You Mean They Got It WRONG??

[MA-Caver]

Aww man and I thought that William Wallace made it with that babe in the movie! Darn...
A list of the top 10 historical movies that were WRONG!
http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/10mosthistoricallyinaccurate.html

Among them, Last Samurai, Memoirs Of A Geisha, and that perennial favorite 300.
Goes to show don't take everything you see in the movies seriously.

 

[terryl965]

Yea I saw that list, I guess they forgot no one said it was realistic but instead said it was entertaining.

 

[MA-Caver]

Yea I saw that list, I guess they forgot no one said it was realistic but instead said it was entertaining.

Well entertaining to be sure, but accuracy would be nice. Sometimes real life is more dramatic than made up.

 

[arnisador]

I'm shocked!

 

[myusername]

Aww man and I thought that William Wallace made it with that babe in the movie! Darn...
A list of the top 10 historical movies that were WRONG!
http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/10mosthistoricallyinaccurate.html

Among them, Last Samurai, Memoirs Of A Geisha, and that perennial favorite 300.
Goes to show don't take everything you see in the movies seriously.

I wonder wether - (if Mel Gibson's research is correct and who can honestly doubt such a reputable historical scholar?!) - the Scots would still be so proud of William Wallace if he had seduced the 3 year old Isabella of France in a tent in the middle of a field? It makes for a far more disturbing and less romantic scene than the one depicted in the movie!! tut tut!

 

[theletch1]

Do you have any idea how much trouble I got into for trying to explain that the last samurai was reversed in the movie? Man, some folks just want entertainment over fact... go figure. Ah, well, there's still hope for history nerds out there somewhere I guess.

 

[Sukerkin]

Ah, well, there's still hope for history nerds out there somewhere I guess.

:lol: - I guess that'll include me then .

 

[Steel Tiger]

Well entertaining to be sure, but accuracy would be nice. Sometimes real life is more dramatic than made up.

It would be nice to see the occassional slice of accuracy. You know, life is actually interesting sometimes, honest.

:lol: - I guess that'll include me then .

You and me both mate!


10000BC - damn this film drove me bonkers. Its got everything - towering Alp-like mountains in Africa, giant flesh-eating birds in Africa (extinct), Smilodon in Africa (never found outside the Americas), Mammoths in Africa (gotta go further north for those), pyramids built in 10000BC (5000 years to early), Atlantean god-kings (actually, I liked that bit), white folk living in the heart of Africa somewhere (the same place as those mountains) even though a lot of them were actually Maori (actors we see in Australia quite a lot actually).

Camilla Belle is gorgeous though.

Speculation and storytelling are one thing, but either keep within the bounds of what is know or guessed at or don't. Don't try to do both at the same time.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Everytime I hear about inacuracies in film my very first thought is the movie "Krakatoa, East of Java".... which was in fact West of Java.

EDIT

And what do you mean the Persian king Xerxes was not an 8-foot-tall Cirque du Soleil reject!!!! Damn that shoots down my whole Cirque du Soleil origin theory

 

[JadecloudAlchemist]

The most obvious one being Persian king Xerxes was not an 8-foot-tall Cirque du Soleil reject. The Spartan council was made up of men over the age of 60, with no one as young as Theron (played by 37-year-old Dominic West). And the warriors of Sparta went into battle wearing bronze armor, not just leather Speedos. Movie Info |  Trailers & Clips |  Production Photos

From the movie 300

Who would have thought a movie based off a comic book wasn't true.:jaw-dropping:

 

[grydth]

I have always thought that Cruise's role in The Last Samurai was due to an assumption that you had to have a star quality white male for a movie to succeed in America..... perhaps Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon cured that notion.....

Even good war movies like Enemy At The Gates had needless and inaccurate changes made... as if history wasn't compelling enough on its own...

 

[TheOriginalName]

Let's see.......if i want to learn about history i turn to history books.
Last time i checked none of the listed movies were classified as historic documents.

I've seen the majority of these movies and enjoyed them (perhaps a stretch of the truth for 2001) but i never walked out of the movies saying, "wow, so that's how it happened".

