See, there was somewhat a hype around the Tudors here over fall and I'm not the kind of person to dismiss a good hype so I tried to watch it, and it went well, until... Jonathan Rhys-Meyer appeared (so obviously, I didn't get to watch more than a couple of minutes!), and then I was like "No way, dude!! That's the football trainer from Bend It Like Beckham!! He's NOT a king!!" And I'm really sorry, because apparently the guy is a good actor but whenever I watch him he'll just always be the football trainer from Bend It Like Beckham. Yeah, he did play a tennis trainer in Match Point, but my un-logical logical mind accepted that since it was still something with sports!
So.. never watched it since, sorry Jonathan!

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I totally see what you mean Eä, but fortunately for me, I've never watched JRM in a film before the Tudors, I knew him for sure, but hadn't seen his work as an actor.
Let say it helps!

Well, if you like sports... JRM as Henry plays some squash and joust... Very manly, very medieval!

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Lol, true, I actually happened to watch a scene with him where he wrestles that other king... and they're all manly and stuff... and very medieval!

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Haha I get what you mean Eä.

This has always been Jonathan Rhys-Meyers for me:





So seeing him in anything that's not slightly goth/grungy is just weird to me. But for some reason, he really fits as King Henry. I just wish he wouldn't have the stache though, hehe.

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Another "Tudors" fan here ! It's definitely a fave TV show of mine (and my folks, actually ). I believe what drew us to it (well, my mom and I, specifically ;D) in the first place was Jonathan Rhys-Meyers. I can't remember what movie it was that we first started liking him (might have been Velvet Goldmine or Matchpoint), but he currently occupies a spot in our "Favorite Actors" list 8).

I'm looking forward to the upcoming season as well (and MontanaBohemian, you mean Showtime, dont'cha ?) .

Nessameldë- That it is, that it is . Thanks for all the season 3 info, BTW 8).

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^So what do you think of Bend It Like Beckham?

Eru:: Owh... those pictures are really... 80s... so funny to see Mr. Rhys-Meyers so goth!!!!

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Ea-Haven't seen it yet, actually 8). That's one role of his I'm not familiar with. The movie (and what it's about) I know , and the fact that Keira Knightley, as well as him, is in it, but nothing beyond that. I've seen the two I mentioned in my original post, August Rush (in which he sings, BTW, and quite well, I might add ), and this movie where he plays, I think, a drug dealer, but I don't remember the film title. It was one of those, like Crash, with interconnected stories in which all the characters we meet collide in a major event that happens either at the beginning, or toward the end.

About your original comment: I get what you mean, too (not being able to imagine him as any other character than the given role you most remember) . I briefly hit that roadblock recently, when I saw Burn Gorman (Owen in Torchwood) in a recent film version of Wuthering Heights on PBS. For the first, oh, thirty-five minutes or so of the movie, I just couldn't see him as anybody but Owen, even though he was playing a totally different role. I got past it eventually and saw him as the character he was currently playing, but it took a while 8].
Hehe, not this king, anyway (physically, leastways ), still, I'd say he has the, erm, appetite, Henry VIII possessed down very well . And really, if you were to look at the very first promotional stills for the series, you might think something like this: "Hmmm..., he looks like Henry VIII might have if (1) he were a couple of decades younger (apparently, he was actually in his forties when he married Anne Boleyn), (2) he hadn't been grossly overweight, and (3) he had been clean-shaven." I didn't think he'd work very well in the role at first either, but as a promotion when the series first aired, the best known portrait of Henry VIII and that still I mentioned above were intercut. When I watched that, I could really see a resemblance, at least in Jonathan Rhys-Meyers' posture and expression. It was kind of cool, actually 8).

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The end is where we start from.
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Obviously, season 3 will start on April 5th!

And we have a new promo!!!
Not great quality though, I think it aired on TV and the guy who posted it on YouTube recorded it with a camera... But still! I'm so looking for it: it's going to be mind blowing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9ZM2wsxJFY

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I know there still must be some fellow Tudors lovers around here.. *cough*Goldy*cough*

The last season almost finished in the Netherlands, and although I really liked the story, and accepted the many historical flaws, I still can't get over the fact that Henry still looks like a boy in his twenties. Sure, they gave him a walking stick and made his body look a bit fat, but he has no wrinkles at all, although his hair is grey. It seems that Henry VIII at the end of his life was so obese, that he had to be carried around in medical inventions.. So I think that could have been done better.

