The Musketeers BBC

[ladydetemps]

Tell me I'm not going mad and that the costumes were from the wrong decade? IT was 1630 on screen...but I thought those dresses were from the 1700s?

[Phil the Grips]

Doesn't really matter cos it's not history, it's a story set in history much like Shakespeare's stories.

It's a C21st telling of a C19th story loosely set in the C17th, originally written by a man who was happy to churn out stuff for the most amount of cash for the lowest amount of effort aimed at the lowest common denominator; he'd be delighted with it.

[ladydetemps]

Doesn't really matter cos it's not history, it's a story set in history much like Shakespeare's stories.

It's a C21st telling of a C19th story loosely set in the C17th, originally written by a man who was happy to churn out stuff for the most amount of cash for the lowest amount of effort aimed at the lowest common denominator; he'd be delighted with it.

I quite like the books...man in the iron mask is my fave of the musketeers stories (in print) I've never found the tv/film adaptations lived up to the books. imo. I think he was a bit of a fan fic writer that dumas....lol

[Henri De Ceredigion]

I must admit when I watched it last night I was having a hard time working out how we had gone from traditional clothing



to rather on the colourful side



to, and I am being polite, anything that could be found in any modern day shop

[Miss Costello]

I'm not a fan of that era of history, but I just thought it was cack.

Crap script. Like 'Merlin' for grown ups, it of eye candy for the ladies. Nah, pass.

[Type16]

I'm not a fan of that era of history, but I just thought it was cack.

Crap script. Like 'Merlin' for grown ups, it of eye candy for the ladies. Nah, pass.

Yep. I had hoped for something better. Robin Hood with baguettes.

[ladydetemps]

I'm not a fan of that era of history, but I just thought it was cack.

Crap script. Like 'Merlin' for grown ups, it of eye candy for the ladies. Nah, pass.

Yep. I had hoped for something better. Robin Hood with baguettes.

I think robin hood with baguettes kinda sums up what I was expecting. Hoping maybe it'll warm up as it goes along.

I must admit when I watched it last night I was having a hard time working out how we had gone from traditional clothing



to rather on the colourful side



to, and I am being polite, anything that could be found in any modern day shop

The colours used are so dull...I was hoping for glorious colourful fabrics.

[ladydetemps]

I think I prefer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogtanian_ ... uskehounds
Dogtanian and the three muskehounds.

[Miss Costello]

Oh cheers for that....now I have that cartoon earworm stuck in my head!!!!

[ladydetemps]

Oh cheers for that....now I have that cartoon earworm stuck in my head!!!!

Reminds me of my childhood that does. (I liked the around the world in 80 days one they did too)

[Simon Atford]

Not actually watched it yet but I did notice from the trails that costumes do seem to be
based on the "everyone wore lots of leather in the past" school of design.

This was the best adaptation of the story:

[Miss Costello]

If you post a link to Cities of Gold I really hunt you down and slap you!

[Brother Kevfael]

I've yet to find an adaption that tops the Michael York/Oliver Reed ones of the 1970's. Two of the few films I can watch again and again. Great fun.

[Henri De Ceredigion]

I think I prefer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogtanian_ ... uskehounds
Dogtanian and the three muskehounds.

Absolutely, now there was something that I can really relate to (especially as I have both series on DVD!)

[czartank]

It was cack; what next? A Steampunk Great Expectations with the female characters all wearing 1940s hairstyles

[Miss Costello]

Funny you should mention that.....

[acecat999]

It was cack; what next? A Steampunk Great Expectations with the female characters all wearing 1940s hairstyles

more likely to be slightly first world war linked given its the flavour of the month.


perhaps a series about how the war poets were a bunch of leftie scum that stopped the jolly decent officer class from killing the hun

but filmed in south Africa using robots

[Sasha]

I've yet to find an adaption that tops the Michael York/Oliver Reed ones of the 1970's. Two of the few films I can watch again and again. Great fun.

Recommended x100. MacDonald Fraser's scripts are absolute gems, the look is spot on and in every outside scene things are always going on in the background.

