misleading facts in movies..

[asimpson2006]

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. 

It's sad that people believe what they see on TV or in a movie.  If they didn't many people wouldn't have wacky views about the Martial Arts.

[BoyScoutKevin]

Darn! Wouldn't you know it? As soon as I log off, I thought of a couple of films are historically accurate, plus being good films as well. While not 100% accurate, they are probably more accurate than most historical films. Of course, they are "Glory" and "The Bounty."

Actually, since I have always been interested in how characters relate to each other in a film, I have a list of films, divided by century, that depict the most accurate character relationships, that I have found, if nothing else.

14th The Reckoning
15th The Messenger
----  Romeo and Juliet (1968)
16th Lady Jane
17th The 3 Musketeers (1970)
---- The 4 Musketeers
18th Barry Lyndon
---- The Bounty
---- Brotherhood of the Wolf
19th The Alamo (2004)
---- Glory
---- Shane
20th Lair of the White Worm
---- Two Brothers
Multiple The Greatest Game Ever Played

[SynapticBoomstick]

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. 

uh-huuurr-huuurr-huuurr! Teh Transporter 7w0 is t0t4ly r34list1c!

[Killer Bees]

People don't want movies to be about real life.  They can look out their windows for that.  What they want is movies to appear to mirror real life and then they wish life was actually like that.

Think about some of the movies you've seen.  Can you imagine if life was actually like that?  Cars that explode when they hit another car.  A person getting shot multiple times and still being able to stand up.  Unimaginable beasties attacking major cities.  Viruses causing people to become zombies.  Vampires attacking Alaskan towns.  Psycho killers coming back to life time and again.

Sure, it'd be exciting.  But life would be worse than a war zone.

[AndyC]

I think the distinction is in what the movie sets out to do, or at least claims to be doing.

We've all made our positions on nitpicking pretty clear, thanks to Wyrewizard. I don't think this is about fictional technologies or tweaking the laws of physics for entertainment value, but more about events presented as factual which are not.

There's nothing wrong with tweaking details, compressing timelines or cutting down on characters to make the story work better as a film, or setting a fictional story within an actual event. However, you have to get the big stuff right.

The Great Escape was a highly fictionalized account, but it worked because they got the basic history right and avoided any glaring anachronisms.

On the other hand, The Elephant Man had Frederick Treves rescuing Joseph Merrick (erroneously called John Merrick) from an abusive sideshow promoter, when in fact, Merrick was well treated in the sideshow, earned a decent living and actually approached the doctor for help with his condition. That's just too much dramatic licence for a film claiming to be biographical.

[Trevor]

I just saw Billie August's woeful Goodbye Bafana which deals with the supposed close relationship between Nelson Mandela and his last warder, James Gregory. Mr Mandela has been quoted as saying that his relationship with Gregory was not close at all and certainly not as close as shown in the film.

[ulthar]

What I like is when sanctimonius intellectual-wannabes like the writers of this Yahoo List spout off incorrect facts or gross misinterpretations in their effort to point out the stupidity of others.

See, the problem is that their list does about as much harm to 'history education' as the movies they deride.  Rather than correcting mistakes, they compound them.

My example?  THE PATRIOT.  If Gibson's character was based on Francis Marion, why don't they mention Marion was nowhere near Guilford's Courthouse, which is the obvious nitpick.  But no, rather they focus on the fact that the Patriots "lost" that battle.

While this is technically true, this battle is a classic example of a Pyrrhic Victory - a battle in which the 'winning side' really lost in the strategic sense.  Cornwallis' Army was so devasted at Guilford's Courthouse that it never really recovered.  Most actual scholars on the American Revolution consider this one of the key battles that ultimately led to Corwallis' surrender, and thus American victory, in the war.

Okay, what about Marion's killing "innocent Cherokees" as their attempt at character assassination?  Yes, Marion was a participant in the Indian Wars fought in the mountains of NC and TN.  As did Daniel Morgan (of King's Mountain fame, who actually WAS at Guilford's Courthouse) and other prominent officers of the Continental Army doing the King's Service in the colonies before the rebellion.  In fact, it was probably from the Cherokees (and their neighbors) that he learned much of what he applied later in the sandhillls of SC in terms of guerilla warfare wherein he became probably the most significant figure in the lineage of the modern US Army Rangers.

The way it's worded, the Yahoos at Yahoo make it sound like Marion was sport killing Indians during that period that 'pop' history traditionally shows "us vs them"  - post Civil War settlement of the West.  In other words, he did not "pursue and murder" innocent Cherokees, he was a soldier in an Army engaged in warfare.  We can debate the morality of that war with 200 years of hindsight, but that does not change the fact that warfare is not murder (and it's not like the Cherokees just laid down and got slaughtered).

Geez.  If we are going to have an article on historical accuracy on Yahoo, we should at least hope for some accuracy in THAT article.