King Arthur

Corrected entry: When Arthur is telling the knights about their final mission, just after Bors storms out, he says, "Venora'll kill me.", but his lips don't move.

Correction: This is spoken while he is grimacing, and only half of it is onscreen. Ray Winstone is not known for his enunciation skills, but he does speak this line... the part of it we see, anyway.

Corrected entry: The Saxons are seen invading to the north of Hadrian's' wall. In reality, they invaded to the south of it, and that is the reason why they managed to take control of Southern England.

Correction: The Angles/Saxons invaded and settled lands between Hadrian's Wall and the Antonine Wall and River Firth to the North, much of what is Lowland Scotland today, including Lothian/Edinburgh. This Saxon colony was known as Bernicia, and became the northern part of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria. This Saxon colony existed up until the 11th Century, when invading Picts/Scots took it and subdued the Anglo-Saxon and Briton populations living in the region. It became part of Scotland from that time forward and no longer a part of the Anglo-Saxon/English.

Corrected entry: Arthur and his men are charged with passing Hadrian's wall and taking the Roman family to safety; yet at that time in history there is no way a Roman family would be in Scotland; they certainly wouldn't have had a castle (no matter how small) and a peasant settlement. Missionaries or not, the Scots would have driven them out.

Correction: Actually there was Roman settlers in Britain. http://www.google.dk/imgres?imgurl=http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/exhibition/images/britannia.gif&imgrefurl=http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/exhibition/britannia.shtml&h=450&w=443&sz=72&tbnid=utYzVl6winNcQM:&tbnh=87&tbnw=86&zoom=1&docid=QCCr98Gw4KjLzM&hl=da&sa=X&ei=XldvT_KUOY3vsgbunfm2Bg&sqi=2&ved=0CEoQ9QEwAw&dur=1028.

Corrected entry: Arthur and his knights have to escort everyone over the mountains to escape. But there are no mountains anywhere neer Hadrian's wall. The only mountains are in the far north, near Mt. Snowdon - mountains the Romans were barely aware of.

Correction: Mount Snowdon is in Wales and is therefore south west of Hadrian's Wall - it is definitely not in the far north! I presume the submitter meant to refer to Ben Nevis. It is true that Scotland's most mountainous areas are further north. However, just north of Hadrian's Wall you are into the Southern Uplands. The Uplands is a remote and mountainous region, including Merrick, which is usually classed as a mountain, and a number of other peaks of similar height.

Corrected entry: The gates are opened by two Clydesdale horses (or similar heavy horse breed). Horses of this type were not bred until the late 1700's/ early 1800's.

John Elwen

Correction: The horses were not Clydesdales, but Shires which are one of the oldest English draught breeds and can be traced back to the days of the Roman Conquest.

Corrected entry: Fifth century Saxons never had crossbows, they weren't introduced anywhere in Europe until they came from Asia around the 11th/12th centuries.

Correction: Crossbows were used by the Romans in the 5th century AD. See http://science.howstuffworks.com/crossbow.htm. There's also evidence to suggest that the Romans were using them as early as the 1st century AD. In any case, the Romans did have trade ties to China so it's not inconceiveable that the design would have been copied. Crossbows (known as gastrophetes) were also used by the ancient Greeks as early as the 5th century BC. See http://www.answers.com/topic/crossbow. So while the modern design of the crossbow may not have appeared until the 12th century, the weapon itself was very well-known to ancient Europe.

Corrected entry: In pretty much every scene after Arthur and his knights have rescued the peasants and the imprisoned woads from Marius' estate, it's snowing copiously - from a bright blue sky.

Correction: Obviously you don't live where it snows much. As I type this the sky is blue here in Michigan and it is snowing.

Corrected entry: In the final battle the defenders use the trebuchets left behind by the retreating Roman army. But trebuchets require a lot of technical experience to use effectively. With the depart of the Roman empire these 'high-tech' weapons had become useless.

Correction: The trebuchet is nothing more that a huge sling shot and anyone with a modicum of intellect would soon work out the basics of the mechanism. The effectiveness of their use is indeed pivotal to the sucess of the shot, but not necessary in the working and destructiveness of its use.

Mad Ade

Corrected entry: A very common mistake in movies playing in historical times is domestic animals - horses in particular - shown in the film are not coherent with archaeological findings; most often, they are way too big. While few Roman horses of the time the movie is supposed to take place reached a size of 1.6m, most horses of the native tribes were much smaller (about 1.3m) and would nowadays be considered as ponies. The horses shown in this and other similar movies are typical modern sport horses.

