Saturday, December 24, 2005

Hollywood's Catapult Warrior


Some things just go together. Like peanut butter and jelly, hot dogs and baseball, or say, verbosity and blogging.

What else goes together often, if not always well? Look at British movie actor Orlando Bloom's recent film work. While I'm lukewarm at best regarding Bloom's acting ability and choice of roles, I do love catapults. Anyway, here is a few of the catapult warrior's recent movies:



Orlando Bloom Movies that Feature Catapults
  • Kingdom of Heaven (2005)
  • Troy (2004)
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

What do all of these movies feature?
They feature catapults. I didn't see all of these pictures, but I've heard they all have catapults. The CGI trebuchets in the LOTR movies were terrific. They really seemed to have modeled the catapult motion perfectly. Given the complex motion of the sling, that must have been difficult.

If you know of other recent movies featuring catpults, please post that info.

(note: this post is typed in TREBUCHET font)

3 comments:

Maximillian said...

I could definitely make note of the appearence of a trebuchet in the television show "Lost," late last season. Built in a (failed) attempt to break through a steel door.

Anonymous said...

How about the lame Costner Robin Hood movie "Prince of Dweebs". Love how the bad guys manage to "sneak" a number of very large catapults through the forest at night so they can attack the merry men's camp with flaming ammo. Now that I think of it that was about the most believable part of the story.

Haldor

Anonymous said...

I recently bought your book the art of the catapult. actually, it was pretty cool! i built my own trebuchet (about five feet high without the throwing arm up) out of sticks and lashings (boy scout power!). i also built my own little onager, which i equipped with a sling and it went much farther. i've been looking into a ballistae, but i don't think so. it kind of seems weird to have hollywood making moovies and using trebuchets instead of like... phasers ever since star wars. but i like it, catapults fascinate people.