If any of you were as pumped to see King Arthur as I was, and then ultimately as depressed with the watered down PG-13 movie you got after the awesomely dark and brooding trailers made available when the early advertising for the film first took the stage, well I have good news for you.
After flipping through my Entertainment Weekly I stumbled upon a story about said film titled “Return of the King” that focused on the twists and the turns King Arthur took as it was initially slated for a holiday 2004 release with a strong R rating, but was ultimately moved to a summer slot and set up as the Mouse House’s summer tentpole. With talk of Disney’s poor performances so far this year with such disappointments as Hidalgo and The Alamo the studio was looking for a moneymaker and the turn from an R-rated brutal affair to a more “blockbuster” friendly PG-13 rating turned the film sour along with many critics and moviegoers.
Now, on with the article which goes into incredible depth about what we missed out on, plus that Jerry Bruckheimer revealed that he feels badly for Fuqua [that “his” movie was cut so drastically] so much so that he made a deal with Disney to release Fuqua’s R-rated version on DVD.
With that good news said, what can we look for? Well the first hints in the article contain an opening scene involving Lancelot (Gruffudd) and Arthur (Owen). Apparently Arthur decapitates a few Picts and Lancelot’s swordsmanship [which was rudely ignored in the theatrical version] leaves him bathed in blood. “I think I beheaded somebody, and there’s blood everywhere and it’s squirting in my face,” recalls Gruffudd. “I thought, ‘Wow, this is going to be really dark.'” Now I don’t know about you, but that is what I was looking for, and I don’t even remember a hint at a spray of blood in the entire feature.
How about Guinevere played by Keira Knightley, she even seems to have a different take on the young warrior than we got in the film as Knightley tells EW, “My take on it was, if she has to screw Lancelot to get her way, that’s what she’ll do, and if she has to screw Arthur to get her way, that’s what she’ll do…She’s very political. Very calculating. She’s a bitch really.” Interesting, huh?
The article then sums it all up in one big paragraph saying: Out went the decapitations–and a lot more. The Battle of Badon was most affected. Guinevere’s body count was reduced. The brutal torture and killing of one knight was trimmed. And Arthur’s vengeful dispatch of the Saxon leader–a furious sequence that originally culminated with Arthur slamming a sword hard and deep in to his enemy’s chest–was softened.
Fuqua told EW, “If PG-13 was what they wanted to do from day one, I would have designed it differently.” He admits it may have been a bit brutal as he described his vision as Training Day 400 AD, but when you bring a director onto a flick with one vision in mind and completely switch it up on him King Arthur is an excellent example of what you get. After Fuqua’s awesome display of directing in Training Day I was disappointed with his follow-up Tears of the Sun, but I fully expected this to be the redeemer, and now it seems I will have to wait for a possible DVD to see if I was right.
