History Film / TheThirteenthWarrior

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: The number of warriors must be 13, corresponding to the number of months in the Norse year (probably meant to be in ''that specific'' year, as they occasionaly had a 13th month akin to the extra day in a Leap Year). The book further explains that Old Norse culture sees the number 13 as a good thing.

Ahmad ibn Fadlan (Creator/AntonioBanderas) is an educated Arab courtier who is [[ReassignedToAntarctica sent to foreign lands]] as punishment for a courtly indiscretion. He is recruited to serve as the thirteenth member of a group of Norse warriors who answer a call for help from a far-away Nordic king. Said king's kingdom is under attack from the Wendol, a savage tribe of bear pelt-wearing cannibals. [[BadassBookworm The bookish]] Ahmad ibn Fadlan narrates his adventure and his growing respect for the barbarians around him throughout.

The story is a reworking of the classical tale of ''Literature/{{Beowulf}}'', with "Northman" chieftain Buliwyf as an {{Expy}} for the hero Beowulf and the remaining warriors form his band. The classic battles are all reworked to replace the monsters with the cannibalistic Wendol. Fadlan is based on a RealLife [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_ibn_Fadlan traveler of the same name]]. The book draws heavily on Fadlan's writings in its opening passages .

''The 13th Warrior'' is a 1999 Action/Adventure film directed by Creator/JohnMcTiernan, based on the book ''The Eaters of the Dead'' by Creator/MichaelCrichton.

** The Northmen treat Ahmad like an useless FunnyForeigner TagalongKid at first, but he can actually fight and be useful in their quest.

''The 13th Warrior'' is a 1999 Action/Adventure film that inserts a RealLife Arabic traveler into a tale of [[UsefulNotes/TheVikingAge Nordic saga]]. Ahmad ibn Fadlan is an educated Arab courtier who is [[ReassignedToAntarctica sent to foreign lands]] as punishment for a courtly indiscretion. He is recruited to serve as the thirteenth member of a group of Norse warriors who answer a call for help from a far-away Nordic king. Said king's kingdom is under attack from the Wendol, a savage tribe of bear pelt-wearing cannibals. [[BadassBookworm The bookish]] Ahmad ibn Fadlan narrates his adventure and his growing respect for the barbarians around him throughout.

The film is based on the book ''The Eaters of the Dead'' by Creator/MichaelCrichton. The story is a reworking of the classical tale of ''Literature/{{Beowulf}}'', with "Northman" chieftain Buliwyf as an {{Expy}} for the hero Beowulf and the remaining warriors form his band. The classic battles are all reworked to replace the monsters with the cannibalistic Wendol.

The novel was later adapted into a feature film starring Creator/AntonioBanderas and directed by Creator/JohnMcTiernan. The film had a notoriously difficult production, and suffered heavily from ExecutiveMeddling. Crichton himself performed some reshoots after test screenings, such as making the tribe's queen into a lithe DarkActionGirl. For the release of the film, some printings renamed the book after the film, with the note "Originally Published As 'Eaters of the Dead'".

''The 13th Warrior'' is a 1999 Action/Adventure film that inserts the RealLife Arabic traveler Ahmad ibn Fadlan into a tale of [[HornyVikings Nordic saga]]. Ahmad ibn Fadlan is an educated Arab courtier who is [[ReassignedToAntarctica sent to foreign lands]] as punishment for a courtly indiscretion. He is recruited to serve as the thirteenth member of a group of Norse warriors who answer a call for help from a far-away Nordic king. The kingdom is under attack from the Wendol. [[BadassBookworm The bookish]] Ahmad ibn Fadlan narrates his adventure and his growing respect for the barbarians around him.

** The wendols are all clad in bearskins; each and every one of them wears a Bear's head as a headdress. There are hundreds of wendols, meaning that hundreds of bears have been slaughtered to make their headdresses which is kind of impossible. There simply wouldn't have been enough fully grown bears in the region to outfit them all.
** The Vikings mock Ahmad's little Arabian horse and say he's riding on a dog. While Arabian horses were relatively small at the time to better survive in the desert (and straight Egyptian Arabs still are), Scandinavians rode ''ponies'', which were also small to survive in the cold. Ahmad's horse would have been a bit larger than theirs, not smaller. However, the Vikings' attitude toward Arab horses is TruthInTelevision for a lot of people who don't know what these [[PintSizedPowerhouse Pint-Sized Powerhouses]] are capable of. In reality they are [[HiddenBadass Hidden Badasses]] which have been [[http://www.arabianhorses.org/education/education_history_bedouin.asp bred for battle]] for centuries.

* FlatCharacter: Vladimir Kulich, who played ''the lead'' would later lament that one of the reasons why the movie didn't live up to its true potential was because the 13 characters weren't developed properly. Half of them don't even have spoken lines beyond "I shall be the Xth man!" in the choosing of the thirteen scene.

