Okay, I just watched the movie.

Of course Hollywood jazzed it up with melodrama and romantic subplots, but it was pretty good. Worth watching for the sets and photography alone. There were some memorable and thought-provoking lines. (Anything that gets people thinking is good, I think.) The guy who played Saladin was terrific. And it's rekindled my interest in medieval warfare (I was a history major, and really into arms and armor for a long time). I've gotta buy a couple books now and do some reading. Recommendations, anyone? Barbara Tuchman wrote a biography about a 13th century knight that I enjoyed several years ago, I can't recall the title.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: They ended three centuries of invasion by Muslims. That enough of a point for ya? Yeah so much so that still to this day the Muslims hold the keys to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at the insistance of the Christians, because the Christian factions went on killing themselves.  Better yet, how about the Christians ended the occupation of the Jews AND Muslims who fought side by side against them in the First Crusade?  Or how about how Saladin and the Muslims AND the Jews took back Jeruselum after selling the non paying Christians into slavery?  Lets go one step further and discuss the third Crusade which was a failure as Jerselum still remained in Muslim hands?  How about that King Richard and Saladin negotiated that unarmed Christians would be able to make pilgramiges to Jerselum?  How about how King Richard was captured by his ex-ally in Duke Leopold, only to be released for ransom?  I could go into more detail about the first and second one as well, but the point is nothing was accomplished as we were our own worst enemies. Or how about the 4th Crusade where all the Crusaders did was sack other Christian cities for money and relics? Not the point that was intedend I'm certain. The christians holding those lands for a 100+ years slowed their expansionism. How about how those lands were all christian before their conquest at the hands of muslims forces? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_N%C3%A1ndorfeh%C3%A9rv%C3%A1r The crusades delayed battles like that till European technology put them on a footing to be able to win.

the crusades also united the small kingdoms of the formerly fractured arab world against the europeans as their common enemy.

Quoted: Quoted: The crusades delayed battles like that till European technology put them on a footing to be able to win. the crusades also united the small kingdoms of the formerly fractured arab world against the europeans as their common enemy.

Unfortunately, while I like the fact that the Christian west struck back, I think the later crusades undid all the good the first three crusades did, and then some.  While the establishment of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and other Crusader states did take some pressure off, the Fourth Crusade dealt a death blow to what was left of the the Eastern Roman Empire when it sacked Constantinople.  While the city didn't fall to the Muslims until 1453, it was really a rump state after the Crusades.  Since the Eastern Roman Empire had been the main shield against Muslim expansion in the in Eastern Europe, this was a real disaster.  The expansion begun by the Turks after the crusades wasn't fully driven back until WWI and the final dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire.