TV/Movies Megathread

[FunkMonk]

It's easily explained if you take every somewhat historical television show and presume they take place in an alternate universes or timelines. Boom. Absorb their creative energies and chill out, dudes.

Kinda like Highlander.

[Admiral Yi]

Because why would the show make that up? No reason at all, which is what makes it so puzzling. I mean it wasn't some expensive prop just one line on a script.

I figured the writer or writers said we need names of battles that people are (somewhat) familiar with, someone says "Verdun!"

[Tamas]

You guys don't seem to understand Tamas' point. It's not the scale of the inaccuracy, it's the stupidity of it, and the laziness behind it. It taints the rest of the period piece.

Exactly, thank you.

[Habbaku]

Maybe the writers were just playing up Churchill's penchant for embellishing his contributions?

[Valmy]

It's easily explained if you take every somewhat historical television show and presume they take place in an alternate universes or timelines. Boom. Absorb their creative energies and chill out, dudes.

Well I think that is the thing, I don't enjoy media that way. I am either really into it, or I don't care. Other people just turn their brains off and enjoy the spectacle. I just cannot do that. Film and shows and visual media like this have a really big impact on me and I am going to think about it for awhile after I see it. It can be fun but it is not really a relaxing experience for me.

And that is all I am saying really. For some people that kind of shit matters, for others it doesn't. It is just how it goes.

Kinda like Highlander.

Well ok now that is different

[Tamas]

Also it might not be true that this show was amazing and had no other problems, this might have just been the last straw.

Yes, if otherwise the show was great I probably would have soldiered on but it was just final proof of the laziness of it all.

[Valmy]

Because why would the show make that up? No reason at all, which is what makes it so puzzling. I mean it wasn't some expensive prop just one line on a script.

I figured the writer or writers said we need names of battles that people are (somewhat) familiar with, someone says "Verdun!"

And it could also be they meant to put in The Somme and got confused. But still come on, wikipedia it. It is right on your phone.

[Admiral Yi]

Maybe the writers were just playing up Churchill's penchant for embellishing his contributions?

I believe he was quite modest about his front line WWI experience.

[Admiral Yi]

And it could also be they meant to put in The Somme and got confused. But still come on man, wikipedia it. It is right on your phone.

I would have gotten it right.  That's why I get to feel superior.

[Sheilbh]

Because why would the show make that up? No reason at all, which is what makes it so puzzling. I mean it wasn't some expensive prop just one line on a script.

I figured the writer or writers said we need names of battles that people are (somewhat) familiar with, someone says "Verdun!"

Maybe. I don't know if it's that well known in the UK, which is why it's a little bit odd.

[Malthus]

Well it depends on how often that kind of stuff is happening. But here we have a show that supposedly about World War I veterans and how that experience influenced them. So it seems weird that professional script writers cannot even be expected to know stuff you can get from the wikipedia side bar, you don't even have to read the article. I mean yeah the gangsters do not need to use historically accurate tommy guns, but maybe they shouldn't use samurai swords because even as cool as that might be it probably wouldn't work in a show or movie centered around being a 1920s gangster.

Also as somebody who cares about this stuff it is really annoying because movies and TV have a huge influence. Most people get all their knowledge from this sort of media. It just seems so unnecessary to put untruths in there when it would take no time or effort at all to put something true, especially when we are talking about something as simple as a script. Because yeah, a lot of people are going to assume Churchill was at Verdun. Because why would the show make that up? No reason at all, which is what makes it so puzzling. I mean it wasn't some expensive prop just one line on a script.

And surely there would be some line of accuracy they could cross to annoy you? Isn't there? So somebody else's might be someplace else.

Also it might not be true that this show was amazing and had no other problems, this might have just been the last straw.

Well, samurai swords would be visually odd, so that would stand out and need explaining.

But who was at what section of the Western Front, less so. The better analogy would be using drum magazines when in reality only box magazines were ever used at that time: a detail a history buff would know, but no one else is likely to notice (how many people are familiar with the details of Churchill's war record?).   

What people are supposed to get from that scene was that Churchill fought in the front lines and so would be sympathetic to other front-fighters - which happens to be true. Not sure how historically relevant it is that he suffered there, or at some other, completely different section of blood-soaked front line.

Anyone that concerned with historical immersion would already hate the show right from the opening - it unabashedly uses modern music, as a stylistic choice, rather than early 1920s music.

 

[Admiral Yi]

Maybe. I don't know if it's that well known in the UK, which is why it's a little bit odd.

If the question is how many WWI battles are "that well known" in the UK, I figure the list would be one or two entries long.  The Somme and maybe Gallipoli.  But Verdun is a battle that is going to have *some* level of name recognition.

[Admiral Yi]

Is "Tokyo" blow, or some kind of crank?

[Sheilbh]

Somme, Ypres, Paschendale. Maybe Gallipoli. We are a *dreadful* ally.

[Admiral Yi]

Somme, Ypres, Paschendale. Maybe Gallipoli. We are a *dreadful* ally.

If you polled 100 people on the street, how many do you think would be familiar with Ypres and Pashendale?

Special bonus added question: how did the British soldiers pronounce Ypres?