Alexander the Great

How good is Alexander the Great on a scale of 1-10?

  • Total voters
    40
Kalata said:
Does anybody know who has done the spoken prologue on the song, I mean on ATG ?

- on The Prisoner is Patrick McGoohan
- on TNOTB is Barry Clayton
- on Rime is ..... ??
- on IESF is a voice effect, I guess.
Click to expand...

Rime is Richard Burton, see the Rime thread for more details.
 
The inflection is like Bruce but the tone is different, probably going through a pitch shifter or with tape manipulation. I might bring the pitch back up later to see if it sounds more like Bruce.
 
Kalata said:
This is from a facebook fan page about the spoken prologue on ATG:
View attachment 7580
Click to expand...

What's their source for that?

Graham Chapman is Brian in the Life of Brian ( and CIPWM video), and I don't think he sounds anything like that.

I think it definitely does not sound like Bruce.

NERD ALERT:

My theory from years ago was that Rime and Alexander where the same person, and I speculated it might have been Martin Birch. When it emerged that Richard Burton had done Rime, I saw that Burton had also done an Alexander the Great film! Naturally, I would be proved right about the same voice doing both parts so I hunted down the film to find the clip from Alexander. Alas, there was no such clip in the film :dorky:
 
srfc said:
My theory from years ago was that Rime and Alexander where the same person, and I speculated it might have been Martin Birch. When it emerged that Richard Burton had done Rime, I saw that Burton had also done an Alexander the Great film! Naturally, I would be proved right about the same voice doing both parts so I hunted down the film to find the clip from Alexander. Alas, there was no such clip in the film :dorky:
Click to expand...

It wouldn't make much sense anyway, given that Burton plays Alexander and the quote is attributed to Philip.

I'm still certain that it is Bruce.
 
Perun said:
It wouldn't make much sense anyway, given that Burton plays Alexander and the quote is attributed to Philip.

I'm still certain that it is Bruce.
Click to expand...

Yeah I found that out when I found the movie, but still checked anyway just in case the quote was there and it was someone else saying it.
 
srfc said:
Yeah I found that out when I found the movie, but still checked anyway just in case the quote was there and it was someone else saying it.
Click to expand...

Although I have it on DVD (together with the Oliver Stone one and the tv pilot starring William Shatner as Alex), I haven't seen it in I don't know how long and don't remember - is the quote in the film?
 
I can't say for definite, as I was just scanning through the film (i'm not a huge film fan and also not that much of Maiden nerd that I'd sit through a whole film I'd no interest in just to spot a quote), but I was looking for scenes were Philip of Macedon was in it, or maybe an establishing shot that might have had a voice over, and I didn't find anything with that quote.
 
There is a context to that quote. According to Plutarch, Philipp was being shown a seemingly untameable horse by a breeder. A young Alexander approached it and saw the horse was afraid of its shadow. He held his hands over its eyes and calmed the beast, then jumped on its back and rode around wildly. When he saw this, Philipp allegedly said these words, although it's not entirely certain how they are to be interpreted, whether he was proud of his son or angry at his own humiliation. This scene is in Oliver Stone's film, but I think the quote itself wasn't.

It's not to be taken as an historical episode, though. Plutarch according to the prooimion to his Alexander biography stated that he was a biographer, not a historian - and it was his main concern to paint a vivid picture of Alexander's character. Plutarch was also a moralist, so it was not his intent to write fully historically accurate accounts, although he sometimes used authentic sources, but to use famous people as moral examples for the readers to take inspiration from or to be appalled by. In the case of Alexander, his whole biography has a strong tragic undercurrent, and this scene is emblematic. The implication is that Alexander from the beginning on was driven by a desire for expansion that eventually brought himself and many other people to misfortune (this aspect is actually more pronounced in Curtius' account). To Alexander, Plutarch argues, there could never be enough, he always had to go further, there always had to be more, and he could never be satiated. So it's highly likely the words were not uttered at all and Plutarch made them up to give the horse episode a stronger moralistic character. This is emphasised by the fact that all the other four ancient accounts on Alexander do talk about his horse (the hero-horse relationship being a very old narrative topos), but do not mention this phrase despite it's obvious interest to the whole Alexander narrative.
 
Perun said:
There is a context to that quote. According to Plutarch, Philipp was being shown a seemingly untameable horse by a breeder. A young Alexander approached it and saw the horse was afraid of its shadow. He held his hands over its eyes and calmed the beast, then jumped on its back and rode around wildly. When he saw this, Philipp allegedly said these words, although it's not entirely certain how they are to be interpreted, whether he was proud of his son or angry at his own humiliation. This scene is in Oliver Stone's film, but I think the quote itself wasn't.

It's not to be taken as an historical episode, though. Plutarch according to the prooimion to his Alexander biography stated that he was a biographer, not a historian - and it was his main concern to paint a vivid picture of Alexander's character. Plutarch was also a moralist, so it was not his intent to write fully historically accurate accounts, although he sometimes used authentic sources, but to use famous people as moral examples for the readers to take inspiration from or to be appalled by. In the case of Alexander, his whole biography has a strong tragic undercurrent, and this scene is emblematic. The implication is that Alexander from the beginning on was driven by a desire for expansion that eventually brought himself and many other people to misfortune (this aspect is actually more pronounced in Curtius' account). To Alexander, Plutarch argues, there could never be enough, he always had to go further, there always had to be more, and he could never be satiated. So it's highly likely the words were not uttered at all and Plutarch made them up to give the horse episode a stronger moralistic character. This is emphasised by the fact that all the other four ancient accounts on Alexander do talk about his horse (the hero-horse relationship being a very old narrative topos), but do not mention this phrase despite it's obvious interest to the whole Alexander narrative.
Click to expand...
I don't think they'll ever play that one.
 
This song is truly a masterpiece! The intro is majestic, great instrumental section and both solos are one of the best in Maiden's discography. The chorus is memorable and the verses are great too. This song should be played live someday (even just for once). This is the second favorite song of the fans, right after FOTD. :p

10/10.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top