alexander...the movie

[VAE VICTUS]

ok just wacthed ALEXANDER the movie.ok from a movie goer stand point i liked it.from a historical standpoint im not sure.i read alexander the great by peter green last year.but forgot a lot of it.so can anyone point out the historical errs?i have some i think,but im not sure.but was alexander's "GRAND PLAN" of mixing races and making europe and asia one,was there ever any kind of inkling of this in the annals of true history?and if so did he mean it,or did he merely lust for power?

[Colovion]

After reading Alexander of Macedon by Harold Lamb (which is essentially a biography) I can say from what they portrayed, it was relatively similar to the biography. They obviously missed huge events in the movie like the Seige of Tyre and others, but what they were displaying turned out rather well in my mind. I wasn't expecting the best movie ever, but in general it was very similar. He was a Macedonian who fell in love with the Greek culture and then later, much more so, to the Eastern culture. In doing that I believe he became the epitome of what he desired; everyone to accept and appreciate everyone else's cultures.

[Byzantine Prince]

I love how people in the west consider northern greeks, non-greeks, or barbarians. This despite the fact that we had the same names, language, religion, and culture. What do you guys need a birth certificate of every northern greek for the past 6,000 year?

Yeah the movie was good, but it's not one that I would want to buy. There are some lame parts that could have been better. Also why on earth did they have to shoot in northern Africa?!? That's why it cost them so much money, they could have easily done it on the deserts of California and Nevada, but NOOOO.

[caesar44]

Maybe he was Graeco-Macedonian ?

[The Stranger]

the movie sucked, but from historical view it was oke. but it still sucked, atleast it wasnt worth paying $9 for

[Taurus]

I did not like the movie one bit. There should have been a lot more battles in that film and a lot less scenes reminding us of ALexander's preferences. ALso the battles that were included like Gaugamela were only about 3 minutes long. They could have made that film a lot better imo.

[The Marcher Lord]

Hated that film, what a lost opportunity to make something truly great with all that money - and what do we get ? Irish accents everywhere, that god awful Vangelis type music, annoying long stretches of narration by Antony Hopkins, rubbish sets full of ridiculously clean ornaments and structures that looked like they had been bleached before they were stuck in front of the camera, hilarious wigs, duff acting. The only bit I enjoyed was the Indian elephant attack which was very dramatic and well filmed, but completely inaccurate.

[VAE VICTUS]

Hated that film, what a lost opportunity to make something truly great with all that money - and what do we get ? Irish accents everywhere, that god awful Vangelis type music, annoying long stretches of narration by Antony Hopkins, rubbish sets full of ridiculously clean ornaments and structures that looked like they had been bleached before they were stuck in front of the camera, hilarious wigs, duff acting. The only bit I enjoyed was the Indian elephant attack which was very dramatic and well filmed, but completely inaccurate.

how was the elephant scene inaccurate?just curious.

[The Marcher Lord]

That last battle seemed to be a summarised mish mash of all of Alexanders battles in NW India. I took it to be the battle at Hydaspes versus Porus's elephants, but that actually took place on the open floodplain of a river, not in dense jungle. Alexander was wounded by an arrow in a battle for one of the Indian cities rather than at Hydaspes. It is difficult to believe that Alexander would have fielded his army in a jungle situation - the scene with the phalanx flailing about amongst creeper laden trees and cavalry charging through jungle just did not ring true for me.

[Colovion]

I love how people in the west consider northern greeks, non-greeks, or barbarians. This despite the fact that we had the same names, language, religion, and culture. What do you guys need a birth certificate of every northern greek for the past 6,000 year?

I'm not pulling this stuff out of the air, I'm pulling it from Greeks writers such as Demosthenes. He lived at that time, he was a Greek, and he didn't see Macedonians as Greeks at all. Couple that with Alexander having Macedonian and Epirote royal blood in him, being born in Macedon and being raised there, I fail to see the Greek ethnicity. Oh by the way this:

the same names, language, religion, and culture.

is complete Greek revisionism and total bollocks. Educated peoples of the day, and merchants, would use Greek to speak with eachother. Alexander spoke Greek, but he would use his native tongue to call on his troops as they spoke Macedonian primarily. Do a little more reading on the subject - I've had this discussion with many people and the other side never have anything other than grand conjecture and blatantly false assumptions thrown around.

[Kraxis]

Keep the politics out please... We all know the arguments and counterarguments. And we all have out idea of the truth, and I can safely say that noone will back down. So what is the point of the argument? NONE!!!

So please do not continue this. It is about the movie not about Alexander's ethnicity.

