Bravo, sir.
I think “Cecilian,” as in “reader of Cecil,” as in “member of the SDMB.”
It’s nearly the perfect movie. It’s only unfortunate flaw is Andre the Giant’s delivery is almost completely indecipherable, and requires a few thousand viewings to pick up on what he’s saying.
Reading background articles of the movie’s development, they worked endlessly on coaching his dialog, with endless retakes, to even get to that level of intelligability.
“Anybody want a peanut?”
OK, I won’t tell you.
(I’m a bit more familiar with this one, and have seen snippets of it various places (haven’t seen seen snippets of The Princess Bride, I can’t even picture the characters in my mind as a result) and would like to see it, the reason for the OP was to ask if The Princess Bride is another movie I should add to the “would like to see” file.)
My wife’s birthday is this coming Monday, and she’s into the romantic, fairy tale girly kind of movies. I might just try to rent this for her birthday and weigh in later. Even if we don’t get around to it then and I rent it months later and I have to break SDMB rules and zombify this thread just to weigh in on my thoughts, I will, just so y’all aren’t left hanging.
Dear kaylasdad99,
I am currently considering engaging in a land war in Asia. Would you have any advice for me?
Yes - see it with your wife for her birthday and report back! You will thank us and we’ll get to hear how it went!
And I believe he ended up re-dubbing all of his dialogue afterward anyway - so what you get is the best it could possibly be.
The movie is most definitely a bit of a twisted fairy tale, while still being true to the form of the fairy tale. As Ferret Herder said, the good guys are bad and the bad guys are good, which is a nice twist. The prince is evil and the pirate is basically a good guy. The giant is gentle, the sword fighter is a drunk.
One of the main things that I take from the book (though it’s been a while since I’ve read it), is that despite life being imperfect and quite often miserable, we humans keep finding joy and salvation. Grab the pieces of fairy tale you can when they come, because even if there are strings attached, they’re all you get.
. . . the movie doesn’t quite deliver this message in the same way, but it still gives us a perfect love in an imperfect world, which counts for something.
The thing is, although TPB is ostensibly a romantic fairytale, it’s not (to quote one of the characters) “a kissing book”. Westley and Buttercup may have the purest, most perfect love that ever existed, but the movie devotes far more time to the backstories of the villain’s henchmen than it does to the epic romance between the two main characters. It’s NOT a romantic comedy. It’s a swashbuckling adventure tale with some occasional kissing.
Oh, and I have to add:
Miracle Max: What’s so great about “The Princess Bride”? What is there in it that’s worth watching for?
Mostly Dead Westley: True looooooouuuuuvvvvvvv!
I suppose that when you really, really need a Giant, you have to take what’s available, whether he can speak understandably or not. I’ve always thought that his delivery enhanced the character, that is, it showed that the Giant was not hired for his brains, which Vizzini had covered anyway.
If it comes to that, I think we’ll be willing to consider the thread only mostly dead.
13 years later, a similar film came out: Shrek.
It satirized fairy tales and turned the genre’s tropes on their heads. But those filmmakers (yes, I know it was based on a children’s book) were winking at the audience in a different way. They were saying, “We’ve outgrown these stories. They’re tired.” They were showing that they were above the genre; they weren’t going to be suckered by any more Disney-esque princesses. Shrek has some dark humor in it, and the sequels continue that tone, which I find out of place in a film supposedly aimed at kids. I guess those jokes are meant to keep the parents awake.
The Princess Bride is the other side of that coin. It rides the line between unabashed love and clever satire. The storytellers seem to really believe in their story and the genre as a whole. As someone pointed out, the bad guys are good while the good guys are bad, but the structure of a classic adventure tale is still there and the character types are intact. Whenever things get a little too twee, the Fred Savage character is there to point it out. And when he’s finally sucked into the story, we realize that we have been, too.
Shrek made a zillion dollars and spawned three sequels. You can keep 'em. I’ll take The Princess Bride and its hopeful message over those sardonic films any day.
“Wuv, twue wuv, that dweam within a dweam.”
This movie is a delight from begninning to end. I need to re-watch it.
I dunno, I thought “Everybody MOVE!” was communicated clearly enough. As well as “I’m on the brute squad”.
Most of the things Fezzik needed to communicate, he got across pretty clearly just by existing.
His speech only became a problem for me when he impersonated the Dread Pirate Robert. Or was it the dwed piwate wobet?
*My men are hea! I am hea! Bud soo you will nod be hea! *
Again, though, it’s pretty clear that it was his appearance that was meant to be truly menacing. Hence, the ‘Holocaust cloak’ and lighting him on fire! Westley meant to scare the guards into moving, not with words, but with visuals.
As to the OP, hubby and I first saw this film in movie theaters, some 22 years ago. We loved it immediately. The satire, the humor, the perfect casting, the action, the ‘twue woooove’, not to mention the spot-on cameo by Billy Crystal. . .
Everything about it just appealed to both of us. And believe me, there are a lot of movies we can’t agree on, and he does not ‘do’ chick flicks!
The concept of the book is astonishing. The book itself is wonderful and the movie is kitsch and lovely, but for me doesn’t match the book.
I saw the movie first and loved it.
MiM