Historically innacurate movies

Remove all ads!

I can't remember if Commodus was poisoned by the Senate, but I do know where he died: While using the toilet. That's why a common nickname for the toilet is commode...For Commodus, as a joke for where he died.

Although the 13th warrior is fiction, I thought all the different types of armor used by the vikings made it historically inaccurate. Most of the types are either several centuries old, or weren't developed for several centuries after.

 

I don't get mad at historical inaccuracies in films. Films are art. They are there to entertain, not to educate. And authors have been rewriting history as long as they have been writing. If you know the history, then perhaps the story won't interest you as much. No big deal, they'll entertain the next guy instead.

What bugs me is that people who watch films are naive enough to think they can trust a film to be historically accurate, or a novel, or whatever it is. I'm not talking about the people here that gripe about the inaccuracies. I'm talking about the people who assume there aren't any inaccuracies, the ones who watch Braveheart and believe they now know "what really happened" in medieval Scotland.

 

True, but what about those that do not know or even question it, like children? Art, yea; but with names and partial facts of the real history. IMO, the best solution would be simply twist the names too and thus not symbolize history to boost some national ego.

 

I think that's up to their parents to police. It's the artist's responsibility to make good art, not to educate. It's the parents' responsibility to educate, and to make sure that children understand the difference between art and truth. Just like parents shouldn't let their kids think professional wrestling moves are safe for children, they shouldn't let their kids think that Braveheart is a good resource for learning about medieval Scotland.

 

Well, to add my two cents worth to this line of discussion, I don't know of many people, aside from children who know not to take most films seriously in relation to them being fact or fiction, but what doens get me a little mad is when films are billed as being based on historical fact, true events or true stories and yet, most of the 'facts' are blatant fabrications by somebody. Now, I apologise if I have missd the point that was supposed to be made by the previous posts on this topic, but I feel that if a film is going to be billed as being based in some way on real life people or events, then the disclaimer at the end mentioning fabrications is simply not enough because I like to walk out of a movie of this type and be able to think "Well, I know have a little bit more real knowledge of that person/place/thing/event than I had before" and have that knowledge be true.

 

You didnt miss the point Aldazar, becuase that is exactly my biggest gripe too. Gladiator to me was always just a movie, so I really enjoyed it. I never even knew it was based on historical events. But the ones that say they are true stories, and then make most of it up. That is where I get so angry.

Out of interest, what do you guys think of what the Cohen brothers did with Fargo? They made a movie that was pure fiction, and then say it is based on true events at the start of the movie. They said there is nothing wrong with it, since it is their story, but I'm not so sure.

 

I agree with Laiwethel about Gladiator.
For instance, the riders ride arabian horses, which the Romans didn't and use crossbows which weren't even invented back then...

 

One movie I have refused to see is JFK. I've always wondered how many people are wandering around convinced they know what happened because of Oliver Stone.

 

I for one am tired of seeing Canadians portrayed as either morons or mountain men (yeah, I live in a log cabin and hunt my own moose every night,...eh.) Sheesh.

I know it happens more on TV then in film, but still.

 

How can Troy be historically inaccurate when no one knows what really happened? Does anyone consider the Iliad a historical document?

 

Troy is inaccurate when you compare it with Iliad and with the widely known version of the myth. It is historical inacurrate as well because it contains inacurracies like the use of coins. The war of Troy according to the most scholars took place around 1200 BC-1180 BC, while coins were used for first time by greeks almost 350 years later. Also, (I'm not sure about that because I can't recall the scene very well) I think that there were triremes among the ships, when triremes were invented 600 years later.

 

In a morbid way, I thought it was actually quite funny when I heard that some fool (or fools) had frozen to death searching for the buried money as mentioned in Fargo. The thing with that film though, I think, is that we hear so many stories about similar situations that it could BE true.

 

Kinda like all those fools who went out to where Blair witch was filmed looking for it. Some people are really cluekess.

 

The American films about 2.World War and Vietnam.These films are really annoying.Americans are the forces of good,and their enemies are evil,senseless killing machines.Yeah,these films really,really anger me!

 

I hear ya Argohir!

The noble and strong and invincible and all that americans. The opponents are hideously unfair snakes, backstabbers, torturers and the worst one can imagine.
And there's this even stronger and even more noble and even more invincible young man who comes there to wreak havoc in the name of justice!

Gosh!

 

Nothing can be made historically accurate. We just don't know enough(excluding the past century) and/or don't have the resources.

It is true that such films can make some people think the wrong things, but otherwise they're good. How many people will read the myths after seeing the movie? Movies are great curiosity sparklers on any topic.

 

a little of topic. So true, just look at LOTR, the books are being sold worldwide thanks to the movie.

I just saw the old Spartacus movie, it was hilarious. All does old films about Rome are so full of historical inaccurate scenes, but they are still fun to watch.

 

I despise the Hollywood culture of rewriting history. As a Scootsman I despised Braveheart and I don't care how many awards and rave reviews it got it was simply full of pure fantasy to appeal to an American audience who claim their Scottish because when America was discovered one of their ancestors went there and settled from Scotland the idiots!
Any film that rewrites history to put the Americans in greater glory by stealing accomplishments from others gets up my nose, although so did Independance Day by masturbating the ego of the USA (slightly off topic but illustrates my point.)
I did laugh when the makers of Titanic had to apologise to a small Scottish community for portraying a guy as a coward when in fact he was a hero

 

Has no one even metioned the hilariously WRONG Behind Enemy Lines?? My eighth grade social studies teacher was a huge war historian and he was furious for a whole month after he saw that movie. I'm not to sure about the facts besides it would never happen, but to that teacher, the only thing bigger than war history was the football prowess of the college Florida State, who at that time, were doing particularly well, and he never said a word about them for a month, which was highly unusual.

Also, back to Braveheart, you could get more facts playing Age of Empires II: Age of King's campaign about William Wallace than watching the movie. The prop consistancy is funny too, because when he jumps off a cart or something and runs into the woods, he has a sword, but when he is running in the woods, he doesn't. But when he comes back out the other side, he has it again...

 

I had a Professor in Old English who was a Scotsman, he just laughed about Braveheart and Rob Roy, he found the whole thing quite silly. "Sheer Fantasy" is what he called Braveheart, though he didn't mind the fact that it was pro-Scottish to the detriment of the English

I don't get too wound up about such things, though, because even kids soon figure out that the Hollywood Dream Machine is all about entertainment and very little about historical accuracy. I don't know a great deal, for instance, about the whole Amistad incident, but I do know that if I want to find out more, I'll read a book by a real historian and get the facts (which will then subsequently be slanted in whatever way the historian wants, that's the nature of even the best historian, so it's often best to read two or three books on a subject.)

Anyhoo, another silly little inaccuracy I read about once was the big bloody scimitar that Morgan Freeman used in Robin Hood -- such scimitars were not designed until much later, according to what I read in an article panning the film.