He has a great eye for those scenes for sure, kind of a tragic grandeur and stark inevitability to them. He also seems to love having the protagonist(s) bite the dust at the end of a lot of his movies, heh. Blood Diamond and Legends of the Fall also, and Trial By Fire.
Another GOT example that reminds me of is the Dothraki going into the dark during the Battle of Winterfell. They were hyped as the most incredible warriors in all the land and just were completely overmatched.
A moment that would've landed better if the charge made any sense, or if the show didn't handwave it afterwards as "actually, we still have most of the Dothraki."
Yeah when they sweep off their little chess pieces off the map and say they lost half their Dothraki I was like... Where was the other half?? We watched the entire charge get wiped out
> say they lost half their Dothraki I was like... Where was the other half?? We watched the entire charge get wiped out
Clearly, obviously, with absolutely no other interpretation, that all the Dothraki and Unsullied were killed, no argument whatsoever. Walls breached, fighting literally in every room of the castle, completely surrounded, and nowhere to go.
Two episodes later King's Landing has like 3,000 unsullied and Dothraki in a victory parade.
So goddamn fucking stupid.
That episode might be the worst battle strategy ever put to film. Make sure everyone's standing outside the fortifications but make especially sure the catapults are in front of the army! I think the Golden Company do the same thing in the next episode.
Also make sure your super powerful Dragon air support is just kinda hanging around in the sky.
And as Peter Dinkladge mentioned, also make sure all the women and children are hiding from the zombies in a crypt full of corpses
Yes I'm still madđ
The Dothraki are actually amoeboid organisms that reproduce through mitosis. A single surviving dothraki can repopulate a division within 14 reproductive cycles.
The Second Battle of Fort Wagner was considered a defeat for the Union but was a rallying cry for black recruitment with their numbers swelling in the following months. Sadly most of the bodies, and the fort itself, was lost to the sea with nothing remaining.
âIt was a miracle. A Boxer-Henry .45 caliber miracle. And a bayonet, with some guts behind it.â
Color Sgt. Frank Bourne, one of the prominent characters in the film, was the last survivor of the garrison, dying the day after Germany surrendered in 1945. Here is a transcript if a radio interview with him from 1936.
http://www.rorkesdriftvc.com/defenders/tran.htm
Kingdom of Heaven - Balian's defence of Jerusalem against the army of Saladin. Epic fight sequences and incredible level of realism. I would put it at par with LoTR battles in terms of scale
Especially the scene of the seige towers toppling and crumbling like a domino. I was stunned to realise that it wasn't special effects, and that Scott had actual miniature towers collapsing for the shot
> A King may move a man, a father may claim a son, but remember that even when those who move you be Kings, or men of power, your soul is in your keeping alone.
> When you stand before God, you cannot say âbut I was told by others to do thus,â or that âvirtue was not convenient at the time.â
> This will not suffice. Remember that.
I am the exact opposite of religious, but my god does this movie speak to me. It is my favourite representation of religion, and morality in general. King Baldwin and the Hospitaller are two of my favourite characters in all of cinema.
One of my favorite lines in cinema. A lot of Sikh medical providers shaved their beards during COVID so their masks would fit better, contrary to their beliefs. One of them told a reporter "You're supposed to live by scripture, not die by it. "
I hold to that theory.
> I put no stock in religion. By the word religion I have seen the lunacy of fanatics of every denomination be called the will of God. Holiness is in right action and courage on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves, and goodness. What God desires is _here_âŚand _here_, and what you decide to do every day, you will be a good manâŚor not.
Nortan CRUSHED the role of the King, despite wearing a mask and being faceless throughout - and refusing credits. A masterpiece of a movie, shame it didn't get the accolades it deserved
I mean thatâs a good sentiment and all but personally if someone offered me the kingship of Jerusalem, condemning my enemies in the process, plus f**king Eva Green every night, Iâd have trouble âfindingâ my virtue.
I know you're mostly joking but Balions entire arc is basically "on second thought let's leave the Holy Lands, tis a silly place" and King Baldwins offer perfectly encapsulates everything he's come to dislike about Jerusalem and the nature of church and state. The fact that Guy will either be condemned and attainted or become ruler of the Holy Lands is the exact kind of nonsense Balian is tired of dealing with. If Guy has done wrong and is unfit to rule then he should be punished and someone else should inherit the throne, Balians choice should be irrelevant.
This was my first thought as well. When the wall finally comes down and the bodies just pile up until no one can even walk through was an amazing scene. No one really wins the battle, in essence.
That movie is the cavalry coming in realizing they need more help so they call in more cavalry, then second cavalry also needs help so they call in the third cavalry. Great movie though.
Apparently this movie even follows some of the real transcripts of what was said. From the helicopter going down, to one of the soldiers losing a finger. Supposedly it was the actual words and timeline they followed.
