srin
in
mad_poetics
(no subject)
So uh, I saw The Eagle. And I, uh, have some feelings.
I'll admit right up from that the whole "Honour >>> everything, it is permissible and even encouraged to do anything in the name of honour" idea has never been one that's worked for me, which is the basis of a lot of my problems with the film.
I feel like I was supposed to think that, at some point, Esca started respecting and even liking Marcus, so "I made a promise" wasn't his sole reason for going to such lengths for the guy. But I didn't really see when or how that happened. I could buy him trying to keep Marcus alive, but not him betraying the Seal guys for the symbol of the people who killed his family; there simply wasn't enough development in terms of their relationship for me to find that believable, especially since Marcus had basically just been a dick to him up until that point. I guess Esca has a big hard-on for honour, or something.
And I still can't figure out what the film's point was supposed to be, exactly. I remember articles before it came out talking about the clash of cultures, learning about each other, blah blah blah, but I didn't see that. I mean, yes, Roman culture =/= native British culture, but the central conflict wasn't about that. Marcus was willing to die for honour, Esca was willing to die for honour, as far as I could tell the Seal guys were also in it for honour, since it's not like the eagle had any value for them except as a symbol, same as it was for the Romans. So... a whole lot of people died for their respective honour, and the Romans won because, uh, Marcus managed to drown the Seal guys' prince? I don't know, Marcus's speech over the funeral pyre about Romans and Britons and peace blah blah seemed rather out of place. It's not like he'd decided they shouldn't fight any more because the fighting was bad, he was just happy because he got what he wanted - if the Seal guys had gotten the eagle back and somehow Marcus had not been dead, I'm pretty sure he'd have run back to the fort to try to convince the whole legion to come out and fight for it. He seemed to respect Esca by the end, but that wasn't because he'd learned anything like Britons Are People Too, it was because Esca basically behaved like a Roman with a funny accent and stopped talking about how the Romans killed his family.
I'm pretty sure we were supposed to see Marcus's quest and ultimate victory as an awesome thing, but that only works if you accept that the honour of the Romans is the only thing that's important. If he hadn't gone on his quest, then a whole bunch of Seal guys and a whole bunch of ex-Romans-gone-native could've happily carried on with their lives. To me, Marcus's family honour does not trump all those lives, so it just seems like a lot of people got needlessly killed over one guy's selfish desire, and that's never a positive thing.
Also, what the hell were they doing with the Seal guys, I don't even know. The ridiculous make-up and wildly-climate-inappropriate costuming and pointlessly killing that kid at the end there all seemed intended to portray them as Wacky Barbarian Savages, but then they had these scenes with the kid and the non-warriors going about their business that seemed intended to show them as Real People Too. So I'm honestly not sure whether the film was trying and failing to present them as Unsympathetic Bad Guys, or trying and failing to present them as Sympathetic Victims of the Romans, or what. That was just awkward.
...Also, I have clearly had way too much Holywood conditioning, because Romans with American accents are just wrong, okay, the posh ones are supposed to speak RP and the plebes are supposed to speak cockney, that's just how it is.
I'll admit right up from that the whole "Honour >>> everything, it is permissible and even encouraged to do anything in the name of honour" idea has never been one that's worked for me, which is the basis of a lot of my problems with the film.
I feel like I was supposed to think that, at some point, Esca started respecting and even liking Marcus, so "I made a promise" wasn't his sole reason for going to such lengths for the guy. But I didn't really see when or how that happened. I could buy him trying to keep Marcus alive, but not him betraying the Seal guys for the symbol of the people who killed his family; there simply wasn't enough development in terms of their relationship for me to find that believable, especially since Marcus had basically just been a dick to him up until that point. I guess Esca has a big hard-on for honour, or something.
And I still can't figure out what the film's point was supposed to be, exactly. I remember articles before it came out talking about the clash of cultures, learning about each other, blah blah blah, but I didn't see that. I mean, yes, Roman culture =/= native British culture, but the central conflict wasn't about that. Marcus was willing to die for honour, Esca was willing to die for honour, as far as I could tell the Seal guys were also in it for honour, since it's not like the eagle had any value for them except as a symbol, same as it was for the Romans. So... a whole lot of people died for their respective honour, and the Romans won because, uh, Marcus managed to drown the Seal guys' prince? I don't know, Marcus's speech over the funeral pyre about Romans and Britons and peace blah blah seemed rather out of place. It's not like he'd decided they shouldn't fight any more because the fighting was bad, he was just happy because he got what he wanted - if the Seal guys had gotten the eagle back and somehow Marcus had not been dead, I'm pretty sure he'd have run back to the fort to try to convince the whole legion to come out and fight for it. He seemed to respect Esca by the end, but that wasn't because he'd learned anything like Britons Are People Too, it was because Esca basically behaved like a Roman with a funny accent and stopped talking about how the Romans killed his family.
I'm pretty sure we were supposed to see Marcus's quest and ultimate victory as an awesome thing, but that only works if you accept that the honour of the Romans is the only thing that's important. If he hadn't gone on his quest, then a whole bunch of Seal guys and a whole bunch of ex-Romans-gone-native could've happily carried on with their lives. To me, Marcus's family honour does not trump all those lives, so it just seems like a lot of people got needlessly killed over one guy's selfish desire, and that's never a positive thing.
Also, what the hell were they doing with the Seal guys, I don't even know. The ridiculous make-up and wildly-climate-inappropriate costuming and pointlessly killing that kid at the end there all seemed intended to portray them as Wacky Barbarian Savages, but then they had these scenes with the kid and the non-warriors going about their business that seemed intended to show them as Real People Too. So I'm honestly not sure whether the film was trying and failing to present them as Unsympathetic Bad Guys, or trying and failing to present them as Sympathetic Victims of the Romans, or what. That was just awkward.
...Also, I have clearly had way too much Holywood conditioning, because Romans with American accents are just wrong, okay, the posh ones are supposed to speak RP and the plebes are supposed to speak cockney, that's just how it is.