Because L-Space can be applied to movies, too

[donnaimmaculata]

Okay, so I went to see Kingdom of Heaven. It made me realise one thing: Not only are all libraries connected via L-Space, no, all movies are, too. I'm sure the Reader in Invisible Writings could deduct the nature of all movies not yet made, never to be made and almost-made-but-the-budget-ran-out-and-then-the-star-topped-herself by watching the films that already exist.

It also made me think of the Trousers of Time, and how some characters seem to try to replay their fomer parts and iron out mistakes they made in the past. It doesn't always work out, though.

Anyway, to say it with the words of a friend of mine: How the fuck did they play those parts with no trace of self-irony?*


Balian: *begins the film as blacksmith with a deep cut across his palm*
Balian: Hmm... That does look familiar...


Mysterious Nobleman: Balian, I Am Your Father.
Balian: I don’t have to kill you now, do I?
Mysterious Nobleman Godfrey: No, no. I just want you to be my padawan..
Balian: What?
Godfrey: Sorry, got carried away there. I want you to show me how you handle a sword.
Balian: I practise three hours a day...
Godfrey: I once fought two days with an arrow through my testicle.
Balian: ...And before you ask, I am no eunuch!

Hospitaler: Balian, you truly are your father’s son.
Balian: I am?
Hospitaler: But you've got your mother's eyes.
Balian: I have?
Hospitaler: And your godfather’s casually elegant hairstyle.

Hospitaler: Oh, and by the way! Watch out for the thin guy with long, black greasy hair, a hooked nose and stylish black robes.
Hospitaler: He’ll swoop around menacingly and cause you a couple of problems.
Hospitaler: But don’t worry, he really is quite Noble and Honourable and only wants your best!

Long-haired Baddie: *wields pimp cane menacingly*
Long-haired Baddie: Still not king!

Tiberias: So, you’re the hero, right? How about we kill the baddie, have you marry the widow and make you king?
Balian: Thanks, but no thanks. I know what happened last time I got off with the baddie's wife.

Balian: Anyway, how, exactly, does fighting Muslims make them baddies? Isn’t that what crusades are there for?
Tiberias: Oh dear. You are so naïve! Fighting the infidel on crusades is so last century!
Tiberias: These days, we settle for Manly Bonding and Suggestive Swordfights *winks*
Balian: Why do I get the feeling that you should wear dreadlocks and eye makeup?

Balian: My valiant knights! You are going to ride out with a handful of men under the leadership of a French blacksmith against that army of highly trained natives who know the country and are used to fighting in a desert!
Army: Good plan! Good plan!
Samuel Vimes: *appears*
Samuel Vimes: Are you serious about pulling a Lord Rust here?
Balian: Be unafraid, my good man! No stomach for the battle, Johnny Klatschian. Once he tastes our steel, he’ll be off.
Samuel Vimes: *thrusts small book into Balian’s hand*
Samuel Vimes: *disappears*

Balian: A shadow and a threat has been growing in my mind.
Hospitaler: Have some chocolate, it’ll help.

Tiberias: I served under a king in an iron mask before, you know.
Tiberias: Never change a winning formula, I thought. But I get the feeling that I forgot something...
John Malkovich: *appears*
John Malkovich: You should have swapped him for a dummy after he died! Moron! *disappears*
Tiberias: Duh!

Guy de Lusignan: I used to be married to a powerful Queen before, you know.
Guy de Lusignan: But my part was so unimportant that they cut me out of the film.
Guy de Lusignan: And so I swore that that shall never happen to me again!
Guy de Lusignan: I dyed my hair black and acquired a Pimp Cane(TM).
Guy de Lusignan: And now I shall be king, and I shall reign, and I shall do all manner of truly kingly things, like killing off the innocent!
Minions: *step back from range of spittle*

Tiberias: Right, guys, I’ll be off, then. Somewhere peaceful, with no religious wars. Cyprus, I think.

