Following several bad test audience reactions, he was removed from control by Crichton and the studio, Touchstone. Crichton reshot some scenes and edited out others. Ibn Fadlan was made less demonstrably devout in the final version, and the original score was replaced. The results were a disaster and The 13th Warrior lost around million dollars. The brouhaha over its failure and the bad reviews led Omar Sharif to contemplate quitting acting altogether.
After a short theatrical run with little publicity, the movie faded away. Fragments of plotlines, particularly a romance between ibn Fadlan and a Northwoman, from the McTiernan version remain, unmoored and with little remaining significance. Banderas is superb, bringing considerable charm and intelligence to his role. He is no longer the docile observer of events, but an increasingly active participant.
Kulich kills it as the laconic hero, as do several other members of his band. We may not come to know them in any deep way, but we easily come to feel for them as they face horror after horror with audacious bravery and boldness. From the poisonous-looking forests that surround Hurot to the hellish caverns of the wendol, the movie looks magnificent.
Technical accuracy be damned, the look is faithful to the spirit of the ancient Germanic legends set on the fringes of the civilized world in a time between myth and reality.
From book to screen, changes were made to the details of Eaters of the Dead , but not to the general tale. Ibn Fadlan is forced to accompany Buliwyf and participates in the battles against the wendol, and most of the best scenes are lifted straight from the book.
What the film does is rejigger the sequence for dramatic purposes, and injects more personality into the characters. As mentioned earlier, ibn Fadlan becomes a more active participant, even solving some of the riddles about the wendol. In other words, typical movie adaptation stuff. I recommend Eaters of the Dead for its fast-paced story telling and attention to recreating the past as a place of vastly different attitudes and morals.
I recommend The 13th Warrior with a ludicrous amount of gusto, as one of the most exciting works of heroic adventure on film. Michael Crichton will be best remembered for his spate of techno-thrillers and the blockbuster movies made of them. For me, though, it will be for this exciting tale of heroes, reluctant and otherwise.
I enjoyed the book and movie. I love the movie toward the end when Buliwyf comes out to fight once more, a blanket falling from his shoulders. I watched this movie on DVD and thought it was excellent.
Still not sure why it got such a rough ride at the box office. Funnily enough, I remember mentioning the scene in which he learns Norse to Violette on this very site. Much of my senior year of college was spent reading documents written by Turkish and Arab writers during the time of the Crusades my thesis was the Crusades as viewed through the eyes of Muslims. So when I later read Eaters of the Dead , I was impressed with how well Crichton was able to duplicate the writing style of these authors and the way they viewed the strangers to their lands, whom they called the Franj.
Based on the word Frank. It is much like the view of the Norsemen here; as you say, they look at them as dirty, bizarre aliens. I spent some long hours writing notes on this document during one bleak winter term in Minnesota.
Thanks for this review. Like everyone here, though, I love the movie! Yes, I, too, love this movie. There are the anachronisms, the abandoned plot thread of the scheming son, which just vanishes, and the mostly abandoned thread of the love interest.
Usually this would drive me crazy but… I love this anyway. So many grand brave heroic moments. Lo, there do I see my mother and my sisters and my brothers. Lo, there do I see the line of my people, back to the beginning. Lo, they do call to me. When a request from a far off king is delivered to the Caliph to send an ambassador to him from Baghdad, the wealthy and influential merchant insists that the Caliph send Ibn Fadlan.
To save face, the Caliph is forced to comply and sends Ibn Fadlan on this perilous expedition. Along this journey, Ibn Fadlan records the events of his travels, and his encounters with the Baskirs, the Hazars, the Saqaliba, the Turks, and finally the Northmen Vikings. It takes more than three years for Ibn Fadlan to return to his home in Baghdad, the vast majority of it spent in the company of the Northmen, whom at first he loathes with the utmost contempt.
It is through Herger that Ibn Fadlan is able to communicate with, and ultimately understand their extraordinary ways. There is little argument that the Muslim Arabic writer Ahmad Ibn Fadlan did exist, and he was sent as an ambassador to the Bolgars, now modern Kazan. What is in question is what transpired once he encountered the Northmen.
Ibn Fadlan pleads with the Northmen to stop and let him complete his task, but they do little more than laugh and ignore him. It is at this point I believe Michael Crichton deviates from fact to fiction, from the realm of the real into the realm of myth. Sua the dragon Beowulf battles. In the end, both heroes die heroically by mortal wounds suffered in battle; Beowulf suffers irreparable damage from his clash with the dragon, and Buliwyf is poisoned during his confrontation with the mother of the wendol.
This is the honorable death that all Norsemen strive to achieve, dying in battle, which assures their place amongst the gods and heroes whom have fallen before them. Yet even with this tolerance, Ibn Fadlan comes across as someone who is ripe with e thnocentrism.
This is abundantly apparent upon his first encounter with the Northmen. Throughout the story, Ibn Fadlan prays to Allah whenever danger nears, or to be forgiven for not following a ritual outlined by his doctrinal faith.
The Northmen chastise him for this, claiming while he only prays to one god, they have the need to pray to many. However, as Ibn Fadlan spends time with them, and learns why they do the things they do, he begins to hold them with high regard. On the morning that Ahmad is set to resume his diplomatic mission, a Norse boat arrives. A young man named Wulfgar brings a message from his father Rothgar , a king in distant land. Buliwyf accepts the request and gathers 11 of his best men to join him on this mission.
A soothsayer tells Buliwyf to recruit Ahmad as the 13th member of his party. Though Ahmad does not want to go, he is told that he has no choice. Ahmad sets sail with Buliwyf and the Norsemen. Along the journey, Ahmad learns more about Norse culture with the help of a Norseman named Herger who speaks a common language with Ahmad. At first, Ahmad thinks the Norsemen are drunken bandits who only care about their specific interpretation of honor. However, the Norsemen show their martial prowess and Ahmad is increasingly intrigued by their culture.
The wendol attack Hurot Hall at night. After a fight with the Norsemen, the wendol retreat. After eliminating all but one of his rival heirs, Wiglif spreads malicious rumors about Buliwyf. The wendol return with burning torches.
Ahmad fights alongside the warriors and begins to adopt many of their behaviors. Buliwyf leads his warriors into wendol territory, but the mission is a failure and Buliwyf realizes that his plan was not honorable.
At the suggestion of a local mystic, Buliwyf and his men return to the wendol territory with a more honorable plan.
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