misleading facts in movies..

[Sister Grace]

Thought this was an interesting article about history being used to 'imaginitive' degrees in movies. Its kinda sad really when you think about how most youth gathers thier information these days...

http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/10mosthistoricallyinaccurate.html

[indianasmith]

They left off two incredibly inaccurate films . .  .
John Wayne's THE ALAMO, which got nothing right about that event but the character's names and who  won the battle;
and THE DA VINCI CODE, whose gross distortions of Christian and New Testament history were so outrageous that nearly any serious Bible scholar got the dry heaves reading the book, much less seeing the movie.

[sideorderofninjas]

John Wayne's Conqueror, I didn't realize Genghis Khan was actually Caucasian. 

[Newt]

John Wayne's Conqueror, I didn't realize Genghis Khan was actually Caucasian. 

And wore a girdle.

[odinn7]

That's great...thanks for posting that.

My GF had to do a report on the historical inaccuracies of The Patriot last semester so I found that rather amusing that the film was on the list.

[Mr. DS]

I wonder why Titanic didn't make the list.  That one simply shouts out "historical inaccuracy". 

[Dennis]

Hollywood, being what it is, most of the time doesn't seem to want to make the effort, or spend the time and money it would take to make a historically accurate film. This is a shame because a lot of the flavor of a historical event is in the details, and now, with the advent of the internet, they are available to every one with a PC. I realise that they're in business to make money but a little more time spent in researching the subject of the film would add considerably to the quality of the product they put out for the rest of us to watch, they also would not be misleading millions of people about what happened.

[AndyC]

I had recently been reading something about Joseph Merrick, and I was surprised at the degree of historical inaccuracy in The Elephant Man. I'd always thought it was a fairly serious and respectable film.

There was a guy in the 19th century, last name Merrick, who was deformed, worked in sideshows and came to the attention of a noted surgeon - that was as accurate as the movie got. Beyond that, a great deal of dramatic licence was taken. The Wikipedia entry on the movie sums the differences pretty well.

[raj]

And then there's the end of The Green Berets, where you see the sun setting on the Vietnamese coast -- which happens to face Eastward.

[indianasmith]

I think what you have to realize is that many Hollywood films are FICTICIOUS stories with a HISTORICAL backdrop - ergo, THE PATRIOT and GLADIATOR. 

I am seeing a growing trend of making historically accurate films on the cable networks.  HBO's ROME, Showtime's THE TUDORS, and the one I just watched part of tonight, JOHN ADAMS on HBO.  All of these are incorporating more and more fact into the their narrative, and doing well commercially.

[asimpson2006]

I wonder why Titanic didn't make the list.  That one simply shouts out "historical inaccuracy". 

Titanic should have make the list, as well as Pearl Harbor, as there were some big historical inaccuracies in that film as well.

[Killer Bees]

History can never be as exciting as Bruckheimer film  *lol*

And anyone who is using the movies or tv to give them accurate historical information is just plain dumb to begin with.

[BoyScoutKevin]

Maybe we should come up with a list of the most historically accurate films. I'd start it, but I can't think of any.

I do find it interesting that Mel Gibson with "Apocalypto," "Braveheart," and "The Patriot," has three films on the list. Apparently, more than anyother filmmaker. What does that say about his next historical film?

[SynapticBoomstick]

*face in palm*...why?

10,000 B.C.
Director Roland Emmerich is usually a stickler for realism (see: sending a computer virus via Macintosh to aliens in Independence Day). So we hate to inform him that woolly mammoths were not, in fact, used to build pyramids. Heck, woolly mammoths weren't even found in the desert. They wouldn't need to be woolly if that were the case. And there weren't any pyramids in Egypt until 2,500 B.C or so.

MOVIE? Could it be a MOVIE? Could it possibly be a form of ENTERTAINMENT that isn't meant to be a HISTORY lesson? I like movie articles, they're really fun a lot of the time. However, writing a list for the sake of doing it is stupid. So many people are saying ""insert movie" isn't accurate!"

*punch*

300 is based on a comic book. That's it, nothing else is claimed.
The bad guy in Gladiator was whiney. Gee, maybe because in movies you're supposed to... not like the bad guy?
10,000 BC... I won't even say that it's just a movie anymore because some folks just love to wail on it.

Apologies, this is one of those topics that burns me a little. Surely people can tell that a movie isn't real

[Jack]

Surely people can tell that a movie isn't real

I really wish that were true, but unfortunately there are a huge number of people who believe that everything they see in a movie or TV show is true, or at least technically accurate.