Timewaster's Guide Archive
Departments => Movies and TV => Topic started by: The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers on August 29, 2005, 11:06:23 AM
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reference: http://www.timewastersguide.com/view.php?id=1142
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I hate to be the neverending voice of dissent, but what little I've seen of Gladiator had atrociously muddy special effects. I can't comment on the story, since I have yet to see the entire movie, but the effects in the coliseum and whatnot are just...honestly, they're terrible.
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the movie never impressed me that much either, I've never seen the whole thing though. If I want to see Russel crow fighitng I'll just turn on "Russel Crow, Fight'n aro'nd th' Wor'd" with Tugga'.
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I hated Gladiator, and extending it would only make it more unbearable. I guess the director figures we'll feel sympathetic for the main character if Crowe makes earnest enough faces, because the writers sure weren't concerned about it.
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Wow. You guys are nuts, if I may be so bold. Gladiator was great.
What adventure/epic films have you liked in the past?
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I hate to remind you (well, no I don't) but I thought Gladiator was kind of a stinker. The directing was poor, the cinematography worse, and the character were so flat you couldn't see them if they turned sideways.
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Like I said, I haven't seen enough of it to comment on the story or characters. I will say, however, that it's not a genre I really like--I thought Patriot was an affront to peace and sanity, and I didn't even like Braveheart very much. My bad flavor in my mouth from Braveheart and its ilk, plus the horrid effect shots in Gladiator, made me pretty much decide that I had no interest in seeing the whole thing.
I loved LotR, though, which is in the same "epic adventure" territory, so maybe there's hope for me. And I loved Spartacus, which is another sword and sandal epic. I don't know.
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I love adventure/epic superhero movies, such as Batman, Spiderman, X-Men, and Unbreakable. But, I also hated Braveheart, and had no interest in the Patriot. Maybe my distaste is just toward historical epics, because I think they take themselves too seriously.
I did enjoy Saving Private Ryan, though I don't know if that counts for this category.
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Ooh, I loved Last of the Mohicans. And I thought Legends of the Fall was pretty good, though that was more of a family legacy epic than a war epic.
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I love gladiator. Sparticus is a good oldie, last of the mohicans was good enough, Private ryan wasn't bad from what I remember and Braveheart is good as long as I remove my brain.
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Both "Gladiator" and particularly "Braveheart" owed much to "Spartacus," (which is a great film, even if it's own director, the late Stanley Kubrick, isn't that fond of it.). I can where "Gladiatro" may not float everyone's boat, but to say that's it's badly directed just makes no sense. What on earth would you consider an example of good direction, if this is your standard of bad?
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I'm seeing two distinct categories here. It seems that most people here can be divided into two groups; those that enjoy heroics the most when they are safely removed from reality (spider man, xmen, last of the mohicans etc...) by a truly gigantic suspension of disbelief and those who enjoy heroics most when they touch closely on reality.
I know that I would get endless arguments about how closely gladiator did or did not remain true to the roman history of the time period, blah blah blah, my point is that it doesn't involve people who can shoot webs out of their wrists or elves.
I for one didn't find the characters flat at all. No doubt I informed them with baggage I brought to the film and thus mistakenly thought the writers did a good job.
There's no accounting for people's taste, hey?
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Why do you separate Mohicans into the fantasy category? It struck me as much more plausible and believable than Braveheart.
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Randomly: I wasn't aware that American Indians have some kind of resistance to muskets that allowed them to charge regiments of redcoats with more soldiers than them and win easily :P
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That's just the redcoats for you. American Revolutionaries had the same magic powers in The Patriot.
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God that movie sucked. Even more so than the presence of so much american flag waving would account for. Films where the director obviously read the us constitution every morning before filming tend to be irritating at the best of times.
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The thing about the redcoats is that their fighting style was inept and stupid - it is really the most idiotic way to fight a war. But while I love "Braveheart," and saw it more times in the theater than i can count (and this was just in the Oscar re-release, because I missed it in it's initial run) I think it probably the silly movie overall, mostly because of the rather contrived romance between Wallace and the Princess. But I love both "Last of the Mohicans" and "Braveheart."
Back to the redcoats, "The Patriot" was by far the weakest film mentioned on this forum, and actually illustrates one of the major reasons why "Gladiator" was great. The villain in "Patriot" was ridiculous, "I love being evil" snivelling monster. I loved the character of Commodus in "Gladiator" so much because he really thought he was the hero of the story. Nobody really thinks they're the bad guy.
