MovieChat Forums > Arn: Tempelriddaren (2007) Discussion > KoH + Arn the movie = Arn the book

KoH + Arn the movie = Arn the book

posted 16 years ago by Pharazon
9 replies | jump to latest

After having seen "Arn - The Knight Templar" at the cinema I can conclude that:

Cronology:
98-99-00 > Famous Swedish author Jan Guillou writes the Arn books, they become very popular.

2000~2003 > Some Holywood dude reads the arn Books, writes the script to "Arn-the movie", but kills the lover at home, places Arns home in France, changes Arns name to Balian, changes the crusader monk to the crusader father, mixes and adapts the events in the holy land and ads the siege of Jerusalem.

2005 > Kingdom of Heaven is released.

06-07 > Swedish screenwriters have seen KoH and realize that if they do a "Arn-the movie" straight from the book it will be almost an exact copy of KoH. So they change almost everything that Arn was suppose to do in the holy land.

2007 > Arn - The Knight Templar is released.

...

They should have invested half of the budget money to buy the rights to KoH and just paste large chunks of it into Arn - The Knight Templar. Then they should have given 1/4 of the movies budget to Orlando Bloom and have him play Arn in the Swedish half of the movie. The remaining money would be the normal budget of a Swedish movie, so it would be no problem shooting Orlando killing Danes in Trollhättan ("Trollywood").

[–] lassehendrichsen 16 years ago

I DONT THINK YOU HAVE READ THE BOOK...

Balian has existed and was the main defender of jerusalem and was also to marry whats her face..... this is fact. It is also revealed in the books ( Tempelridderen - Knights templar ) if you had read them.....

[–] Pharazon 16 years ago

I HAVE READ THE BOOKS. I CAN ALSO READ WITHOUT YOU TYPING ALL CAPS...

You totally missed the point. KoH is more true to the Arn book then the Arn movie are.

[–] furienna 16 years ago

Oh no, it's not. This movie is actually very true to the first two books in the trilogy.

Yes, it's true! IMDB has reached Sweden!

[–] Pharazon 16 years ago

So, where do they mention Gaza in the movie? That sure looked like a Jerusalem silouette on the wide shot of the city.

If the tiny skirmish in the movie was supposed to be the Battle of Montgisard then it was pathetic.

[–] skjalg-3 16 years ago

I totaly agree man. KoH was pretty gay though. French blacksmith with a crusader father? WTF? Could they not just make him into a french aristocrat and stop cocking about with historical accuracy.

[–] armillary 16 years ago

Well, if they wanted historical accuracy, Balian would have been born in Palestine, his father would have been an Italian, his brothers would have been included and the whole story would have been different. Except perhaps for some bits at the end, with the battle of Hattin.

[–] projinac 16 years ago

You're missing the fact that the first movie only covered the first half of the second book.
Gaza will probably be featured in the second movie.

[–] flork 16 years ago

Over the past couple of weeks I:
- Have seen Tempelriddaren twice
- Have seen Kingdom of Heaven twice (regular and then director's cut)
- Have read the books Vägen till Jerusalem and Tempelriddaren
.

My conclusion is:
Considering movie adaptations can not tell the story of a novel to the letter, I would say Tempelriddaren is a decent adaptation of the novel Vägen till Jerusalem, but an awful non-adaptation of the novel Tempelriddaren.

Kingdom of Heaven is a far better "adaptation" of the novel Tempelriddaren, even though it's not.

Pharazon is basically right.

[–] Blueghost 16 years ago

Quite possibly. One of my former bosses went around Hollywood pitching a movie about Robert the Bruce, a medieval Scottish king. He couldn't get backing for the project, but a couple years later "Braveheart" was made. All he could do was shrug at it, though he was pretty angry.

Kingdom of Heaven, in terms of places and events, is fairly close to what happened, but it's not historically detailed. Balian as a blacksmith was part of the inner story to get the movie going, and not meant to be historically accurate. The larger portions of "Kingdom of Heaven" are meant to be historical.

I've not seen "Arn - Tempelriddaren", but hope to someday.