Kingdom of Heaven Director’s Cut

Yes and there is multiple threads on this topic as well.
Ridley Scotts Directors cut was great.
They get pretty good in depth about the film and even some of the horstical content behind it.

Yep. Such a great movie. There needs to be more Crusades’ movies. The first 30 minutes of Kingdom of Heaven are up there with the opening of Gladiator in Germania vs the goths. Just peak Ridley cinematography. I would’ve watched a movie just following Liam and his crew around Europe on their way to Jersualem.


I actually did a re watch a few weeks ago and never realized Jamie Lannister is the Sheriff that comes after them in the woods.

Guy de Lusignan is also a very underrated antagonist and the fight between him and Balian should’ve never been cut.


Ridley Scott with the Game of Thrones source material would’ve been incredible. Maybe he can direct a spin off movie when they eventually decide to run GoT spin offs into the ground.


1. Kubrick
2. Nolan
3. Denis
4. Ridley (but at his best is THE best imo)
5. Malick (even though his movies bore me to tears)
6. Wes Anderson
7. Tarantino

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There needs to be more Crusades’ movies. The first 30 minutes of Kingdom of Heaven are up there with the opening of Gladiator in Germania vs the goths. Just peak Ridley cinematography. I would’ve watched a movie just following Liam and his crew around Europe on their way to Jersualem.

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I'd suggest you try out this book: Pilgrim: A Medieval Horror

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A German knight and his companions journey home after seven years in the Holy Land, facing horrors inspired by Arabic, Christian, and pre-Islamic traditions.

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I didn't finish it b/c it got a bit repetitive and it's pretty dense. However, I ran through the first half (or so) of the book. It's very historically accurate and even at the exact time of KOH (Baldwin is a child in the book, IIRC). They spend a good bit of time in Jerusalem early on and it goes into excruciating detail about living in the city and what the crusades were like.

I’m not going to, but your point was made. Sorry I made you reply again

There are a few problems with Kingdom of Heaven. One is that it very clearly tries to push the crusades as an act of Christian aggression against the peaceful Muslim native inhabitants of the land.

The protagonist and other characters who are meant to be the good guys are shown to be openly agnostic and cynical while the characters who are deeply Christian are shown to be blood thirsty villains. Think back to the scene of when the Knight of Hospitaller tells Balian "I put no stock in religion. By the word religion I have seen the lunacy of fanatics of every denomination be called the will of God". It is a good quote but is completely ahistorical. It is adding modern sensibilities into characters who existed in the 12th century.

Meanwhile Saladin is shown to be righteous and Godfearing. His faith isn't treated as dangerous or violent and they don't feel the need to downplay his faith by having him act like a skeptic. He is depicted as wise and tolerant despite the fact that the real Saladin was a jihadist through and through. His ultimate goal was to spread Islam to the entire world by the sword.

There are other examples that show this, but when it boils down to it, it really seems like Ridley Scott is trying to place the blame of all the atrocities of the crusades on the Christians and portray Christianity as the more dangerous of the two religions. This is despite the fact that by the time of the First Crusade, Islam had conquered and forcibly converted nearly 2/3rds of the Christian world.

It's not one of the best movies ever made but it's a vastly superior movie and experience.

It's in the very good with flaws, range.

The theatrical is just a slog

One movie I think could have deserved a prequel. Liam Neeson and Jeremy Irons characters
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Meanwhile Saladin is shown to be righteous and Godfearing. His faith isn't treated as dangerous or violent and they don't feel the need to downplay his faith by having him act like a skeptic. He is depicted as wise and tolerant despite the fact that the real Saladin was a jihadist through and through. His ultimate goal was to spread Islam to the entire world by the sword.

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Yeah this is my main gripe with the movie as well. In that vein, Kingdom of Heaven was about 15 years ahead of schedule with white Christian male bad, everyone else good

It's available every once in awhile on Prime, but typically you have to buy it. Ago at a used Blu-Ray store for like $5