* MightyWhitey: Averted. Ibn Fadlan impresses the Vikings with his skills, not least his literacy and horsemanship, but he never surpasses the Vikings in the skills they teach him, and while he is a fairly competent fighter he is nowhere near a match for any of the Vikings. If anything, the Vikings consider him the TagalongKid, even going so far as to call him "little brother". And of course, Ahmad ibn Fadlan is an Arab.

* YouCantFightFate: The Norse consider that every man's fate has been written siunce the day he was born. When the Northmen's oracle decrees Ahmad is to be the 13th warrior, his protests are completely ignored.

* TimeCompressionMontage: A truly infamous one. Due to the way how it's edited, the progression Ahmad makes over ''months'' with learning Norse appears to be all within a single night. Supposedly, the sequence was filmed differently and included more obvious clues of passing time, including snowy winter, but none of that left the cutting room.

* InformedAbility: The end credit lists the warriors with their attributes like, for instance, Helfddane (Fat). Apparently, the seer called for men with this attributes in the DebutQueue. But most of this is not displayed on screen, Edgtho the Silent gets more lines than Halga the Wise, Weath the Musician never plays music, Skeld doesn't seem any more superstitious than the others (or than any 10th century norseman would be). The only ones who seem to match their attributes are Heger the Joyous and Rethel the Archer.

* HeroicSecondWind: Downplayed with Buliwyf, [[spoiler:who still shows up for the final battle despite being fataly poisoned and barely walking, but it's obvious for everyone he won't last long regardless of circumstances]].

* FlatCharacter: Vladimir Kulich, who played ''the'' lead would later lament that one of the reason why the movie didn't live up to its true potential was because the 13 characters weren't developed properly. Half of them don't even have spoken lines beyond "I shall be the Xth man!" in the choosing of the thirteen scene.

* AdaptationalBadass: While the Ahmad in the book is just a diplomatic on a mission, has no particular skills, and barely manages to keep himself alive in fights, the Ahmad in the movie was banished for his (implied to be unconsummated) love of a woman forced to marry another against her will, and is a talented equestrian, swordsman and blacksmith. He is also capable of learning a language just by careful observation and listening (at least in an immersive environment). He does start the movie about as competent in a fight as his book equivalent, but it turns out it's because he doesn't know how to use that style of sword.

The novel was later adapted into a feature film starring Creator/AntonioBanderas and directed by Creator/JohnMcTiernan. The film had a notoriously difficult production, and suffered heavly from ExecutiveMeddling. Crichton himself performed some reshoots after test screenings, such as making the tribe's queen into a lithe DarkActionGirl. For the release of the film, some printings renamed the book after the film, with the note "Originally Published As 'Eaters of the Dead'".

''The 13th Warrior'' is an Action/Adventure that inserts the RealLife Arabic traveler Ahmad ibn Fadlan into a tale of [[HornyVikings Nordic saga]]. Ahmad ibn Fadlan is an educated Arab courtier who is [[ReassignedToAntarctica sent to foreign lands]] as punishment for a courtly indiscretion. He is recruited to serve as the thirteenth member of a group of Norse warriors who answer a call for help from a far-away Nordic king. The kingdom is under attack from the Wendol. [[BadassBookworm The bookish]] Ahmad ibn Fadlan narrates his adventure and his growing respect for the barbarians around him.

The film is based on the book "The Eaters of the Dead" by Michael Crichton. The story is a reworking of the classical tale of ''Literature/{{Beowulf}}'', with "Northman" chieftain Buliwyf as an {{Expy}} for the hero Beowulf and the remaining warriors form his band. The classic battles are all reworked to replace the monsters with the cannibalistic Wendol.

* ArtisticLicenseLinguistics: Played with. Learning a foreign language through mere observation, from zero and to relative fluency, is possible, if only obviously very difficult. On the other hand, Ahmad is already versed in other languages aside from his own, meaning he is an experienced language learner, and is in a very immersive environemnt, which would make things easier for him. But on a final third hand, the short time in which he is implied to master the Norse language clearly pushes the limits of credibility in any case, even if he happened to be massively talented at this.

** The case of the Wendol queen mentioned above. She was originally a fat old woman, embodying the Wendol's "prehistoric Venus" stone figures. And it was done on ''Crichton's demand'', because he wanted Buliwyf to be DistractedByTheSexy.

* AdaptationalBadass: While the Ahmad in the book was on a diplomatic missions, has no particular skills, and barely manages to keep himself alive in fights, the Ahmad in the movie was banished for his (implied to be unconsummated) love of a woman forced to marry another against her will, is a talented equestrian, swordsman and blacksmith; and is capable of learning a language just by careful observation and listening (at least in an immersive environment). He starts the movie about as competent in a fight as his book equivalent, but it turns out it's because he doesn't know how to use that style of sword.