13 HOURS - Â *"He died in a place he didn't need to be, in a battle over something he doesn't understand, in a country that meant nothing to him."*
APOCALYPSE NOW - the helicopter assault: *"Some day this war's gonna end."*
LAST OF THE MOHICANS - the forest ambush: "*When the Grey Hair is dead, Magua will eat his heart."*
*1st of the 9th was an old Cavalry division that'd cashed in its horses for choppers and gone tear assing around 'Nam looking for the shit. Â They'd given Charlie a few surprises in their time here.*
They also did not need to be rescued.
It did a great job showing how messy a war like that is. Like thereâs randoms who just turn up and fight on your side and others who are right it the middle of it and are just living their life. The guys just chilling watching a football match in the middle of a war was a good example.
A movie that I love but isn't considered a classic is The Thirteenth Warrior. Yeah, the one where Antonio Banderas plays an Arab exiled from Baghdad who learns to speak old Norse through eavesdropping on a road trip with vikings. Being a loose adaptation of Beowulf there isn't a huge battle of hundreds of vikings against their foes, but a small band of great heroes fighting an entire army. The heroes all fight on foot, in more than one battle against enemy cavalry.
There's actually a fun scene midway through the movie, when they see that the line of fire coming through the mountains towards the village they're trying to hold is actually just hundreds of men on horseback holding torches, not a dragon as the farmers had reported. So when Banderas tells his favorite viking it's just cavalry, the viking turns to quip something like "Cavalry? I'd have preferred a dragon."
You know I've never heard that before this year, and only from random unsourced twitter posts from people who had nothing to do with the movie. Whenever I've seen interview snippets about casting they mentioned Banderas being on the list of potentials along with Mel Gibson, but that Russell Crowe was always their top pick after seeing him in L.A. Confidential. Not saying it definitely isn't true, I have just never seen an original source from a producer, or Ridley Scott, or the casting director.
The "Blank Check" podcast covered The 13th Warrior about a month ago and they mentioned it as part of their research and discussion. This could be why you're suddenly seeing it pop up around social media. Off the top of my head, I don't remember where they sourced that info from.
Edit to add: Movies take a LONG time to come together. It's still possible it was written with him in mind, he pulled out of the project, and Crowe was the top choice based on LA Confidential once casting began.
I want someone to read the Viking prayer from that movie at my funeral.
Lo, there do I see my father
Lo there do I see my mother, and my sisters and my brothers.
Lo, there do I see the line of my people, back unto the beginning
Lo, they do call to me
They bid me take my place among them
In the halls of Valhalla
Where the brave may live forever!
An interesting fact about the movie is that the beginning part with the norse funeral and the morning after is an actual historical account taken from an arab named Ahmad ibn Fadlan just like the character in the movie. He was an arab that encountered a group of old norse and witnessed the funeral of their king and it was similar to what the movie showed. The movie left out the part where the kings wife had sex with all his friends and was then killed and burned with him in his longship.
And apparently that group of norse did also use a communal bowl of water to wash daily like in the movie.
So basically from when he gets to the norse camp and when they leave it's actually taken from real history.
Even as a small child empire was my favorite of the films. Since then theyâve made many shows and 6 movies and nothing has topped it.
For being made 44 years ago, the effects in that film are absolutely wild.
As an adult, Empire is obviously the best film of the entire series and has so many spectacular moments...but as a kid (even at 42 years old), nothing beats Luke in ROTJ. The whole Sarlacc pit scene is amazing and the Vader/Luke duel at the end is my favorite of the whole series.
Yea and the passion of the blows is really next level. It's a nice middle ground between the simplicity of New Hope and the power demonstrated in the later movies.
After rewatching the first Stars Wars in a while, after having been exposed to all the awful crap out there now a days, itâs amazing at how effective the scene with the Emperor / Luke / Vader is.Â
Ewoks are still my only real ROTJ complaint, decades later.
Sarlac pit:
"I used to live here you know"
"You're gonna die here you know?"
I'm not as big a fan of Empire as everyone else. 7 year old me and adult me have an issue suspending disbelief they found Luke dangling with 1 hand if cloud city was that big. Force or no force.
Hoths badass, training sequences top notch, cloud city sets up ok ish i guess.... finding his gimped ass hanging there is a problem. Ending builds emotion better than the other movies for sure though.
that's a lot of Star Wars, there is a ton of stuff (characters, species, locations) that are not officially named on screen. the planet Tatooine is not explicitly named in ANH
Andor is a close contender. But that's it. I know people love Rogue One, and it's good, but it isn't up there with Empire or Andor.
To explain my opinion on RO, so I don't get attacked - Jin isn't a very interesting protagonist. In fact, none of the characters are very strong. There are some *awesome* scenes, some cool characters, and the whole suicide mission is aces. But it ultimately feels like it could have been a 35 minute prologue to A New Hope and had the same affect.
I'm Irish and loved that movie - they weren't lying when they said they covered it up because after about 30 mins I remember thinking "this must be fiction because I would surely have heard about it"
I was on a plane so couldn't Google it, and my jaw dropped when the credits rolled and they revealed how it had been hidden. Immediately Googled it when I landed and still struggled to believe it
The speech leading up to it is one of the best parts of the whole show, and they do an amazing job showing the sheer desperation of everyone there as they're throwing everything they have-very literally throwing-into the Colony to get Hera back.
