TV/Movies Megathread

[viper37]

He likened it to watching a WW2 drama in which Hitler is depicted wearing plate armour and riding a unicorn into battle ...

it's historical fiction, not fantasy   

Great movie, a few things here and there that aren't working at all, but, hey, it's fiction, it's based on a novel, and it's a great movie.

[viper37]

I have a lot of writer friends that are taking old projects and repurposing them with superheroes to sell them. It's sad and hilarious at the same time.

Are these the same projects they previously repurposed with vampires and zombies?

Pride and Prejudice and Twilight.

[Barrister]

He likened it to watching a WW2 drama in which Hitler is depicted wearing plate armour and riding a unicorn into battle ...

it's historical fiction, not fantasy   

Great movie, a few things here and there that aren't working at all, but, hey, it's fiction, it's based on a novel, and it's a great movie.

There's more than a few things.  The blue face paint is hundreds of years out of date and the Battle of Sterling Bridge without a bridge are two of the larger howlers.

[viper37]

Watched the 3rd episode of Batwoman.  I thought it would get better.  I was wrong.

Plot of the week, the baddy is bad because... Batman saved his mom and prevented him from having his inheritance...  oh, wow!  What a plot!

Uh, I'm letting it go.

I'm giving Stumptown one more chance to impress me.  It has great actors, but I just can't seem to get into it.

[Sheilbh]

Gritty deconstructions of the superhero genre are now as ubiquitous as playing the superhero genre straight - maybe even moreso.

It is simply weird how this one aspect of popular culture - the superhero - has taken over so much cultural landscape.

It is odd. My theory(/hope) is that we're in the spaghetti/revisionist Western phase of superhero movies?

There's more than a few things.  The blue face paint is hundreds of years out of date and the Battle of Sterling Bridge without a bridge are two of the larger howlers.

I will never forget the SNP handing out leaflets in the cinema queues for Braveheart.

Also find it really weird because they were both kind of historical and Scottish it was seen as kind of similar to and competing with Rob Roy. Which is quite a different film

[viper37]

There's more than a few things.  The blue face paint is hundreds of years out of date and the Battle of Sterling Bridge without a bridge are two of the larger howlers.

There's history, and there's historicity.

All these are minor, cosmetic details.  And besides, only Wallace weared the paint.
The kilts are problematic, but it's about the same as Gladiator being called "Spanyard" instead of "Iberian" or "Lusithanian".  Not many people would have understood that.
With the Kilts, you immediatly knew which of the filthy armies was Scot, compared to Irish or English.
Stirling never been refered to as a bridge in the movie works for me.  Very minor point.
Queen Isabella being much older than in reality, very minor point.

If people chose to believe the real Wallace acted, spoked and did everything as it was in the movie, that's their problem, the same as if they believe a general turned gladiator was actually a contender for the title of Emperor of Rome by fighting Caligu-- err, I mean Commodus, in the arena.

What's important for me is:
- did the people in the movie act like people in this time period did?  Mostly, yes.  The notion of individual liberty might be much overstated in the movie, but the idea that commoners aren't too happy at fighting for nobles and nobles themselves aren't too fond of losing their priviledges by figthing the English is totally plausible.  They needed a reason to fight, Wallace gave them one in the movie.

- did the characters in the movie used weapons of the times, military tacticts of the time? Yes.  That is important to me.

-did the characters expressed themselves in a plausible way for the time? (say, a Roman general of the Republic expressing his anger at "God" for not granting him victory would kill the movie for me). I believe so.

The Last of the Mohicans isn't history.  Lots of mistakes in that movie, almost as much as in Braveheart.  Still a great movie.

[viper37]

Also find it really weird because they were both kind of historical and Scottish it was seen as kind of similar to and competing with Rob Roy. Which is quite a different film

as a kid, I loved seeing the stories of Rob Roy on tv, Disney movies, I think.
Same with Francis Marion and Daniel Boone.  I really liked that stuff.

The Rob Roy movie however, was really, really, boring.  Might have been closer to the true Rob Roy than the Disney tv movies though

[Tonitrus]

If people chose to believe the real Wallace acted, spoked and did everything as it was in the movie, that's their problem, the same as if they believe a general turned gladiator was actually a contender for the title of Emperor of Rome by fighting Caligu-- err, I mean Commodus, in the arena.

Point of order...Commodus was based on Commodus, not Caligula. 

[Valmy]

- did the people in the movie act like people in this time period did?  Mostly, yes.  The notion of individual liberty might be much overstated in the movie, but the idea that commoners aren't too happy at fighting for nobles and nobles themselves aren't too fond of losing their priviledges by figthing the English is totally plausible.  They needed a reason to fight, Wallace gave them one in the movie.

Seriously? Everybody acts like they are living in the 1990s. The villain is a 1990s villain. The understanding of gay people was an early 1990s view of them. And yeah even the view of commoners and how they relate to the nobles is exactly what somebody in the 1990s would think.

