Historical Inaccuracy Corner

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Brawndo

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Professor Cubbage said:
The inaccuracies in Braveheart really annoy me. The Battle of Stirling Bridge is the worst. Instead of being fought near a bridge it is fought in an open field with no river in sight. Then instead of taking advantage of the enemy's disorganisation and carefully timing their charge the Scots just charge blindly at the enemy and magically win because they're the underdogs.
+1. Also, The Patriot was really bad in the historical accuracy department.


I love movies with unabashed realism, bordering on cynicism. For example, Unforgiven (1992) is probably the only Western I've ever enjoyed watching.
 

RoBi3.0

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loukasmaki said:
RoBi3.0 said:
Heimir said:
Don't remember when but someone told me I was a moron when I said Alfred Nobel invented dynamite.

http://inventors.about.com/od/dstartinventions/a/Alfred_Nobel.htm

He then told me to go f**k myself and that I was a communist.

Americans, you need to put those guys in the looney bin asap ;) They're bad for your image.
That guy was a wank. Of course Alfred Nobel invented dynamite. He invented it to aid in mining and was completely horrified when humans started using it to kill each other. This is the main reason why Alfred established the Nobel Peace Prize.

Not all Americans are wank myself included. :(
Alfred Nobel actually hoped that people would stop waging wars when a complete army could be wiped out in moments with explosives. Ah if he only had known how that particular theory would work out...
hmmm interesting insight Thank You.
 

Lord-Ivan

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In regards to 300, regardless of storytelling and such, Spartans did not go into battle wearing nothing but a helmet and loincloth. They wore heavy brass armour I believe.

In regards to Braveheart, I believe, though have not personally confirmed, that in one scene where he is giving some dramatic speech to his troops, you can see he is holding a coffee mug in one hand. Not to mention some extras wearing watches.
 

teebeeohh

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artanis_neravar said:
Less stupid reasons then wanting our freedom and wanting to end slavery? like what? Conquering France? Attempting to conquer the world, over and over and over. Killing all of the Muslims and Jews that they could find?
converting the Baltic to Christianity, converting the Spanish peninsula to Christianity, Poland had it coming, wiping out non-catholic Christians to stop them spreading their believes, i want your Kingdom too, they try to get rid of monarchy, get em!, Poland had it coming(again), your cousins sisters uncle had a son who is the father of my sisters child so you are sitting on my throne and sometimes we fought over resources.
oh and i forgot the classic: the ma in the clouds with the fluffy white beard told me to tell you to kill people.
 

emeraldrafael

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Fangobra said:
... all of which ignore the period "No women on board" rule.

...
I take it you never heard of Calico Jack, Anne Bonnie, and Mary Read.

or any of these <url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_piracy>piratesses?


I'm just going to go ahead and cut to the chase and say any movie tat claims to be historically accurate, but specifically the Boy in the Striped Pajamas. really, a little nine year old snuck in to the camp, looking nice and clean, full head of hair, looks different form the majority of other people, and he gets gassed, when you work for his father? No, I dont think so.
 

DSQ

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I think the only film where I really cared was U-571 because it didn't just bend the truth but obliterated it. I mean the US wasn't even in the war when the enigma codes where being broken!

Otherwise it is not too important as long as the changes serve the narative. When dealing with real events it is important to handle the events carfully.
 

BristolBerserker

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Historical inaccuracy is one of my pet hates. Medal of 'Honor' as it is known(it's spelt honour) has already been mentioned so i will mention other ones.

1. Saving Private Ryan. Great film but apparently Steven Spielberg has never heard of Sword, Gold and Juno beaches before and didn't read up about Omaha much either. In reality, the rangers disembarked from British ships and were taken to Omaha Beach by Royal Navy landing craft. The film depicts them as being United States Coast Guard-crewed craft from an American ship.

2. The Bridge over the River Kwai. Again a great film but a lot of inaccuracies and it follows the tradition of..i'm going to tell you later. Firstly, the bridge was never that big or made out of wood, it was a steel and concrete bridge. Secondly, the prisoners were treated worse than depicted in the film and there was no collaboration. In fact, the British senior officer encouraged sabotage in the building process. Lastly, it was never destroyed, it is still there, which brings me to the demo team and the tradition thing i mentioned earlier which is in British war films there always seems to be some heroic american who leads the team when in reality we (i'm British if you hadn't guessed already) wouldn't of asked or needed a american to lead a special forces team because we were too busy teaching the americans about special forces. Well what do you expect from an american funded adaptation of a french novel.