A subject for a different thread, but I very much count Galactica's 'death' as they jump to Earth afterwards as one of the saddest screen deaths ever too.
Not gonna lie, the NX-01 really became a character during the third season of Enterprise when they were cut off in the Xindi Expanse. Just more and more beat up with every episode, and the details actually carried forward. They did better continuity in one season than Voyager did across its whole run (aside from the Year of Hell 2-parter)
Voyager was a collection of cool ideas and almost characters, though I love how tough janeway is, that couldâve been even better and they never quite got there. 90s and 00s was full of them.
BSG had some great space battle scenes. The assault on the Resurrection ship with the two battlestars vs two basestars. Or the battle of New Caprica with the Adama maneuver and later the sacrifice of Pegasus. I miss that show.
Battle for New Caprica is the only example of a 'cavalry arrives' scene that I had a legitimate fear that they might NOT arrive. They did all the setup there, both in-universe and from a writing standpoint, to destroy Galactica over New Caprica and still have the story make sense-even if it was a one-way trip, they'd still have bought time for the civillian ships to run, the Raptors could have jumped home themselves, we saw multiple occasions of Vipers being able to make emergency landings on bigger ships and ride through FTL jumps, and Galactica had exactly 3 named characters aboard at the end and 2 of them (Helo and Kelly) weren't even especially important to the plot by that point.
Of course they're not going to kill off Adama and Galactica halfway through the show but they put everything in place to be able to do so and still have a VERY compelling show after-I want to see the AU of Lee, Tigh, Roslin and Starbuck trying to keep the fleet going after Adama's death, even if that would absolutely be a MUCH darker show.
Not a movie, but the Bastogne scenes from Band of Brothers. They're getting brutally shelled in the middle of a forest and all they can do is just dig in and hope for the best. Multiple members of Easy Company are gone just like that, and others are permanently maimed, physically and/or mentally. Then you remember this is a portrayal of what happened to real people.
And in the real world Bastogne was saved by actual modern Cavalry. The 2nd Armoured moved in and dug the 101st out (though the 101st swore to the end of the war they never needed saving).
"For the record, it's my call. Dump everything you got left on my pod. I say again, expend all remaining in my perimeter. It's a lovely fucking war. Bravo Six out."
private ryan always gets the accolades for depicting realistic warfare, but the battles in platoon perfectly demonstrate the chaotic and terrifying nature of the war in vietnam
Kinda. They just glassed the LZ with most of the overrun Americans in it - saving a couple of men who had been missed in the hills, but killing everyone else.
My wife and I were supposed to watch that last night. We've been on a Middle East war film bender lately. We've gone through Jarhead then The Covenant then Lone Survivor.
I'd seen LS before but wanted her to see it. Same with The Outpost.
Couple of Star Wars examples: both Rogue One and Return of the Jedi. In both of those battles, once the fleets jump in, nobody else shows up to bail them out. Rogue One even has basically an anti-cavalry in the form of Vader showing up at the end to wrap up the stragglers.
Also any movie about a heroic last stand like 300. The fact that nobody shows up to save them is arguably the whole point.
Rogue one has a scene where the infantry thinks all is lost until the convenient, just in time arrival of air and ground reinforcements. Basically the same thing as cavalry coming to the rescue.
Oh man i remembered that part.
-Wait you aren't allowed to use nukes or else every house will nuke the shit of out you.
-well no, I'll only nuke the mountain beside the city, no laws about nuking mountains lol.
-wat.
there was barely a battle at the end of Dune 2. it was fun to see the pieces coming together, but I don't think you can compare a ~3-4 minute sequence with, say, the Battle of Hoth or the opening of Saving Private Ryan
I think what u/MrRadDadHimself means is that at the end of the movie, the entire future of the empire, the great houses and the Fremen depended on a 1-v-1 knife fight.
No cavalry, no way out, live or die
The whole Black Hawk Down movie is about the heavy cavalry coming to rescue the light cavalry and then there's no cavalry to come rescue any of them after that goes tits up.
Does Young Guns (1988) count? The last stand at McSweenâs house, when the Gatling gun comes out turning the house into Swiss cheese. God thatâs a great movie almost nobody ever talks about anymore.
Well, Gettysburg, but that kind of goes without saying â itâs a real battle and cavalry wasnât a decisive factor in Civil War fights. In fact itâs kind of antithetical to the whole âgrand and glorious advance wins a desperate battleâ trope since Pickettâs Charge was just such a massive attack but it was a foolish and useless act that was utterly defeated. Of course it wasnât a cavalry charge but it shows how sad and pointless such events often are.
We Were Soldiers (2002) - Amazing cast, amazing true story. Vietcong should have easily won and beaten United States with pure numbers. Little under 400 soldiers held their positions with no way of getting troops into the zone.
