10 Most Historically Inaccurate Films?
 

I hated Gladiator for the very reasons they stated. While it was great they CGI'd a Roman city in all it's glory, I just couldn't forgive the "artistic license" taken in so radically changing the story. Just make some leader up that wants to kill someone else.... set it in Roman times and be done with it.

Does anyone know of any others that could be added to this list?

I'll go out on a limb and mention every film ever made about Jesus, none of which, to my knowledge ever paint anything resembling an accurate picture of Jewish society at that time in history. Nobody who actually had power is represented as having any, and people who never had any are represented as having it, who was and was not popular among the people is never portrayed well, not to mention a few other errors about how Jewish society worked, although to be fair, those come from the gospels, and not from the filmmakers....

The recent Marie Antoinette movie was fairly disastrous, although I'm not sure anyone expected any verisimilitude from it.

Pearl Harbor, not for details of the bombing assault, but just because I'm positive a wuss like Affleck would never have made it to a plane in that situation.

The recent King Arthur movie, also. There seems little evidence to suppose that Arthur was that heavily Romanized, rather than simply being a Celtic chieftain.

Kingdom of Heaven. A number of incorrect political details, not to mention details of Arabic society at the time, and one or two other things....

Michael Collins. Gorgeous film. Details not so smooth. Also...Julia Roberts?!

Titanic. 'Nuff said.

U-571.

It was the freaking British for goodness sake.

Braveheart and The Patriot, hands down, but that's Mel Gibson for you - why let a little thing like historical accuracy get in the way of a good bit of English-bashing?.

Good call on U-571 as well.

Braveheart: Also, Isabella of France was referred to as the "She-Wolf of France." Mainly because she was the binary opposite of the soft-spoken character played by Sophie Marceau.

Two corrections:
1) I've seen the movie, so I know that the mammoths were removed from their natural environment, the tundra, and moved to the desert to be used for manual labor. It was a part of the story line that was made pretty clear. Not only that, but the mammoths were clearly dying from the heat. Many had lost a lot of hair, and were clearly near death.
2) Nowhere in the movie was it established that the pyramids were at Giza. There are dozens of pyramids around the world that are many thousands of years old that have nothing to do with Egypt.
Actual mistakes:
1) Horses... 12,000 years ago? Nope, modern horses are about 6,000 years old.
2) Walking from a frozen tundra to a rainforest to a desert in a few days? Sorry, but that kind of radical change of climate doesn't exist on Earth.

i'm not sure that historical accuracy is a relevant criterion for judging a film.
the idea is kinda stupid if you really think about it.

personally, i find the least accurate films to be those which try the hardest to be accurate--like "the return of martin guerre"-- which was done with natalie davis hanging around as accuracy consultant--and which would have you believe that the 17th century french peasantry spent most of their time scuttling about being busily authentic.
you know, doing "authentic" things.
where the camera could see them of course.

films is a particular world that has nothing at all to do with the world that preceded film.
the most accurate films historically speaking aren't films.

to think otherwise is basically to imagine that it is the right of some asshole sitting on their couch to be able to see in all its detail the entire sweep of human history.
well, it isn't.
there are limits to spectatorship.
get a grip.

Braveheart is the one that gets me - my ancestors indeed faought side by side with Wallace, and while Braveheart is a nice movie and did loads for Scottish tourism, it doesn't even come close to history.

roachboy, I had similar thoughts when I first saw this thread, but I decided to approach this with a light heart.

If these films were historically accurate, they'd be unwatched documentaries with relatively minuscule budgets.

did someone forget that he also directed Apocalypto?

Yours too, huh? I'm a Fraser of Lovat, we have a vast and storied history of beating other people up.

Other inaccuracies of Braveheart:

-Woad.
-The Battle of Stirling Bridge (the bridge had a slightly bigger role than is portrayed in the film).
-Mel Gibson's accent.

yeah--see that's what posting after a bunch of wine can result in.
mea culpa.

the point's right tho.

Of course the point's right. Nobody really wants to see completely accurate portrayals of history. Some of them, like 300, don't even really pretend to be historically accurate.

To quote some famous journalist, "the truth should never get in the way of a good story."

http://www.tartanweb.org/clanhistory/auchinleck.html

That's us, on my mother's side, killers of Early Percy. Don't mess with us!

I also have a William Wallace in my ancestry somewhere, but I gather it was a popular name at one point and does not automatically denote a connection to the original.

Quite a few westerns fall under the historically inaccurate label. Not many movies come to my mind that show that many western towns had a higher literacy rate per capita than eastern towns/cities, were peaceful for the most part, and that rape was practically unheard of.
Of course there were and still are the 'bad' towns that are full of crime.

on another vein, just thought of the film about the Scopes trial, that was full of errors.

The Hollywood movie where they claimed America cracked Enigma was a fucking disgrace.

There is historical inaccuracy, and there is pissing on the graves of heroes... an disgraceful thing to be created by such a close and strong friend.

Yep. Agreed.