Balian: *knights people left and right*
Priest: Do you think that being knights makes them fight better?
Balian: *haughty look*
Balian: Yes.
Sycophantic MinionNoble Follower: Um, sir, how come you know so much about war tactics and stuff, what with being a blacksmith?
Balian: Funny you should ask that: I was given this book.
Balian: General Tacticus says, If the enemy has an impregnable stronghold, see that he stays there. And as we are the ones in the impregnable stronghold, the enemy will see that we stay there!
Sycophantic MinionNoble Follower: Good, good... Um, you can read, sir? What with being a blacksmith?
Balian: I am a knight!
Sycophantic MinionNoble Follower: And being a knight makes you a reading man?
Balian: *haughty look*
Balian: Yes.
Balian: Elton John is a knight, and he can even read notes!

Balian: *blablabla* You are all individuals!
Crowd: Yes. We are all individuals.
Balian: You are all different!
Crowd: Yes, we are all different!
Random Guy I: I'm not.
Random Guy II: Shhhh.
Balian: You've all got to work it out for yourselves!
Crowd: Yes! We've got to work it out for ourselves!
Balian: Exactly!
Crowd: Tell us more!
Balian: You’ve got the right to freedom!
Crowd: Yes. We’ve got the right to freedom!
Balian: And your freedom entails the freedom to face that larger and better armed army and die a valiant and noble death!
Crowd. Yes. And our freedom entails... Um, what was that last bit again?
Balian *thinks*: Oh dear. I better drone on and on until they stop listening and simply smile and nod.

Balian: ...And we fight for the men and women, and the infants and toddlers, and the senior citizens, and the cats and dogs and donkeys, and for everybody’s right to go and live in France!
Crowd: In France? WTF?!
Balian: Sorry, did I say 'France'? I meant 'freedom'.

Sycophantic MinionNoble Follower: Sir, may I ask why you’re no longer washing your hair?
Balian: I learned this from a guy I once knew: The greasier your hair, the larger your army!

Sibylla: *cuts off hair*
Sibylla: I Am No Man!!

Thin Guy with Long, Black Greasy Hair, a Hooked Nose, and Stylish Black Robes: Any ideas how to best take Jerusalem?
Guy de Lusignan: I knew a guy once, blond hair, scruffy beard, really big horn... My wife used to freak him out a treat... Anyway, he used to go on about a wooden horse that you man with your finest warriors and wait for the besieged folk to drag into the city, where they - that is to say, your warriors - sneak out at the dead of night, kill the guards and open the gates for the besiegers.
Thin Guy with Long, Black Greasy Hair, a Hooked Nose, and Stylish Black Robes: *blink*
Thin Guy with Long, Black Greasy Hair, a Hooked Nose, and Stylish Black Robes: This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.
Thin Guy with Long, Black Greasy Hair, a Hooked Nose, and Stylish Black Robes: But if you want some equine action, I’ll be happy to oblige.
Guy de Lusignan: *is stripped down to his unmentionables and paraded around on a donkey*
Corporal Beti: Not Valerie!

*battle ensues and many people die, but luckily not the really important ones*

Thin Guy with Long, Black Greasy Hair, a Hooked Nose, and Stylish Black Robes: I know I’ve always appeared your enemy and some of your friends died because of me, but really, I’m Noble and Honourable and prove it by letting you lose without a fight.
Balian: Cool! Losing without a fight is what impresses these medieval folk a treat!

Mysterious Nobleman II: I am Richard, King of the Britons...
Knave: There, there, sire, let’s just ride on, easy does it.
Mysterious Nobleman II: Thank you, Patsy.

Ex-Queen Sibylla: *is reduced to living in a blacksmith’s hut with no walls*
Village Folk: How long till she too commits suicide, y’reckon?

~*~

*My theory is that Orlando Bloom signed the contract convinced that he was signing Pirates of the Caribbean II. He only read the first page of the script...

Orlando: blablabla... blacksmith... hand wound... blablabla.. wife dead? Oh no! Keira's not coming back :-(

Orlando: Look, guys, I know the setting is none of my business, but is it supposed to snow in the Caribbean?
Production Department: Um, well... it's the rain season!
Orlando: O-kay...
Production Department: Right, let us finish here quick and move to Morocco asap, before he catches up.

Orlando: Where's Johnny, anyway?
Producer: Um, he... was busy shooting... something else. But look, we got you Jeremy! You like Jeremy, don't you?
Jeremy: *winks lasciviously*

Comments

[hippediva.livejournal.com]

BWAAHAAHAAAAA!! This should have a spit-take warning on it! Too funny!