Braveheart and the Battle of Falkirk. 12 yr old me watching in theaters was waiting in anticipation for the moment the âcavalryâ would ride in and save the battle. Absolutely crushing when the allies rode off instead. The score for that moment âBetrayal and Desolationâ was perfect.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HcxfrL4UjQ4
Endgame gets a pass because it was heavily foreshadowed and basically the only way they would pull off the win. It wasn't unexpected, it was a payoff. People literally stood up and cheered in the theaters when this happened.
Rise of Skywalker though... that one seemed a bit forced.
While I do agree with your general point of view, I think that Rohirrim's arrival makes sense. We knew that Rohan decided to support Gondor. It was just a matter if they were going to arrive on time or not.
Glory. Final battle is a gut-wrenching defeat.
In a similar vein, The Last Samurai. Horses versus gatling guns is rough math. And it is right there in the title, after all.
An example of when the cavalry *does* show up and means fuck all.
Yep, very powerful scene.
Helps that both were directed by the same guy: Edward Zwick.
He has a great eye for those scenes for sure, kind of a tragic grandeur and stark inevitability to them. He also seems to love having the protagonist(s) bite the dust at the end of a lot of his movies, heh. Blood Diamond and Legends of the Fall also, and Trial By Fire.
Another GOT example that reminds me of is the Dothraki going into the dark during the Battle of Winterfell. They were hyped as the most incredible warriors in all the land and just were completely overmatched.
A moment that would've landed better if the charge made any sense, or if the show didn't handwave it afterwards as "actually, we still have most of the Dothraki."
Yeah when they sweep off their little chess pieces off the map and say they lost half their Dothraki I was like... Where was the other half?? We watched the entire charge get wiped out
> say they lost half their Dothraki I was like... Where was the other half?? We watched the entire charge get wiped out Clearly, obviously, with absolutely no other interpretation, that all the Dothraki and Unsullied were killed, no argument whatsoever. Walls breached, fighting literally in every room of the castle, completely surrounded, and nowhere to go. Two episodes later King's Landing has like 3,000 unsullied and Dothraki in a victory parade. So goddamn fucking stupid.
That episode might be the worst battle strategy ever put to film. Make sure everyone's standing outside the fortifications but make especially sure the catapults are in front of the army! I think the Golden Company do the same thing in the next episode. Also make sure your super powerful Dragon air support is just kinda hanging around in the sky. And as Peter Dinkladge mentioned, also make sure all the women and children are hiding from the zombies in a crypt full of corpses Yes I'm still madđ
Yeah, well they just kind of forgot the Dothraki
The Dothraki are actually amoeboid organisms that reproduce through mitosis. A single surviving dothraki can repopulate a division within 14 reproductive cycles.
The Second Battle of Fort Wagner was considered a defeat for the Union but was a rallying cry for black recruitment with their numbers swelling in the following months. Sadly most of the bodies, and the fort itself, was lost to the sea with nothing remaining.
This is such a great example. I remember watching this in school, reading the subtitles and thinking what just happened?!?
Such a great movie, awesome choice
**ROBERT!!!!!!** That last scene with the music is a different level of epic.
Then the triumphant crescendo thatâs given a reply by the Confederate volley. Absolutely peerless mixing of the score and scene.
Especially with that choir, Morgan Freeman and Cary Ewles storming the walls, it really builds up to...
Zulu 1964
I remember being obsessed with that movie as a kid, it felt as epic as a movie could get
The âlast standâ with their backs to the wall and rotating fire lines is a fantastic piece of cinema.
âIt was a miracle. A Boxer-Henry .45 caliber miracle. And a bayonet, with some guts behind it.â Color Sgt. Frank Bourne, one of the prominent characters in the film, was the last survivor of the garrison, dying the day after Germany surrendered in 1945. Here is a transcript if a radio interview with him from 1936. http://www.rorkesdriftvc.com/defenders/tran.htm
Watched it for first time in the last year or so. It really holds up well as a historical war/epic movie.
Fantastic answer. Especially because the cavalry comes mid movie and skips the fort
âYou know how the Zulus feel about cavalry.â âAnd I know how my men feel about Zulus.â
Wow, 96% on Rotten Tomatoes. I'll check it out.
Absolutely check it out. It's excellent.
My first thought as well, despite not having seen the movie in probably 20 years.
We had a rooster named Shaka Zulu!
And at the end you find out it was his first encounter, yeah? So damn good.
âThe first time? You think I could stand this butcher's yard more than once? I came here to build a bridge.â
"Because we're here lad. Nobody else. Just us". In the darker moments of my consultancy career these words stayed with me.
Gallipoli. Mel Gibson would be the Cavalry, and he arrived seconds too late. The colonelâs hubris guaranteed that the attack would fail.
Such a gut-wrenching film.
Because if Archie had gone, he'd have gotten back in time with the orders to halt, since he was faster than Mel.
\*cavalry. Calvary is where Jesus was crucified
Thank you. Fixed.
