10,000 BC (film)
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10,000 BC
Ten thousand b c.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Roland Emmerich
Produced by Roland Emmerich
Mark Gordon
Michael Wimer
Written by Roland Emmerich
Harald Kloser
Starring Steven Strait
Camilla Belle
Cliff Curtis
Joel Virgel
Nathanael Baring
Affif Ben Badra
Marco Khan
Tim Barlow
Narrated by Omar Sharif
Music by Harald Kloser
Thomas Wander
Cinematography Ueli Steiger
Editing by Alexander Berner
Studio Legendary Pictures
Centropolis Entertainment
Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures
Release dates
March 7, 2008
Running time 109 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $105 million
Box office $269,784,201[1]
10,000 BC is a 2008 American epic fantasy adventure film from Warner Bros. Pictures set in the prehistoric era. It was directed by Roland Emmerich and stars Steven Strait and Camilla Belle. The world premiere was held on February 10, 2008 at Sony Center on Potsdamer Platz in Berlin.[2][3] General release was on March 7, 2008.
Contents [hide]
1 Plot
1.1 Alternate ending
2 Cast
3 Visual and sound effects
4 Production
5 Language
6 Critical reception
7 Influences of other works
8 Box office performance
9 DVD release
10 See also
11 References
12 External links
Plot[edit]
In 10,000 BC, a tribe of hunter-gatherers called the Yagahl live in a remote mountain range in the Urals and survive by killing woolly mammoths, which they call "mannaks." D'Leh, a young hunter, has a companion named Evolet, an orphan who was found by the tribe. D'Leh, while hunting mammoths, manages to kill one and wins the "White Spear." He also wins Evolet in marriage, but feels he deserves neither since he killed the mammoth by accident.
The village is led by a hunter who has proved his bravery by killing a Mammoth, and taking the White Spear. The people also strongly venerate an elderly woman, called Old Mother. Because of her different appearance to other humans in the village, it is assumed she is a Neanderthal, the "last of her kind," living with the Homo Sapiens of the village.
One day, D'Leh and several others are away when horse-raiders called the "Four Legged Demons" attack the Yaghal camp. The horse raiders enslave Evolet; D'Leh, Tic'Tic, KaRen, and Baku pursue them to save her. They enter a rainforest where they catch up with the raiding party. During the night, D'Leh rescues Evolet, but as they are trying to escape from the pursuing raiders, they are attacked by a large pack of terror birds. Tic'Tic gets wounded and Baku, Ka'Ren, Evolet are re-captured. Continuing on, they meet others whose loved ones were taken by the raiders. D'Leh and Tic'Tic befriend Nakudu, leader of the Naku tribe. He tells D'Leh of a prophecy: whoever talks to a Smilodon that they call the "Spear-Tooth" will help free their people. D'Leh had earlier saved the Spear-Tooth from drowning in a trap and it had spared his life. D'Leh realizes the prophecy was about him. Nakudu explains that his loved ones were taken in the "Great Red Birds," ships with large red sails, to the "Mountains of the Gods," from which no one has ever returned. They then come together with other tribes, who agree to form a coalition to pursue the raiders.
They find the ship with red sails holding Evolet and Baku. With no means to follow the ships, they journey through a vast desert, discovering an advanced civilization similar to ancient Egypt, ruled by an enigmatic figure known as "The Almighty," who is said to be the last survivor of his kind. It is implied in the script that he is a survivor of the fall of Atlantis, a civilization vastly more advanced than any other society at the time. The Almighty, who is regarded as a living god, possesses many thousands of slaves that he is using to build a huge pyramid complex in his honor. D'Leh finds an escaped servant of the Almighty and notices he is wearing a bracelet worn by D'Leh's father. D'Leh's father left his tribe for food and found the Naku tribe before being stolen by the raiders. In a night attack, the guards of the slaves discover D'Leh behind a pyramid. Tic'Tic dies from injuries sustained while killing the guards before they raise the alarm. Meanwhile, the Almighty's priests discover Evolet bears scars on her hand patterned after the "Mark of the Hunter," the constellation Orion. The priests believe it is part of a prophecy that whoever wears the mark of the Hunter is destined to kill The Almighty. D'Leh starts a full-scale rebellion among the slaves. They cause the mammoth herd used in building the pyramid to stampede, killing a large number of troops.
