I used to know a guy who always tried to win every argument by saying, "Were you there?" It was such an ignorant, arrogant and hypocritical way to argue his point since he obviously wasn't there either, and would ignore all evidence and testimony from people who actually were there.
How did he think juries work? The whole point is to gather people to determine whether a crime took place. They examine evidence, listen to witnesses, and make a decision based on the thing called "reason."
I got into it with a Western History professor regarding the Berlin Wall coming down and surrounding events. Apparently his academic credentials trumped my first-hand direct experience from being in the military and stationed in West Germany at the time.
@@FortunaeSD nisonatic is right. It is true that first hand experience is important but Academics do not go of one singular persons experience. They need an overview with as many sources as possible, which would include you and your perspective. A thing you'd need to understand is that there are a whole lot of other first hand Accounts which may claim different things from you or your group. Historians need to navigate all of that.
This is literally an informal logical fallacy called "argument from ignorance". You can't prove me wrong with definitive evidence, therefore I'm right.
my history prof had a doctorate in Egyptian history. she said she was consulted for several movies and tv shows. she said they tell them what they need to know but whether or not they use it or even listen to you is up to them, but they can still say they consulted historians.
yeah if it isn't in line with the director's "Vision" the director will discard it for some made up bunk. Clothing historians go through the same battle. Especially with "Of Corset hurts!" scenes where actresses get laced in a corset without a chemise. Corsets historically never was worn without a chemise. The chemise is there to protect the corset from the wearer's oils, and the wearer from the corset. Oh and directors who have actresses tightlace corsets in the 1700s. A thing that wouldn't exist till 100 years later. Looking at you, Pirates of the Caribbean!
@@zombiedoggie2732 My first thought exactly. I remember reading some article where the main costume designer of Vikings said she consulted various experts or something of that sort. All I could think was: "You may have consulted them, but you sure as hell didn't listen to their counsel..."
@@brucetucker4847 ... story about the guy insisting a guy who never set foot in the US, nor did his parents, must be "African-American" and all other terms are impermissible ...
@KaiHenningsen I remember at least hearing about an interview where a reporter was asking a black British athlete about his experiences, but kept referring to him as African American.
As you are one, I was sort of wondering if you consider us racist if we have trouble telling a Xenomorph, a Zerg, and a Tyranid apart. When I'm dropping onto planets and removing hostile predatory species for the waves of colonists, I don't want to think I'm some kind of bigot while looking through my scope. Just so I can rest easily, as I'm letting out streams of HEAP ammo, is there some kind of slant to the eyes of curve to the teeth that you can be told apart by? I mean I wouldn't want to be thought a bigot as I misidentify a head before I crush it under a servo assisted boot..... Tyranids are the ones with the acid blood, right? :)
lenin said winners right history books and i bet i could find at least one roman emperor who makes the same claim. napoleon wasnt as bad as he is made out to be.@@die1mayer
My dad made fun of me for not wanting to go see Napoleon with him(I already had plans anyway). But once he came back, he congratulated me on deciding not to go because it was awful.
I'm 45 now. I saw countless movies and tv-shows in my life. I was really entertainted when GLADIATOR came out in the year 2000. Yes, that one was as historically accurate as Star Trek, but it was at least very entertaining. By God, I watched Naploeon on Sunday and I felt Nothing, NOTHING. Ridley Scott might be just too old and stubborn now - he's 86... many people don't even live that long. And usually people get more and more stubborn and entitled in old age. He made some masterpieces, but WTF was Napoleon!
@@beyondlimitationsvideo Scott began his downfall in 2005, with Kingdom of Heaven. Since then, he made a few decent films here and there, but most of them are atrocious.
It's an *old* quote: "Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'” ― Isaac Asimov (sometime prior to 1970, I think) I believe Carl Sagan repeated the quote in the original COSMOS as well.
