I've tried watching Kingdom of Heaven twice but I can never bring myself to finish it. for this reason I am opposed to shashashin's creed.
Are you familiar with the period in history? As my Shostakovich blog post shows, I really hate the whole mentality of saying you need to do research about something before you can appreciate a work of art based on it, but in the case of KoH it certainly helps. It also helps that the period of history was incredibly interesting in many regards. The dark ages were fantastic. Being a human was basically like being an animal. Everyone was uneducated. Lifespans were short, and death for most common people was always right around the corner. And then some Important People got bored and decided Crusades would be a good idea, and things got WORSE.
do you have any book, movie, documentary suggestions if you want to learn more about the dark ages, and especially the crusades and the muslim part of view? Our talk in the outside link thread got me to thinking, and I know jack shit about islam history.
I'd suggest going to Wikipedia and reading their article about the Crusades. The Crusades encompass everything from the Crusades themselves, to banking and economics, to military history, to Templar wackiness, to the effect on European history, to the situation in the Middle East today. And then some. I'm not sure there's a good or great one book overview out there, and if there is, it's probably written at a academic historical level.
I'd suggest reading the article on Wikipedia, following a few links, finding out what you like, what strikes you, and starting from there. I can give you some starting points once I know what you find most interesting. Most people like the Templar story. It will give you a new appreciation for the third Indiana Jones movie, and everything that references Templars.
An important thing to keep in mind, and this is especially true regarding the Templar story, is that we really don't know the whole truth. People were generally illiterate for 4 centuries after the main Crusades, so history was written by mostly biased folks. Reading about the Crusades requires the ability to read between the lines and draw info from many sources. The Church is largely responsible for both keeping people illiterate (it's how they became the most powerful force in western history) and writing the history of the Crusades. This should be a BIG CLUE in pointing out how terrible a force Christianity has been in Western history. They not only started this Whole Mess, but they've done a pretty damned good job of making themselves look like a Light in history.
Also, a lot of tin foil hat types cling to the Templar story. I suggest reading Foucault's Pendulum and the Illuminatus Trilogy, novels, to derive the most fun from the cnspiracy theories. Those books say all that needs to be said about the conspiracy theories. They theories are fun to read, but I generally think it's a waste to spend that much time thinking about them. At some point, paying lip service, even in fun, to the conspiracy nutters just feels like a waste.
