FloatingOpera7 Review of Ring of the Nibelungs

Ring of the Nibelungs (2004 TV Movie)

Neither Wagner's Ring or the Norse Saga...It's Strictly Sci-Fi Channel Material

[6/10 · 30 March 2006]

Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King is neither drawn from Wagner's opera Ring Des Nibelungen nor the ancient Nordic sagas that inspired Lord of the Rings. It is quite inaccurate and doesn't follow the original legends to the letter. Instead of a sprawling epic of heroes, gods, goddessses, nasty dwarfs, stolen Rhine gold, a powerful and covete ring and the "Twilight of the Gods" to wrap things up we get a Sci-Fi channel movie with all the typical elements including computer graphics, a highly stilted dialogue, gorgeous actors and dramatic music. Now, the thing is I liked this, even if it was not really true to the mythology. It was more like an adaptation from a historic novel with a less mythic and more realistic approach. No gods or goddessses, only zealous worshippers trying to maintain the old ways at a time when Christianity had become dominant. Brunhilde is not a fearsome Valkyrie warrior. She's a mortal woman who loves Siegfried and not as powerful a personality as the warrior-like Krimhild, Queen of Iceland. The Dragon is still in here and the thing about Siegfried slaying it and bathing in its magic blood and leaving one part of his body vulnerable. Hagen kills him all that was in the original myth. But Krimhilde is odd in that she is pasionately in love with him and then is humiliated and wants him dead and then commits suicide on his funeral pyre!! Siegfried is portrayed as flawed, which is a rather good thing. Other than being the strongest of the strongest, he is two-faced and scheming. There is nothing really wrong with this film. It's only unfair to advertise this film as true to the Nibelung Saga when it is clearly Sci Fi movie material