I actually liked the movie.
It had the balls to show him as a slowly degrading man with a genius on the battlefield. Most other movies would have presented him as a conquering hero all along with a sly smile or a deep frown as he contemplated the future. You know, mythical status.

I'm sad, though, that Tyre or Gaza was left out (save a short comment on Gaza). I'm also sad about the confusing pace of events. At one point Alexander storms out of the palace, the next he is at Gaugamela... To anyone who doesn't know the events would be quite confused, and I know several people who did get confused.
I did like how we folloed the army to end of the 'world', to see how they suffered, how they began to struggle against Alexander and finally forced him home. It did give the movie a streak of mythological events. Not the least because Alexander and his buddies kept talking about other mythical events.
The battle of Hydaspes was to say the least, very impressive, but unlike the rest of the movie it was horribly ahistorical. The only historical parts was the fact that the elephants did pressure the phalanx, the rest you can throw out, including the setting.

All in all it was worth it for me, perhaps because the view I had of Alexander was that of a semi-crazy man, so it fitted well with the movie.

[eadeater]

Terrible movie - but his lady friend was very nice

[caesar44]

With 200,000,000 $ even I could have done a better movie

[Kraxis]

With 200,000,000 $ even I could have done a better movie

Wishful thinking...

[caesar44]

No , just an opinion .
(please notice the "even I" , me so modest )

[AquaLurker]

I appreciate movies that dare to dwell on historical controversies so... yes I like it very much.

[Gurkhal]

I have to say I thought it was pretty good. That much of the battles were sumerised into two bigger ones didn't really make me mad, and I think it was good that it wasn't just several hours of fighting and dying but dialoge and such.

A good movie, even if not exceptionelly good.

[Soulforged]

I never saw any movie from Oliver Stone wich sucks. This is not the exception. I also liked how Alexandros is painted as an human and later idealized as a myth. And someone talked about the sets, man if you see the work that they do to do such thing you will be grateful of seing such an splendid Babylon, the only film with greatests sets that i've seen is perhaps The Lord of the Rings. And the movie is about Alexander not about the battles, so they tried to see the human behind the general as far as one could tell, and do some mention to the battles and history so everybody is advised.

[VAE VICTUS]

Terrible movie - but his lady friend was very nice

hell yeah,he shuold have been like hephaiston who
?!?!?!

[Gawain of Orkeny]

This is the third thread on this movie and it still sucks. Even more of a let down than RTW. Well maybe not that bad.

[VAE VICTUS]

BUT THEY LEFT OUT TARSUS!!!!!(thats my fav. part of alex. except for when he fights porus)

also,did the elephants break the phalanx?

[Kraxis]

No, not really, neither in real life nor in the movie, but they inflicted serious losses on the troops. Perhaps that is an indicator of them actually breaking through but the breakthrough was dealt with by light troops? Who knows. But the result was a bad scare for the phalangites.

[edyzmedieval]

I liked the movie, especially the battle. But it was as I expected it to be. Not very good, average movie.

I prefer much much more Kingdom of Heaven.

As for historical stuff, the phalanxes really had a good scare.

[Advo-san]

I'm not pulling this stuff out of the air, I'm pulling it from Greeks writers such as Demosthenes. He lived at that time, he was a Greek, and he didn't see Macedonians as Greeks at all.

"Blessed are the poor-minded, for they will inherit the kingdom of heaven". Demosthenes was an ATHENIAN retor (=polititian) that was trying to persuade the Athenians to march against Phillipe (Alexander's father) in order to save an Athenian city named Olynthos which was invaded by Phillip How 's THAT for history knowledge???

@Colovion: I ve read all three Dimosthene's speaches written against Phillipe. His argument about the barbaric, non-greek nature of the Macedonians is so feeble even Dimosthenes is not bothering to back it up. He is just throwing insults on Phillipe.
But, you preffer to ignore things as the language of the macedonians (not their trading language, but the language CARVED ON THEIR GRAVES), their gods and culture. Did you know ARISTOTLE WAS ALSO MACEDONIAN, from a village named Stageira? Mabe he wasn't Greek too, ha!!
Mabe you should pay a visit to Phillip's the barbarian grave, and read the scripts carved on it. It is GREEK. Ask a Greek to translate it for you. It is his native language.

[Steppe Merc]

Language is not the same as culture always.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I never saw any movie from Oliver Stone wich sucks. This is not the exception. I also liked how Alexandros is painted as an human and later idealized as a myth. And someone talked about the sets, man if you see the work that they do to do such thing you will be grateful of seing such an splendid Babylon, the only film with greatests sets that i've seen is perhaps The Lord of the Rings. And the movie is about Alexander not about the battles, so they tried to see the human behind the general as far as one could tell, and do some mention to the battles and history so everybody is advised.