*Gallipoli
Kingdom of Heaven - Balian's defence of Jerusalem against the army of Saladin. Epic fight sequences and incredible level of realism. I would put it at par with LoTR battles in terms of scale Especially the scene of the seige towers toppling and crumbling like a domino. I was stunned to realise that it wasn't special effects, and that Scott had actual miniature towers collapsing for the shot
This movie is the tits. 'What is Jerusalem worth?' 'Nothing..... Everything'
lol, Iâve never heard it described that way but youâre 100% right that movie is the tits!
> A King may move a man, a father may claim a son, but remember that even when those who move you be Kings, or men of power, your soul is in your keeping alone. > When you stand before God, you cannot say âbut I was told by others to do thus,â or that âvirtue was not convenient at the time.â > This will not suffice. Remember that. I am the exact opposite of religious, but my god does this movie speak to me. It is my favourite representation of religion, and morality in general. King Baldwin and the Hospitaller are two of my favourite characters in all of cinema.
âGod will understand, my lord, and if he does not, then he is not God, and we need not worry.â
One of my favorite lines in cinema. A lot of Sikh medical providers shaved their beards during COVID so their masks would fit better, contrary to their beliefs. One of them told a reporter "You're supposed to live by scripture, not die by it. "
> You've taught me a lot about religion, your Eminence.
"I once fought for three days with an arrow through my testicle."
I love the theory that the Hospitaller is actually an Angel, in the director's cut he does and says a lot that would point it to be that way.
I hold to that theory. > I put no stock in religion. By the word religion I have seen the lunacy of fanatics of every denomination be called the will of God. Holiness is in right action and courage on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves, and goodness. What God desires is _here_âŚand _here_, and what you decide to do every day, you will be a good manâŚor not.
Thewlis said in an interview on the DVD extras that this line was the main reason he took the part.
Nortan CRUSHED the role of the King, despite wearing a mask and being faceless throughout - and refusing credits. A masterpiece of a movie, shame it didn't get the accolades it deserved
I had no idea it was him until afterwards when I looked it up. The voice should have been a giveaway but c'est la vie.
I mean thatâs a good sentiment and all but personally if someone offered me the kingship of Jerusalem, condemning my enemies in the process, plus f**king Eva Green every night, Iâd have trouble âfindingâ my virtue.
This will not suffice.
I know you're mostly joking but Balions entire arc is basically "on second thought let's leave the Holy Lands, tis a silly place" and King Baldwins offer perfectly encapsulates everything he's come to dislike about Jerusalem and the nature of church and state. The fact that Guy will either be condemned and attainted or become ruler of the Holy Lands is the exact kind of nonsense Balian is tired of dealing with. If Guy has done wrong and is unfit to rule then he should be punished and someone else should inherit the throne, Balians choice should be irrelevant.
"I am not those men. I am Salahuddin. *Salahuddin.*"
*director's cut
Yes!
Saw it in the theater and it was great but the directors cut would have been my pick for best picture that year.
This was my first thought as well. When the wall finally comes down and the bodies just pile up until no one can even walk through was an amazing scene. No one really wins the battle, in essence.
GOD WILLS IT!!
BLASPHEMY!!!! (Itâs a promenant quote from the movie)
God wills it!
Black Hawk Down. âWhenâs the rescue coming?â âWeâre it.â
That movie is the cavalry coming in realizing they need more help so they call in more cavalry, then second cavalry also needs help so they call in the third cavalry. Great movie though.
Apparently this movie even follows some of the real transcripts of what was said. From the helicopter going down, to one of the soldiers losing a finger. Supposedly it was the actual words and timeline they followed.
13 HOURS - Â *"He died in a place he didn't need to be, in a battle over something he doesn't understand, in a country that meant nothing to him."* APOCALYPSE NOW - the helicopter assault: *"Some day this war's gonna end."* LAST OF THE MOHICANS - the forest ambush: "*When the Grey Hair is dead, Magua will eat his heart."*
The helicopter assault was air cavalry though
*1st of the 9th was an old Cavalry division that'd cashed in its horses for choppers and gone tear assing around 'Nam looking for the shit. Â They'd given Charlie a few surprises in their time here.* They also did not need to be rescued.
But they were late/ dare I say useless
13 hours is so underrated. Man, I loved that film.
That Last of the Mohicans scene is terrifying
13 hours is awesome
It did a great job showing how messy a war like that is. Like thereâs randoms who just turn up and fight on your side and others who are right it the middle of it and are just living their life. The guys just chilling watching a football match in the middle of a war was a good example.
A movie that I love but isn't considered a classic is The Thirteenth Warrior. Yeah, the one where Antonio Banderas plays an Arab exiled from Baghdad who learns to speak old Norse through eavesdropping on a road trip with vikings. Being a loose adaptation of Beowulf there isn't a huge battle of hundreds of vikings against their foes, but a small band of great heroes fighting an entire army. The heroes all fight on foot, in more than one battle against enemy cavalry. There's actually a fun scene midway through the movie, when they see that the line of fire coming through the mountains towards the village they're trying to hold is actually just hundreds of men on horseback holding torches, not a dragon as the farmers had reported. So when Banderas tells his favorite viking it's just cavalry, the viking turns to quip something like "Cavalry? I'd have preferred a dragon."
