Funny realization occured...

[Beefy187]

HBO Rome had couple pretty nice battles.

Gladiator opening scene was pretty good considering Marcus Aurelius wasnt much of a tactician. No wonder the battle turned in to chaos.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

[...]serves mainly to give a character who lived in the 14th century 21st (well allright, 20th) century attitudes and values, which is of course utter trash.

This is exactly no. 1 reason why I hate King Arthur.

You were watching the movie with the wrong frame of mind. You were only suppose to pay close attention when Keira Knightley was on the screen.

And that is exactly no... 13 reason or so why I hate King Arthur. I just hate Keira Knightley.

[Mouzafphaerre]

.
Well, I can't show you a 100% accurate historical movie, even a documentary; but if there's a nearly 100% inaccurate one, that's Braveheart.

Even worse (about 125% inaccurate) are Turkish "Yeşilçam" productions.

.

[O'ETAIPOS]

Only until she goes around naked screaming and swinging knife that is... Then you pay extra close attention

Its bit new but I hate watching Russians fighting in WW2. For example the movie "Enemy at the gates" Yea just make the poor Russians charge against the machinegun and expect them not to run away.

The problem is that this is actually accurate. Russian soliders were too terrified to run away. There are accounts of NKWD soliders (soviet political police) executing officers of a unit that broke out from encirclement becuse they violated order to stand and die.

In soviet winter offensive of 1941 cavalry division was ordered to charge across frozen river agains dug in german inf - they were almost totaly slaughtered and on german side there are reports of MG barrels melting as there was no time to replace them with spare ones.

In 1943 (44?) platton of german veterans held for 3 days soviet inf corps. Germans had enough MGs to arm most of soliders (1 per 3?) and soviets were asaulting through the gap between two forests, some 2km wide. After each wave was repelled they used art barrage. Germans obviously retreated before it fell. On the 3rd day one shell missed and hit close to place where germans retreated, killing commander and few soliders and so making rest retreat

[Skandaz.Imperator]

Aragorn got to have the "Poor Tactician"-trait. For example, what's the deal of holding the elves' fire in the Battle of Helms deep? These warriors are freakin' elves, not your average rohirrim farmer, and with their almost perfect aim and superior bowskills, they could be pouring arrows on the Uruk Hais as they stand in formation (right before the rush for the wall).

Also, in the final battle, Aragorn allows his army to be surrounded without any reaction. On the other hand, Sauron seems to have the "Terrible Tactician"-trait, so lucky for Aragorn

[Moosemanmoo]

People,

Has anyone seen the movie "Braveheart" from 1995, I find it very hard to believe out of all the answers in this post regarding war movies, no one mentioned this movie. If you want to cry seeing a movie this is the movie you should see. Realistic medieval battles, betrayal, torture, if this is the stuff you like this is the movie for you. Fully recommend and I'm sorry if this got a little off topic. By the way didn't shed a tear till the last 20 minutes. A must see for all war movie buffs.

Well if anyone can prove that 1 scottish soldier is the equal to 1000 english soldiers then you may just be correct

It's probably just me, but it's hard for me to watch Braveheart and The Patriot, both Gibson films that only tell us about how ugly, stupid and weak the English are.

I simply can't watch my fellow beloved redcoats be portrayed in this manner, It hurts my English soul.

Anyone else irritated by how invincible the "good guys" always are in these films, I love war films where the characters bleed as easily as their foes .




Okay I know "English" and "British" aren't the same, but for simplicities sake don't bring it up

[Moosemanmoo]

Anyone else irritated by how invincible the "good guys" always are in these films, I love war films where the characters bleed as easily as their foes

Actually I go back on that when I think of Han Solo blasting those stormies


BUT THATS THE ONLY EXCEPTION!

[Roman_Man#3]

Gallipoli was a pretty historical move for the trench life of WW1. But it also shows the stupidity and ignorance of some/many British Generals.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

It's probably just me, but it's hard for me to watch Braveheart and The Patriot, both Gibson films that only tell us about how ugly, stupid and weak the English are.

Hahaha, The Patriot is utter crap!

A movie I like is Gettysburg. 4 hours or longer but very good I think.

[antisocialmunky]

Hahaha, The Patriot is utter crap!

A movie I like is Gettysburg. 4 hours or longer but very good I think.

It was a good movie. Way better than its sequel.

