The Kingdom Of Heaven

Take 40 minutes out of the movie

The kingdom of heaven was one of the best film I’ve have ever had the opportunity to watch. The story was a bit tedious but was neatly put together at the end to make sense of the film. Every scene of the film was an important to the development of the characters and the story. To take anything out of the film, I would remove the beginning of the film (the first 40 minutes). Balian is a simple blacksmith who seems to not know much outside of his town. He is grieving over the recent suicide of his wife. A stranger arrives in Balian’s town and claims to be Balian’s father: Baron Godfrey of Ibelin. Godfrey asks Balian to return with him to Jerusalem, but Balian refuses. Soon later, Balian finds his half brother, the priest wearing a crucifix from his sister’s body. In a fit of rage, Balian kills the priest and flees the town with the crucifix to join up with the crusaders. Soldiers find Balian and Godfrey and try to arrest him, and in reality kill the baron and Balian to take over is baron-ship. In the battle, Godfrey and his men fight off the soldiers but Godfrey is struck with an arrow and later dies. Before his death, Godfrey knights Balian ordering him to continue the journey to Jerusalem and devout his life to protecting the helpless.  These scenes taken out are…………

To keep the movie’s integrity and to pose a plausible solution to removing 40 minutes, I would narrate the first 40 minutes down to 30 seconds to a minute. I would briefly cover Balian’s background and the arrival of Godfrey. I would narrate how the two met and what happened. This would mostly help people follow the story and get an idea of Balian’s character; what he was and who he is now.

This would, for obvious reason a loss of 40 minutes affects the story negatively. Balian’s character at the beginning of the movie and his character towards the end are extremely important. One of the main parts of the movie is the development of his character. Losing 40 minutes at the beginning of the story take away from Balian’s beginning story: Him meeting Godfrey (Whom his name and reputation plays and important part with Balian and the rest of the movie), his history as a blacksmith, the death of his wife and his knightship. All of the points create Balian to who he becomes a Jerusalem. Without such aspects, Balian would seem like an angry, confused warrior who oddly acquired a few good values from the air. Nobody would understand his reason to discover his religion, his past with Godfrey.