So what are your thoughts? What were your likes and dislikes in the serie? Your favourite couple?
And are you as disappointed as I am that they won't continue the story with Mary Tudor?

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Wow, it's been such a long time since the series ended, I'm not sure how much I'll be able to remember . I'll give it a try, though :]. So, your first question. I liked the way the series finale was written. It was a very interesting, unusual take on something like that 8). What else? Ah. Having him receive visitations by the ghosts of all his previous wives in the episode before the finale. That was a very effective device. It both illustrated how, well, he used pretty much every one of them, and was a creative way to summarize the nature of his relationships with them and any children they gave him.

Now, likes and dislikes:
Things I Liked
-The way it went into depth about the relationships between Henry and his lords, dukes, etc., especially the friendship between him and Charles (who ended up becoming my favorite character of all, BTW). That did a lot to make him, and them, into human beings, rather than just historical figures being portrayed by actors.

-The writing in general. I guess I could have said that up above, but I thought it should be a separate point :]. As I said, the writing really fleshed them out, and gave us what I presume were pretty accurate portraits of the people these men & women were.

-The way it gave us a balanced portrait of Henry VIII's reign. The message pretty much was, "Yes, he did some pretty tyrannical things and wasn't a particularly moral man, but he also did some great things, and in some ways, was a very good man".

-The costuming and set design. Just, WOW =0!


Things I Disliked
There wasn't a whole lot, really, except the way they had Jonathan Rhys-Meyers change the way he spoke in the last season. I'm sure since the makeup artists could only do so much to age him, that was a way to show he was no longer the twenty-something man we saw in the first couple of seasons or so, but it kind of bugged me :/. I'm sure if I were a History buff, the multitude of historical inaccuracies would have driven me nuts, but since I'm not, it didn't :}. I think that was a good decision on the TPTB's part. If they'd remained slavishly true to History, it probably wouldn't have been as interesting and captivating a series as it was.

Favorite Couple(s)? Honestly, I can only think of two:
-Charles and the young French girl who went from being a prisoner of his to a very devoted caretaker for him when he got ill. I know she was technically a mistress, and it bothered me at first, because of all the characters, he was the one whose moral compass never faltered over the course of the series (he did do some terrible things, yes, but that was because he was ordered to by Henry, and he always felt guilty afterwards), but after a few episodes or so, and due to the fact that it was made clear that both of them truly loved each other, I was okay with it.

-Henry and Kate (I really wish I could remember her full name :/). I think of all the wives he had, she was the only one he truly loved. It also seemed like their marriage was more or less one of equals and mutual respect. I mean, he gave her the authority to rule while he was away at war! If that wasn't a gesture of respect and trust, I don't know what it was =|! It also appeared to have the strongest foundation. All of his other marriages were based on convenience (e.g. Catherine of Aragon), entered into just so he could get a male heir (e.g. the wife who died from complications following childbirth), or based purely on lust and sex (e.g. Anne Boleyn).


I wouldn't say I'm disappointed that they stopped with Henry's death, but rather, think they missed a great opportunity by doing so. Most people, even those with just a basic knowledge of History, only know Mary Tudor as "Bloody Mary", and possibly, as the horrible tyrant who preceded Elizabeth I, probably the greatest monarch Great Britain ever had. If they'd continued the series, (and maybe ended it at some point during Elizabeth's reign), people would have gotten a more accurate, balanced portrait of who Mary was, like they did with Henry VIII.

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The end is where we start from.
– Captain Jack Harkness

I'm watching season 5 now and I'm pleased to announce that I'm getting a lot better at NOT thinking of the soccer coach from Bend It Like Beckham now! Go me!
However, it's really bugging me that Henry's not ageing.. like.. at all.. except they gave him a cane.. everything else in that series is so rich and beautiful and extravagant and perfectly flawless.
I mean how can they stay so beautiful even when they're being executed..

I think season 4 is not living up to.. the other seasons.. just like Henry slowly loses it.. so does the series, especially afte he killed off Thomas Cromwell. I mean who didn't hate that guy but he really knew how to spice up the party sending people to the Tower left and right.. those were the days... Or maybe not.. but seriously, the episodes with Catherine Howard.. how boring and indifferent they were. NOTHING (except for adultery) happened and it's only interesting for so long... Culpeper what a drag and Dereham was just plain annoying.
And now the king is going after Catehrine Parr.. poor woman..

