Evil Overlord Mistake

The Masque de Fer may have supernatural strength and cunning, but he has clearly never read Item 1 on the Evil Overlord List...
(In which d'Artagnan and Porthos manage to infiltrate their enemies' stronghold and rescue the captive(s) by adopting the guards' uniform, which includes a masked helmet: Episode 49 of Sous le Signe des Mousquetaires)

I still find it fascinating to watch the non-canon parallels being used here; in this universe, Belle-Île is being fortified by the Masque de Fer, while the King has Richelieu and Treville teaming up to organise the assault, and the Musketeers are trying to free his brother from what has become in effect Philippe's position as a hostage to be used against him...

I like the way that, at certain moments when you think 'surely they can't be doing anything so stupid', it turns out that they are not: ( Read more... )

Using a Crib

I managed to find a copy of "Twenty Years After" on Project Gutenberg, as I had expected, and read through the first thirteen chapters, which takes us up to the departure from Porthos' house, where the first part of the film leaves off. It turns out that the opening scenes are in fact very much more book-accurate than I had had any idea (I clearly had no recollection of any of that material, including d'Artagnan's relations with his landlady!) -- minus the obligatory tavern brawl, that is, which may not be in the book but is used to set up various elements which are.

I actively recognised a lot of the events and lines of dialogue in the book, even in the middle of the scene with Aramis which was the most obscure (probably because both characters are not only talking politics but being deliberately cagey in what they say to one another...) Which suggests at the least that I was understanding a lot more than I had given myself credit for, even if I couldn't make out at the time what was going on. Rewatching the same material after having read the 'crib' might offer a better chance of making out the actual conversation -- ( Should I read first or watch first? )

( In French or in English )

So what is probably going to happen is that I shall go ahead and watch the next episode 'unspoiled' and struggle to follow the dialogue, then go back and skim-read the online text to establish what I failed to pick up on initially... and then probably go back and watch the Russian version again to try to identify the relevant material. At least for this one there *is* a reasonably close 'crib', unlike the totally off-the-wall and non-canonical antics of "Cardinal Mazarin's Treasure", in which absolutely anything could (and did) transpire :-D