"Alatriste" Topic

So I'm watching the last battle in the moive on repeat while I paint my 30YW figures, it's an extremly cool battle scene, And the brutality of it, some of the soliders get drenched in blood, and this isn't even a splatter moive, how the crawl on all fours stabbing and bitting eachother, and it's not one stab and they fall over, no it's repeated brutal stabs, how the armors gets red with blood. and how every soldier got like 4 daggers on them.

It's a very brutal scene, one of the most brutal war scenes that is not a WW2 film I've seen.

I agree, they did a good job of showing how brutal hand to hand combat can be, also gave you a good idea of what a clash of two pike units might look like. That was a very emotional scene when the Spanish refused to surrender. One question, is that scene in any of the Alatriste novels? I thought I had read most of them when I saw the movie, but didn't recall that battle and thought the director just made that scene up as a good way to end the movie.

I wish I could see this flick. Ive had it on my Netflix wish list for ages now but they still say it is unavailable.

TBeyer, I don't believe Reverte has written the novel that covers Rocroi and the end of the Captains life. It gets mentioned a lot by Inigo in his thoughts, but I don't believe the book is there yet (at least not in English).

mghFond, the only way to get the movie in North America is to buy the DVD as a Brazilian import (on eBay or other similar means), as it has not been released domestically (or on Blu-Ray in any country). I hunted for it domestically for a few years before realizing I had to resort to an eBay import.

TBeyer, the battle of Rocroi is mentioned in a few of the existing books, but not detailed in any book yet written. As it is the battle Alatriste dies in, the "assumption" is it will be covered in the last book once it is written. At this moment, there are at least two more books "planned" (6 are currently out in English, with a 7th currently available in Spanish only,and hopefully to be released in English soon)… So who knows when that part of the story will be "written" (more than just alluded to). But do read the existing 6 books as there are plenty of well written battle scenes throughout the entire series (both duels and mass battles and skirmishes). There were some moments in the 5th novel (not even touched in the film) that I thought were more powerful battle descriptions than any shown in the film.

cheers.

mghFond,We have iy on Netflix in Canada.It is usually the otrher way around,the cool movies not being available here.

I found the BD at a local discount shop for next to nothing, so it is available.

Thanks Phillius and Michael, I guess that makes sense. I read the books (all those that were out at the time) quite a while before I saw the movie and thought I had missed that part somewhere, since the books seem to skip around the Captain's life a litte. I hope when the last book comes out it is as good as the movie version of that battle.

I just watched Alatriste on Youtube the other day, after lamenting for years the absence of an official Region 1 DVD release. The plot was mostly a cobbled-together mess of bits from the novels (and future events alluded to by Íñigo Balboa), but oh what a glorious mess it is! The pike battle at the end is intense, and the action against the Dutch in the beginning is also really cool. Loved the costumes, sets, and Viggo as Alatriste…

So for those of us in the USA, is there a DVD or not?

I'm not up on Zones and Techno-speak, I still think digital watches and watts are just fine.