I Suka ‘Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.’ Tapi Klasik Budaya 25 Tahun Ini Mengurangi Keinginan Itu

(SeaPRwire) –   A squire takes up his former knight’s arms and armor after the elderly warrior dies propped up against a tree. This commoner enters a jousting tournament even though he has to lie in order to be considered eligible to do so. He meets somebody who knows how to talk to nobles better than he does, makes an enemy of a powerful and prideful knight, and even endears himself to the heir to the throne. All of this could describe the Game of Thrones spin-off A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which aired earlier this year. But it also pretty much describes A Knight’s Tale, a medieval sports movie that celebrates its 25th anniversary today. For Dunk and Egg fans who can’t wait to go back to Westeros, revisiting A Knight’s Tale is the next best thing.

The similarities between A Knight’s Tale and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms are so obvious that its birthed its own sort of conspiratorial copycat controversy. The friction came to light before A Knight of the Seven Kingdom even started filming. Ira Parker, showrunner of the HBO series, went so far as to ban mention of the 2001 film on the set of the show.

“[A Knight’s Tale] is the only thing that we were not allowed to speak of in the writers room or on set,” he told Den of Geek. “It’s a brilliant movie that has an enduring quality, but we came out first. The Hedge Knight was written two years before that came out.”

It’s actually even more than two years. The Hedge Knight, the first of George R. R. Martin’s Tale of Dunk and Egg novellas, came out in 1998. A Knight’s Tale, written and directed by Brian Helgeland, hit theaters in 2001. Of course, the movie’s plot has its own extremely loose inspiration in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, which are from the late 1300s. No matter who is borrowing from whom, the story behind A Knight’s Tale undeniably a great crowd-pleaser.

Heath Ledger stars as William Thatcher, a squire who fakes a noble identity and starts participating in tourneys after his sworn knight dies. Along with the help of two fellow squires played by Alan Tudyk and Mark Addy (King Robert Baratheon himself, giving the movie a real Game of Thrones connection), William rises through the ranks. When he encounters Chaucer, a fictionalized version of the real historical poet played by Paul Bettany, William finds himself a hype man. He also finds the favor of a lady, a wry noblewoman named Jocelyn (Shannyn Sossamon), and a rich, pompous knight named Count Adhemar of Anjou (Rufus Sewell) who becomes his rival. It all culminates in the Jousting World Championships — a totally fictitious event with no historical precedent, but one that makes for an exciting climax. A Knight’s Tale is a different sort of fantasy than A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms in that it’s an underdog sports story with a fun Middle Ages twist.

A Knight’s Tale cements itself as a sports flick with its soundtrack. The film’s opening title sequence kicks off with a bunch of Medieval peasants clapping along to Queen’s “We Will Rock You.” It’s absurdly, intentionally anachronistic and it serves a purpose. You can totally imagine hearing Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s classic rock song “Takin’ Care of Business” playing during a training montage in a football or baseball movie. But during jousting practice? Why not! A Knight’s Tale goes there, keeping the rock and roll but turning the clock back to the 14th century and replacing modern-day sports with jousting. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms‘ score, on the other hand, composed by Dan Romer, while different from Ramin Djawadi’s scores for Game of Thrones or House of the Dragons, felt totally organic to the world of Westeros. No one in the crowd at Ashford Meadow is about to hold up a lighter for an encore.

The sports movie of it all is the biggest difference between A Knight’s Tale and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. William’s goal at the end of the movie is basically the same as it was at the start: to win the tournament. In the HBO series, the entire tournament gets tossed aside when Dunk finds himself engaged in trial by combat — his only chance at surviving after Dunk punched an odious Targaryen prince to stop him from assaulting a woman. Sure, William’s safety is threatened when his false noble identity is exposed, but he ultimately returns to triumph in the tournament with a thrilling come-from-behind victory. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is lighter in tone than Game of Thrones; it’s still a bit more serious and complex than A Knight’s Tale.

But there are still so very many similarities between the two. And because of this, A Knight’s Tale will scratch your Knight of the Seven Kingdoms itch, especially since the upcoming second season of the series won’t be about a tournament. Before Dunk and Egg, those boys, come back to town, you might as well watch a great jousting movie that features Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back in Town.”