Adaptations of King Arthur

Referring back to the Robin Hood Post, I am going to write a similar post about the adaptations of King Arthur.

Films and TV adaptations: 

• I rewatched King Arthur (Antoine Fuqua, 2004)
• I rewatched King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (Guy Ritchie, 2017)
• I rewatched a few random episodes of Merlin (BBC, 2008-2012)

I am going to go through each of them briefly and discuss how they have been adapted.

Antonie Fuqua - Criticism and Praise
Guy Ritchie - The portrayal of King Arthur
MERLIN - Side characters

For each of them I will talk about:
- Adaptation
- My opinion

King Arthur (Antoine Fuqua, 2004)

 

Left: Clive Owen as Arthur, Middle: Keira Knightley as Guinevere, Right: Ioan Gruffudd as Lancelot.

This adaptation follows a different path. Guinevere is a Celtic Warrior. The knights of the roundtable were picked up when boys for the Imperial Roman army etc.

Left to Right: Bors (Ray Winstone), Lancelot (Ioan Gruffudd), Tristan (Mads Mikkelsen), Gawain (Joel Edgerton), Galahad (Hugh Dancy) 

This adaptation received some criticism.

Rotten Tomatoes - 31% rating = "The magic is gone, leaving a dreary, generic action movie"
Metacritic - 46/100 =  "mixed or average reviews"
Slate (David Edelstein) - "profoundly stupid and inept", "it's an endless source of giggles once you realise that its historical revisionism has nothing to do with archaeological discoveries and everything to do with the fact that no one at Disney would green-light an old-fashioned talky love triangle with a hero who dies and an adulterous heroine who ends up in a nunnery".

In my opinion, I like the knights and their part in the film and not much else about this film.

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (Guy Ritchie, 2017)

Above: Charlie Hunnam as Arthur

One of the main differences with this adaptation is there is no love interest, no Guinevere.

The portrayal of King Arthur is done by Charlie Hunnam, best known for playing Jax Teller in Sons of Anarchy, a very different role to this. He is very "cheeky-chappy" and comes off well in the film. Hunnam's portrayal is one I personally enjoyed because he was brought up poor and in a brothel and made a name for himself by working hard and training. He has the right sort of look for THIS character of Arthur.

In my opinion, I quite enjoyed this adaptation. One of my best friends, Francesca, and I went to see this film three times at the cinema in four weeks. 

Merlin (BBC, 2008-2012)

Left to Right: Guinevere "Gwen"/Queen Guinevere (Angel Coubly), Lady Morgana (Katie McGrath), Gaius (Richard Wilson), Merlin (Colin Morgan), Prince/King Arthur (Bradley James) and King Uther Pendragon (Anthony Head)

Unlike the previous two films mentioned, this adaptation follows that of Merlin, the sorcerer, who in this adaptation is Prince Arthur's (then from mid-season 4, King Arthur) manservant, and best friend.

Left to Right: Sir Leon (Rupert Young), Sir Gwaine (Eoin Macken), Sir Lancelot (Santiago Cabrera), Prince/King Arthur (Bradley James), Sir Elyan (Adetomiwa Edun) and Sir Percival (Tom Hopper)

The side characters are always vital to the main characters, helping to not only push the plot forward with various side plots, but also with their role as supporting characters to the main ones. In this adaptation of the legend of King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table are only really introduced in the fourth and fifth series, these are the two last seasons and also the ones where Arthur goes from a Prince to the King of Camelot. 

In my opinion, I loved this series when I was a kid. I think series four is the best as the knights are all present and Arthur is King.