[Sakkura]

Well if anyone can prove that 1 scottish soldier is the equal to 1000 english soldiers then you may just be correct

It's probably just me, but it's hard for me to watch Braveheart and The Patriot, both Gibson films that only tell us about how ugly, stupid and weak the English are.

I simply can't watch my fellow beloved redcoats be portrayed in this manner, It hurts my English soul.

Anyone else irritated by how invincible the "good guys" always are in these films, I love war films where the characters bleed as easily as their foes .

Okay I know "English" and "British" aren't the same, but for simplicities sake don't bring it up

Well I did watch Braveheart the other day, and there are at least a few points where Scots die. Mostly during the battle where they are betrayed and defeated (Falkirk?).

Braveheart has a lot of inaccuracies, but still ends up a half decent movie. The Patriot is just... Bad. It's as inaccurate as Braveheart, but distorts the image of the English far more than the other movie; Longshanks was quite ruthless in real life, even if he didn't actually institute ius prima noctes - but the English were actually trying to conduct themselves in a gentlemanly fashion in New England, so as not to alienate the loyalists. Didn't work of course, perhaps in part because they relied on German mercenaries (which the locals didn't appreciate very much at all).

[cmacq]

Now, there's true to the story and historical truth. The movie Braveheart was about 15.5% accurate to the story. In this case historical accuracy's not worth a mention. Not killing the English, Franco-Normans and those that served them. I don't think many could even speak much ME, mostly French? Actually, mr. Braveheart, by his name alone, was a Brit and not a scot. Hope that doesn't start too big a fire.

To the Brits in Gawga, they were a bit more closed-handed, as they killed POWs outright, after at least one battle.

Overall just more Gibson's wrongism.

[AntiochusIII]

Yes, this happens to me al the time, whenever I read a book or watch a film, I keep thinking what an absolute moron, I could have done it so much better.

You said what I wanted to say, and better than I could.

Aragorn got to have the "Poor Tactician"-trait. For example, what's the deal of holding the elves' fire in the Battle of Helms deep? These warriors are freakin' elves, not your average rohirrim farmer, and with their almost perfect aim and superior bowskills, they could be pouring arrows on the Uruk Hais as they stand in formation (right before the rush for the wall).

Also, in the final battle, Aragorn allows his army to be surrounded without any reaction. On the other hand, Sauron seems to have the "Terrible Tactician"-trait, so lucky for Aragorn

Like somebody said though, the books were more intelligent about it.

Not that Aragorn was a masterful tactician in the books or anything (T. Man obviously was less concerned with detailed tactics than he was with epicness or whatever literary allusions he was pursuing in his work; and the literary Hero never really needed to prove that he was remotely intelligent, just that he was Awesomely Blessed or whatever -- for example that idiot Achilles), but at least they weren't particularly dumb. And fantasy has its own rules in any case. If we are to believe Tolkien then the elves could've laid low humankind anytime they want with their haxx0rs skillz, but they weren't particularly inclined to do so because it's not in their nature to be building huge empires.

At least The Lord of the Rings was better than The Silmarillion though. In that book he just said that Feänor's army was totally GAR and didn't even bother to explain how.

The Sims is a strange game to play..you are living out other peoples lives because your own is too boring or pathetic? I never understood the whole point of living other peoples lives..

Welcome to escapism, or, oh, fiction.

[Beefy187]

The problem is that this is actually accurate. Russian soliders were too terrified to run away. There are accounts of NKWD soliders (soviet political police) executing officers of a unit that broke out from encirclement becuse they violated order to stand and die.

In soviet winter offensive of 1941 cavalry division was ordered to charge across frozen river agains dug in german inf - they were almost totaly slaughtered and on german side there are reports of MG barrels melting as there was no time to replace them with spare ones.

In 1943 (44?) platton of german veterans held for 3 days soviet inf corps. Germans had enough MGs to arm most of soliders (1 per 3?) and soviets were asaulting through the gap between two forests, some 2km wide. After each wave was repelled they used art barrage. Germans obviously retreated before it fell. On the 3rd day one shell missed and hit close to place where germans retreated, killing commander and few soliders and so making rest retreat

I know.. Russian/ Communist armys tradition.. Charge until they are out of bullets

Just saying if I was the commander I wouldve done more fancy stuff.

Didnt know what you wrote on the 3rd paragrath. Nice.

[Rodion Romanovich]

serves mainly to give a character who lived in the 14th century 21st (well allright, 20th) century attitudes and values, which is of course utter trash.