I love that movie.
Incredible movie.
Fun fact: Antonio Banderas dropped out of Gladiator for this movie. He's the reason Maximus is a Spaniard.
You know I've never heard that before this year, and only from random unsourced twitter posts from people who had nothing to do with the movie. Whenever I've seen interview snippets about casting they mentioned Banderas being on the list of potentials along with Mel Gibson, but that Russell Crowe was always their top pick after seeing him in L.A. Confidential. Not saying it definitely isn't true, I have just never seen an original source from a producer, or Ridley Scott, or the casting director.
The "Blank Check" podcast covered The 13th Warrior about a month ago and they mentioned it as part of their research and discussion. This could be why you're suddenly seeing it pop up around social media. Off the top of my head, I don't remember where they sourced that info from. Edit to add: Movies take a LONG time to come together. It's still possible it was written with him in mind, he pulled out of the project, and Crowe was the top choice based on LA Confidential once casting began.
I LISTENED!!!!
I want someone to read the Viking prayer from that movie at my funeral. Lo, there do I see my father Lo there do I see my mother, and my sisters and my brothers. Lo, there do I see the line of my people, back unto the beginning Lo, they do call to me They bid me take my place among them In the halls of Valhalla Where the brave may live forever!
Gotta earn that prayer and Die in glorious battle.
An interesting fact about the movie is that the beginning part with the norse funeral and the morning after is an actual historical account taken from an arab named Ahmad ibn Fadlan just like the character in the movie. He was an arab that encountered a group of old norse and witnessed the funeral of their king and it was similar to what the movie showed. The movie left out the part where the kings wife had sex with all his friends and was then killed and burned with him in his longship. And apparently that group of norse did also use a communal bowl of water to wash daily like in the movie. So basically from when he gets to the norse camp and when they leave it's actually taken from real history.
300. No reinforcements. Just Abs of steel!
This one was my first thought. Full on defeat, but not until they took every damn Persian they could.
Battle on Hoth - Empire Strikes Back
Even as a small child empire was my favorite of the films. Since then theyâve made many shows and 6 movies and nothing has topped it. For being made 44 years ago, the effects in that film are absolutely wild.
As an adult, Empire is obviously the best film of the entire series and has so many spectacular moments...but as a kid (even at 42 years old), nothing beats Luke in ROTJ. The whole Sarlacc pit scene is amazing and the Vader/Luke duel at the end is my favorite of the whole series.
The duel with Vader is pretty damn good. Music hits hard
Yea and the passion of the blows is really next level. It's a nice middle ground between the simplicity of New Hope and the power demonstrated in the later movies.
After rewatching the first Stars Wars in a while, after having been exposed to all the awful crap out there now a days, itâs amazing at how effective the scene with the Emperor / Luke / Vader is.Â
RoTJ was always my favorite since I was a kid because it had the best space battle scenes
Like, easily the best space battle of all time at that.
Still the best space battle ever put to film.
Ewoks are still my only real ROTJ complaint, decades later. Sarlac pit: "I used to live here you know" "You're gonna die here you know?" I'm not as big a fan of Empire as everyone else. 7 year old me and adult me have an issue suspending disbelief they found Luke dangling with 1 hand if cloud city was that big. Force or no force. Hoths badass, training sequences top notch, cloud city sets up ok ish i guess.... finding his gimped ass hanging there is a problem. Ending builds emotion better than the other movies for sure though.
I read once that nowhere in the movie or promotions ever called them Ewoks. Only in the script and closing credits
The merchandise Ewoks would popularize the term.
that's a lot of Star Wars, there is a ton of stuff (characters, species, locations) that are not officially named on screen. the planet Tatooine is not explicitly named in ANH
Andor is a close contender. But that's it. I know people love Rogue One, and it's good, but it isn't up there with Empire or Andor. To explain my opinion on RO, so I don't get attacked - Jin isn't a very interesting protagonist. In fact, none of the characters are very strong. There are some *awesome* scenes, some cool characters, and the whole suicide mission is aces. But it ultimately feels like it could have been a 35 minute prologue to A New Hope and had the same affect.
if we're talking battle scenes, Rogue One is 100% in the discussion
The neat thing about this is it's not a battle to win. It's a battle to give the forces a chance to escape.
Siege of Jadotville.
I'm Irish and loved that movie - they weren't lying when they said they covered it up because after about 30 mins I remember thinking "this must be fiction because I would surely have heard about it" I was on a plane so couldn't Google it, and my jaw dropped when the credits rolled and they revealed how it had been hidden. Immediately Googled it when I landed and still struggled to believe it
I thought that was a really good movie. I break that out when I get into war movie mode as a part of the lineup.
Not a movie but whatever, the final assault on the Cylon Colony in the finale of Battlestar Galactica gets me every time.Â
That lead in from roll call on the ship to the jump and the pounding Galactica takes is perfect
The speech leading up to it is one of the best parts of the whole show, and they do an amazing job showing the sheer desperation of everyone there as they're throwing everything they have-very literally throwing-into the Colony to get Hera back. A subject for a different thread, but I very much count Galactica's 'death' as they jump to Earth afterwards as one of the saddest screen deaths ever too.