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the emperor was my biggest problem with the film
"I want to sleep with my sister! For absolutely no reason whatsoever other than it will make you hate me more! blah! Aren't I evil?!"
jeez.
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Why do you separate Mohicans into the fantasy category? It struck me as much more plausible and believable than Braveheart.
Well Braveheart was loosely based on history while Mohicans, unless I'm mistaken, is pure fiction set in a historic time.
I personally like both movies, Braveheart is one of my favorite movies, but never cared for the Patriot probably because I saw the Patriot overly vilifying the Brits to an unbelievable degree. It felt like it was a movie that was just trying to get people to go by showing the american flag and us kicking butt. It also didn't help that the villians, as I stated above, were presented in such a way that dosen't reflect how we think of Brits now.
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the emperor was my biggest problem with the film
"I want to sleep with my sister! For absolutely no reason whatsoever other than it will make you hate me more! blah! Aren't I evil?!"
jeez.
Everyone is entilted their opinion, and yours is wrong.
Seriously, I thought the reasoning for Commodus' incestuos feelings for his sister were very believable. This is a guy who lived shut away from everyone most of his life, hads severe emotional problems, and an obsession with getting the love from his family that he never felt he got. In his twisted perspective, this translated into a lust for Lucilla. I'll admit that it was didn't hurt that it made the character more creepy, but it also made him more complex and interesting. There was clearly a reason for it.
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Well Braveheart was loosely based on history while Mohicans, unless I'm mistaken, is pure fiction set in a historic time.
I personally like both movies, Braveheart is one of my favorite movies, but never cared for the Patriot probably because I saw the Patriot overly vilifying the Brits to an unbelievable degree. It felt like it was a movie that was just trying to get people to go by showing the american flag and us kicking butt. It also didn't help that the villians, as I stated above, were presented in such a way that dosen't reflect how we think of Brits now.
Well said. "The Patriot" was, in my mind, just a pale imitation of the other two films, and remarkably lame.
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The thing about the redcoats is that their fighting style was inept and stupid - it is really the most idiotic way to fight a war.
It was the way the napoleonics were won, nearly 80 years later =P
Commodius was a good villian. Another good one was the main enemy in Rob Roy. The film really made you despise him, then it gave him an unexpected jolt of sympathy right at the end. But you still wanted to cheer when he bought it.
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Seriously, I thought the reasoning for Commodus' incestuos feelings for his sister were very believable. This is a guy who lived shut away from everyone most of his life, hads severe emotional problems, and an obsession with getting the love from his family that he never felt he got. In his twisted perspective, this translated into a lust for Lucilla. I'll admit that it was didn't hurt that it made the character more creepy, but it also made him more complex and interesting. There was clearly a reason for it.
It was the gratuitous nature of working that out. Why are we interested, in any way whatsoever, in a villain with absolutely no redeemable values at all? I don't care about the historical reality of incest in Rome. I don't care about the historical reality of his capriciousness and total selfishness. If he can't at least APPEAR to have at least ONE thing about him that is REMOTELY sympathetic, then I can't even think of him as human. Thus stories about him are uninteresting. The incest was just some tacked on crime to make him that much more dispicable. Maybe they made a reason for it, but it was completely uneccessary for the story.
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I disagree--nonsympathetic villains can still be very interesting. But I like me some villains, so interpret that how you will.
As for the napoleonic wars, it doesn't count if both sides fight in the same stupid way. Of course that tactic will win if everyone's using it.
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ok, then, THIS villain wasn't interesting. At all.
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Last of the Mohicans is also loosely based on actual historical events, namely the massacre at Ft. William Henry which did take place.
I liked elements of Gladiator, the battle at the beginning and such, but most of the movie was completely ignorant of roman history and mindset. I mean gladiators were like the Football stars of their day and rarely if ever were they ever in real danger in the ring. Their opponents were often criminals or slaves with no martial training. More often than not a fight between 2 gladiators (both pro ended with the surrender of one who had been knocked to the ground. The "blood" in these bloodsports came most often during the intermission when criminals fought wild animals, or were killed by pros. A gladiatorial death where a real professional gladiator died was rare and kind of treated like a NASCAR death (OMG did you just see Kyle Petty slam into the wall and explode!!!... or OMG did you just see Seutonius Griecus get stabbed in the abdomen by a javelin). Since a real gladiator represented an huge investment no one was all that keen on having him killed.
