This message is from: "Meredith Sessoms" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Was 'Re: Fw: Scott of the Antarctic'
Pamela wrote ...
>It was an interesting movie, in its own way. But I didn't like it that the
>savage "villains" were the ones with the fjords! Didn't see near enough of
>them. I heard a lot of the movie ended up on the cutting room floor. Bet
>a lot of fjord footage was cut out. It was interesting watching, but I
>noticed a couple characters they started to develop and just "poof",
>nothing. They cut out some good parts of the story, I'm sure. So I went
>out and bought the paperback book "Eaters Of The Dead". Fascinating to
>read that the first three chapters are based on historical fact.
You know how Crichton bases his stories on science, I don't know how much
people pick up from the movie if you don't about the 'Venus of Willandorf'
, the figure the Vikings found laying around after each monsterous
raid, ... but, the story is based on the intereresting thoery that the
Grendel (Wendol, bad guys) was real and that they were a Neanderthal people
who lived deep in the Northern mountains as late as the Viking age. I have
never read 'Grendel' but I always thought that he was one big, bad dragon.
Very interesting stuff!
Crichton states in his book that the Wendol (bad guys) ride black horses.
So all through the book I imagined the Norsemen on Fjord Horses. But I read
long ago, from the Unrau's I think, that the bad guys rode the cute Viking
horses. Oh well. So I was over it by the time I saw the movie. I do think
the hords of pale horses storming toward the encampment was visually more
effective. I can see how the movie makers could put the primitive tribe on
the primitive-colored horses, and think that the vikings may actually have
aquired the North Horse from the Wendol!
Character development wasn't this stories strong suit, even in the book. In
the back of the book, as I was reading it, I wrote down all the thirteen
plus some other characters and only had a picture in my mind of a few people
by the end of the book. The movie doesn't fare much better.
Did anyone else notice the best Fjord Horse scene where a scout rides up to
the top of the hill, but then, when they zoom in on the fellow his Fjording
turns into a dark horse with long, thin ears and a dark, common mane!
And that all the stunt horses that had to fall over at a gallop were dark
horses.
All in all I liked the book better, that way I can have A.B. playing lead
and riding a Fjord Horse!
Meredith Sessoms
Soddy-Daisy TN USA
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
~ Dorina & NFR Aagot ~