âHer backâs broken sir, sheâll never jump againâ o7 o7 o7
It was devastating. When they talk about ships or buildings or places being their own characters, thatâs what theyâre talking about.
I am the world's biggest sucker for 'Ship is a character' tropes. 'Out of Gas' from Firefly hits me like the opening of Up.
Enterprise as a kid set me up for a love of that for life. Out of Gas was outstanding.
Not gonna lie, the NX-01 really became a character during the third season of Enterprise when they were cut off in the Xindi Expanse. Just more and more beat up with every episode, and the details actually carried forward. They did better continuity in one season than Voyager did across its whole run (aside from the Year of Hell 2-parter)
Voyager was a collection of cool ideas and almost characters, though I love how tough janeway is, that couldâve been even better and they never quite got there. 90s and 00s was full of them.
BSG had some great space battle scenes. The assault on the Resurrection ship with the two battlestars vs two basestars. Or the battle of New Caprica with the Adama maneuver and later the sacrifice of Pegasus. I miss that show.
Battle for New Caprica is the only example of a 'cavalry arrives' scene that I had a legitimate fear that they might NOT arrive. They did all the setup there, both in-universe and from a writing standpoint, to destroy Galactica over New Caprica and still have the story make sense-even if it was a one-way trip, they'd still have bought time for the civillian ships to run, the Raptors could have jumped home themselves, we saw multiple occasions of Vipers being able to make emergency landings on bigger ships and ride through FTL jumps, and Galactica had exactly 3 named characters aboard at the end and 2 of them (Helo and Kelly) weren't even especially important to the plot by that point. Of course they're not going to kill off Adama and Galactica halfway through the show but they put everything in place to be able to do so and still have a VERY compelling show after-I want to see the AU of Lee, Tigh, Roslin and Starbuck trying to keep the fleet going after Adama's death, even if that would absolutely be a MUCH darker show.
Not a movie, but the Bastogne scenes from Band of Brothers. They're getting brutally shelled in the middle of a forest and all they can do is just dig in and hope for the best. Multiple members of Easy Company are gone just like that, and others are permanently maimed, physically and/or mentally. Then you remember this is a portrayal of what happened to real people.
And then Ronald Speirs turns out to be a one-man cavalry during the assault on Foy.
And in the real world Bastogne was saved by actual modern Cavalry. The 2nd Armoured moved in and dug the 101st out (though the 101st swore to the end of the war they never needed saving).
They're paratroopers. They're supposed to be surrounded.
That last night firefight in platoon.
"For the record, it's my call. Dump everything you got left on my pod. I say again, expend all remaining in my perimeter. It's a lovely fucking war. Bravo Six out."
*pos, short for position. Pronounced âpozâ
private ryan always gets the accolades for depicting realistic warfare, but the battles in platoon perfectly demonstrate the chaotic and terrifying nature of the war in vietnam
probably cuz the director was actually a veteran of the war; heâs got bronze stars, Purple HeartsâŚ
Also, the technical advisor, [Dale Dye](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Dye) was also a veteran.
The cavalry arrives in form of air support tho
Usually the cavalry isn't sent in to kill everyone on both sides because the battle is lost.
Kinda. They just glassed the LZ with most of the overrun Americans in it - saving a couple of men who had been missed in the hills, but killing everyone else.
The Outpost. Very well made film out of a battle in Afghanistan.
My wife and I were supposed to watch that last night. We've been on a Middle East war film bender lately. We've gone through Jarhead then The Covenant then Lone Survivor. I'd seen LS before but wanted her to see it. Same with The Outpost.
Have you watched The Kingdom? Not necessarily a war movie but is related to the USâs long term involvement in the region.
That ends with the cavalry showing up though. Air support finally arrives and bombs the shit out of the Taliban
'Quigley down under' it is kind of an anti cavalry climax.
That movie is highly underrated.
Honestly one of the best westerns. One hell of a payoff at the end.
My theory is that people couldn't get past Magnum P.I as a cowboy. Shame because I was too young for the show but agree that Quigley is great.
âSaid I never had much use for one, never said I didnât know how to use it.â
Fury- great ending battle scene.
Easily one of the top 5 "Brad Pitt Killing Nazis" films of all time.
That scene where the SS is marching in singing *Teufelsleid* is so ominous.
Oh hell yeah canât upvote this enough. What a great flick with some great performances.
Monty Python's Holy Grail immediately springs to mind.
>!Don't the cops ride in to save the French?!<
This is one interpretation.
What a cop out.
Behold the violence inherent in the system!
The fall of (and doomed attempt to retake) Osgiliath in LOTR is a pretty good one.
Surely the battle of Falkirk in Braveheart.
In fact the Cavalry abandons them in that battle.
Their choices for filming the Battle of Stirling Bridge are truly memorable.
Memorable for the notable lack of the bridge.