It was the Polish who built the bombes that let the brits beat the codes.

It was actually a couple of Polish guys who cracked the Enigma Code.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_Rejewski

They never really got credit for their work.

In my opinion, an accurate account of the British breaking the Enigma machine would require a story about Alan Turing who contributed significantly to "cracking" it, was persecuted for being gay, and killed himself with a cyanide laced apple. I'm not sure how well such a story would hold up as a Matthew McConaughey action film.

300's inclusion in this list shows how little the author understands it. Actually very few people understand the movie in the first place. I'll explain it though:

The reason why things are so big/exaggerated/mystical is because the entire story is told through the words of a man chosen for his skill in storytelling. That is: when you see a giant 100ft elephant, it is because the storyteller is describing them to be that tall - not that they actually were.

exactly. QFT.

Halle-fucking-lujah!

Most historically inaccurate movie?

The one where the Duke plays Gengis Khan. I win.

Major League. The Indians win the World Series? C'mon...:p

You know, of all the contenders for this list, 300 jumped to mind immediately when I saw the thread title.

YES, I understand the film was based on Frank fuckingWOW Miller's graphic novel. No problem with that, or the way he portrayed Xerxes as a giant in *appearance* (big/exaggerated/mystical).

The part that bugs me is, um... Hell-LO: Naval portion of the battle? 200 Athenian ships attacking 8000 Persian boats? The 300 were actually 1300 (yes, please include the Thespians, because they VOLUNTEERED to stay back in the holding battle while the bulk of the Greek force withdrew to fight another day).

But yeah, whatever. I probably watch too much History Channel.

And as far as the Hollywood version of Americans cracking the Enigma code from WWII; pissing on the graves of heroes, etc... well:

Wouldn't be the first time a movie did that. Probably won't be the last, either.

Don't even get me started on Gladiator or Braveheart, though. I seriously don't know much at all about history, but when I saw those two flicks I totally knew they were both complete bullshit from the first five minutes.

(Though I do confess that I AM ENTERTAINED! by them. Kinda like when I watch Tombstone... which, now that you mention it...)

I'll shut up now before I go about 8 pages in this thread...

Exactly.

Best inclusion: 2001 :lol:

that was one of my first thoughts. The film was a bit of a surreal experience the first time I saw it. And it has the whole 'uncomfortably high number of cast dying of cancer' factor going for it.

According to the Star Trek universe, we should already be in the middle of the Eugenics Wars.

Actually I'm pretty sure they happened in the '90's. By now we should all be living in a post-nuclear war society that is trying to rebuild.

As far as Back to the Future Part II is concerned, we get flying skateboards in under seven years! Sweet.

Kind of off, and on topic..

The Movie Alexander.. how factually accurate / inaccurate is that? I have no knowledge of Alexander.

Personally, didnt really enjoy the movie.. it just seems to generally fit in the Genre.. of the movies on that list

Alexander=another movie ruined by Oliver Stone.

It's difficult to tell how correct Alexander was because instead of focusing on his military battles and facts around his life, Oliver Stone decided to make the movie into an orgy and only really featured on battle. So it might have happened, but there's virtually no evidence to support a lot of the interpersonal crap that the movie had (re: GAY SEX).

Who dares speak ill words about my avatar, I'm not sure but for some particular reason, Xerxes was kinda cool in that hedonism has an ego kinda way. The way he stepped down from his pyramid and the five guys made stairs, then the deep voice thing, and the "I have a massive god complex and some mommy issues"!! He was a well depicted embodiment of evil. Cool.

My nod to roachboy - Confederate States of America.

They won the penant, not the series in that one. C'mon Hollywood knows that there are certain things NO ONE will believe.

Saving Private Ryan, Gangs of New York and Enemy At The Gates all miss key historical elements. Yet I enjoy them all for they're entertainment, not history lessons.

This pretty much sums me up - I don't go to the movies to fill in gaps in my non-fiction knowledge. The majority of movie makers want to make an engaging movie - why let the truth stop that?

Any film "based on history" by Michael Moore or Oliver Stone.

You mean Alexander the Great wasn't a cast member of Queer Eye?

As a horse nerd, I have to correct you on your "modern horses are about 6000 years old" statement. Horses were DOMESTICATED around 6,000 years ago. Equus caballus is certainly older than that, definitely existing long before the end of the Pliestocene (10,000 years ago).

(from http://news.softpedia.com/news/Short...on-81754.shtml)

I think the closet thing to a historically accurate film I've seen was the Life of Brian.

I have this feeling things weren't that far off from that :thumbsup:

Otherwise I have a very hard time finding any truly 'accurate' movies. All tend to combine multiple people into one character, ignore what doesn't translate easily to the camera that sort of thing.

Hell even when it would be good film like the Battle of Sterling, they decide showing how it really happened would be too expensive so instead make up some silliness with pikes vrs cavalry.

At best you can get a feel for the time, but much like they butcher a good novel, history gets butchered just as badly.

1984.

Only off by 20 years.