Soul':

Boy do you and I differ on Stone.

I have never seen one of his movies that didn't end badly. He does some wonderful things, and the first 2/3rds of every film are powerful and compelling. Then, just as you are looking for a smooth finish, he goes and hammers his point at you in an overly obvious and over-preachy way. It's almost insulting to the intelligence after the thematic development of the rest of the film.

Seamus

[pezhetairoi]

They left out the Gordian Knot (which I think would have been a great insight into his personality if they wanted to study him as a person), they left out Siwa (or did they? I can't recall) but the most offensive, they left out the historical accuracy!

Firstly. At Gaugamela, Alexander's life was saved by Cleitus the Black who tells him to be more careful next time. Nonsense. That happened at the Granicus, not at Gaugamela.

Secondly. There was no infantry charge at Gaugamela. The battle opened and was mainly the action of cavalry. The infantry only clashed when they were very close together, and Alex was breaking through them. Most of what the infantry did was running away and being gunned down--I mean, speared, by pursuing horsemen.

Thirdly. Rhoxana in the movie is too big-sized (and her boobs are a tad too big too.) for a Central Asian.

Fourthly. Hydaspes (as has been mentioned) was fought on a floodplain, not in a jungle.

Fifthly. Why the hell is Roxana trying to kill Alexander?

Sixthly. Whatever happened to the sack of Persepolis?

Seventhly. The Siege of Tyre, though that's justifiable given the focus on Alex as a person, not as commander.

Eighthly. Darius...wearing eyeshadow? Suffice it to say that Alexander was at least a better movie than Troy (oh my eyes still hurt when I remember watching that show).

Ninth. The Indian longbowmen, according to historical sources, were actually unable to muster a volley of the destructiveness we saw in the movie. Firstly, Hydaspes was fought in heavy rain, or at least just after it. The Indians are reported as not even being able to string their bows, since it was their habit to string the bow by bracing the bow on the ground, and the ground was soft, which defeats the purpose. Also, their strings would have been hopelessly wet by the damp. Also, the Indian longbows were frankly overstated in power since they were in reality cane bows without recurving etc. So what if they were longbows?

I know that the phalanx would have been OOOOHHHH for me if I hadn't played RTW for so many months beforehand ;-) But now I'm just like, 'stupid persians, don't attack head-on! stupid chariots too!' xP

It was kinda touching to see the appropriate equipment on the soldiers too, frankly. Touching. And it was mildly surprising (it should be very surprising that I should be even mildly surprised) that the Persians weren't wearing uni-coloured pajamas. Ahem.

Ah well. My two cents worth. I once made a list of 52 errors in Troy, based on historical/archaeological knowledge and my reading of the Iliad. But, ah well.

[Soulforged]

Thirdly. Rhoxana in the movie is too big-sized (and her boobs are a tad too big too.) for a Central Asian.

Well i don't mind this really . And you cannot state this as a principle, just as a probability.

Sixthly. Whatever happened to the sack of Persepolis?

Oliver Stone sais it: "Too god damn much history on this man...". When you're a director you've to state your point before start the movie and decide what parts are in and what parts not. But as far as i can say it was not so historically innacurate, there were far more worser than this. For me it was a redemption from "Troy" (if i see Brad Pitt here in any time i will stick a lance throu his body and then run in circles around the Obelisco), and a really great movie.
Sorry Seamus but i must disagree. Have you seen "Salvador" it's an independent that uses the little budget to make surprising things, both historically accurate, impressing and realistic. The ends matter very little in his movies, is about stating facts when he's good, and don't give any message (the only thing i didn't like about "Alexander").

[Advo-san]

Language is not the same as culture always.

Very true, indeed, but it is a sign,no? So, we have a person whose:
1) Name is as greek as it gets, since it consists of two greek words put together, meaning the Defender.
2) He speaks greek.
3) His teacher was one of the most famous greek philosophers.
4) His favourite book to read was the Heliade.
5) His favourite hero was Achilles.
6) He offered a bull to Zeus the soonest he sat foot in asia.
7) His father's name was greek, two greek words put together meaning the friend of horses.
8) His mother's name was greek, named after the Divine mountain of Olympus.
9) The scripts on his father's tomb are greek.
10)He even gave his horse the greek name "voukefalas" meaning "the bull-headed".

On the other side, you have an enemy politician named Demosthenes who called Phillip "a barbarian", period.

The conclusions are yours.

[caesar44]

[QUOTE=pezhetairoi]They left out the Gordian Knot (which I think would have been a great insight into his personality if they wanted to study him as a person)

Agreed , but on second thought , maybe they knew that it is only a legend , ha ?