Best pre-WWI battle scene in a movie

[celedhring]

I suppose by strange I mean I can't really see what the Soviets were hoping to get out of it

Prestige, I suppose? Also for some reason they went on a spree around that time of using the army to stage huge war films. There's the "Liberation" film series which chronicles the Soviet army drive from Kursk to Berlin that features hundreds of tanks and thousands of soldiers. The films are pretty mediocre themselves, mind.

[Admiral Yi]

My enjoyment of the siege in Mohicans was diminished by the fact that the didn't recreate a Vauban style fort with a sloped glacis and bastions, which is what it was. Is?  I'm guessing it's still standing.

Watching that scene I kept thinking those cannons should have blown that fort into toothpicks.

[The Brain]

Fauxban is the worst.

[Jacob]

While Theoden's speech and the pre-contact charge across the fields of Pelennor fields are both great and all, the Battle of Pelennor Field and the Battle of Helms' Deep scenees are both trash as far as I'm concerned. There's a complete lack of unit cohesion, it has the typical Hollywood everyone-fighting-one-on-one swirling melee, and it has combattants flung into the air willy-nilly. It's more like one of those trashy pay to win mobile zombie fighting games in terms of aesthetics than anything else.

So while I haven't watched enough of the others to say which is best, it's definitely not one of the LotR battles.

[Tonitrus]

Does the size/scale of the battle matter?  If not, and allowing light fantasy...then I gotta go with the Battle of the Mounds from Conan...after all, all that matters is two stood against many.  That's what's important. 

[Sophie Scholl]

My enjoyment of the siege in Mohicans was diminished by the fact that the didn't recreate a Vauban style fort with a sloped glacis and bastions, which is what it was. Is?  I'm guessing it's still standing.

Watching that scene I kept thinking those cannons should have blown that fort into toothpicks.

The fort you see was specially constructed and historically accurate in style/appearance. Earth and wood forts were actually pretty resistant to the type of siege artillery that was easily transported and used in North America during the era.

https://www.mohicanpress.com/mo06029.html

[Admiral Yi]

The fort you see was specially constructed and historically accurate in style/appearance. Earth and wood forts were actually pretty resistant to the type of siege artillery that was easily transported and used in North America during the era.

https://www.mohicanpress.com/mo06029.html

If that's the set, that's the set.  Strange I don't recall any bastions or glacis.

[jimmy olsen]

Is Aqaba in Lawrence of Arabia not part of WWI?

Have only seen a few of these voted for Gladiator.

Ops, yeah totally don't know what I was thinking there 

Gotta say I don't think it's a great *war* scene. It's just a brief charge against a lightly defended position. Dramatically it works incredibly well after the ordeal crossing the Nefud, mind.

It is WWI, but it's not the typical western front trenches we think of when we hear the term.

[jimmy olsen]

While Theoden's speech and the pre-contact charge across the fields of Pelennor fields are both great and all, the Battle of Pelennor Field and the Battle of Helms' Deep scenees are both trash as far as I'm concerned. There's a complete lack of unit cohesion, it has the typical Hollywood everyone-fighting-one-on-one swirling melee, and it has combattants flung into the air willy-nilly. It's more like one of those trashy pay to win mobile zombie fighting games in terms of aesthetics than anything else.

So while I haven't watched enough of the others to say which is best, it's definitely not one of the LotR battles.

Are there movies with pre-gunpowder armies fighting that do have good unit cohesion?

[Syt]

Does the size/scale of the battle matter?  If not, and allowing light fantasy...then I gotta go with the Battle of the Mounds from Conan...after all, all that matters is two stood against many.  That's what's important. 

That movie established my love for two-handed hammers as weapon of choice in fantasy games.





 

[Josquius]

Ah 80s fantasy.
So. Very. Shit.
Yet it was all we had.
Kids these days are spoiled for (also shit) choice.


To the poll....I know I've seen many of these films but can't remember the battles too well from most...Zulu is the one that definitely sticks out in my mind. I'd go with that. Its a proper battle, with the quiet points en al.

[celedhring]

I just remembered the Battle of Balaclava as portrayed in "Charge of the Light Brigade" and it definitely should have made the shortlist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h4e8llcfQQ&t=359s&ab_channel=johnbenson

I feel like the British Empire peaked around 1900 in real life, and then around 1970 in movies.

[PDH]

I chose the charge in GLORY as that manages to show the worthlessness of it all, how a unit goes from a cohesive group to component parts, and the final outcome of futility.

[FunkMonk]

I saw The King on Netflix recently and I feel like it shows the chaos and misery of melee battle pretty well.

[Savonarola]

It's been a long time since I've seen The Four Feathers, but I remember really liking the Battle of Omdurman from the film.  Like everything else in the film it is beautifully shot in glorious extra-color.  (I mean the 1939 version, of course, I've read the British are defeated in the 2002 version  .)