Not Enough Arthur Films

I'd go for a new Sword in the Stone. I think TH White wrote four books on Arthur, compiled as "The Once And Future King", of which The Sword in the Stone is the first. Netflix, Amazon, and the other streaming services, are in perfect position to do a four film series and adapt the whole lot of 'em!

And, yes, Camelot would be nice.

Myth (Arthurian or Greek) is hard to do, I think, because it needs epic scope (large budgets), but they're kind of fundamental/primal stories, so they can risk simplicity. And then there's the irony problem that Hollywood has (too much of it).

If I strike it rich someday, maybe I'll fund some of this stuff. I'd likely go bankrupt, of course, but at least we'd all have some really great movies.

I've only read the first part of that series - The Sword in the Stone - in which he does transform into various creatures, although I cannot remember if mouse was one of them. My memory says, "No," but it's also rather tied up in the Disney film's version in which he is transmogrified into a fish, a squirrel, and a bird, but not a mouse. I do recall that he is also (at some point) a snake in the book, but that's about it.

It's a lovely book, and a more faithful adaptation could be really great (and actually quite funny, too).

Le Morte d'Arthur is a long, long read. It's fun and full of knightly deeds, but it's definitely of a different era, and it's huge. Of course, I chose this as my summer beach reading material for a week of vacation one year. Everybody else was sprawled out with John Grisham, Nicholas Sparks, and EL James, and I'm powering through Mallory.

Merlin was amazing! I was rewatching it the other day and it holds up. Yes, the effects aren't great, but they never really were, and they were charming for what they were. So much of that series was handled impeccably. To this day, I will always think of Excalibur as that version's silver, flickering blade whose metallic ringing song was always playing through the sound design whenever it was unsheathed. Arthur has rarely been depicted better, too, on the battlefield offering his own head to his rival - a true act of brave, kingly sacrifice. Plus, it took its time to tell a deep story and got into a lot of the great Arthurian myths and legends. Merlin was amazing. It was the height of those made-for-TV mini series, along with the Alice in Wonderland one by the same producers. I also enjoyed Gulliver's Travels, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Ivanhoe, and The Odyssey. Years later I saw a Hercules TV movie they made and it was awful. They'd really let themselves down with that one.

I didn't see Guy Ritchie's, but I heard awful things. Too bad. His slick take on Sherlock Holmes was fun (although not accurate to the source), and I was hoping that was what he'd given to Arthur. Then again, Holmes fits in to his Lock, Stock/ Snatch world of strange characters, wit, thriller sequences, and convoluted plotting, whereas Arthur is best done as epic myth, which Hollywood has had trouble with basically since Lord of the Rings. Probably a couple exceptions, but for the most part they forgot how to do them. Too bad, because Ben-Hur and Lawrence of Arabia are awesome, and if Hollywood approached Arthur with that sensibility, it would be an unstoppable force.

I liked First Knight, but I was never a big fan of Lancelot, and I always felt it fell short with the love triangle. Gwenivere should be more in love with Arthur so she is more torn between the two for that story to really work. The stage musical Camelot does this much better, in my opinion.