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

Heh! I'm happy to entertain! Sorry I made you spit, though - I hope your keyboard survived it ;-)

[fluffyllama.livejournal.com]

Ahahaha! I can't wait to see this now *g*

[wildestranger.livejournal.com]

Oh this is hilarious. What is it about Orlando Bloom that inspires such great parodies? And while we're at that, what is it about Teery Pratchett that makes it impossible to take anything seriously ever again?

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

Ah, in that case you should also read the comments by fourth_rose and cutecoati who point out historical inconsistencies. It makes the film much more enjoyable ;-)

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

I think it's because Orlando appears so earnest, as though he would really try to fathom the depth of the role - but never quite succeed. And you're absolutely right about Pratchett. I read Pratchett before I read/watched LotR, and it's absolutely impossible for me to take it seriously in any way. I've also re-read "Jingo" recently, and was therefore bound to find "Kingdom of Heaven" quite ridiculous.

[wildestranger.livejournal.com]

Heh. I recently taught a young man called Rupert and all I could think during classes was Rupert Management from Monstrous Regiment.

Also, Sam Vimes? So cool.

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

Strangely, I am not a great Vimes fangirl. I like him all right, but he doesn't give me warm happy fuzzies like some other characters do.

Rupert will always inevitably be connoted with Monstrous Regiment. I recently edited a text where the author used the phrase "an Ivan's", which made me think of "an Igor's", and I was lost.

[semielliptical]

Hilarious!

[fourth_rose]

Oh. My. God. The Movie That Was All Movies...

I adore you from the deepest depths of my footnote-loving heart ;)

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

At least Snape got to be conflated with Saladin. And you worked in Monty Python! heee!

[cutecoati.livejournal.com]

*throws herself down on floor in deepest admiration*

This was so f*** gorgeous!

Life of Brian!! Terry Pratchett! Yay!!

But what really killed me was the France/Freedom thing...

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

It was in Saladin's last scene where realisation dawned. He strode along, thin, tall and stylish, wearing those understated black robes (which, BTW, I found pretty hot), and I instantly thought of Snape. The film made me think of Monty Python several times, actually - I mean it's got medieval knights on a holy quest and Jerusalem!

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

L-Space, I tell you, L-Space!

I love footnotes, too. I have been using them abundantly lately ;-)

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

Heh! Thank you!

[sasha-davidovna.livejournal.com]

I friended you last night after reading a bunch of your HP essays (especially This is where my!Remus comes from) and I can already tell it was a good idea. :) Very happy I wasn't drinking anything when I read this, or it'd be all over my keyboard!

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

*bows*

I was thinking of your (and fourth_rose's) comments while watching the film. I even toyed with the idea of flaunting my newly acquired knowledge ("They didn't discover that until the 17th century!") before my friends, but decided against it ;-)

Life of Brian was such an obvious choice. And Pratchett always comes in handy when attempting a parody. Plus, I've re-read Jingo recently, and Lord Rust vs. Johnny Klatschian was fresh in my memory.

I am very fond of the France/freedom thing myself *g*

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

Hello and welcome! It's always nice to meet a fellow Remus fan :-) And I'm glad you find the silliness entertaining, too.

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

God, you're hilarious! I did find myself snickering a little over the blacksmith scene in the beginning, but I missed a lot of these other parallels.

*bows to your genius, wipes tears of mirth from eyes*

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much *bows*

For some reason, I found Jeremy Irons and the Man in the Iron Mask connection particularly funny. Surely, he must have realised that he's already played that part once? Monty Python and Terry Pratchett are always a great help ;-)

[rosina-alcona.livejournal.com]

Absolute genius!

You have officially cracked my shit up. Are you going to do this for Revenge of the Sith as well? Please say yes!

Loved teh LIfe of Brian bit (it's so hard not to think of Monty Python in these big epic films, isn't it?)

but this:

Balian: *knights people left and right*
Priest: Do you think that being knights makes them fight better?
Balian: *haughty look*
Balian: Yes.