Even though Hollywood exaggerates the idealism of the main characters in their most recent (a)historical movies to ridiculous proportions, I also find it disgusting when the opposite is done, and every historical character is made a savage brute which completely lacks all forms of moral values and ideals, and is only driven by an urge for power and bloodshed. They used to do that in some 19th and early 20th century artistic media for example, to glorify the own time and society as morally superior, and depict all earlier people as demons. And then, seeing those works of art, my reaction was instead something along the lines: "you would be surprised how much of Medieval morality was similar to our own, if not in underlying theories in the morality system - 'divine truth' vs 'freedom as long as nobody gets hurt by it', then at least in what practical actions would be judged as wrong, and what actions would be judged as heroic". I guess art will never manage to take a balanced view of this, as with all other issues that get screwed up in their attempts at depicting historical situations. But it's also understandable if the criticism is relative instead of absolute, denoting only a direction. Historical accuracy is not about pushing something to its extreme, but to find the interval on all scales, in which things are realistic and believable.

I think that while Hollywood create similarities between historical cultures and our own where there were none, they also leave out a lot of actual true similarities. And those get even more obfuscated when all you can do while watching the movie is thinking of how wrong the invented similarities they present are... I guess Hollywood and others will be back at the "all historical cultures were packs of savage beasts" view again in 30-80 years from now.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Aragorn got to have the "Poor Tactician"-trait. For example, what's the deal of holding the elves' fire in the Battle of Helms deep? These warriors are freakin' elves, not your average rohirrim farmer, and with their almost perfect aim and superior bowskills, they could be pouring arrows on the Uruk Hais as they stand in formation (right before the rush for the wall).

Also, in the final battle, Aragorn allows his army to be surrounded without any reaction. On the other hand, Sauron seems to have the "Terrible Tactician"-trait, so lucky for Aragorn

Yeah, the circle formation followed by a charge, was a "I want my money back"-moment in that movie. But so was the elephant hamstring scene, Legolas climbing on the elephant in a way contrary to Newton's laws of physics, and Legolas' surfing on a shield in the previous movie.

[Mouzafphaerre]

.

Even though Hollywood exaggerates the idealism of the main characters in their most recent (a)historical movies to ridiculous proportions, I also find it disgusting when the opposite is done, and every historical character is made a savage brute which completely lacks all forms of moral values and ideals, and is only driven by an urge for power and bloodshed.

HBO Rome. I suspect it's directly or indirectly responsible for a reasonable part of "i hatez Rome!1!1xorz" hooliganism.

As I said before, I can't stand the LotR movies from the start since I came to read the books the first time.
.

[Beefy187]

I thought HBO Rome was amazing and it made me love Rome even more.
After all Augustus and Anthony did like women and Cleopatra was greek not Egyptian.

I thought Aragorn was wise to order the men not to shoot. Psycologically if he ordered to fire at will, soldiers rush too much and missand orcs would go psyco at them for shooting during what ever they were doing which makes the soldiers even more paniced. Just like the scene in "Last Samurai"

[antisocialmunky]

But they are elves. I think you see them machine gun arrows from the walls in one scene.

[O'ETAIPOS]

Yeah, the circle formation followed by a charge, was a "I want my money back"-moment in that movie. But so was the elephant hamstring scene, Legolas climbing on the elephant in a way contrary to Newton's laws of physics, and Legolas' surfing on a shield in the previous movie.

Legolas is an elf and this makes him bending laws of phisics a bit in book he is mentioned walking on the surface of deep, fresh snow almost without leaving marks on it, while Aragorn has to dig his way through. Same with seeing as far as horizon without problems conected to moving air and dust in the air.

[NeoSpartan]

Funny realization occured... my PC broke and my bro's PC can't handle EB

[Reno Melitensis]

One movie that show good tactical sense and realism is the old Spartacus movie staring Kirk Douglas. In the last battle Spartacus deployed his army on top of a hill, while Crasus army marched up hill, every cohort quite visible. The battle begins with the Romans sending their scouts uphill, the Atesigniani, while the rebels throw fired hey balls down hill. Then while the legions go uphill in an ordinary faction the rebels charge downhill ( they had no other choice, they where already domed ), smashing in the legions, and a chaotic hand to hand erupts, qiute a battle the gladiators are taught to win, but in the end superior number on the roman side wins the day.

Braveheart is the worst, both battles are wrong depicted, the Scots infantry is wrongly depicted. Arthur too is wrongly done , but the best one is that of the Sarmation firing his arrow at a target he is not seeing, hiding in a tree and score a perfect hit, but at least the Saxons knew what a shieldwall was.

