NOVA: Medieval Siege
by Michael Barnes
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DVD details
Actor: Stacy KeachDirector: Michael Barnes
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 60 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-09-07
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: WGBH Boston
DVD Reviews of NOVA: Medieval Siege
DVD Review: trebuchets: what more could you want?
Summary: 5 Stars
I was so glad to find this was released on DVD! My husband and I had watched it on PBS years ago and really enjoyed it, so I purchased this as a gift for my husband this Christmas.
It is just one episode of a series called "Medieval Siege" and runs a little under 1 hour. This episode shows two teams making two different types of trebuchets based on drawings and writings from the age of castle warfare. They're made (mostly) by using original techniques and are compared by seeing how they fare against the wall of a castle constructed specially for this show.
My only complaint is that I would have liked to see more detail about how the trebuchets were built. It seemed like everything was pared down to fit it into an hour-long show, and it could have been easily a 90-minute show. Also, the DVD is a little pricey for the short length. But hey, trebuchets!
DVD Review: A great series
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a great series, and all of them are good. As well as being informative, this DVD is FUN. Where else can you learn about olden days engineering and also watch someone throw a piano several hundred yards?DVD Review: Boring
Summary: 1 Stars
This DVD just shows growned up guys playing around with more complicated toys, attempting to built a trebuchet. It would be the same to see a two-year-old child trying to built a castle of cards. DVD Review: Great for homeschooling medieval history
Summary: 5 Stars
My boys enjoy this movie and cheer with the craftsmen as they launch their trebuchets. Excellent for teaching material on life in medieval times. Watch this and then view Peter Jackson's depiction of the attack on Minas Tirith in LOTR with new appreciation, since he shows the orcs with catapults and the city with trebuchets. Then buy "The art of the Catapult" and make your own (providing you have a large backyard and a helmit, of couse) We made our model with popcycle sticks.DVD Review: Medieval Siege
Summary: 4 Stars
This 2000 episode of the PBS's NOVA is narrated by actor Stacy Keach and, as the product description indicates, takes an in-depth look at the hot siege weapon of the Middle Ages, the trebuchet (trey-boo-shay.)
Come to think of it, after just re-reading the product description I think its `travel back to the Middle Ages' and `experience the chaos' is a little misleading. Basically the Middle Ages are set in the background, source material for the meat of the program. MEDIEVAL SIEGE is a low-tech version of a dear departed cable television show called `Junkyard Wars.' Here, two teams - one American, the other French - using ancient illustrations and descriptions, try to build a working, castle-busting trebuchet.
The teams aren't playing around, either. There are medieval weapons specialists (everything has a specialist, doesn't it?), a forty-plus man team of traditional artisans, a pipe puffing scientist and a pair of forty-foot tall Douglas firs used to build the main arm of the weapon. A trebuchet, by the way, is a large (in this case VERY large) `see-saw' with a heavy weight on one end. Stick a pea in the bowl of a spoon, pull the spoon back and let it fly and you've got the trebuchet concept down.
MEDIEVAL SIEGE was fascinating. Until time starts running down and the workers pull out the socket wrenches and acetylene torches the techniques used are all traditional - ever see someone try to shave down a five-ton tree using 13th century tools? The scale is daunting - one trebuchet requires ten tons of lead counter-weight rings, the other uses a swinging basket that holds fourteen tons. The target is a newly constructed castle wall. The drama is inherent in the situation. Can they figure out how to build a trebuchet without any surviving model to work from? Will the meager historical references to trebuchets provide enough information to build a working model? Will they be able to loft a 250-pound sandstone ball three-hundred yards, much less hit a relatively small target? This program answers all those questions and more in a fun filled sixty minutes.
Description of NOVA: Medieval Siege
The Scots inside Stirling Castle must have felt untouchable. Protected by a massive stone fortress, they prepared for a long drawn-out siege against the army of England's Edward the First. Fifty carpenters worked day and night to create the fourteenth century version of the atom bomb: the trebuchet-a fearsome, gravity-powered catapult dubbed "Warwolf" that was capable of hurling boulders, bee hives and plague-infected corpses long distances. Travel back to the Middle Ages and relive a fascinating turning point in warfare and medieval history.- Enter the battlefield and experience the chaos of medieval warfare-200 years before the invention of the cannon
- Discover how the mechanized catapult sent English history and warfare in different directions
- Enter gigantic medieval castles and explore why these mighty fortresses became vulnerable to the "Warwolf"
- See how the medieval manuscripts provided clues in the trebuchet mystery
- See medieval experts create two competing full-scale catapults
- Travel to the banks of Loch Ness as newly designed catapults attempt to destroy a castle wall with 250 pound stone balls
Secrets of Lost Empires II Unlock mysteries and uncover lost history with the experts as they use yesteryear's thrilling technology to recreate five ancient engineering marvels and to discover what daily life was really like in these communities. Travel around the globe from Egypt to Rome and take a fresh, "hands-on" look at mankind's greatest cultures and civilizations. It's history from a whole new point of view!
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