The special effects actually bothered me less than the revolutionary roman drivel that no self respecting roman would have cared about. But thats lost on most people in the audience because most modern democratic nations have a different view of what a republic is than the romans did. The "spaniards" talk of the people when he refers to the senate is ridiculous because the Roman senate was an oligarchy of powerful families and not an elected body. Furthermore the notion that a dying Emperor would give them power out of the goodness of his heart is well, laughable. Especially that emperor.
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Actually, the senators were a hotbed of republican thought for much of Roman history. And the senate was a more democratic body than those in most other nations at the time, which were out and out dictatorships. The Emperor's power could be limited to a degree by the senate, which made rome different at least.
And the motivation given for the emperor giving them power is the same as given to Claudius at the end of I, Claudius. That also took some liberties (Claudius was changed to make him more sympathetic to modern audiences, mainly). It supposed that Claudius gave the emperorship to Nero to force the senate to get rid of him, making a republic once more. Not the strongest plan, but it did fit Claudius's very careful approach as shown in the series.
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And... most of the 'gladiators' shown in Gladiator were just common criminals and slaves. It's only after he proves his prowess that the Spaniard becomes a named Gladiator. Before that he was, I guess, just the between big bouts entertainment.
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I must comment on the comments on the "inept and stupid fighting style" of the redcoats.
Everyone seems to forget that the British conquered pretty much the entire world with that "inept and stupid fighting style"
While the American habits of shooting from behind trees and from ambush have been romanticized as the reason we beat the british, that perception is dead wrong. We never won a single significant battle or accomplished any real strategic victories until we were able to field disciplined infantry that beat the british at their own game. You can't hold ground in the face of a determined infantry advance in the british style by picking them off one-by-one from the trees. They just keep coming until they hold the ground they want and dig in. Until you can break their formation and cause them to actually retreat before they get where they want to be you accomplish nothing.
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One of the reasons I marked Mohicans as one of the more fantastic films is because it totally ignored the realities of warfare and fighting in order to make the hero seem superhuman in his abilities and the british bumbling and largely incompetent. Another reason was the overblown idealism all the characters displayed. Of all the films I listed I consider it the least fantastic but it was far more so than those I listed as realistic. (IMO)
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Random comment: I like and own the Patriot. I am fully aware of the silliness of the villainous villain, he was far too overblown and by extension so were the rest of the british villains. The reason I like that film and which made me want to own it all by itself is the sequence where the hero and his sons accomplish a totally believable and effective ambush on the british transporting his oldest son. And the fact that one of the american generals acknowledged the point I made earlier in this post about the need for disciplined infantry.
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To be fair, we only really beat the British significantly once -- but of course that was a pretty astounding vicotry, removing as it did so huge a portion of the British coloonial army. And it wasn't like the British couldn't have kept up the fight. They basically decided it wasn't worth it anymore and didn't send more troops once their army was squished once, and instead withdrew the remainder.
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One of the reasons I marked Mohicans as one of the more fantastic films is because it totally ignored the realities of warfare and fighting in order to make the hero seem superhuman in his abilities and the british bumbling and largely incompetent.
That's exactly what I was talking about. Nobody can charge a musket line and not take massive casualties. It's not going to happen. The American Indians were outnumbered by troops that should have mown them down in that open terrain and yet miraculously won with little loss.
Oh, and the main character is apparently using the Artic Warfare Sniper Rifle version of a musket at several points :P
Though the end fight sequence was amazing, irregardless of it's unrealism.
The 'inept' fighting style comments seem to forget that the americans firing from behind trees is just another form of guerrila warfare. Good at pining troops down maybe, but name me a single guerrila warfare force that has managed to take and hold terrain and cities? I can only think of the VK capturing cities during the Vietnam war, and they were heavily backed up by regular north vietnamese army units and tanks.
It's also worth mentioning briefly that the British in america had very few reinforcements coming in, compared to the revolutionaries who were drawing on a civilian population for multiple waves of troops. We were destined to lose a war of attrition.
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That ambush scene in Patriot is indeed the best in the movie, but I thought it was just as unbelievable as anything in Mohicans.
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Ent, there may some debate as the the democratic values of the Roman Senators, but not that much, they weren't a democratic body in any modern sense of the word, and they didn't have a great deal of love for either the Equestrian class or the Plebeian classes.
