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 Crusaders 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 behind 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 effects, 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 hugely 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 director, Justin Kurzel, wanted to ensure this moment was referenced in his film.

So, during one of the many, many, many chase scenes, the reference can be seen. This particular chase is when evil Ojeda pursues Aguilar and Maria through the city’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, that 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 Man Meet Animus

Early in the production of Assassin’s Creed, Robert Downey Jr. was rumored to appear in the 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 critical 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 film’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 though, 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, how 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 (both his and ours). Or maybe we’d have seen even more footage 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 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 with 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 the 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 specific 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.

5 Wrong Way Round

If you ever want to be an Assassin, then part of the gig means that your ring finger must be removed. This allows for the easy extension and retraction of the hidden blade, a deadly and discrete weapon that appears from the wrist only when needed. Ever since Bayek accidently sliced off his own finger in Assassins’ Creed: Origins its remained a tenant of the order.

So, it’s no surprise that the film’s Aguilar has his ring finger removed too. Only thing is, that it’s on his right hand. This is in contrast to the game, where the ring finger of the left hand is removed, this leaves the sword hand strong, with all its fingers intact. This awkward error would leave Aguilar a lot less effective in a fight.

4 To Be This Good Takes Ages

Assassin’s Creed has many flaws but not one of them involves costume design. It’s a standout feature of the film, particularly for the characters who crop up in 15th century Spain. Take the Assassins costumes, each one of them took some two to three months to make as they were all hand-crafted. There are eight versions of each costume, as each costume was required for multiple purposes, from running, to jumping, fighting and just standing around looking cool. There was an entire costume team allocated to each of the assassins.

Aguilar's costume is made of six thousand beads.

Each and every one of them manually sewn. Now, in the context of the story, that must be a man with a lot of free time on his hands to find all of those beads, let alone them all.

3 Under The Hood

I’ve played most of the games in the Assassin’s Creed series and there’s one thing that always amazes me; how on earth do the assassin’s hoods stay up? I can barely keep my coat’s hood up on a blustery day or when walking moderately quickly, let alone if I decide to start free running along the side of a building. Though I’ve never tried this as it would result in my untimely end.

For the costume designers, this hood issue also proved an issue when making Aguilar’s costume. How on earth would which the hoods be able to maintain their points whilst the actors were running around. Their solution for this was to create thirty different test versions to finally end up with a hood that both closely resembled its video game inspiration and maintained its shape during the action sequences.

2 Bigger, Not Better

Bigger isn’t always better. Take houses. People may think that having a big house would be a good thing. But if you don’t have a big family to go in it, then all those cavernous rooms will soon start to feel very lonely. Then there are cars. A big car may mean other drivers will get out of your way. But it’ll cost a lot more in fuel to keep that big beast running.

The same is true of a film’s budget.

Assassin’s Creed is Justin Kurzel's 5th film biggest film, costing $130 million to make. Compare this to his Macbeth, which cost only $15 million. With Macbeth having achieved a score of 71 on Metacritic.com compared to Assassin’s Creed's paltry 36, it clearly is, on average, the superior film. And it cost a fraction of the price.

1 Better Than Star Wars

The above is quite an extreme claim. After all, surely only someone who hates their eyes, ears, and brain would choose Assassin’s Creed over Star Wars. Not all the Star Wars films, of course. Some of them are utter pants and Assassin’s Creed walks all over them. But when it comes to the original trilogy, Star Wars has Assassin’s Creed beat. But, according to Fassbender, the epic space opera adventure that is Star Wars does not have the morally grey setting of Assassin's Creed. In Star Wars that is a stark distinction between the Light and the Dark Side of the force.

Whilst the Assassin’s Brotherhood and the Templar Order represent two different sides of the coin. They both believe they know what is best for humanity. Perhaps neither should have the power to facilitate their beliefs.