3. Army of Darkness.

If you read my whole rant, thank you and have some applause.
P.S. I don't hate the americans, just their arrogance. I do hate the french and also their arrogance.
 

mental_looney

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Braveheart, it's just meh and not scottish histroy, there was no secret romance and the battle of stirling bridge was portrayed wrong, it's all wrong and a horrible dump on scottish history and accuracy
 

redisforever

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Iwata said:
redisforever said:
BlackStar42 said:
Pretty much every WWII movie ever made where America saves the day single-handedly. I'm looking at you, Saving Private Ryan. Has there ever been a movie about the Eastern Front?
Yes. I think. It was a Russian movie. And it was violent. Can't recall the name...
The brilliant "Stalingrad" (the German movie) is in the Russian Front, and it's simply superb. Then again, there's "Enemy at the Gates", which can suck a horse's dick.
Possibly. I'm not sure...
 

redisforever

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loukasmaki said:
RoBi3.0 said:
Heimir said:
Don't remember when but someone told me I was a moron when I said Alfred Nobel invented dynamite.

http://inventors.about.com/od/dstartinventions/a/Alfred_Nobel.htm

He then told me to go f**k myself and that I was a communist.

Americans, you need to put those guys in the looney bin asap ;) They're bad for your image.
That guy was a wank. Of course Alfred Nobel invented dynamite. He invented it to aid in mining and was completely horrified when humans started using it to kill each other. This is the main reason why Alfred established the Nobel Peace Prize.

Not all Americans are wank myself included. :(
Alfred Nobel actually hoped that people would stop waging wars when a complete army could be wiped out in moments with explosives. Ah if he only had known how that particular theory would work out...
Humans, someone tells you something, you feel the need to test it out. They're still not done trying...
 

Brutal Peanut

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I know people who kept going on about 'The Tudors' HBO show. "Oh, it's so wonderful! And it's teaching me so much!" Then they try to talk with me about it. They would start out strong and I would think, "Oh well maybe this is an alright show." Then their comments and the 'facts' that they were learning were disturbingly inaccurate. I tried watching it for myself and I found myself raging a bit. Even just the look of the characters made me shake my head and sigh heavily.

Of course I know why they really enjoy it, but hardly any of them would ever admit that it's not because they are learning. They really love the drama or they just want to see naked people, or perhaps both. Either way, it's garbage to me. But then I'm argued against that it is just a t.v. show, and it is not supposed to be accurate and that I need to lighten up. But if I were to start talking nonsense about something that they enjoy and know about, I doubt they'd react any differently.
 

Kimarous

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Most historical inaccuracies don't bother me in a lot of films. The only one I ever really freaking out over was "Ancient Egyptian sai weapons in 'The Mummy 2' WTF?"
 

emeraldrafael

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Commissar Sae said:
The Last Samurai, that movie is so filled with innacuracies it hurts.

1: Tom Cruise should have been French or German, as those were the nationalities the Japanese hired the most for military training, you know, people who had actually fought real wars and not extermination campaigns against natives (Fighting was brutal but much smaller scale adn against a poorly equipped enemy*.)

...
Because I suppose the Seven Years War (French and Indian for us in the US), the American Revolution, and the war of 1812, the Civil War, and (you could argue) the Utah War, dont count as "real" wars. Right.

as well as fighting a guerrilla unit the likes of which they wouldnt really see in such deadly force until fighting the Vietnamese (who also were a small and more poorly armed force then the US army) in the Native Americans, pretty much literally every step they made across the continent.

I'm not saying you're wrong, or that had to be the US that would go and help over all, but to say the US hadnt fought in any real wars before that time is just so... wrong.

*Also, there are historians who say that the US might not exist today if it werent for the fact that even before Cortez and most other countries had a real interest in staking claims in the new world, disease had wiped out a HUGE portion of the Native population, making pretty much whatever the Europeans and US Americans did cleaning up. Its very well possible that had it not been for thigns like Small Pox, the Europeans would have never been able to keep their stake in the land just through sheer overwhelming force and guerrilla warfare (of course, thats all speculation and heresay mostly)
 

wench

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Aerodyamic said:
Ben Simon said:
2001: A Space Odyssey. That never happened.

Seriously, though, Elizabeth 2 was really inaccurate. It just blended all the most interesting parts of Queen Elizabeth's life into a one-or-two month period, made up the rest of the character's actions, and layered it all with a green-tinted anti-Spanish message. Also, the acting was melodramatic and the film itself was weirdly colored, but that's a different issue.
My girlfriend refuse to Watch 'Elizabeth' or 'The Tudors', because she's a historical clothing geek, and she knows she'd spend every minute of every show berating the costuming for historical inaccuracy. The sad thing is, I've absorbed enough knowledge from her that I can occasionally pick out why the clothing is wrongly or inaccurately made, and it scares me.
Yeah, the clothes are always what gets me in films. I can deal with it if it's a fantasy setting (ok, so I got a minor twinge from some of Elizabeth's outfits in POTC), but the problems I see with costuming in "historical" films just pull me completely out of the story. I get that they do it for the look, and that 99% of people don't know/couldn't care... but it does get to me.
 

KarlMonster

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Don't read this. You already know what you believe. I must be lying.

