I will review these here.
Viking: Battle for Asgard (Video Game)
Story:
- The game is based on Norse Mythology
- War in Asgard has sparked further conflict in the mortal realm of Midgard.
- You play Skarin, Freyja's champion, who is to lead Viking forces against enemies spat at you from the evil goddess Hel.
- Hel is threatening to release Fenrir, the evil wolf who is to bring about Ragnarok
- At the end, the player strikes down Hel and asks for his place in Valhalla.
- Freyja refuses and as a result you release Fenrir yourself and bring upon Ragnarok.
Review:
- This is a terrible game!!! Terrible! The story line is not too bad, but the gameplay is terrible! I gave up playing this game after only a few hours - and I am generally madly in love with anything Viking!
- The open world had nothing much to offer. It was repetitive and boring and searching for hidden loot was often a waste of time
- The characters were 2 dimensional and boring. They had no personality and this became frustrating.
- Your character was an idiot! I hated playing this character.
- The sound design was bad - many parts of the game lacked sound and this really took away from the game.
Beowulf
Story:
- A Danish town is being terrorised by a monster, Grendel, who is the son of the Danish king and a beautiful demon lady who promises power and riches to her lovers
- Beowulf, a warrior comes to save the day and promises to kill Grendel.
- He does this and thus angers Grendel's mother.
- He goes to kill her but falls for her charms and fathers her next child.
- The movie skips forwards several years and Beowulf has to live with the consequences of his actions.
- He eventually kills his son and dies himself and the next king is visited by Grendel's mother.
Review:
- The Movie was okay - the special effects were amazing, but the storyline lacked a lot.
- A good concept, but lack of character development really took away from this.
- As a viewer, I had no reason to care about the little village, so their deaths weren't overly horrific to me
- It is an interesting take on an old Viking tale, but I don't think it was overly effective in a lot of ways.
- So much emphasis was placed on the visual style of the movie, that the storyline itself wasn't properly developed and resolved. This is an important lesson!
How to Train Your Dragon
Story:
- A young viking who aspires to hunt dragons befriends one
- He learns more about the dragons and starts to try to protect them
- His knowledge of dragons and their weaknesses helps him to become a bit of a celebrity
- He learns more about the reasons the dragons are so fierce-some and after resolving the issue, he starts to educate his own people about them so that they stop hunting them
Review:
- I absolutely love this movie!!! While it probably doesn't offer too much for my game, it is one of the first portrayals of Viking characters that haven't had them seem like monsters.
- I still hate the fact that the Vikings were given horned helmets - this is a stereotype that is ridiculous and unfair and is intended by those who created it to make the Vikings seem like a demonic race of monsters.
- That aside, the characters are well developed and loveable.
The Vikings (1958)
Story:
- An English town is raided by a group of Vikings and the queen is left impregnated with a son who she names Einar and ships off to Italy to keep him alive
- Einar is captured by Vikings and taken to Scandinavia as a slave.
- An Englishman recognises him and wins him with the intention of taking him to get his rightful place at the thrown in England.
- Eric, the Viking prince also tries to take over England against his hated half-brother Einar (though neither knows the other's identity)
- An English queen gets abducted and both men fight to win her and England.
- In the end, Einar kills Eric and takes his woman as his queen.
Review:
- An okay movie, not brilliant (pretty terrible acting)
- Good character development (although not in terms of the female characters who are as dumb as sheep)
- Shows the Vikings as a fierce race of people - this is not what I want to show really in my game, although they can have these attributes sometimes
- Interesting in terms of costume, viking houses, ships, weapons etc.
- Show you Viking feasts in a big Viking hall, which could also be interesting
- Near the end of the movie, the Viking warriors take turns to run and throw axes at a blocked door before ducking down and hiding - this then creates a series of steps for the warrior who climbs up them and into the castle.
The 13th Warrior
Story:
- An outcast emissary comes across a group of Norse warriors who kind of adopt him and take them with him on their mission to kill mysterious creatures who kill everything in their path
- He learns a lot about the Vikings (who are portrayed in a somewhat more positive light)
- Eventually he has to take control of his own fears and fight alongside his new friends against their foe
Review:
- Absolutely the greatest Viking movie I've ever seen!
- The vikings are portrayed in a more positive light - no horned helmets here!
- Based on a bit of history that has been changed by the "what if" scenario
- The acting, the props, the costumes, the storyline - everything is great!
Pathfinder
Story:
- Vikings discover and invade North America somewhere around the year 1000.
- The story is a legend on why the Vikings could never settle permanently in America
- They kill a lot of Native Americans and also die - only a young Viking boy is left alive, who is found and adopted by a Native American woman, who raises him as her son.
- Years pass and the young man struggles to find out who he is
- Suddenly the Vikings return to "cleanse the land" of the Indians before settling there
- The young man, who's tribe as mostly been wiped out, must confront his past and his viking people to save his new people.
- He eventually leads them to their doom
Review:
- A lot can be taken from this movie, even though it was pretty terrible
- The Vikings were portrayed as monstrous orc-like demons who are bent completely on death and destruction.
- The Vikings wear ridiculous horned helmets which give them the image of satan, and are often seen surrounded by human skulls. They are even once described as "beasts who only live for the slaughter". This is the exact opposite of what I want to portray. This is completely unfair to an entire race of people who were a lot more 3-dimensional.
- On the other hand, in terms of the Native Americans, there is a lot I can take. There are clips that show the people chanting, using the land to their advantage, you can see their skills in setting traps
- "If you're not strong enough to kill the bear, use the bear's strength to kill it" - good quote that shows you how the Native Americans tackled problems - a good philosophy
- Vikings "know snow and ice like no other man"
- The acting was okay, but the horrible portrayal of the Vikings put me off.
- I absolutely LOVED the landscapes and colours used throughout this movie though, and will definitely get a lot of inspiration from these. I will post on these later.
The New World
Story:
- Explorer John Smith is spared his life by the captain when they reach North America
- The Native Americans are at first friendly, but then turn violent after the English kill one of their own
- Smith is kidnapped by a group of Native Americans who want to kill him, but the beautiful daughter of the Chief saves his life and is to teach him their ways.
- They fall in love but eventually Smith is to be taken back to his people.
- She continues to try to see him, but he can't be seen having such relations with a native woman.
- He gets overthrown and is made to leave to explore the Indies. He gets someone to tell the woman that he has died on the sea.
- She is kicked out by her people for teaching the English about tobacco, and becomes a member of the English colony.
- She is really sad about his "death" but gets half over it when she is wooed by another English man who she eventually marries and has a son to.
- She hears that Smith is alive and goes to England to see him. She has to choose between the two men and chooses to stay with the father of her baby.
- Before they can leave for America, she dies from sickness.
Review:
- Perhaps the most boring movie I have ever seen.
- Most of the movie, nothing seemed to be happening and the characters really annoyed me because they were pretty much just pathetic and weak.
- It was interesting to see the native American's use of body paint and cool hairstyles and tattoos
- The natives were described as having "no jealousy or sense of possession"
- Shows a native longhouse
- Good use of costumes here too
- Natives used clubs as weapons
- Shows some Shaman masks too
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