Gladiator II
Gladiator II
Upon the release of ‘Gladiator II’ in the year 2000, it was greatly appreciated by both audiences and critics due to its special effects and production design, which ranged from the majestic Colosseum to costumes and hunter tigers.
Two decades and some change after, the creators of that film assembled again for what can only be described as a Herculean task: making a sequel that, while trying to remain true to the first film’s stunning visuals, horrifies and astonishes audiences in new ways.
“Gladiator II” (out in theaters on Nov. 22) contains many of the sword fights as well as rousing orations on the ancient Roman Empire which are familiar to many. But it adds to these combat sequences in the Colosseum inclusions of a rhino in one or sharks in another.
“It’s breathtaking, more than breathtaking,” added Arthur Max, the production designer who has an insightful say with director Ridley Scott and producer Douglas Wick in the heads of the two motion pictures. “Whatever elements were in the first one, they were further ballooned to an incomprehensible level.”
Most of the production design of the movie basing on her research was done by Max as he went to the Roman Museum of ships via Fiumicino and Pompeii conservation laboratories and Greek museums among many places. Other sources were mockup designs of battleships which they shipped in British Museum they included screen images from records of military history.
But the same cannot be said for Scott, because apart from using a camera, a lot of images and scenes came from Scott’s mind. So instead of using a computer, Scott would sketch down the images he had in mind before recreating them with the help of his team.
“Even if I haven’t found the location, I’ll imagine the location and then draw it. And then the location will be found that suffices for what I drew.”
“All my loves are in one place,” he continued.
One of the more ambitious scenes in the film takes place in the flooded Colosseum, where there is an impending battle. One boat full of Roman soldiers fighting on board, and the other with gladiators in hands full of naval onboard action, they swiveled and slammed into each other surrounded by sharks lurking in the water.
The shape of the hulls of those ships had as realistic details as possible, said Max: The ships were from 55 to 65 feet, had some real masts, had planked/frameworks, iron nails and tar caulking etc. The exterior of the ships was made of wood and iron, and the internal structure was of light steel.
After exteriors had been finished and trimmed, they were lifted with 120 ft. Gum cranes over two hydraulic piggyback vehicles those each had dozens of wheels. These rolling stages made it possible for the film crew to navigate the ships within the amphitheatre structure.
The shots were taken of the two ships in the Colosseum replica in Malta where the original “Gladiator II” was shot. This shots were photographed on the dry land with the water effects being added later on.
“We figured it is easier to do something like water work in the dry as opposed to wet because movies now are made so differently compared to the first one that it is actually easier to put in the water high tech instead of working in Gladiator II,” Max said.
To shoot some far shot of this ground-naval fight and gladiatori and fighters are almost every time tousling and some boys are tossed into the water full of hungry sharks, the production moved along the hype of this eight foot deep tank, which was as big as a football field.
Also, they constructed a fragment of the arena with elements such as water jets in the shape of the marine god Neptune. Those jets would discharge water into the basin with a submersible pump that would eject water back into these jets.
It was Scott’s decision that was to plunge the sharks into the water, he had some inspiration from incidents of long ago, while he was working on “White Squall” (1996): someone had thrown a six foot shovel nose shark into the swimming pool at a hotel where the filmmaker was staying in the Caribbean.
“It was quite impossible to get it out so inside the pool this particular shark had the whole pool to himself,” he said.
Max said about this lack of law and order ‘Yes because nobody can tell whether the Romans actually put sharks in the Colosseum’. However the aim was to enhance the liveliness changing the uneasy stillness whereby several such predatory fishes were embedded in water.
Scott мatter played as well вlike it hes broke neck New animals should be brought into the rage a hippo rhinoceros he even expressed the desire. For making the horns, the production staff first made the framework, and then covered it with a fake skin, which was mounted above a much smaller hydraulic device, more like the ones which were used for the ships.
Another scene shows monkey forces with the use of Klezmer where the men or women rather stunt in a black apparel smear paint on face Klz60. The only order they were given were small crutches, modelling the forelimbs of these animals.
Wick stated, “The aim was to recreate, as best as one can, in the audience the same effect of watching such a spectacle live in the stands as it would have been for a Roman.”
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- Genre: Action
- Country: United States
- Director: Ridley Scott
- Cast: Denzel Washington, Joseph Quinn, Pedro Pascal