The Stonker said:
But it is clearly obvious that Jesus lord our Christ and saviour was brought back from the dead and anyone saying that, the Bible isn't historiclly accurate then he's an idiot!
Because you would be in hell without god.
Hell!
Oh, I wouldn't say it is inaccurate...

The Synoptic Gospels were written for very specific audiences, so the message of the Good News was slightly altered in each to better adapt to the cultures to which they were written. They were never intended to be used as a dogmatic message to people 2000 years in the future. Yet the minor inconsistencies were latched onto within a few hundred years. Also Paul was a dick, and a granular reading of his letters reveals as much. He had a "break" of one sort or another on the road to Damascus. Peter couldn't stand Paul, and the Jewish Christians didn't trust him, because of his pre-break persecutions. The only possible audience left for Paul was "everyone else"; the Gentiles - to whom he had the stones to call himself an Apostle. Paul encouraged the Christian communities to seal themselves off from everyone else. This led to Christian elitism as early as the 4th century, and some of the world's most tragic violence. For example; Rome was sacked in 461 by Goths. Goths that were Christians.
[Also 'hell' was not invented until about the 5th century]
(source: Charles Freeman "The Closing of the Western Mind")

I don't have a (readily available) source for this but consider:
Jesus - if he had not already drowned through crucifixion - was probably killed by a spear wound. [Unless that wound happened to relieve the pulmonary edema, which is unlikely. Right?] His body would have been taken down on a Friday evening. The Sabbath begins Friday at sundown, and lasts until Sunday at daybreak. Jesus' friends and supporters had mostly fled, so only a few Jewish women would have been bold enough to claim the body and then prepare it for burial. But women weren't allowed out on the Sabbath. Even if they violated these very firm rules, the shops would not be open on the Sabbath, so they could not have gathered the materials to prepare the body until Sunday morning. So, people who could not have been around the body of Jesus since sundown-ish on Friday, went to the tomb (by way of a little shopping) on Sunday morning and found it empty.


xXAsherahXx said:
"Stop this war"

"Stop slavery"

"Back to war"

"Stop this war" ....repeat last two until history is over.
"Slavery" is often cited as the proximate cause of the American Civil War. But it wasn't. While Lincoln was reputed to favor the abolition of slavery (which was true), he publicly denied that he had any intention of forcing abolition on southern states. Yet by the time news of Lincoln's election had spread, southern politicians had worked themselves into such a lather that various states began declaring their secession before the new administration could take office.

Therefore, the American Civil War was caused by political polarization, misinformation, and scare-mongering.

Funny, that sounds so familiar...
 

KarlMonster

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wench said:
Yeah, the clothes are always what gets me in films. I can deal with it if it's a fantasy setting (ok, so I got a minor twinge from some of Elizabeth's outfits in POTC), but the problems I see with costuming in "historical" films just pull me completely out of the story. I get that they do it for the look, and that 99% of people don't know/couldn't care... but it does get to me.
Sorry, I can't resist...

"...It's BLEEDIN' weird having half the Tudor nobility on motorized bicycles!"

"It is velly sullear."

...

(*snif*) I love those guys.
 

Commissar Sae

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emeraldrafael said:
Commissar Sae said:
The Last Samurai, that movie is so filled with innacuracies it hurts.

1: Tom Cruise should have been French or German, as those were the nationalities the Japanese hired the most for military training, you know, people who had actually fought real wars and not extermination campaigns against natives (Fighting was brutal but much smaller scale adn against a poorly equipped enemy*.)

...
Because I suppose the Seven Years War (French and Indian for us in the US), the American Revolution, and the war of 1812, the Civil War, and (you could argue) the Utah War, dont count as "real" wars. Right.

as well as fighting a guerrilla unit the likes of which they wouldnt really see in such deadly force until fighting the Vietnamese (who also were a small and more poorly armed force then the US army) in the Native Americans, pretty much literally every step they made across the continent.

I'm not saying you're wrong, or that had to be the US that would go and help over all, but to say the US hadnt fought in any real wars before that time is just so... wrong.

*Also, there are historians who say that the US might not exist today if it werent for the fact that even before Cortez and most other countries had a real interest in staking claims in the new world, disease had wiped out a HUGE portion of the Native population, making pretty much whatever the Europeans and US Americans did cleaning up. Its very well possible that had it not been for thigns like Small Pox, the Europeans would have never been able to keep their stake in the land just through sheer overwhelming force and guerrilla warfare (of course, thats all speculation and heresay mostly)
Yeah I meant to expand on that at the time, I mean real by the standards of the international superpowers the US had not had any real wars. I've read plenty about the Cheyenne recently and those wars were as bloody as anything I've ever read about, but they were significantly smaller scale than say the Napoleonic campaign of 1812. The US was still a fairly insignificant power on the world stage at that time. Sure they were starting to pick up steam but Japan was much more interested in German and French military prowess.