The Patriot & LOTM
To be really fair we did have several success against the British, namely Saratoga, Cowpens and Yorktown all conventional battles. It was these increasingly conventional battles, the impossibility of supply (facilitated by the success of a massive privateer effort) and war in Europe with every other nation (Holland, Sweden, France, Spain and Austria) and sympathy in Parliament that tipped the British hand toward abandoning the war. A brief comment on the villain in the patriot is that he's based on a real man, Col. Banestre Tarleton http://www.wga.hu/art/r/reynolds/tarleton.jpg and his "Legion" of Tories who were effectively Guerillas. Tarleton holds the distinction of being the most hated British officer to serve during the Revolution. Though he was probably not as bad as reported, "Bloody Ban" made himself a useful propaganda figure for his enemies. In reality he had a lot of problems controlling his troops, who lacked the discipline that more regular British Regiments had. It was Tareltons loss at Cowpens and the threat of an enemy fielding much larger armies in the south (Guilford Courthouse) that forced Cornwallis to retreat toward Yorktown.
Besides the events with Nathaniel and the company of foot early on in the movie and the miraculous shooting later on, I didnt think that LOTM did a bad job with their fight scenes. Considering that the french and indians outnumbered the column 3 to 1, and that it was made up of men, women children and a few regulars. They were also unarmed as per the surrender terms.
The actual numbers of people killed is unknown and probably wildly inaccurate, but historians place the full number at about 80-140. It is possible that the number was higher.
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1175.html
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Ent, there may some debate as the the democratic values of the Roman Senators, but not that much, they weren't a democratic body in any modern sense of the word, and they didn't have a great deal of love for either the Equestrian class or the Plebeian classes.
Granted. But in comparison to the other nations, it was still something that a Roman, especially a Rich one like Crowe played, could take pride in. After all, our nations are not true democracies either.
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It was the gratuitous nature of working that out. Why are we interested, in any way whatsoever, in a villain with absolutely no redeemable values at all? I don't care about the historical reality of incest in Rome. I don't care about the historical reality of his capriciousness and total selfishness. If he can't at least APPEAR to have at least ONE thing about him that is REMOTELY sympathetic, then I can't even think of him as human. Thus stories about him are uninteresting. The incest was just some tacked on crime to make him that much more dispicable. Maybe they made a reason for it, but it was completely uneccessary for the story.
See, I thought he was a sympathetic villain. He was crazy and evil, but I felt sorry for him, because he was so screwed up, nad in his mind, all he wanted was love, which he never felt he had recieved. Okay, maybe he's not sympathetic, but certainly pitiable.
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That ambush scene in Patriot is indeed the best in the movie, but I thought it was just as unbelievable as anything in Mohicans.
That's because it was lifted straight out of "Mohicans."
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That's exactly what I was talking about. Nobody can charge a musket line and not take massive casualties. It's not going to happen. The American Indians were outnumbered by troops that should have mown them down in that open terrain and yet miraculously won with little loss.
Oh, and the main character is apparently using the Artic Warfare Sniper Rifle version of a musket at several points :P
Though the end fight sequence was amazing, irregardless of it's unrealism.
The 'inept' fighting style comments seem to forget that the americans firing from behind trees is just another form of guerrila warfare. Good at pining troops down maybe, but name me a single guerrila warfare force that has managed to take and hold terrain and cities? I can only think of the VK capturing cities during the Vietnam war, and they were heavily backed up by regular north vietnamese army units and tanks.
It's also worth mentioning briefly that the British in america had very few reinforcements coming in, compared to the revolutionaries who were drawing on a civilian population for multiple waves of troops. We were destined to lose a war of attrition.
I see your point, though I must say that "irregardless" is not a word. Guerrilla has defintely been effective in winning battles (take a lot at "Black Hawk Down") but in the long, run, it is not the best.
The British troops are being attacked from the sides, and they are taken by surpirse. I thought it was completely believable, and was based on a scene from the book, which in turn based the events on actual skirmishes and battles.
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they also werent positioned to take advantage of the weapons they were using. ie... standing in many ranks or a square. The column formation is very vunerable in the history of warfare, especially when you are being attacked from all sides by enemys who are also shooting at you from the woods as well as fighting hand to hand. The musket fire wasnt massed or organized, and order quickly broke down as the line fell apart. The indians did take casualties... but they werent outnumbered, they very clearly outnumbered the british.
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A fun side note - I remember reading a quote by Mark Twain about James Fenimore Cooper, the author of LotM: "Whenever the plot requires a character to step on a twig, he will find one and step on it no matter the difficulty."
