Who on Earth thought hooking you two up was a good idea?

[meganbmoore]

Valentines, it seems, is the perfect time to say "hey, we hate this movie romance!"

10 Most Mismatched Movie Couples

I am willing to handwave Christensen and Portman because that was some truly atrocious dialogue they were forced to spout in Episode II, at which point there was still the aftermath of that slightly-uncomfortable feeling from those scenes in Episode I.  Episode III was much better for them.

Beyond that:  I have seen and not cared for 2 others, and the rest either didn't interest me...or I didn't know about and I wish that hadn't changed(Norbit is very recent...perhaps I managed to scrub my brain of it.)  But really, why aren't A Knight's Tale and Pearl Harbor up there?  Shannyn Sossamon and Ben Affleck respectively ruined those movies for me,  especially Affleck.

Comments

[fairest1.livejournal.com]

On the plus side, I'd mostly forgotten there was a romance . . . and reading about the original Sir Ulrich may have added to de-emphesizing the romance. Poor guy.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Oh? What happened with him?

[fairest1.livejournal.com]

Well, back in the old days, a knight would dedicate their jousts to a lady, who would offer favours in return. Sir Ulrich picked a rather demanding one; on first meeting him, she told him he couldn't joust for her honour with a protrouding lip like his. So he got the old-fashioned kind of plastic surgery, which basically meant having his lip chopped off, and nearly starved to death while it healed. Later, she made him chop off his pinky finger and send it to her, too.

There was a lot of weird stuff he went through in response to her demands, and at one point he had to joust all takers while in drag.

My memory's a tad fuzzy on the other details, but I do recall he had a wife and kids while all of this was going on, and they didn't see anything odd about his actions. And he eventually had enough of the tortures she inflicted on him and ditched her.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Well, the was a pretty unreasonable, demanding ***** in the movie, so I guess they did have an historical basis for the character.

[fairest1.livejournal.com]

I liked the female blacksmith better. One thing I do recall is that she was pretty awesome.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I spent a large chunk of the movie thinking that it would be one of those where he got distracted by the pretty, popular girl only to notice that the normal girl was actually much better.

Sadly, it went with "the knight MUST love the pretty lady, no matter how shallow, petty, demanding and unlikable she is."

I don't care aq lot for the "so focused on the pretty personthat you miss what and who's important until the last 10 minutes" plot, but it would have been better than what we got.

[fairest1.livejournal.com]

I saw it as her being able to do better than the guy who was obsessed with another girl. Why would she want to hook up with a guy who'd basically come across like he was settling?

Oh, found the bit about jousting in drag -- he rode from Venice to Vienna dressed as Venus, Goddess of Love. He broke over 300 lances and defeated all comers.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

At least they didn't have the blacksmith obviously crushing on him. Actually, I think she just thought he was a sweet idiot.

See, all these things about the historical chick? I easily see the heroine doing if she was in a bad mood, considering what she DID pull...

[fairest1.livejournal.com]

Not just a sweet idiot, but a willing armour model. She had trouble finding guys willing to let her make armour for them; having a champion like that wear her wares would be good publicity for starting a serious business, if nothing else.

I should probably rewatch the movie. As I said, I've pretty much forgotten the stuff she did.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Yup, he was just good business.

Aside from the abrassive personality, painful anachronisms in a movie I was already making huge allowances for in anachronisms and being generally demanding, she ordered him to throw every match and get knocked from his horse each time in a joust, which was a danger to his life, but then she also, at the last minute, told him to win the match, which, again, at that point, would have been dangerous in addition to the normal jousting danger. He had this look at that point like "why on Earth am I bothering?" and it was my breaking point for being able to accept the romance even though I didn't care for it.

[fairest1.livejournal.com]

The hell? The historic lady was at least more sensible in ordering the knight fighting for her honour to win every time. Ordering him to lose would make them both look bad. Why the hell did he bother?

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Because she was pretty. There was never any indicatiom that he loved her for any reason but that she was pretty. And she loved him because he was a knight and kept him because he was cute.

Really, such a deep, convincing love story...

[fairest1.livejournal.com]

Given that the idea of marrying someone you actually had feelings for in that era wasn't that common, at least among the upper classes, I guess it's not unbelievable. Just unromantic.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Except that it was supposed to be a romantic "us against the world" love story...and it was rather pathetic and shallow.

[fairest1.livejournal.com]

At least it wasn't the entirety of the movie . . . *sigh*