Correction: While that may be true it doesn't make it a mistake. Movie producers have to work with what exists today. If they tried to claim the horses where factual representation of horses of the era, then it would be a mistake. As such this is only historical trivia.

Corrected entry: When Guinevere and Arthur are kneeling over the dead Lancelot, there are two shots directly on Lancelot. In the first shot, he is slightly smiling, but in the second shot you can see a definite grin.

Correction: Absolutely incorrect. Just to be certain I carefully checked both versions of the movie, standard release and Director's Special Edition and it is simply the way Ioan Gruffudd's mouth is shaped that could possibly give you the illusion of a smile, but certainly not me. There is no hint of an upward curve at the corners of his mouth what-so-ever, his cheeks are completely relaxed, as are the corners of his eyes and absolutely no sign of a smile at all. No mistake here.

OneHappyHusky

Corrected entry: The Battle of Badon Hill must have occurred near a hill, as the name says, and not in front of Adrianus's Wall where there is no hill anywhere, as we can see in the final battle of the movie.

Correction: Not necessarily a mistake, it happens quite a lot that battles are named after locations where they did NOT take place. For example: the battle of Issus, where Alexander defeated the Persian king Darius, took place nowhere near Issus. And the battle of Zama, where the Romans defeated Carthage in 202 BC, occured miles away from Zama.

Corrected entry: The Saxons are seen coming with a large fleet to Britannia. This is not true because the Saxons came ship by ship to Britannia, and not with a large fleet.

Correction: Not so. Saxon raiding parties had been terrorising Britain from the late 4th century AD. At first, they simply conducted hit-and-run actions. Later larger campaigns followed, involving larger armies, which certainly required multiple ships for transportation. We know that a considerable Saxon army was present at Badon Hill, so it is most likely it came to Britain in more than just one ship.

Corrected entry: Guinevere's left hand fingers were dislocated in the cart scene and Arthur puts them back in. This happens in daylight. The same evening, Guinevere is able to use a bow even pulling the string with her wounded left hand. This would not be possible.

Correction: Many times on a rugby field I have seen players dislocate their fingers and have them snapped back into place. In most cases they carried on playing. It is certainly painful but if your life was at stake you would probably have enough incentive to fight through the pain.

Corrected entry: After the initial battle, the Bishop sees Arthur and his knights and is surprised that there are "so few of you." and yet the Bishop knew exactly how many pardon-scrolls to bring.

Stormsigma

Correction: If you look at the door into to the hall where the round table is, there are two Roman guards and they are each holding identical boxes of scrolls like the one that the priest picked up before leaving Arthurs room. So the Bishop obviously had brough more with him for all the knights.

Corrected entry: The weather in the film is portrayed as wintry throughout with snow, ice and blizzards. Yet the tree climbed by the English spy (shortly before he's shot out of it by one of Arthur's Knights) is an oak tree in full leaf that looks like it was filmed in mid-summer. Similarly at one point there is snow falling, yet with a background shot of blue sky.

Correction: Weather is unpredictable. I live in Michigan USA and I can tell you I have seen snow falling when it is sunny with blue skies and green trees.

Corrected entry: Did it escape anyone else how the doors in Hadrian's Wall changed their ease of use? Early in the movie, we're shown the doors opening, and they're made out to be these great, ponderous things that take a long time to open. First the soldiers have to take a heavy mallet to prize free the huge wooden bar holding them shut, remove the bar, and then two huge Clydesdale horses are required to slowly pull them open and then the doors slowly open. And yet in the final battle against the Saxons, Arthur is somehow managing to open and close these doors pretty quickly, and several times in a row, no less. Not to mention how he (or someone else on the good guys' side) now seems to have the ability to remotely operate these doors, making them close behind the Saxons after they enter.

Stormsigma

Correction: This is because the first time the gates were opened, it was supposed to be the first time in many years that anyone had gone through them. Note the rust that explodes from the hinges the first time they're opened. Later on, the gates had been back in use, and would've been a lot easier to open and close.

Corrected entry: After the first battle scene, when Arthur and the Bishop are talking, An unmounted horse is seen behind them. The camera cuts away and then cuts back and the horse is gone. This happens just before Lancelot says "He's called Merlin, the black magician."

Tommy C.

Correction: Someone probably moved the horse or it moved itself. It isn't just going to sit there all day.

Corrected entry: When the leader of the Saxons goes to put his sword back in his sheath after he kills the man who was trying to rape the woman, there is no blood on his blade.

Tommy C.

Correction: He didn't stab the man, therefore, there would be no blood on the sword.

Corrected entry: Jols, the Sarmatians' quartermaster, seems to appear from nowhere and disappear again several times.

