I hate it when they do that.

[Mike the Pike]

I have just finished watching the 2002(?) Franco-Italian TV mini-series about Napoleon on Sky. 'Twasn't too bad but as usual, I couldn't help but groan at some of the glaring mistakes. Shakos instead of Bicornes. Everyone a Grenadier. Ney apparently 20 years older than Nappy etc etc.

As a result I thought I'd start this thread about how Hollywood continually gets things wrong in historical/war movies to vent my geeky rage.

Feel free to add your posts about general Hollywood gaffes as well as specific mistakes that you have noticed.

I'll start the whining

-How come, in the post LOTR era, regiments, divisions and corps are continually reduced to a few dozen re-enactors. If Sir Peter Jackson can cut and paste a dozen Orks to look like tens of thousands why can't others take the aforementioned dozen and make them into the 11,000 men Murat led at Eylau?

-Why are soldiers in period dramas always so clean and 'uniform'. Were there really so many dry-cleaning stores back in Julius Caesar's time? Surely tunics/uniforms from those eras fade/fray/tear/wear out too.

-Why do some directors go to such great lengths to get some things correct but then ignore glaring errors elsewhere? Case in point, 'Saving Private Ryan'. Spielberg makes all his principals go through 'boot camp' in preparation for the movie and makes pretty decent looking replicas of a Tiger tank etc but then has the final battle take place between the Paras and the 2nd SS who weren't even present in Normandy during the period mentioned. It might seem like nit-picking but the characters specifically mention that the unit is the 2nd SS division.

-Then there are the exploding cannon balls. Every movie that features them immediately loses 1000pts in the credibility stakes IMHO. IIRC apart from limited use of Shrapnel shells by the Brits during the Napoleonic era, cannons (before the ACW) fired solid shots/and or grape shot! Arrrrgggghhhh!!!!! I can only assume it's because a small explosion with stuntmen flipping into the air is more acceptable than the actual ultra-gory results of a 12 pound ball of metal plowing into a file of men.

Anyways, that's enough venting for the moment. What do you lot think?

[Primarch]

I nominate U-571 as the biggest pile of lies ever shown on screen.

[Mike the Pike]

You mean Jon Bon Jovi didn't recover the Nazi Ultra codes and save Western Civilization?

[Spevna]

Some choice ones from Braveheart;

The voice-over at the beginning of the film tells us that Malcolm Wallace was a commoner with his own lands and constant references are made through-out the film to William being a commoner. However this is a common historical myth. Malcolm Wallace was in fact born as a minor noble and became a knight, as was William. They were poor as noble families went but were still infinitely more privileged than the commoners of the day.

The reason why it is called the Battle of Stirling is because it was fought on Stirling Bridge, in mud. The English had to file down into small ranks so they could cross the bridge, while William Wallace came in with full plate armour, not kilts, and butchered them with the rest of the Scots. [An amusing addition off the DVD to add to this mistake. Mel Gibson originally planned to film the battle of Stirling Bridge at the actual site. He had to scrap that idea because the bridge kept getting in the way. When he mentioned this to one of the Scottish history advisors on the film, the man's reply was "Aye, that's what the English found."]

Princess Isabella was a 13-year-old girl living in France when William Wallace was executed in 1305. She didn't marry Prince Edward until 1308, and the marriage took place in Boulogne, not London.

Bloody fun movie despite all that though.

[Mike the Pike]

Speaking of Mel 'The Jews made me do it' Gibson, I watched that atrocious piece of garbage masquerading as an historical epic called 'The Patriot again last night. There isn't enough bandwidth available to list all the problems with that turkey. The only saving grace was that the Bigot formerly known as Mad Max had the numbers to make it at least look right. Everything also was pretty much incorrect.

Here is a selection:

Lord Cornwallis wasn't even at the battle shown. The army was led by the dastardly Colonel Tarleton, a real person, who was actually 26 at the time.

The nasty Brits didn't burn any churches full of civilians during the campaign but have been accused of shooting prisoners after one battle.

The Americans actually outnumbered the British, about 1800 to 1100.

The British army had been marching for four days straight before the battle and had run out of food to boot. Hardly the fresh looking troops depicted.

Exploding cannon balls. Mel does at least try and there is one shot of a cannon ball hitting a column of troops. Unfortunately the ball is going at the speed of a bowling ball rather than one that has been shot out of a cannon. It still manages to tear the legs off a couple of American soldiers though. B- for effort but a D for actual execution.



Now if only we could get Hollywood to provide the money, the Brits to provide the male leads and write the script, the French to supply the female supporting cast and Kiwis to supply the extras and special effects, then we would have a great movie on our hands.

[Primarch]

Now if only we could get Hollywood to provide the money, the Brits to provide the male leads and write the script, the French to supply the female supporting cast and Kiwis to supply the extras and special effects, then we would have a great movie on our hands.

I'd watch that!