Anyway. The sets overdid the mud-u-like thing IMO though I wasn't too bothered by that. I thought that the King, Queen and pleb costumes were OK in a generic mid C17 sort of way. The main character's costumes were execrable but, meh, the artistic director has always had more clout than the historical adviser. My inner geek was annoyed by the way all the wheellocks and matchlocks had (what sounded like a C20 revolver) cocking sound effect dubbed on.

But all that aside it was a bit of rollicking good swashing of bucklers to half-watch while I did the ironing.

[Attilla the Bun]

Oddly enough, I wasn't really looking at the ladies' hairstyles....

[ladydetemps]

Oddly enough, I wasn't really looking at the ladies' hairstyles....

I suspect there is a certain amount of...distraction going on.

It was cack; what next? A Steampunk Great Expectations with the female characters all wearing 1940s hairstyles

Now there's an idea. lol!

It would be a great expetations set in the 1910's but with the girls wearing very short flapper dresses and bobbed hair

[czartank]

It was the general sloppyness of it all that annoyed me, apart from crap costumes and hairstyles, it was the way firearms were randomly used: the King hunting with a cavalry carbine, wheel locks not being spanned before firing, that sort of thing- If they had said it was set in a mythical land that would have been Ok- still I am running with the steampunk Dickens thing- throw in a few zombies and it could really amount to something.

[Vermin]

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/arts ... 4012082739

[DanceswithCows]

I can happily throw out historical accuracy for the sake of looking lush on screen and a good story, but this was just dull dull dull. I was looking forward to loving it but *yawn* cliche after cliche after cliche.

[ladydetemps]

Looks like they threw themselves in the dressing up box and wore whatever they found again.

[Nigel]

Actually if you look behind the main characters there's a lot that is good

A lot reminds me of Wagner which given the location would make sense.

[Dathi]

TBH...

The acting was feeble, the plot and script was nonsense and everything else was crap......

[Attilla the Bun]

...and still don't care!

[Henri De Ceredigion]

I do not know my African history at all well (only that Africa is where we came from in the first place and was colonised all over again in the years after the New World was discovered) but I am having great problems understanding how the slave ships (that I thought were prominent in the 1750's come to be a major bone of contention in the 1640's). I can only assume it was put there to explain why Porthos is coloured?

[Simon Atford]

Slave ships started sailing in the 16th Century. Not surely what the French involvement was though.

[Mark Griffin]

Ahem... John Blacke, Henry VIII's trumpeter, picture of, 1511. North African dancers in England 1470's... Othello was written in approx 1603 and although set in Venice he is a 'moor' its reasonable to asume he had family elsewhere, even in France. And Alexandre Dumas wasn't exactly as white as the driven snow....

I'm enjoying it. Episode 2 a bit limp, watching next 2 tonight. Capaldi not hamming it up enough in my opinion, I'd have gone into full pantomime mode if it were mine and the lack of Rochefort is something I hope they address soon.

Bit of a silly romp, that's why I liked Ripper St and its 3 locations on permanent rotation but with different clothes lines in different places. Not watching it for costume details, just a distraction. A zillion times better than The White queen which was a dull self pretentious yawn fest. At least the first 15 mins were, gave up after that.

If you complain about hairstyles, the spanning of pistols, width of baldrics and the wrong hemlines on a bodice in a work of complete fiction, even if set in a specific period, well...

I think we all have a soft spot for Robin of Sherwood? That's not riveted mail of the right cross section! And some of it is a bit thin and stilted, and there are castle not built in that century, and the cartwheels are made wrong. Not suggesting this comes close, but as a reasonably inoffensive 50 mins, its fine. Its not the finest wine, but its not that bright blue Panda pop either imho.

If you did everything real it would take 20 times longer and cost 50 times more and its no more silly than Brotherhood of the Wolf and thats FAB!

Nothing will ever live up to the Richard Lester ones, too many fabulous things all coming together at the same time although I have a soft spot (I can hear the bile rising) for the Walt Disney one as its simply a very silly bad boys drink n drugs fueled escapade. Young Guns with rapiers.

No matter how bad it might be (and the reviews are getting better) its got a 2nd series so hoorah! All for one and one for all!