarchs of established stable kingdoms were there were others to work for them. All the kings that made a kingdom for themselves were extraordinary men on their own. Do you see this Arthur carving a briton kingdom and facing saxon hordes? I even don't know why King Lot of the series didn't outright slaughter Arthur and his army of 12 guys.

At start this Arthur had nothing. No money, no army, no nothing. All he had was a claim that he was Uther's son. And that claim would surely not stick in those days.

[–] wiltvid 13 years ago

First of all, most Kings became Kings out of birthright. Name me a few crowned Kings, that came not from a royal family .
Weak Kings where not neccessarily soft on their enemies, and King Arthur was not soft on his enemies. Being harsh, aggressive and unrelenting to your enemies, does not make you neccessarily a valuable leader, every brute, without a brain can do that. The first season is just about the humble beginning of a local King (Warlord leader). The whole of Britain was ruled by dozends of such leaders, who ruled over areas between 20 and perhaps up to 80 villages.
And King Arthur was never able, or in control to rule the whole island.
He was the only recorded historical ruler of the period after the romans left.
After him there where no records about any state or Kingdom until King Alfred the Great emerged in the 9nth century. So there was a period of more tha 400 years, that we call today the Dark Ages.
The story of King Arthur, is after all, a story of a King that did not succeed.
If he would have suceeded, there wouldn't have been a dark age in Briton.
Nevertheless, I find such a story very interesting. What made him a legend, was
his ideas of a more cultural civilatory statehood, and his ability to gather knights who took a liking to this ideal. His social weaknesses lead to his ultimate failure.

[–] pol-edra 13 years ago

"First of all, most Kings became Kings out of birthright. Name me a few crowned Kings, that came not from a royal family."

Pépin le Bref, father of Charlemagne (crowned 751). Hugues Capet, founder of the Capetian dynasty (crowned 987).

Royal blood, kingly birthright, are rather recent concepts of ideas. There was hardly anything hereditary when it came to political power in the early Middle Ages. It came gradually. VERY gradually (the end of the 10th century is hardly the "early" Middle Ages anymore).

"Occasionally I'm callous and strange."

[–] Skadeglad 13 years ago

Good points "wiltvid". It sure do make boring TV tho.

[–] 13 years ago

[deleted]

[–] pol-edra 13 years ago

Not that heavy, no. 2 pounds max. for the kind of swords we saw in that series (not that they were anywhere close to historically accurate for the time period, but then again, nothing was; no matter how they advretised the show, it was clearly a fantasy tale, with about as much likeness to history as Legend of the Seeker). Female medieval reenactors are not plenty, but I know quite a few; they train regularly, they fight in tournaments, and they look like girls once they get out of the chainmail and helmet. No need to be "a huge guy" to make a credible warrior in a show (reenactment is, after all, also a show, among many other things).
On a sidenote: Leontes, Gawain or Kay may have looked stronger physically in this show, but it didn't make their sword moves more believable to me. My guess is they didn't spend enough money and/or time on training and fight choreography. The fight scenes in general weren't very good; not just those with Arthur.

"Occasionally I'm callous and strange."

[–] Othy59 13 years ago

The series also completely sucked the magic and mysticism out of the sword Excalibur (oh, sorry, the girl Excalibur, really?) and the Lady of the Lake.

"Well I didn't expect a kind-of Spanish Inquisition!" - Monty Python

[–] e-i-e-i-o 13 years ago

9. Pretty positive that '*beep* You' was not a swear term back then. One of King Arthur's men yelled that out in The Battle of Borden Pass.

[–] pol-edra 13 years ago

Why are you so positive about that? and what exactly is your definition of "back then"?

"Occasionally I'm callous and strange."

[–] salmo365 13 years ago

the f word is an anglo saxon word.

[–] poem 13 years ago

5. Cliché death of Leontes after he played the "nice cuckhold" and saved the life of the guy who took his wife's virginity in their wedding day, this at a time when people killed each other with swords over nothing;

Oh come on, any last strain of historical accuracy was already killed in the very first scene. No point in complaining about the lack of it later.

---
Always listen to your own advice.

[–] QSertorius 13 years ago

One of the single most annoying things about this series (which I also thought was well-acted, but on whole very miscast) was the attempts at preserving elements of the mythology while attributing different motivations to them.

There's the whole unnecessary foray into the forest by Merlin to find the smith who can make "a sword fit for a king", whom he apparently kills for no good reason, kills the daughter for semi-accidentally and then concocts the whole Lady of the Lake scenario from scratch. Not to mention the ridiculous meandering to have him do this.

It was almost as absurd as a Burton "re-imagining". ARGH! haha

"Any experiment of interest in life will be carried out at your own expense."

[–] rs_cyr 13 years ago

Yes, that whole Merlin killing for the sword plot was stupid. Joe Fiennes must have rolled his eyes when he read that in the script for the first time!

[–] Ponies_in_Jumpers 10 years ago

It was like Arthur's characterization zig-zaged all over the place but he didn't really grow as a person. He seemed nice enough on one hand but his entire plot with Guinevere was extremely unsympathetic. It's good for characters to have flaws but I think they should have chosen something else or at least made him learn from his mistakes. I felt bad for Leontes and his death wouldn't have even happened if Arthur hadn't decided to stay behind on his own to prove himself. There was plenty of time before the attack for all of them to have left and get to safety. But since he stayed behind they had to return to save him and big surprise Leontes is killed saving his life leaving the way clear for Arthur and Guinevere to have a future marriage with nothing to stand in their way; even sort of with his blessing! It was like in their determination to make the series gritty and all the characters dark that the characterization kind of suffered and personalities weren't very consistent.

Morgan was very sympathetic; a victim and a women who's ambition was crushed in a society that wouldn't dare let a women rule without a man. It felt like she was constantly trying to get that boot off her neck; that her insane ambition had been the thing she'd clung to all these years as she'd gone mad but everything worked against that. She was definitely an interesting character, but definitely a villain. She rapes Merlin and her own brother after all. She showed a lot of signs of being mentally unstable.

There were some really interesting characters in the series and it picked up a lot near the end but certain things seemed to be killing the pacing. For me that was the romance and the lack of strong character development with Arthur. Even at the end of the series his brother was written to be a lot more likable than him.