Info about unproduced British movie Armada?

March 12, 2012 7:56 PM

Looking for information about an unproduced British(?) film titled Armada, from the late 70s or early 80s.

I just bought some production art from this movie, and would like to know more about it, but Google fails me.

The movie is set in a medieval-ish period. The only other thing I know about it is that art director Anthony Masters was involved.

posted by Sxyzzx to media & arts (9 answers total)

Here's an IMDb page for a 1988 TV mini-series called Armada.
posted by XMLicious at 8:16 PM on March 12, 2012

...that was a BBC series about the Spanish Armada, but one that seems to have been fully produced and aired; 1988 was the 400-year anniversary. This British Archaeology article notes "A reconstruction of one of these Spanish gun-carriages was built by the BBC in 1988 for their series Armada, and was tested experimentally against a four-wheeled truck carriage of the English pattern. Using the same gun and crew, the Spanish system took twice as long to load and fire, confirming a major tactical imbalance between the two sides."
posted by XMLicious at 8:26 PM on March 12, 2012

1988 was the 400-year anniversary of the Spanish Armada, that is.
posted by XMLicious at 8:27 PM on March 12, 2012

Yeah I instantly thought of that old Spanish Armada documentary series. It was awesome.
posted by tumid dahlia at 8:55 PM on March 12, 2012

Well, I feel a little silly for not having though to search IMDB.. But I don't think that's it. The sketches suggest a big-budget adventure movie, not a TV documentary.
posted by Sxyzzx at 9:17 PM on March 12, 2012

Well, they were doing things like reconstructing period artillery pieces - that's why I put the quote above. I think that BBC documentaries and docudramas can get pretty big-budget. Since tumid dahlia saw the series, maybe it would make sense to describe some of the stuff depicted and see if it sounds familiar.
posted by XMLicious at 9:44 PM on March 12, 2012

Ok, I got a hold of the images and uploaded them over here.

Looking at the cast list of that mini-series though, it only lists voice-over credits, and professors appearing as themselves, so it doesn't sound like there was much of a "docudrama" aspect to it.
posted by Sxyzzx at 10:27 PM on March 12, 2012

Those are beautiful, but don't immediately call to mind the documentary series I and XMLicious are speaking about. XM's impressions may be different however.
posted by tumid dahlia at 5:19 PM on March 15, 2012

I think they're beautiful too. To be clear, I haven't seen this 1988 series myself but having seen a few BBC documentaries I was just saying that those sorts of scenes, with voiceover narration from a historian or something along those lines, wouldn't seem out of place to me.
posted by XMLicious at 5:48 PM on March 15, 2012