The Almighty offers Evolet to D'Leh in exchange for abandoning his rebellion. The Almighty says that if D'Leh takes his wife, his warriors can return, but the rest must be his slaves forever. D'Leh feigns acceptance of the deal which allows him to throw a spear at The Almighty and kill him, proving that he is not a god. During the ensuing battle, the raider obsessed with Evolet kidnaps her on horseback. Evolet grabs an arrow and stabs the warlord in the side, knocking them both off the horse. D'Leh rushes towards her, but the raider shoots her in the back with an arrow. D'Leh kills him and returns to Evolet, and she dies in his arms. The scene shifts to the tribe's wise woman as she breathes in deeply and then breathes out her last breath. The scene then returns to D'Leh still holding Evolet's body when she suddenly comes back to life, restored by the wise woman's sacrifice. They depart for home and bid farewell to the other tribes.
Alternate ending[edit]
In an alternate ending, the scene shifts forward many years into the future, showing Baku's retelling of the story by the camp fire. It ends with a child asking what had happened to the "Mountains of the Gods," and Baku responds, "They were taken back by the sands. Lost to time, lost to man."
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This pyramid building civilization has many similarities to both the ancient Egyptian civilization and also to the civilizations of Mesopotamia (which you probably mean with Persian-like). From those two the latter is/are actually a bit older and marks the beginning of city building. But nevertheless such large buildings as the Egytian pyramids or the Mesopotamian ziggurats didn't emerge before about 3,000 BC (neither did they in other parts of the world, like America) and in the time of the movie people were still wandering around in small tribes, much more like D'leh's tribe and all those he encounters on his way.
So I think this civilization is rather made-up by Roland Emmerich, though surely influenced by the ancient Egytian civilization (that already influenced his Stargate) and maybe a bit of the ancient Mesopotamian civilizations. But in this time it is an utter anachronism. Emmerich somehow used the fact that the records of this time are rather scarce as a possibility to be a bit creative.
It is actually hinted in the movie that this civilization is connected to Atlantis (which we all know was a civilization that was way ahead of time ;)), when it says that The Almighty and his followers come from a realm sunken into the seas and later when you shortly see a map that has a large island next to africa.
So in fact it has a strong link to a civilization that is rumoured (not by serious scientists however) to have existed in that time, but not to a real proved civilization at that time, though strongly influenced by later existing civilizations. And D'leh's tribe and all the other rather primitive tribes are a more accurate depiction of the civilizations at this time.
EDIT: As a side note, the ending of the movie can be seen as a more or less accurate allusion to the development of civilizations during that time: When the tribe D'leh met during his adventure gives him a bunch of seeds to thank him, D'leh's tribe starts planting crops intead of (or in addition to) hunting. And it was indeed around 10,000 BC (though varying by region) when nomadism was replaced by agriculture, which of course formed the prerequisits for permanent settlement (and thus modern civilizations).
In conjunction with the harder and harder gathering of food and the tribe's starving depicted at the beginning of the movie this provides a general look at the overall civilizational development and its reasons during this time period and gives the movie a somehow historically accurate main theme, with D'leh's particular adventure being just an anachronistic interlude for the sake of entertainment.
Cast[edit]
Steven Strait as D'Leh (an anagram for "Held" which is in German, Dutch and Afrikaans the word for "hero"[citation needed]), a mammoth hunter.
Camilla Belle as Evolet (an anagram for "t(h)e love"[citation needed]), D'Leh's love interest and the only survivor of a tribe which was killed off by the "Four Legged Demons" (fierce warriors on horseback). She is unique as she has blue eyes.