It's a movie....it's made to make money not to preserve historical facts.

 

[Sukerkin]

I quite agree, TON but the problem arises that a lot of people these days take what they see in the movies as verbatim truth if it's in a pseudo historical setting. They abrogate their education to Hollywood and thus you get warping of fact in the real world (such as the Wallace-mania that swept Scotland after the movie, despite it's gross inaccuracy and which causes problems to this day (allbeit very minor on the world stage)).

 

[grydth]

I appreciate - and genuinely respect - that you are intelligent enough to see this. However time and again, I have seen people taken in by the fiction parts. While you see that, many do not or can not tell the fact apart from fiction.

Since movies often advertise that they are based on the "history book", I find alterations made to be very questionable.... if not intentionally misleading.

Reading history books is no proof against false information. I believe Anthony Beevor has questioned whether the sniper duel at the heart of William Craig's original book Enemy At The Gates even actually happened.

 

[Sukerkin]

Aye, it has ever been true that the Past is a negotiated reality and that gets even worse when history is splintered by the lens of international interpretation. As an ex-Curator believe me I know all too well the pitfalls and blind-alleys that erudite texts can lead you up, let alone the flashy shams that are movies.

Some at least are fantastical enough that their lack of versimilatude is clear - "The 300" is a classic example of this. Even in that case tho', the young and uneducated (an all too common combination these days) will argue with you until blue in the face that the battle happened in a narrow, steep walled, pass ... right up until you show them photographs of the actual region .

 

[MA-Caver]

Well take a look at how they present it sometimes...

"Based on a true story"

"From a true story"

"A true story"

and so on...

I'd like it if they did all of them the way they did "Hunt For Red October"... "none of what you're about to see... actually happened."

That left you hanging a bit and wondered just how much of it really WAS true.

 

[Steel Tiger]

Let's see.......if i want to learn about history i turn to history books.
Last time i checked none of the listed movies were classified as historic documents.

I, too, have seen and enjoyed most of these movies. They are not accurate portrayals of history, but, as much as we might not like it, they are unfortunately historical documents. They record a perception of events that happened and that is where the trouble begins, especially when, as Caver points out, they preface the film with "based on true events" or something similar. All too often people are willing to turn to a film or docudrama for their facts because reading a book is too laborious. We know that are not supposed to be taken seriously but way too many people seem to forget that.

Some at least are fantastical enough that their lack of versimilatude is clear - "The 300" is a classic example of this. Even in that case tho', the young and uneducated (an all too common combination these days) will argue with you until blue in the face that the battle happened in a narrow, steep walled, pass ... right up until you show them photographs of the actual region .

A good point. The pass was originally about 100 yards wide with mountains one one side and the sea on the other. Unfortunately now, due to silting, it is much wider, which can lead people to believe the battle did not take place at that location (it doesn't look right, after all). But "The 300" cannot come in for too much criticism. It was a very accurate presentation of Miller's graphic novel. Miller created the inaccuracies the makers of the film are being castigated for.

 

[AndyM]

I wonder wether - (if Mel Gibson's research is correct and who can honestly doubt such a reputable historical scholar?!) - the Scots would still be so proud of William Wallace if he had seduced the 3 year old Isabella of France in a tent in the middle of a field? It makes for a far more disturbing and less romantic scene than the one depicted in the movie!! tut tut!

That's a rather disturbing re-working of what was actually written.

Let's forget the fact that kilts weren't worn in Scotland until about 300 years after William Wallace's day and just do some simple math. According to the movie, Wallace's blue-eyed charm at the Battle of Falkirk was so overpowering, he seduced King Edward II's wife, Isabella of France, and the result of their affair was Edward III. But according to the history books, Isabella was three years old at the time of Falkirk, and Edward III was born seven years after Wallace died.

Tartan had many forms before the kilt.
http://www.visitdunkeld.com/kilt-history.htm


Facts about William Wallace.
http://www.highlanderweb.co.uk/wallace/