HAHAHAHAHA! brilliant.

and as for this:

Hospitaler: Balian, you truly are your father’s son.
Balian: I am?
Hospitaler: But you've got your mother's eyes.
Balian: I have?
Hospitaler: And your godfather’s casually elegant hairstyle.

...I have no words.

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

Are you going to do this for Revenge of the Sith as well?

Ah, you know, you can't force these things! They must flow naturally, if inspiration hits! I might actually don't find Revenge of the Sith funny at all but drown in the Drama and Tragedy of its all!

Monty Python and Terry Pratchett absolutely spoiled me for those films. You can't watch a film with knights in Jerusalem without expecting Graham Chapman to prance around a corner.

Heh! The "Do you think being knights makes them fight better" exchange is actually canon! It reminded me of both Lord Rust and Graham's Arthur and made me a very happy girl indeed. And the "You truly are your father's son" line is canon, too. Surely they must have done it on purpose.

[rosina-alcona.livejournal.com]

I will will be drowning in Hayden's leather trousers the Drama and Tragedy tonight - joy!

I adore Graham Chapman. I always fancied him the most, bizarrely, followed by Michael Palin.

I can't believe i was laughing the most at the canon bits! typical. I'll have to find someone to go and see this with...

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

Hayden's leather trousers are a good start in the GentFarmer weekend!

I cannot decide which Python I love most. I adore Eric Idle since the "Galaxy Song" with a passion, but Terry Jones has such a beautiful speaking voice (DVD commentaries! Bliss!), and Graham is so delightfully earnest, and Michael is such a lovely, lovely person. Bizarrely, I know that John won't make it to the top.

The canon bits are the funniest. That's the beauty of the film. A parody cannot ridicule it more than it ridicules itself.

I went to see it with Hugh and Adam, BTW. And Adam's girlfriend. Oh dear.

[rosina-alcona.livejournal.com]

The galaxy song is my favourite part of that entire film. It's his singing voice - it's brilliant! And the lyrics are just fab.

I would sort of like Michael to be my dad. Which is not sexy.

There is something kind of hot about John Cleese being a roman centurian and saying 'you're fucking NICKED me old beauty' mind you!

did you sit in between them and exude sex vibes?

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

Yes! Absolutely! It's my favourite part of the film, too. It gives me happy shivers whenever I hear it.

Michael makes such a pretty woman, I find this kinda hot. Disturbingly hot, I would say, if I hadn't long reconsiled to being a pervert.

No, I was Very Well-Behaved. But I think that requires an extra (and flocked) post *g*

[swatkat24.livejournal.com]

Bwahahaha!

*makes mental note to pick up the first Discworld book next time she visits the library*

Swatkat

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

Haven't you read Discworld yet? In that case, don't start with an early novel. The later ones are better.

And thank you :-)

[cutecoati.livejournal.com]

*pokes man with moustache/beard and split personality to hand you some chocolate*

OMG forgot to tell you how much I love the 'let's get the movie done before Orlando finds out it's not PotC II' finish!!

And, thank you so very much for both our your recs! *hugs*

[chazpure.livejournal.com]

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

OhDear*God*OnFriday!!! - I think I just snorked up my spleen or something! Ow!

Must run out and watch KoH again, ASAP! *g* And your footnote - I'm sure that's exactly what happened, especially with the lascivious winking. I mean did you *see* Jeremy?!? %-}

[crazysexy-cool.livejournal.com]

Sweet Jesus. You've killed me!

Terry Pratchett, Freedom Fries, and oh god Elton John parallels. You rock. I'm never going to be able to watch the movie again without thinking of:

Hospitaler: Balian, you truly are your father’s son.
Balian: I am?
Hospitaler: But you've got your mother's eyes.
Balian: I have?
Hospitaler: And your godfather’s casually elegant hairstyle.

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

Well, the movie killed me, so it's only fair to spread the affliction...

I died when Thewlis told Balian he truly was his father's son.

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

Of course I saw Jeremy! Jeremy was the reason for me to watch the film in the first place. Shame they didn't put Alan in the film, too. He could have revived the Sheriff of Nottinham, in true spirit of the movie.

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

Mmh, chocolate...

Funny, how little trouble one has believing that this is exactly what Orlando would do ;-)

You're welcome to the rec :-)