There may be a line or scene in the movie I don't hate, but finding it would require me to watch the movie again and I try not to do that. The fact it is incredible historically inaccurate is only one of its very many problems. The fact that it is a bunch of bigoted nationalistic garbage that actually had real life impacts based on lies isn't that great either.  I think it is absolute trash. I don't know how I can appropriately vocalize how much I hate that film.

[Sheilbh]

There's history, and there's historicity.

I'm not a full Scots Nat, but I am still furious at the treatment of Robert Bruce in that film and I will be to my dying day.


Also Wallace was a lowland lord who had support among lowland lords. The man with the common touch who had any contact with the Higlanders was the Bruce!

- did the characters in the movie used weapons of the times, military tacticts of the time? Yes.  That is important to me.

They didn't really use big claymores at that time. Just "normal" swords.

[Sheilbh]

Seriously? Everybody acts like they are living in the 1990s. The villain is a 1990s villain. The understanding of gay people was an early 1990s view of them. And yeah even the view of commoners and how they relate to the nobles is exactly what somebody in the 1990s would think.

Stunned that a film by Mel Gibson might not have a particularly nuanced gay character

[The Brain]

I tried watching Braveheart many moons ago. I managed about 10 minutes.

[Valmy]

I'm not a full Scots Nat, but I am still furious at the treatment of Robert Bruce in that film and I will be to my dying day.

They also kind of left out the fact that Wallace was launching his rebellion in support of John Balliol.



Totally me. 

[HVC]

Watched the 3rd episode of Batwoman.  I thought it would get better.  I was wrong.

Plot of the week, the baddy is bad because... Batman saved his mom and prevented him from having his inheritance...  oh, wow!  What a plot!

Uh, I'm letting it go.

I'm giving Stumptown one more chance to impress me.  It has great actors, but I just can't seem to get into it.

Hush? Because that's an actual plot line from the comic books

[Malthus]

He likened it to watching a WW2 drama in which Hitler is depicted wearing plate armour and riding a unicorn into battle ...

it's historical fiction, not fantasy   

Great movie, a few things here and there that aren't working at all, but, hey, it's fiction, it's based on a novel, and it's a great movie.

It's pure fantasy.

The main character wears a kilt, paints his pace blue, and wields a two-handed sword (and on occasion, nunchucks); he is shown living basically a mud hut, growing up in poverty, and is considered basically a barbarian (though he speaks French and Latin, much to the amazement of the French Princess with whom he romances). His motive for revolt is to kick the English out, as they have been oppressing the Scots for hundreds of years; in the cause of nationalist freedom for Scots as a people.  The immediate trigger of his revolt was the abusive behaviour of the English towards the Scottish women - symbolized by their lords claiming the "right of first night", to sleep with any Scottish bride (graphically shown in the movie as *the* motive to entice Anglo lords to move to Scotland).

Every particular of this is, in fact, wrong.

In reality, William Wallace was the son of an Anglo-Norman aristocrat; he undoubtedly spoke a version of French (as did his English counterparts; it was a generation or so until the English aristocracy routinely spoke English alone). He dressed, looked and acted as an Anglo-Norman aristocrat; in battle, he would have worn fitted mail, with a gamberson over that, and fought with a battle-axe or arming sword. He would have amazed exactly no-one by speaking French. His motive for revolt was to support his rightful king, John Balliol; because of course Scotland was an independent Anglo-Norman kingdom, had been for a very long time - King Edward 1 ("Longshanks") had offended the Scottish nobility by first asserting that Balliol was his vassal, then stripping this king of power and booting him out, thus provoking a war with the scottish aristocracy and a reluctant Balliol, that they lost (none of which is mentioned in the film). 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wars_of_Scottish_Independence

The kilt was only created some hundreds of years later. Ditto the two-handed sword. Painting one's face blue was a specialty of the Picts who fought the Romans, hundreds of years earlier; it is even less realistic than kilt-wearing, there is no way a 14th century aristocrat would do that. The Scottish wars were not wars of nationalist liberation, but dynastic struggles (though their outcome was to create a proto-Scottish nationalism).

The "right of first night" simply never existed, it is a creation of Victorian prurient fantasy.

That is to ignore the fact that the princess Wallace allegedly woos was 9 years old when Wallace died and only moved to England years after his death, that the Battle of Sterling Bridge lacked a bridge in the movie (which was the essential tactical point), that Wallace did not invent the pike formation (it predated him by hundreds if not thousands of years), etc. - all of which is understandable I guess.

The point is that his character looks, acted, was motivated by things completely alien to his time and place. He's made to look like a combo of 18th century highland tribesman (living in a mud hut, wearing a kilt, being considered a barbarian), an ancient Pict, and a 19th century nationalist - all motivated by a sexual custom ("first night") that literally never existed.