* AllCavemenWereNeanderthals: The movie keeps the Wendol's love for bear skins and human meat but oddly subverts this. They have their own language, enough engineering skill to build a solid bridge, and can wage hit-and-run cavalry warfare. It is debatable if they are still Neanderthals in this version. While those [[TroubledProduction in the scenes shot]] by [=McTiernan=] have some passable Neanderthal eyebrows and chins, the new mother and the chief added in the reshots by Crichton don't, and their tech only complicates things (see AnachronismStew).

** The Wendol get this even more than in the original book. In addition to the Venuses, they also have body paint (we don't know if Neanderthals did, though they may), cave paintings (very unlikely), and they also fight with horses and throwing javelins (certainly not). Relic Neanderthals or Cro-Magnons, [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality it is not unbelievable]] that they'd pick new technology from their neighbors if they lived for another 31,000 years.
** Each of Buliwyf's men wears a completely different set of armor that in many cases won't be made for centuries, or is outdated by centuries. There is a Roman gladiator's ''murmillo'', a Spanish conquistador's ''morrión'' and breastplate, a Greek-looking set of scale armor, and Buliwyf wears a Vandal helmet and part of a 15th century knight's plate armor at the same time.

* ArtisticLicense:
** Ahmad, unable to wield a Viking broadsword, uses a grindstone to turn it into a Arabian shamshir. This would result in a useless sword. Because of the different forging techniques used to make them, the sword would now be nearly unable to hold an edge and would be incredibly weak - likely either breaking or bending the first time it hits something. Not only this, but he manages to do it in what appears to be a fairly short period of time. A grind of this magnitude on a hand-worked wheel would take ''days''.

* BetterToDieThanBeKilled: before the final battle, the women prepare to kill the children in case of Wendol victory.

* CoolSword: Ahmad's scimitar, which is basically a Norse broadsword ''grinded down'' into a sabre. It still has a hilt of a broadsword, giving it an uncanny look and is absurdly sharp, making up for Ahmad's lack of strength.

* RuleOfFunny: The Vikings mock Ahmad's little Arabian horse and say he's riding on a dog. While Arabian horses were relatively small at the time to better survive in the desert (and straight Egyptian Arabs still are), Scandinavians rode ''ponies'', which were also small to survive in the cold. Ahmad's horse would have been a bit larger than theirs, not smaller. However, the Vikings' attitude toward Arab horses is TruthInTelevision for a lot of people who don't know what these [[PintSizedPowerhouse Pint-Sized Powerhouses]] are capable of. In reality they are [[HiddenBadass Hidden Badasses]] which have been [[http://www.arabianhorses.org/education/education_history_bedouin.asp bred for battle]] for centuries.

* GoodBadTranslation: What Omar Sharif comments on what the Vikings say is pure comedy gold for anyone who understands Scandinavian languages.

* OverlyLongName: When asked his name Ahmad starts giving his full lineage. The Vikings get annoyed and decide to call him Evan (after the Arabic ibn, "son of") from then on, likely because they heard him repeating the word as he gave his name and assumed that it was an important part of it.

* RuleOfFunny: The Vikings mock Ahmad's little Arabian horse. While Arabian horses were relatively small at the time to better survive in the desert, Scandinavians rode ''ponies'', which were also small to survive in the cold. The Vikings' attitude toward Arab horses is TruthInTelevision for a lot of people who don't know what these [[PintSizedPowerhouse Pint-Sized Powerhouses]] are capable of. In reality they are [[HiddenBadass Hidden Badasses]] which have been [[http://www.arabianhorses.org/education/education_history_bedouin.asp bred for battle]] for centuries.

* ArtisticLicense: Ahmad, unable to wield a Viking broadsword, uses a grindstone to turn it into a Arabian shamshir. This would result in a useless sword. Because of the different forging techniques used to make them, the sword would now be nearly unable to hold an edge and would be incredibly weak - likely either breaking or bending the first time it hits something. Not only this, but he manages to do it in what appears to be a fairly short period of time. A grind of this magnitude on a hand-worked wheel would take ''days''.

* EmbarrassingNickname: Ahmad is initially referred to by the northmen as "Eben, a mispronounced "Ibn", which means "son of" in Arabic. Later on Herger starts affectionately referring to Ahmad as "little brother."

** Herger gives some gold to Wigliff [[spoiler:for Angus's funeral, after killing him.]]

This is the page for the film version of The 13th Warrior. The old page appears to have been lost to a redirect of a redirect.

Just fixing the redirect is almost at the limit of my powers, hopefully there is some way to sort out the content

Just fixing the redirect is almost at the limit of my powers, hopefully there is some way to sort out the content

[[redirect:Literature/TheThirteenthWarrior]]