Display MoreExcalibur was a very interesting movie! I still can't believe I'd never even particularly heard of it before; as soon as it was added to my brain I started noticing references to it all over the place in pop culture. None of the descriptions I had read going in prepared me for how much more like David Lynch's Dune it is. It was repeatedly called a proto-Jackson's Lord of the Rings but I don 't think that's even accurate; it's part of that earlier fantasy tradition where the movies feel darker and dreamier.
I also think it's a lot of fun to get a handle on Paladin's character. One consistent point in all of his appearances is that he's especially well read. There's the medieval stories from Claw Marks, his quoting Yeats in Wing Commander IV, listening to a Mozart opera in the movie and so on… his character has always touched on that. So it's fun to see those first person sources he references and we'll continue in the future with a couple more films!
Now: we listed a whole lot of Arthurian terms in the introductory post for the movie… and now we've put together a quick visual guide to match them for how they appear in the film. Starting with Excalibur itself!
Guinevere (Gwenhyvar), Arthur's queen whose affair with Lancelot precipitates so much of this version of the story:
Lancelot himself. The spotless silver armor with bright studio lights on it is a dreamy signature of the movie.
Arthur's loyal Sir Gawain, completely unaware that he will someday be the namesake of an Excalibur squadron:
The wizard Merlin wears a shiny silver cap throughout the entire movie… which looks surprisingly like Melissa Banks' costume in Privateer 2. But she at least knows when to take off her silver hat!
AD also noticed that Merlin's initial costume (before he switches to just a goofy silver hat) looks a lot like Magali Guidasci's costume design for the Merlin hologram in the Wing Commander movie:
Arthur's traitorous half-sister Morgana:
Here's Camelot, King Arthur's castle and a popular symbol to our parents' generation!
And here's the famous round table:
The movie ends with a shot of Arthur's being carried by ship towards Avalon, his reward in the afterlife.
"Ser" Galahad and the Black Knight do not appear in Excalibur.
Here you can see we've lit Sully just like the armor in Excalibur.
