Once the occurrences of the felonies had taken place, the government was sent in to make sure that the two white boys received their justice against Mr. Haley. The government was against the Mr. Haley the entire movie and did not care if he lived or not. They would do anything to insure that the two brothers received their justice, even if that meant rushing Mr. Haley on the stand to make him sound sane. The defendant was very biased and did not want Mr. Haley to receive a fair jury so that they could make their case.

However the Cobbs were probably the most prejudice of them all. They were a family born and raised in the southern belief that all colored people were slaves and not considered human beings. The two Cobb sons took this to an extreme and found out how their beliefs were not true anymore. The friends of the Cobb brothers then tried to seek revenge with the KKK. This caused even more prejudice in the movie. As a result the whole city took one side or the other and campaigned for their side.

Up until the very end Jake thought that he was for the African American side, when all along he was just trying to cover up for his own downfalls of not alerting the police before certain events took place. Jake went through a lot of trouble in order to save Mr. Haley. He lost his house and almost lost his marriage to his wife. Even after all of that he still managed to keep together and pull off saving Mr. Haley, but he didn't realize until the very end that he was prejudice through out the whole trial. In the end he realized this and pulled off the biggest turnaround in the whole trial.

Overall there were a lot of prejudices in the movie played on both sides by everyone. In the end Jake found peace and won the trial, but he sacrificed a lot to do so in the process. The Cobbs realized that what their family did was inexcusable and wrong. The government was upset that they had been beaten by someone who was still in law school. The movie played out everything great and in my opinion was a very good movie.

Let's just say that it could have been worse.

Now, I'm not just ranting about Beowulf in general. I actually had a reason to shun the movie when it first came out. In fact, I was dead-set against watching it with anyone. I didn't want to hear about it, but, if I did, I turned it into a personal vendetta against the monstrosity known as the “sexy” Grendel's mother- aka Angelina Jolie.

In all my years of studying the epic, Grendel's mother never was “sexy.” She was a glob of fat. Even in the later story entitled Grendel, she was worthless in everything but revenge.

So the only thing going through my mind when I watched this movie was hate. Yes, hatred was boiling my mind. It clouded my judgment for the first, oh, fifteen minutes of the movie before I finally started to pay attention.

And then I was entranced. Throughout the movie, I was almost glued to the screen, making comments to my friends about how things were different between the movie and the epic.

The one shining moment came with my wonderful realization- Grendel was speaking Old English! Actual Old English. I was impressed. Beyond impressed. It was like sinking into a sea of wonderful happiness.

Or perhaps I'm being a little too dramatic.

At any rate, I watched the movie, liked it well enough, and when it was over I knew of only two things.

1. I would have liked it more if I wasn't an English major who has a slight obsession with Beowulf
2. I would have not appreciated it as much if I hadn't seen the movie

So, it's no surprise that the tale of the vengeful prince is so widely familiar-and so widely made fun of. After all, the original is both difficult to understand, in terms of language, and excessively long.

An uncut version of the play runs around four hours, and let's face it: that's way more than the average person's attention span. The solution? Shorten it! Of course, abridging a work of literature solely for entertainment is often done with less than total concern for the original's integrity… resulting in delightfully irreverent abbreviations. Here are five of the best humorously shortened Hamlets, guaranteed to make Shakespeare cringe and you laugh out loud.

1. The Simpsons' Hamlet

   
   Who doesn't love The Simpsons? I've been a fan since I was too young to understand most of the jokes, but some of my favorite episodes have to be the literary parodies, making fun of everything from The Odyssey to Lord of the Flies. This approximately six-minute version of Hamlet, from an episode featuring three classic stories, stars Bart as the Danish prince and bartender Moe as his murderous uncle. It doesn't quite follow the real storyline, but the hysterical ghost encounter and play-within-a-play scenes more than make up for it.

2. The Animaniacs on Hamlet

   
   
   Okay, this one isn't exactly an abridged version of the play, but it's too entertaining to leave out. This little cartoon “translates” Hamlet's “Alas, poor Yorick!” speech into modern English-and not very respectfully, at that. It's a little bit cutesy (it is a kids' cartoon, after all), but there's still plenty for us grown-ups to laugh at.

3. Seamus Kennedy's “Three Minute Hamlet”

   
   Seamus Kennedy is an Irish singer and comedian, and one of my favorites among his pieces is his quick version of Hamlet (which is actually a little less than three minutes!) Some of the vocabulary's a bit odd, at least to this young American, and you'll probably want to look up the lyrics to make sure you catch everything, since he has to talk pretty fast to fit the whole story in so little time. But it's well worth it, especially the end! You can listen to the song on Seamus Kennedy's MySpace, and it's available for download on iTunes.

4. The Reduced Shakespeare Company

   
   
   The Reduced Shakespeare Company, which observes that “The comedies aren't as funny as the tragedies”, is famous for its show featuring ALL of Shakespeare's plays in extremely condensed versions infused with silly British humor. Their Hamlet is actually quite long (It's in four parts on YouTube; the link here is to the first), but certainly worth it. I'd also recommend the rest of their Shakespearean “reductions”, particularly Romeo and Juliet.

5. Hamlet in 60 Seconds

   
   No, that's not a typo. 60 seconds. If you watch only one of these five Hamlets, make it this one. It's absolutely hilarious. I can't think of a better way to spend a spare minute. (Thank God for subtitles, though.) Oh, and I recommend using the “pop-up” video option; it tends to work better.