Umm and Lady Mary... I really wanted to like her (she's a powerful woman in a male-dominated world - go her!).. see some humanity and compassion in her (like with Henry) and not just the Bloody Mary which we know now.. but they're really not doing anything to make her likeable.. at all. What a pity.

Prince Edward is ADORABLE...

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Hi there, Eä ! Go you indeed :]! *Applauds* I'd have to agree with you on that . Still, there's only so much makeup can do to age someone. What was done in the film The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, for example, was phenomenal, but there were two factors that made that possible:
-Brad Pitt was/is inching ever closer to hitting his forties (he might even be forty by now), so he didn't need a massive amount of makeup to make him look like he was in his seventies, eighties, or whatever age range his character was supposed to be at in the beginning of the film. At the same time, he was just the right age for makeup to achieve the reverse, e.g. make him look younger. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, on the other hand, was/is most likely just hitting his thirties, so in order to make him look like a man in his fifties or sixties, a very large amount of makeup would have had to have been used, something that probably wasn't doable for the reason I'm going to explain below.

-Because The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button was a movie production and not a television production, the creators probably had a very large budget, which allowed them to achieve those amazing makeup effects. With The Tudors, while the budget probably was quite large (it would have to have been to give the creators enough money for the fantastic costumes and sets that were used), it was probably nowhere near as big a budget as the one for The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button.


I kind of agree with you on that. The presence of Thomas Cromwell (and Sir Thomas More before him) added an interesting dimension that was never quite reproduced after the character's departure. I think TPTB tried to use Mary's religious conviction, among other things, to fill the void that left, but it didn't really work. All it did was give us a glimpse (and an all-too-brief one, I might add) of what caused her to become "Bloody Mary" once she ascended the throne after Henry and young Edward's deaths.

I get what you mean . Early on in the series, I actually did have some sympathy for her and saw some humanity in her. But instead of building on that and starting to show us her evolution into "Bloody Mary", they switched most of the focus to the latter.

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So.. I'm getting used to them ageing Henry by having Jonathan Rhys Meyers change his voice and also they're giving him walking sticks more often now when he's older and his wound seems to be bothering him so often. (By the way, what is with the wound? Why doesn't it heal? Is it an infection?)

I found this in an interview with JRM from the Daily Mail:

And he's right.. everybody is so pretty in that series.. even the peasant and the soldiers or the people who are being executed... It's all too clean and soap-y and beautiful. Since they chose the polished Hollywood glittery way and not a more realistic approach, it's true, it would be odd to have an ugly, fat, old guy for a king...

I just watched two boring episodes with Henry going to war on Boulogne... It was so odd to seeing them using muskets and canons... everything has seemed so medieval up until now.

I love Catherine (Parr) though, she's so queen-like. And also, Lady Mary sort of showed some emotion and passion when the Spanish ambassador left court. I got the feeling that she's fighting so hard for Catholism because she wants to honour her mother and because a burning religious faith is all she's got left now that prospects of her ever getting married are slim... and honestly.. what kind of hobbies can a princess have but be religious... Poor girl..

Awww, did I ever mention how I LOVE and ADORE Prince Edward.. he's such a sweetheart!!!

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Tudor England is one of my favorite time periods, and so it makes it kind of hard to watch this... especially since the actors (JRM in particular) are all wrong.

It is good for oohing over the clothes, though!

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You took my body and soul
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Hmm I liked Lord Surrey.. He was fun and flamboyant... Such a pity that he got so little screen time, but at least he made his trial into a party!!

Oh and Catherine Parr seemed to be such an interesting woman. She was so intelligent and also seemed very gentle - quite queenly and motherly at the same time!!

And the ending is sooo overly romantisised.. with Henry saying goodbye to his family.. the revisit from his dead wives and finally Death on a white horse coming for him....

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I absolutely loved "the Tudors"! It has been a while now, but it was broadcasted every Sunday evening from 8 to 10 PM (that's two episodes ) and my friend would come over and we watched it, together with my mom and stepfather.

I think they did an amazing job in showing the Tudor court, with all the dances, banquets, intrigue and courtly love. The dresses were so wonderful, but one of the things I loved the most about it was the soundtrack

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