Cheers

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

- but the English were actually trying to conduct themselves in a gentlemanly fashion in New England, so as not to alienate the loyalists. Didn't work of course, perhaps in part because they relied on German mercenaries (which the locals didn't appreciate very much at all).

Lol. They had such a nice little civilized war, but suddenly those Germans came along and suddenly people got killed...

[JeffBag]

One movie that show good tactical sense and realism is the old Spartacus movie staring Kirk Douglas.

That Spartacus movie was incredible indeed; no retarded kungfu nonsense or whatever, the gladiators actually using tactics, and rolling logs down a hill to disrupt the legions, and no stereotypical character portrayal.

Another great movie was The Longest Day, about the D-Day. The German army was well portrayed, the firefights were realistic, ranging from the minor nighttime skirmishes of the US and British airborne and glider units, to the near suicidal ranger attack at Pont du Hoc, and finally to the beach landings and the attacks into the cities and towns near the end of the movie.

Oh, and the portrayal of the Russians in Enemy at the Gates was a little too extreme; true that deserters were shot, but the Red Army was never sent on blatant suicide rushes like that by the time of Stalingrad; Red Army tactics and doctrines was probably the best in Europe had Stalin not purged his army so terribly. Also, the depiction of the neatly uniformed soldiers given sharing one rifle between two, is grossly inaccurate too. The Mosin-Nagant was produced since 1891 and they had huge stocks of it in the armory. They probably had more rifles than uniforms, since the uniform was a much more recent change I believe. Also, the fighting in Stalingrad in the movie was ludicrous, I mean, there are dancing Russians at night? Just like both sides agreed to a ceasefire every night it would seem, and the buildings around them were all so empty. In reality, fighting was round the clock and very confused; buildings everywhere were occupied since being anywhere else was blatant suicide, and it was also not uncommon to have Germans on one floor, and the Russians on another, right in the same building, fighting for days.

[MiniMe]

JeffBag, you're completely wrong.
We, Ruskies are cowardly savage drunken barbarian horde, nothing more. This pretty explains everything, methinks. And if we on occasion have some ammo, we prefer to distribute all of it between NKVD machinegunners and go fight enemy barehanded. That is our wicked logic. That is how we win. Er, well, not exactly. The only reason we win is because of the weather. If we win during the winter, it is because of the harsh winter conditions. If we win during the summer, it is because of the hot summer.
Almost forgot to mention: afterwards if we, Ruskies, are lucky to survive, we go and copulate with bears.

One more thing: all, who oppose us, were tragic heroes, god bless them. Unfortunately, this way or that way, they were unlucky. This, and the weather conditions, and our russian savageness explain it all for me.

[Mouzafphaerre]

.

.

[Moosemanmoo]

JeffBag, you're completely wrong.
We, Ruskies are cowardly savage drunken barbarian horde, nothing more. This pretty explains everything, methinks. And if we on occasion have some ammo, we prefer to distribute all of it between NKVD machinegunners and go fight enemy barehanded. That is our wicked logic. That is how we win. Er, well, not exactly. The only reason we win is because of the weather. If we win during the winter, it is because of the harsh winter conditions. If we win during the summer, it is because of the hot summer.
Almost forgot to mention: afterwards if we, Ruskies, are lucky to survive, we go and copulate with bears.

One more thing: all, who oppose us, were tragic heroes, god bless them. Unfortunately, this way or that way, they were unlucky. This, and the weather conditions, and our russian savageness explain it all for me.

Oh no you didn't!

[Danest]

And here I was, about to say "how come nobody ever criticizes spartacus's inaccuracies?" I thought spartacus was almost nothing but propaganda to try to make the poor (as if spartacus represented the poor) look heroic, while making capitalists look evil. I thought Crassus was a popularis, anyway, but I'm not quite sure. *shrug* And since when did the slaves have access to more flame-based weapons and makeshift onagers than the Romans? Gibson isn't the only propagandist, just the one who gets bashed for it.

[antisocialmunky]

They beat enough Romans to have a tons of their stuff. I think they defeated like 3 legions or something like that.

[Moosemanmoo]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the power rangers. I grew up watching that crap, while other boys were cheering them on, I can remember asking how blue ranger didn't get cleaved in half by that massive sword, or why red ranger didn't get wasted by that machine gun

Those were the lowest days of my life