Well, not among my friends, anyway, but that may just be a comment on my choice of friends.
> There's a difference between intelligence and education!
Yes, but...
> Moste people like nice, easy to digest, visually appealing
> *stories*, and "History" is all dry old boring dates about
> when X did Y that you had to learn in school
And then learn about *after* you leave school, because if you're not learning, you're probably dead... And that's what intelligence does for you. The "go and find out" instinct.
> But the Studios advertise these movies as "The true story
> of XX" - yes, they are definitely marketing these fantasys as
> the 'truth".
Aargh!
> > King Arthur
> Yep - including picts with flaming catapults. Every
> pre-modern battle has to have flamining stuff.
That I have got to see!
> My problem with the Arthur-as-Sarmatian theory is that a lot
> of the supposed correlations between Arthur-The-Sarmatian and
> Arthur-as-we-know-him-now had over 1000 years in which they
> *weren't* mentioned in connection with him:
> The Sword in the Stone, the Grail, etc.
Yes, the basic "there were Sarmatians there" theory is fair enough, they did have the right skills in the right place and time. But the rest of it.... Oh dear.
> > > Robin Hood Prince of Thieves (with Kevin Costner),
> >
> > Was that *ever* supposed to be based on anything remotely
> historical?
>
> There was a lot of publicity about how historical it was
> going to be, yes.
I must have missed that. Or just dismissed it as the usual hype, like washing powder descriptions and spam that offers to increase the size of body parts I don't possess.
> > > U571, the patriot (with Mel Gibson as a Revolutionary War
> patriot).
> >
> > As I remember those, both suffer from a nasty case of "the
> hero has to be American".
>
> Well, a movie set in the American Revolution *does* have a
> certain built-in restricton on the nationality of its
> characters... the hero pretty much has to be British (or
> Hessian) or Colonist.
True, but it doesn't *have* to be British is Pure Evil, American is Pure Good.
And while U571 is way outside bits of history I know anything about, if it's the one I'm thnking of, the problem was that while many of the daring deeds occurred for real, it wasn't Americans who did them.
> The historians commented on minor details like "Could an American
> crew actually sail a captured German submarine? ("No, the
> controls were much different between the two boats") or "You
> know the battle of Stirling had this bridge, the Queen was
> around 3 years old when Wallace was killed", etc.
Which aren't that minor!
> Achilles' Flying Neck-strike gets into the "Gladiator"
> occupational keyword as "Crowd-pleasing Signature Move" in ILH2...
Fine. Just don't pretend it's an efficient way of killing an opponent.
There's a Gladiator keyword in ILH2? Oh, great, a player and I were just looking at the one in "Tarsh in Flames and being very disappointed. Now, how long do we have to wait...?
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