The Spanish started out enslaving the native population but they tended to die of European diseases or could escape to live with other Indians. In short; the Europeans started importing African slaves because the Native Americans were not perfectly suited to their needs.
Odesio
I also suspect that if the slave-runners had to pass through countries with giant Killer Chickens and oversized 30-foot PussyCats they’d feel compelled to boost the price high enough to make slaves a real luxury item, or else get out of business.
Even leaving aside all the gaping logic holes - seriously, at any point did anyone care in any way, shape, or form, and about any of the characters, ever? I desperately wanted the annoying brats to die. I wanted the woman to run off with the slaver dude after decuideding that, although a brute, Slaver Dude was infinitely superior to D’leh. Heck, I think she’d have married the Sbaretooth Tiger before D’leh.
Well then, obviously there was a similar situation going on that forced the pyramid people to seek further afield for slaves. Maybe they domesticated the mammoths first, and then it turned out that all the local slave populations were deathly susceptible to Mammoth Herpes or something. Maybe peanut allergy was to blame. We just don’t know.
Also, no-one was selling them Native Americans.
So the natives were having sex with the mammoths? Because I think that would be likely to be fatal even if the pachyderms in questions were completely germ-free. Except maybe for the Hulk.
Good grief, man: you don’t think that unprotected sex is the only way to contract Mammoth Herpes?
Have you ever seen a mammoth with a cold sore?
Another reason not to kiss a Mammoth directly on the lips.
Considering the size of those mammoths, even kissing a herpes-free one might be considered dangerous.
I’m still confused over whether the God-King was an Atlantean or a space alien (& where did he manage to get all those blind Albino slaves).
I don’t remember the details but I think it was pretty clear he was 100% human. At least that was my interpretation at the time I watched it (“Oh, so he was merely human after all. Neat”).
I think they deliberately left it vague, and they never showed us the guy.
I suppose that’s a legitimate artistic* choice, but it always pisses me off when they do that in a movie. I’d like to see what was covered up, after they teased us with it for so long.
*I use that word reluctantly with regard to this movie. But it’s appropriate.
…
This actually doesn’t make sense, either. Even if you go across the sea to get slaves, that’s a million times easier than carting them across half that in land distance. AND the black slaves seemed to be perfectly OK, or at least no worse off that any others. Sure, I could concoct some weird scenario to justify it, but this is due to my overactive imagination, not any virtue of the story.
Oh well, something of a ressurected thread.
Edit: I found the Atlantean/Space/Alien/God-Emperor dude incredibly annoying. The minute he showed up I knew they were going to rip off 300. His entire existence in the story was horrifically pointless.
Further Edit: And I still wonder what the hell was so tough with crossing the desert. There’s a bloody river to follow! Maybe there were supposed to be armed guards, but it’s not like you couldn’t just follow the river until you get to the patrolled section, then carry your water around. And in any case they said nothing about the matter. Pure lazyness.
Well, all you need to know is the sun shines east, the sun shines west, and you’d walk a million miles for my little mammoth.
I went into it knowing about all the anachronisms, and I had a lot of fun pointing them out. You can’t watch it as a realistic movie, I just thought of it as a Conan movie. Knowing that there were no ancient civilizations before the last ice age doesn’t make the Conan stories any less entertaining.
10,000 BC was a fun, dumb action movie with a sappy stupid ending, but far from horrible.
Could it just be your age catching up to you? Some kid out there is going to feel, in 50 years, the way you [presumably] feel about This Island Earth.
… No, I think not.
Some poeple compare this to Conan or whatever. Conan rocked. But it tooked place in a semi-mythical “ancient world” which took itself seriously. It also had interesting, if shallow characters. I watched this recently, and it really is a classic (although the expurgated version is actualy better than the full version). You don’t ned to really know the details of Conan’s character; youn leanr it through his actions, and even like him because he is always an intelligent and courageous bruiser.
It’s an unabashed and shameless movie on the verge of B-status, but a good one nonetheless. Frankly, *10,000 BC *was plain dull, which thoroughly unlikable characters filling every nook and cranny.
I can’t argue with you because I haven’t seen 10,000BC. I like Conan because I saw it when I was a kid in the '80s. If I saw it for the first time today I doubt I’d be able to sit through it. I like This Island Earth because I love the aesthetic of the scifi films from that era. If I saw it as an adult when it was new I probably would’ve thought it was crap, just like I’d probably think 10,000BC is crap. The point being that there are some movies that I would probably call crappy if I viewed them a little more objectively, but I like them for personal reasons, often relating to childhood or nostalgia. I doubt 10kbc will ultimately be remembered as a “good movie”, but I’m sure the people who are kids now will remember it fondly as adults.
I saw it again last year and it holds up surprisingly well. It’s well-acted (for what it is), the script is clever, and the musical score is excellent. Plus, Arnold in his prime was a natural wonder.
Go read my original post – I’m not slamming this film for being anachronistic. I grant them that, and explicitly compare it to Conan’s Hyborian Age. My point is that, even ignoring that, the movie is amazingly, unbelievably inconsistent and stupid.
Ditto. I still like Conan, heck I even own it on DVD. In fact it is probably the only Schwarznegger vehicle I like - one big plus is they didn’t let him talk to much. His acting is still pretty woeful when he does ( “my mother!!! my father!!!” ), but it’s usually mercifully brief and as a silent film star he’s perfectly fine.
I guess Predator was also halfway tolerable as an adrenalin-fest, but the first Conan movie probably stands at the apex of Arnold’s mostly mediocre cinematic history.