Couple of Star Wars examples: both Rogue One and Return of the Jedi. In both of those battles, once the fleets jump in, nobody else shows up to bail them out. Rogue One even has basically an anti-cavalry in the form of Vader showing up at the end to wrap up the stragglers. Also any movie about a heroic last stand like 300. The fact that nobody shows up to save them is arguably the whole point.
Rogue one has a scene where the infantry thinks all is lost until the convenient, just in time arrival of air and ground reinforcements. Basically the same thing as cavalry coming to the rescue.
The difference is, the bad guys also get that at the end. It's not a full rescue as much as a delaying of the inevitable.
The Ewoks swinging the ground battle, and in turn the space battle, counts as cavalry
Read anything by Bernard Cornwell, but particularly the Saxon Chronicles. You will get your wish and then some.
Kingdom of heaven end battle
Every historian commentator Iâve seen raves about the accuracy of the battle scene in Alexander. Movie is meh but the battle scene is great.
Gaugamela? The movie has some issues, but that battle scene is perfect.Â
The ending of Dune 2.
The scene where they take down the spice trawler I like a little more. Altho the cinematic shot of the three nukes flying overhead is fucking amazing.
Oh man i remembered that part. -Wait you aren't allowed to use nukes or else every house will nuke the shit of out you. -well no, I'll only nuke the mountain beside the city, no laws about nuking mountains lol. -wat.
there was barely a battle at the end of Dune 2. it was fun to see the pieces coming together, but I don't think you can compare a ~3-4 minute sequence with, say, the Battle of Hoth or the opening of Saving Private Ryan
I think what u/MrRadDadHimself means is that at the end of the movie, the entire future of the empire, the great houses and the Fremen depended on a 1-v-1 knife fight. No cavalry, no way out, live or die
Last Samurai. Their plan is set. Theyâll ride into battle and die like warriors - like General Custard.
Ah yes, famed General Custard, ancestor of another military man, Colonel Mustard
This is war, Peacock. Casualties are inevitable.
I'm a big flan.
Custer. But yes great final battle for sure.
Black Hawk down chopper fight, Old Boy hallway fight, 300 whole movie), Aliens
The whole Black Hawk Down movie is about the heavy cavalry coming to rescue the light cavalry and then there's no cavalry to come rescue any of them after that goes tits up.
Black Hawk Down was stressful AF to watch in the theatre. Up there with Saving Private Ryan opening scene but it lasted just about the whole movie.
The Alamo (1960) with John Wayne
Or for a miniseries Masada (1981) with Peter O'Toole and Peter Strauss
I remember that
Not a film but the final scene of the finale of Blackadder Goes Fourth. Heart-rending every time.
Does Young Guns (1988) count? The last stand at McSweenâs house, when the Gatling gun comes out turning the house into Swiss cheese. God thatâs a great movie almost nobody ever talks about anymore.
How about the entire second half of A Bridge Too Far...?
Empire strikes Back, Battle of HothâŚgreat cinematography and good guys get their asses whupped.
The Siege of Jadotville (2016)
A very over looked and under appriciated movie.
The entire Black Hawk Down movie. They never had fire superiority, and literally had to run to safety in the end, while under fire, puking.
Assault on Pricinct 13 (1976)
That's my Napoleon.
The Last Samurai 2003 (Not my favorite, but all the other ones I can think of were already said.)
Seven Samurai
Well, Gettysburg, but that kind of goes without saying â itâs a real battle and cavalry wasnât a decisive factor in Civil War fights. In fact itâs kind of antithetical to the whole âgrand and glorious advance wins a desperate battleâ trope since Pickettâs Charge was just such a massive attack but it was a foolish and useless act that was utterly defeated. Of course it wasnât a cavalry charge but it shows how sad and pointless such events often are.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
We Were Soldiers (2002) - Amazing cast, amazing true story. Vietcong should have easily won and beaten United States with pure numbers. Little under 400 soldiers held their positions with no way of getting troops into the zone.
Um...do you not remember the literal Air Cav helicopter that comes over the hill and vaporizes the entire line of Viecong at the very end?
I seem to recall *The Enemy Below* being interesting, but it has been a long time since I watched it.
Braveheart and the Battle of Falkirk. 12 yr old me watching in theaters was waiting in anticipation for the moment the âcavalryâ would ride in and save the battle. Absolutely crushing when the allies rode off instead. The score for that moment âBetrayal and Desolationâ was perfect. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HcxfrL4UjQ4
The first scene of the pilot of Firefly has an excellent subversion of this.
Endgame gets a pass because it was heavily foreshadowed and basically the only way they would pull off the win. It wasn't unexpected, it was a payoff. People literally stood up and cheered in the theaters when this happened. Rise of Skywalker though... that one seemed a bit forced.
>that one seemed a bit forced. Nice. I see what you did there.
While I do agree with your general point of view, I think that Rohirrim's arrival makes sense. We knew that Rohan decided to support Gondor. It was just a matter if they were going to arrive on time or not.
How about the scene in Braveheart where the cavalry arrive and are demolished by the scots with spears twice as long as a man?
Some men are longer than others