Which Episodes Made You Cry

[Guest SouthernCelt]

Funny thing, "13th Warrior" was so panned by critics and such a flop at the box office that I have never felt compelled to watch it. Is it any good? I don't really remember seeing it available on DVD to buy or rent, so I have never really been tempted. I do know that there are a hand full of other films that have been widely disapproved of, both by both critics and the general public, that I have really come to love. For example, "Lost Souls" and "Eye of the Beholder", maybe even "Blair Witch 2" were all pretty much trashed by most everyone I know of, and yet have become personal favorites of mine. Who knows, maybe 13th warrior will one day be added to the list. ...

I sort of ignored 13th Warrior when it came out and then went to rental. My younger son liked it (he's into fantasy type stories and this one has some of the same elements e.g., swords are the main personal weapons. I bought the movie on VHS in a bargain bin sale later after I found out the story was based on the Michael Crichton book Eaters of the Dead. (I have the book but haven't read it yet.) Crichton usually has a lot of scientific/historical fact behind his stories and doesn't just create fantasy worlds from his own whims, so I hoped maybe the story wasn't too far from realistic. It's a pretty good movie but some of the beliefs and customs of the era are a bit hard to understand since the movie doesn't dwell a lot on "teaching" the viewer about the Viking culture 1000+ years ago. The one drawback to how the Vikings were portrayed was that I found myself seeing parallels between their portrayal in the movie and the warrior culture portrayal of Klingons in the later Star Trek series. In fact, I remarked to my son that if the Viking culture was portrayed accurately, it was obvious where Roddenberry and others who wrote Star Trek episodes got their models for the acceptable code of life of the Klingon warriors.

[Guest MillenniumIsBliss]

I sort of ignored 13th Warrior when it came out and then went to rental. My younger son liked it (he's into fantasy type stories and this one has some of the same elements e.g., swords are the main personal weapons. I bought the movie on VHS in a bargain bin sale later after I found out the story was based on the Michael Crichton book Eaters of the Dead. (I have the book but haven't read it yet.) Crichton usually has a lot of scientific/historical fact behind his stories and doesn't just create fantasy worlds from his own whims, so I hoped maybe the story wasn't too far from realistic. It's a pretty good movie but some of the beliefs and customs of the era are a bit hard to understand since the movie doesn't dwell a lot on "teaching" the viewer about the Viking culture 1000+ years ago. The one drawback to how the Vikings were portrayed was that I found myself seeing parallels between their portrayal in the movie and the warrior culture portrayal of Klingons in the later Star Trek series. In fact, I remarked to my son that if the Viking culture was portrayed accurately, it was obvious where Roddenberry and others who wrote Star Trek episodes got their models for the acceptable code of life of the Klingon warriors.

Hmm, interesting!! It sounds like it would be worth picking up if I run across it. It has been so long sense I have seen anything Star Trek, so it will be hard for me to make any comparisons, but that is an interesting point. It sounds like you might very well be onto something there with the Klingon/Viking thing.

[HighPlainsDrifter]

Hmm, interesting!! It sounds like it would be worth picking up if I run across it. It has been so long sense I have seen anything Star Trek, so it will be hard for me to make any comparisons, but that is an interesting point. It sounds like you might very well be onto something there with the Klingon/Viking thing.

i remember seeing The 13th Warrior in movie theater. I really liked it. There is a scene where Banderas in which doesnt speak the language that the natives do was able to learn it by listening to them on a trip to somewwhere

[Guest SouthernCelt]

i remember seeing The 13th Warrior in movie theater. I really liked it. There is a scene where Banderas in which doesnt speak the language that the natives do was able to learn it by listening to them on a trip to somewwhere

I thought he learned the language as he traveled to Norse country (northern Europe presumably) with the Norsemen after being pressed into service as the 13th warrior that the Norse beliefs required to make the invincible fighting force decreed by the Valhalla gods. Of course, the Norsemen saw every major conflict as possibly being Ragnarok, the final battle. (Isn't it interesting how a lot of the otherwise incompatible religions see a final battle as the event of the end times?)

One of my favorite scenes is the one where the Norse leader put down Banderas' middle eastern style sword and showed him why he needed a much heavier battle sword (like the Claymore of Scottish/William Wallace fame) because the fight to come wasn't a fencing contest, it would be kill/incapacitate with one blow fight. If he were to get into a sword duel, another of the enemy would overwhelm him in short order.

A deviation from the specifics here, but I'm reminded of something I learned from studying War Between the States history: Down through time, regardless of the primary weapons wielded by individual soldiers, the outcome of all battles between land-based forces (infantry to use the modern term) in which one side attacks across open ground against a stationary fortified enemy can be predicted simply by knowing the relative size of the armies. A rule of thumb used by field commanders is that if you are the assaulting force and do not have at least 50% more available troops than the enemy, you will have only about a 10% chance of success. If you think about it, some of the reasons why this is a valid supposition becomes evident, e.g. one side has cover while the other doesn't. Of course, by the 20th century with aircraft for war use becoming commonplace and ever-larger or more powerful artillery and rockets becoming common, the rule of thumb became less reliable. But for battles before such modern advances occurred, the rule of thumb was almost never forgotten by wise commanders. I think that understanding of battle tactics was involved in the 13th Warrior when the Norsemen chose to meet the assault from the enemy from their prepared fortifications and why they were so insistent that every man be able to kill as many of the assaulting forces as possible with the least amount of expended time and energy. After the fight, the later infiltration of the cave system to take out the chief priestess was more of a "commando raid" where stealth was paramount not overwhelming force of arms.

[IHaveGoodInstincts]

And here I thought there would be 4 pages of tearful Millennium fans crying and talking about those emotional episodes! Not!

In being true to the topic, The end of In Arcadia Ego and Midnight of the Century are the most emotional in my opinion, aside from season endings and series endings.

[Earthnut]

I don't think there's anything more painful then Frank losing Catherine in "The Time Is Now," seeing Jordan in a hospital room dying in "Borrowed Time," and in "The Sound of Snow," when the group gave Catherine back to Frank. The acting by Lance in these episodes are superb, and for that reason I was drawn into them with tears.

[HighPlainsDrifter]

Wow!!! I am so glad to see my thread brought back to life again. I re-read and boy did IO have a good laugh. This thread was meant to be more serious but the banter and friendship I had built with Lathe of Heaven and MillenniumIsBliss was so comical that I couldn't keep my threads serious. On a side note, I am still in contact with Lathe. To get get back on track I did rewatched the Sound of Snow and it still gets me. This proves that this series still holds up 12years later

[IHaveGoodInstincts]

The Sound of Snow and Borrowed Time are two more episodes of high emotion! Even Baldwin's death is a bit emotional because the episode prior really focused on Frank and Barry seeing eye to eye and losing that was tough. I think all of the deaths of the main and secodary characters were done with strong emotion. I know I'm rattling through most of series now, but Luminary was a good emotional episode, because of all the effort and energy to prevent a death!