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I see your point, though I must say that "irregardless" is not a word. Guerrilla has defintely been effective in winning battles (take a lot at "Black Hawk Down") but in the long, run, it is not the best.
o_o
1,000+ dead somali militia. 18 dead american troops. This is 'effective at winning battles'?
A fun side note - I remember reading a quote by Mark Twain about James Fenimore Cooper, the author of LotM: "Whenever the plot requires a character to step on a twig, he will find one and step on it no matter the difficulty."
True :)
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o_o
1,000+ dead somali militia. 18 dead american troops. This is 'effective at winning battles'?
I thought about it realized I was wrong shortly after posting that. You are right, of course. But "Blackhawk Down" does prove the point that superior weaponry and numbers can still be hit hard by a surprise attack.
I am a history buff, but I will readily admit that I am hardly an expert on warfare. I just believe that wearing bright redcoats that scream out "shoot me!" and and firing all at once in a volley that the enemy knows is coming leaves them an opening to know when to hide and when to attack. But again, I don't claim to be an expert - I am pretty certain you know more about this subject than me, and I am not going to argue with someone that can obviosuly win.
Ultimately, "Last of the Mohicans" is one of my favorite films, whether it entirely realistic or not. As a peice of visual poetry and character development, it's wonderful. The fact is that none of the films we are talking about here are exactly "Schindler's List" in terms of being spot on with historical accuracy or believability. Epics are emant to be larger than life.
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1,000+ dead somali militia. 18 dead american troops. This is 'effective at winning battles'?
It is when you think life is cheap.
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That ambush scene in Patriot is indeed the best in the movie, but I thought it was just as unbelievable as anything in Mohicans.
As far as I can tell, and I have some experience, it was entirely believable. All the way down to Gibson getting in among the british on the trail. Surprise is supreme. Even all the way down to one of Gibson's sons having problems with having killed later and the other not.
Everything about it would have worked. Getting ahead of the brits on the road by cutting overland. Their positions being in easy range of the british but hidden and behind cover...
It was a beautiful example of an ambush that could realistically have been pulled off by an experienced soldier and two green kids.
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One of the reasons I regard BHD as a good film is that it protrays soldiers acting in a professional manner, as opposed to the hellraiser-teenagers-with-guns that are portrayed in many films (eg, starship troopers). Though american troops have a very low reputation here, heh.
Guerrila warfare works when used in concert with regular warfare. Killing a few guys and making life hard by slowing down the shoe shipments ain't gonna win a war. But doing that while you've got a normal war going on can just about tip the balance. Film makers, however, want heroes. As in people who tip the balance by themselves. Since a movie about men sitting around looking at maps (ie generals) would not be overly interesting, they go for the guerrila fighters, and then massively over-emphase the importance of their role in the war effort. It's a lot easier to make pre-gunpowder characters heroes since they could have more of an effect, and it looks more believable (even if they kill the same grandiose numbers of enemies).
It is when you think life is cheap.
True I suppose. Though it's rarely worked - the Zulu leaders tried the same trick and it failed abysmally.
I think that me, Skar, Fell and Patrick need to load up Rome: Total War (using the Total Realism mod of course) to prove this arguement once and for all! Or just to have a big battle with romans, I guess.
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On the whole american troops are the best educated in the world, unless your talking about the navy.
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Best educated (which can be debated endlessly) and with the most notoriously high friendly-fire rate :)
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Its not that high.
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It's certainly notorious, since the American Press absolutely loves it when it happens and touts it endlessly.
I wasn't aware that it was higher than anyone else though. Curious where you got any figures for the relative frequency of friendly fire?
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There are a lot of (uh...more than one) it's in the review that should be its.
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/me certainly hopes someone will fix that.
I admit, I didn't read for grammar that much with this article. My bad.
edit: are you sure there was more than one? Find and Replace only found one instance of "it's" at all. Of course, that instance was wrong, but still.
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I read one report of the Gulf War (the old one, 15 years ago) that reported that 98% of casualties lost were lost to accidents and friendly fire.
But then, that's because Saddam's forces, during that war, hardly managed to kill anyone.
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Another statistic from that war is that if you extrapolate the number of injuries and deaths from training exercises in the states to a training exercise as big and as long as that invasion, the invasion was far less dangerous.
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Eric, I probably just read that paragraph more than once and noticed it each time. :-X