Words sometimes have weird origins, and this one is no different. The term has its origins from the 1100s when Hassen Ben Sabah founded the order of Hashāashīn or, as Christian Crusaderꦓs pronounced it, ‘assassin’. The word and its meaning were shared with the western world predominantly through the exploits and recollections of Marco Polo. The word finally made its way into the popular lexicon, as so many words did, through the plays of William Shakespeare. His seminal work Macbeth saw the words first literary use in 1605 “If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly: if the assassination could trammel up the consequence, and catch with his surcease success.”

So, why this rumination on the word? That’s because thinking about everything written above was much more enjoyable than watching the turgid Assassin’s Creed on the big screen last year. I had such high hopes for Assassin’s Creed when it was first announced. Seeing the talented trio of Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, 🦹and director Justin Kurzel working together again after their sensational interpretation of Macbeth, Assassin’s Creed promised to break the curse of video game films.

The only problem was, for a film about people traveling back in time through their own DNA, to live the lives of their ancestors, it was really boring. But the dullest of films sometimes have the most fascinating of tales from behiꦦnd the scenes, 🍒and it is this that I’ll be looking at today.

15 🌺 What A Fallure

Assassin’s Creed has one 🐲of the most ambitious free fall stunts performed in almost 35 years. Though whilst watching the film you’d be hard-pressed to notice. Director Justin Kurzel wanted to recreate an iconic ‘Leap of faith’ from the video game series, where the player’s avatar falls a massive distance to land perfectly in a conveniently placed haystack. Stuntman Damien Walters, a man who is clearly immune to fear, launched himself through the air to fall 38 meters (125ft). He was in the air for almost 3 seconds and had an astonishing impact speed of 61 ♛mph.

The stunt clearly took its inspiration from the film GoldenEye, which saw 007 leap from the 720ft tall contra dam. Unfortunately, the Assassin’s Creed leap of faith was covered in 🐻so many effect♑s, that it might well have been just created with CGI. It looked utterly fake.

14 🃏 Sorry, What? 🌞

Now you know, and I know, that Assassin’s Creed is based on the hugel🦄y successful video game franchise of the same name. However, star Michael Fassbender didn’t know that. He also didn’t know that I know, that you know, what he doesn’t know. In fact, prior to taking on the role of Callum Lynch,

Fassbender didn’t even know that the game existed.

Which, after 11 main entries in the series, is quite an impressive achievement in unawareness. When he did start playing the game it wasn’t for a better understanding of certain characters or plot. Rather,♕ it was so that he could experience the game’s mechanics, particularly how the free-running element worked. Which in my experience is simply holding down a button whilst the avatar is moving. Though I’m sure it was much harder recreating those movements in real life.

13 Hey Hay!

As mentioned in an earlier entry, a great deal of the player's time in Assassin’s Creed is spent falling from great heights into worryingly tiny bales of hay. It doesn’t matter if the assassin is a sea-faring pirate captain, an Egyptian medjay, or a Londoner from Victorian England. Some way and somehow, they’ll find some hay to jump into. The dir♑ector, Justin Kurzel, wanted to ensure this moment was ref⭕erenced in his film.

So, during one of the many, many, ma💫ny chase scenes, the reference can be seen. This particular chase is when evil Ojeda pursues Aguilar and Maria through the cit𓄧y’s streets and rooftops. As they flee a nameless soldier is knocked off a wall and lands in a pile of hay. Though with all the assassins already hiding in there, I doubt there was any space.

12 🐟 Get Ready... Fight! 🦹

The best action films are usually those that see the actors perform their own stunts. For example, whenever I watch Scarlett Johansson in one of her many MCU appearances as the Black Widow, I am constantly taken out of the action. It is obvious that it is the stunt double performing the feats♑ of athleticism. In contrast, I found that during the epic kitchen fight in the Raid 2, which sees both actors perform all the action, that I hadn’t remembered to breathe for the last five minutes.

Michael Fassbender and Ariane Labed did 95% of the fights in the film.

The problem is, th🦹at thanks to the overediting of the otherwise impressive fight scenes and Kurzel’s bizarre obsession with wanting to cover everything with vast swathes of fog, you’d have 🌱no idea that Fassbender and Labed had put so much hard work in.

11 Iron ಌMan Meet Animus

Early in the production of Assassin’s Creed, Robert Downey Jr. was rumored to appear in tꦅhe film as Leonardo da Vinci. Da Vinci has popped up in several games in the series to assist Ezio Auditore da Firenze with many outlandish weapons.