Cliff Curtis as Tic'Tic, D'Leh's mentor and friend.[4]
Joel Virgel as Nakudu, leader of the Naku tribe.
Affif Ben Badra as Warlord, leader of the "Four Legged Demons."
Mo Zinal as Ka'Ren
Nathanael Baring as Baku
Marco Khan as One-Eye, Warlord's main henchman.
Mona Hammond as Old Mother, the Yagahl wise old woman.
Joel Fry as Lu'Kibu
Reece Ritchie as Moha
Junior Oliphant as Tudu, Nakudu's son.
Kristian Beazley as D'Leh's father, who had lived with the Naku tribe and learned agriculture from them.
Boubacar Badaine as Quina, leader of another tribe.
Tim Barlow as The Almighty, a tall, blue eyed man who dresses in long white robes and a face-concealing veil. He is the last of three kings, and the last of the Atlanteans.
Omar Sharif as Narrator
Emmerich opened casting sessions in late October 2005.[5] In February 2006, Camilla Belle and Steven Strait were announced to star in the film, with Strait as the mammoth hunter and Belle as his love.[6] Emmerich felt that casting well known actors would distract from the realistic feel of the prehistoric setting. "If like, Jake Gyllenhaal turned up in a movie like this, everybody would be, 'What's that?' " he explained. The casting of unknown actors also helped keep the film's budget down.[7]
Visual and sound effects[edit]
The mammoths in the movie were based on elephants and fossils of mammoths, while the sabertooth cat was based on tigers and ligers (a lion/tiger hybrid).[8]
The sounds made by the sabertooth cat in the movie are based on the vocalization of tigers and lions.[9]
Production[edit]
Director Roland Emmerich and composer Harald Kloser originally penned a script for 10,000 BC. When the project received the greenlight from Columbia Pictures, screenwriter John Orloff began work on a new draft of the original script. Columbia Pictures, under Sony Pictures Entertainment, dropped the project due to a busy release calendar, and Warner Bros. picked up the project in Sony's vacancy.[10] The script went through a second revision with Matthew Sand and a final revision with Robert Rodat.[6] Emmerich rejected making the film in an ancient language (similar to The Passion of the Christ or Apocalypto), feeling it would not be as emotionally engaging.[11]
Production began in early 2006 in South Africa and Namibia.[6] Location filming also took place in southern New Zealand[12] and Thailand. Before shooting began, the production had spent eighteen months on research and development for the computer generated imagery. Two companies recreated prehistoric animals. To cut time (it was taking sixteen hours to render a single frame) 50% of the CGI models' fur was removed, as "it turned out half the fur looked the same" to the director.[7]
Language[edit]
Dialect coach Brendan Gunn was hired by Emmerich and Kloser to create "a half dozen" languages for the film.[13] Gunn has stated that he collaborated informally with film lead Steven Strait to improvise what the languages would sound like.[14]
Critical reception[edit]
The film received largely negative reviews from critics, stating that the movie is mainly visual and lacks a firm screenplay. Critics noted that the film is archaeologically inaccurate and contains many factual errors and anachronisms. As of June 24, 2013, the review aggregator at Rotten Tomatoes has reported that 8% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 145 reviews with the consensus: "With attention strictly paid to style instead of substance, or historical accuracy, 10,000 BC is a visually impressive but narratively flimsy epic."[15] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 34 out of 100, based on 29 reviews.[16]
Despite this, composer Thomas Wanker won a BMI Film Music Award for his work on the film.
Influences of other works[edit]
Glenn Whipp of the Los Angeles Daily News draws numerous comparisons between 10,000 BC and other films in the prehistoric and historic film genre, especially One Million Years B.C.[17] and Apocalypto.[18][19] A. O. Scott of The New York Times compared it to John Ford's film The Searchers and the animated film Ice Age.[20]
At the 2008 Wondercon, Emmerich mentioned the fiction of Robert E. Howard as a primary influence for the film's setting, as well as his love for Quest for Fire and the book Fingerprints of the Gods.[21]
The film was parodied in the opening scene of Disaster Movie.
Box office performance[edit]
In its opening weekend, the film grossed $35.8 million in 3,410 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking No. 1 at the box office, and grossing over $22 million more than the film in second place, College Road Trip.[22][23] As of April 29, 2008, it has grossed approximately $268.6 million worldwide – $94.6 million in the United States and Canada and $174 million in other territories[24] – including $17.2 million in Mexico, $13.1 million in Spain, $11.3 million in the United Kingdom, and $10.8 million in China. This also makes it the first film of 2008 to surpass the $200 million mark.[25]
DVD release[edit]
The DVD of the film was released on June 24, 2008 in single disc editions of DVD and Blu-ray Disc in the United States. Best Buy released a 2-disc limited edition along with the DVD and Blu-ray Disc releases. It was released on July 21, 2008 in the United Kingdom.[26] The film grossed $31,341,721 in DVD sales, bringing its total film gross to $300,414,491.[27]
See also[edit]
List of American films of 2008
100 Million BC – A direct-to-DVD film by The Asylum
One Million Years B.C. – A similar film released in 1966
I walked down to the local theater earlier today to catch the latest Harry Potter movie, not expecting to see anything related to prehistoric animals. So imagine my surprise when, during the trailers, I saw this:
It was a trailer for an upcoming movie called 10,000 B.C., directed by Roland Emmerich of Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow fame. I vaguely remember hearing about this movie a year or so ago, thinking it interesting but quickly forgetting it. I definitely had no idea it was already in production.
Any movie that features a saber-tooth cat already has won my ticket. But judging from the trailer, it also features a terror bird and mammoths. Lots of mammoths.
It's not shooting for realism, if the trailer is any indication. By 10,000 B.C., saber-tooth cats could only be found in the Americas -- if they were still around -- and terror birds had gone the way of the dodo. There also are several scenes in the trailer featuring the construction of the pyramids, using mammoths no less. You think they'd overheat in the desert with those thick shaggy coats. Anyway, the Egyptian pyramids do not date back to the Ice Age, despite fringe theories to the contrary.
Personally, I have no problems with the inaccuracies, as long as the producers market the movie as a fantasy rather than a historical drama. (In that sense, the world of 10,000 B.C. would be much like the Hyborian Age of the Conan stories.) The sad truth, however, is the director has been known to pass off psuedoscience as the real thing in his previous efforts, so prepare for a lot of BS to accompany B.C.The problem is 10,000 B.C. should been called Stargate10,000 B.C.It reads more it beyonds to the Stargate reality,but dosen't.The whole Atlantis bit,could explained as something to do with Stargates Atlantis.
What's the plot? This is the description from the trailer on YouTube: "It was a time when man and beast were untamed and the mighty mammoth roamed the earth. A time when ideas and beliefs were born that forever shaped mankind. 10,000 B.C. follows a young hunter (Steven Strait) on his quest to lead an army across a vast desert, battling saber tooth tigers [sic] and prehistoric predators as he unearths a lost civilization and attempts to rescue the woman he loves (Camilla Belle) from an evil warlord determined to possess her."
A high-definition Quicktime version of the trailer also is available.
I'm excited about the movie even though I know little about it and I've been unimpressed with Emmerich's other films. But when a big-budget movie about dinosaurs and other monsters is in theaters, book publishers usually try to cash in by publishing novels and anthologies about the creature in question. So check your local bookstore around March 7, 2008, when the film is scheduled for release.
Also, just a little trivia, this may be the first big-screen film since Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger in 1977 to feature a saber-tooth cat. Yes, there were the Ice Age movies, but those were cartoons. The cats also featured in two truly awful direct-to-video films, as did a killer mammoth that was possessed by an alien lifeforce. All three aired on the SciFi Channel, known for its *cough* quality programming. *cough*
Update: Ain't It Cool News already has a review of the movie. Warning: Spoilers if you follow the link.
Posted by DoubleW at 11:45 PM