Correction: Jols rides with the Knights to rescue the family. Although it does seem he pops out of thin air in various scenes, he's been with them the entire time.

Corrected entry: Prior to the last battle, as the knights are preparing to turn back and join Arthur, Lancelot's twin swords hang from his back and show very modern octagonal screws attaching the pommel to the handle.

Correction: Although they do seem to look like screws, it isn't. You can't see them very but they are just plain bolts holding them together.

Revealing mistake: When Arthur is giving his speech before the last battle, in the background are three radio towers. You never know Arthur might need a radio to find out tomorrow's weather.

More mistakes in King Arthur

Arthur: Pelagius told me once: "There is no worse death than the end of hope."
Guinevere: You and I are not the polite people that live in poems. We are blessed and cursed by our times.

More quotes from King Arthur

Trivia: The part that the film's sword master (Mark Ryan) played in Robin of Sherwood was called Nasir. He had dark curly hair, a well-groomed beard, wore black leather and fought with two swords that he wore on his back in a specially designed sword belt. Lancelot looks very like him in this movie - have a look at this link: http://www.blackplanet0.freeserve.co.uk/robinpics.htm.

More trivia for King Arthur

Question: Throughout the movie, the Sarmatian knights shout the word "rus" at each other; Bors in particular says it a lot. Does anyone know what significance this word has or what it means?

Answer: At the beginning of the film, we learn that young Sarmatians were drafted into the Roman military for a period of fifteen years. As the Romans lead young Lancelot away from his family, his father yells 'Rus!', the war-cry that is repeated throughout the film. 'Sarmatian' was the name the Romans gave the Rus, descendants of Norsemen who had settled in lands that still bear their name today: the River Rus (in modern Romania), Russia, Belarus, and Ruthenia. Culturally and geographically, these people were the Rus. So when they were inducted into the Roman army, their war cry of 'Rus!' identified them as being fearsome Rus/Sarmatian warriors, warned their opponents that the Rus were coming for them, celebrated their cultural identity, and symbolized their hope of returning home to the Rus. In the film Arthur honors them by yelling it back, signifying the unusual bond between leader and soldier exemplified in the Round Table, Arthur's respect for the Rus warriors, and his commitment to the idea that all men are born free and have the right to their own lives and beliefs.

Rus were a people combined of Vikings traveling between Denmark and Byzantium, and Slavic people. Sarmatians were before that, but from the same area and did intermingle with Slavs, so their blood is more than likely in there.

Rus was not from Denmark.

RUS is the word for Vikings who ruled the city of Kyev, and by the Ryrik family which assembled many Slavic tribes into "Kyev Rus", which is the name of state and foundation of modern Russia. Russia" as a ethnonim is similar to Rus but is not. Russian call themselves "I am Rus, I am ruski", and their language "ruski", but their country is "Russia" and they are RussiaNS, old name coresponding to Latin word "Ratio" (sense, mind) Race -of people...Sarmatians are Serbs, Serbs are Slavs and old Russians.

Ruthenia was the Roman name for what is now Ukraine. The main part of Rus i.e. Kyivan Rus is actually the land and people who are now known as Ukrainians. The Sarmatians were our ancestors.

Answer: Except the Norseman/Rus came much later than Arthur's time...so that's not it. Though more to the point is the Sarmatian /Scythian relationship and their dynamic with the Romans in respect to this timeline.

Norsemen invaded Britain in the 8th century but were around much earlier. Romans recruited from foreign lands and could possibly have recruited from tribes earlier than this. Rus vikings were first recorded around the 8th century but could also have existed prior to this. It is accepted that Viking history was from 800 AD. However the legendary king Arthur was allegedly invented by a 12th century french poet. The Roman Lucius Artorius Caster died around the end of the 2nd century. So it's all speculative.

Answer: Rus in Latin means country or land. The whole movie was based on winning freedom. Fighting and dying to win them their home, their country. Arturius chooses Britain as his land and his countrymen to defend. So Rus in this context, being they are Roman, their battle cry means 'for country', not Rome but Britain. For home.

Answer: They do not yell "rus", they shout as "rochs". In fact at first the pronunciation in the movie shows that. "Rochs" is a Sarmatian term, in fact it means "light" in modern Ossetian, the only remnants of the Sarmatians in modern world. There were three major Sarmatian tribes in history: Alans, Rochsalans (Rochs-alans or Latinized Roxalans) and Iazyges. Second one bears that prefix, and historically not Roxalans but Iazyges were forced to become mercenaries for Rome. So with that yell there is a little mistake in the movie but this is tolerable at the end.

More questions & answers from King Arthur

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