Back in the Autumn of 2014, the website MoviePilot started the rumor stating that RDJ had signed on to join the Assassin’s Creed movie cast. It would have been superb casting as, thanks to playing both Tony Stark and Sherlock Holmes, Downey knows a thing or two about portraying genius on the screen. But it was not to be, and the rumor would prove to be unfounded. Which, seeing as Assassin’s Creed went on to be a ཧcritical and commercial flop, can only be a good thing for Robert Downey Jr.

10 🦄 So Many References

There are plentiful references to the video game series to be spotted by an eagle-eyed fan boy or girl whilst watching Assassin’s Creed. The 𒀰film’s Abstergo compound is a veritable treasure trove of goodies. There are some flintlock pistols belonging to Edward Kenway from Assassin’🗹s Creed 4: Black Flag. The bow isn’t just any old piece of wood, it was the weapon of choice for Connor ‘I’m so boring it hurts’ Ratonhnhaké:ton.

There are the cane swords of twins Jacob and Evie Frye from the underappreciated Assassin's Creed Syndicate.

Finally, the sword of Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad can be seen. He’s the one who started everything off in 2007’s Assassin’s Creed. Don’t worry about suffering through watching the film again to spot all these items 𒅌though, just take my word that they are there.

9 Keep On Cutting 🐓

Assassin’s Creed was originally going to be a much longer film. Thank goodness it wasn’t, as even at a relatively brisk one hour and forty-eight minutes the movie dragged to the point of being a cause of narcolepsy. So, h🅰ow long could it have been? A sore posterior inducing two hours and twenty minutes is the answer.

No-one’s entirely sure what the additional time contained, perhaps it was an extra 30 minutes of Fassbender looking into the middle distance with an expression that suggests both thoughtfulness and utter boredom (botಞh his and ours). Or maybe we’d have seen even more footꦰage of Cotillard doing "I’m both good and bad, I’m so conflicted" eyes. You know the ones I’m talking about. Her eyes go all wibbly and dewy and the director makes us look at them again and again. Man, I’ve watched this film way too many times.

8 ꦦ Is It🗹 A Bird?

The protagonist of the historical section of the film’s name is 'Aguilar'. This is a Latin word which stands for 'Eagle', of course. This is a callback to the video games and the assassin’s patented Eagle Vision. Now, for those unfamiliar w🌱ith the game, this does not mean that the Assassins’ can only see eagles everywhere they look or somehow have managed to surgically remove their own eyes and replaced them with those of an eagle.

Instead, Eagle Vision allows the player to discover items or characters in the game world and have them handily highlighted.

This is true of all the game’s protagonists other than Bayek from last year’s Assassin’s Creed: Origins. He had an eagle. Admittedly, this eagle could scan for items and hover in the air like a drone but that has nothing to do with Ubisoft re-using assets from other games.🎶 Honest.

7 Tell Me A♉ Fable

Despite Michael Fassbender not having heard of Assassin’s Creed prior to taking on the leading role, that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have an awareness of other video games. Nor does it mean that Assassin’s Creed was his first role in a video game related franchise. Because it’s actually his second. He also previously provided the voice of King Logan in Fable III.

Logan is the misunderstood antagonist of the first half of the game. He’s bad but with the potential to be good all at the same time. Anyway, Fassbender can be heard uttering the iconic lines of "Good. Then you will never forget it." And "Never tell me what I can't do." Yeah, none of those lines are iconic really. Still, they must have been more fun to say than the classic ‘’Huh... yeah. The party's just getting started’’ from Assassin’s Creed.

6 ꧂ 🎃 Alternate Ending

At the end of Assassin’s Creed, Callum Lynch and his fellow captives from the Abstergo facility head off to go start up a new brotherhood. Together they’ll be responsible for protecting humanity against t🤪he machinations of the Templars.

However, a much darker ending was originally planned.

That’s because in the original cut, 👍everyone else, bar Callum, was unceremoniously bumped off in the final battle. This would have left Callum alone in the world, trying to survive with his specif💙ic set of skills. Justin Kurzel and editor Christopher Tellefsen learned from test screenings that audiences just weren’t satisfied with this ending. They felt that they’d invested a lot of time in these characters and that having them all eliminated by a bunch of security guards in the closing moments of the film ultimately left a bad taste in the mouth.