One of my co-workers, a big film fan, saw both the 2D and 3D versions, and he says the 2D version suffered a lot from it.
3D visuals would not have improved the script, or the brain-dead way in which most of the script was delivered. I suppose it might have eliminated the remains of the "uncanny valley" effect and possibly some of the motion quality issues I raised, but those problems were the least of the problems I had with the movie.
You have to be really well educated to pick up on the historical inconsistencies.
I happen to be familiar with the period, and esrblog happens to be familiar with the history of weapons and armor in general. He was more bothered with the anachronisms than I, though I noticed them (and there likely were others that I am too ignorant to notice or too cynical to care about). But then I refuse to be impressed by any movie for the visuals alone. If the movie doesn't draw me into the story, so that I forget it's just a movie for awhile, that makes it a lousy movie in my eyes--no matter whether it's live action, CGI, cartoon-style animation, claymation, whatever.
I assume you're concluding that the swords in the movie were so pale that they could only have been made of steel. I don't know enough about metallurgy or early steels to know whether that's the case. I do know that iron swords were used in Europe in the Migration Period (i.e. roughly between 500-700) and earlier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_sword). Steel is something else again, of course. I don't remember what I've read about steel-making technology or when it started to be used in swords.
no subject
3D visuals would not have improved the script, or the brain-dead way in which most of the script was delivered. I suppose it might have eliminated the remains of the "uncanny valley" effect and possibly some of the motion quality issues I raised, but those problems were the least of the problems I had with the movie.
I happen to be familiar with the period, and
I assume you're concluding that the swords in the movie were so pale that they could only have been made of steel. I don't know enough about metallurgy or early steels to know whether that's the case. I do know that iron swords were used in Europe in the Migration Period (i.e. roughly between 500-700) and earlier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_sword). Steel is something else again, of course. I don't remember what I've read about steel-making technology or when it started to be used in swords.