> > The difference between Braveheart and Xena is that Xena never
> > pretended to be anything other than campy fantasy...
>
> You mean Braveheart does? There are people around who'd take that
> seriously? Oh.
Yep. Maybe not in *your* part of the world, I can't say, but yes, there are people that actually *beleive* the pap that Hollywood dishes out as "history".
> > Now, I love campy fantasy as much as the next man (sometimes
> > more). What I dislike intensely is fantasy wrapping itself in
> > "the true story of..."
>
> Well, if the wrappings are supposed to be believed, then yes, it's an
> insult to the intelligence of anyone aged above about 5....
There's a difference between intelligence and education! 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 were graded on. But the Studios advertise these movies as "The true story of XX" - yes, they are definitely marketing these fantasys as the 'truth".
> > history. Examples: Braveheart, King Arthur (the recent film
> > with Arthur-as-Sarmatian),
>
> I really must get around to watching that. I seem to remember there's a
> certain amount of evidence for the knights-based-on-Sarmatians theory,
> enough to be worth writing fiction based on, anyway. And no doubt the
> fight scenes are as much of a laugh as usual.
Yep - including picts with flaming catapults. Every pre-modern battle has to have flamining stuff.
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.
> > Gladiator,
>
> Hmmm... Good story, anyway. Fight scenes hilarious.
I was disappointed that the chariots that crashed during the "Battle of Zama" fight *didn't* burst into flames! It semed...unnatural.
> > 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.
> > 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.
There was a TV show over here called "History or Hollywood" that examined a lot of these movies from both the "Hiostory" side ((interviews with historians, re-enactors, etc) and "Hollywood" (producers, actors). Invariably the final vote was split - the Historians said that the movies were Hollywood, the actors said History. 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.
> You missed Troy - only loosely based on Homer, and with some very
> "interesting" ideas of period weapons and how to use them. But it's got
> good-looking blokes with not many clothes on waving swords around, so
> that'll do me.
I "missed" a lot of movies ;-).
> > Just don't use the "true history" films as exemplars of what
> > life like or what actually happened in their era...
>
> With the former perhaps being the more dangerous. We don't care what
> actually happened, for Gloranthan purposes. The danger is picking up
> ideas of what's realistic. "But that's how Achilles uses a short sword,
> therefore...." "that little farm had that many cows, therefore..."
Achilles' Flying Neck-strike gets into the "Gladiator" occupational keyword as "Crowd-pleasing Signature Move" in ILH2...
RR
C'est par mon ordre et pour le bien de l'Etat que le porteur du pr=C8sent a
fait ce qu'il a fait.
- Richelieu
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