Curse of the Saxons

I watched Tristan and Isolde last night.  It was on the cable movie channel and I was just hanging about at around at 8.30 and thought why the hell not?

This movie was advertised as a Romeo and Juliet type flick.  I actually think the tagline was something like “Before Romeo and Juliet, there was Tristan and Isolde”.  Anyhow, I am watching this movie and about ten minutes in work out it is really more of a Braveheart type flick with a romantic tormented undertone throughout it.

This discovery immediately pisses me off.

You see, I have an issue with these kind of undertones in movies.  I like the sword fights.  I like the setting, costumes, dialect, everything thematic basically.  But what I can’t stand is when movies make you sit for three hours engaged in a story that you know is only going to end badly.  Only going to end in tragedy.  Romantic tragedy.  Sure the village or kingdom will flourish, but time has told us that one of the romantic leads must die for that to be the case.

 If you don’t believe me, go back through time kids.  Every movie where the Irish and British are fighting and the word “Saxon” is used,  lead romantic characters must perish in order to save the Kingdom, goats and children. 

I wish for once a movie would end in the kingdom falling to miserable disarray and instead the romance between the leads surviving.  Because let’s face it, we do not get attached to the Kingdom in the 3 hours it takes to tell a tale like this, we get attached to the two romantic leads. 

So please, for once, try keeping them alive.  And together. 

 Posted by:  The Kid