Metateon .. I was one of the mounted Pretorian guard in the Germania Scene of Gladiator. ( filmed in Surrey ) I was also by the horrendous “war chariot “ that transported Comodious to the battle front .. We as extras where all told to bow when Comodious appears out of the war wagon .. I stepped forward and pointed out to Scott that as Pretorian guards we would not bow low as instructed as that would endanger Comodious .. He went ballistic and was about to throw me off set when the poor old historical advisor ( yeah, they had one honest ) stepped up and agreed with me.. He calmed down and reluctantly allowed us guards to stay up right .. true story ..
Scott is very good a one very specific thing. He can make very good looking movies. And the results are great when that's all he has to do. But the man can't recognize a good story if it walked up to him and punched him. He needs to work with good writers and good producers to keep him in line. That's why his movie started going downhill after Gladiator gave him enough clout to do whatever he wanted to do.
It's a subset of the Dunning Kruger effect, where if you know a little bit about something you think you know a lot more than you do, but when people are famous or have expertise in a high profile field that gives them high social status they think they know EVERYTHING about it, more than the experts. This is why a doctor will tend to think they know more about cars than a mechanic for example. It's also why we men tend to think we know more than women about subjects even when they're experts in them, it's because we're fooled into thinking social superiority equals expertise. Everyone does this to varying degrees though so it's pointless to single out a person or a group.
@@fattiger6957"Raised by wolves" is not a very good looking film (OK, TV series). It looks like a low budget crap from 60s. The rest you said I agree with.
@@TheduckwebcomicsI'm sorry but your understanding of the Dunning Kruger effect is skewed. DKE tells nothing about assessing of the competence of others but only about self-assessment. And even more: it was demonstrated that low competent people correctly estimate their competence with regard to the competence of high competent people.
The thing is that every day of his active career, Napoleon's every move was recorded and reported in every newspaper in Europe, every diary of every politician, and every dispatch from every ambassador. After he was deposed, every other one of these people composed memoirs. Not just his followers and friends, but every one of his enemies. We may not know the color of the slippers he slipped into on some particular day, but every order, piece of law, and who he spoke with can be known if you look in the right document. A movie maker who disregards the historical record in favor of whatever he dreams up after too rich a meal is not going to make a very good movie about such a well known man. Every scene is probably going to ring wrong.
From this perspective, it would make sense why Hollywood likes Medieval movies as they have a lot of flexibility, too bad they just bastardize everything.
@@wastrelperv The problem is that too many of movie makers place medieval Europe somewhere between Avalon and Camelot and slightly west of Sherwood. They have to stick in a bunch of dragons, witches, goblins, and magic. Being a bastard was a legitimate problem for a medieval person. the problem with most medieval plots today is being over fantasized.
@@emmitstewart1921 Too many Robin Hoods, that's for sure. Too much Templar conspiracy theories. Too much Viking romanticization. Too many witch trials going on despite belief in witchcraft being much lower than before and after the Medieval period.
Historians know details scientifically correct but the overarching stories they tell are mostly speculation. The actually verifyable facts also play a secondary role in what is taught as "history". Being from Germany and critical both of the industry around it and its instrumentalization as well as of the "deniers", from my expirience most people around the world have completely skewed ideas about the "history" and the crimes of the 3rd Reich
For this case, it's probably more leaning into Ridley Scott's British's anti-French biases and anti-historical sentiments, making Napoleon an emotionally malleable military general with the film very specific angle to undermine his military achievements throughout DECADES OF ABLE TO CONQUER EUROPE, undermining his double-edged sword of his legacy with blatant biases on a film based of a historical figure, it's giving me reminiscence to the more recent and seemingly unrelated kind of USA lying about WMDs in Iraq or the incubator babies in Kuwait to brushing out the highway of death alongside Saddam's role in stabilising Iraq into national order, relative growth and notable anti-terrorism containment in the Middle East (so mass immigrations to The West are minimised to teeth), in spite of Saddam's many flaws and crimes (especially letting Uday's deranged antics existing) but I digress Making Napoleon being so submissive to his wife while not focusing on the actual women that's waaay more instrumental to Napoleon's life (namely his very own mother which he highly respected and loved so much) are akin to making an Ottoman series where Suleiman I's military and administrative achivements being reduced to him simping for Roxelana/Hurrem, it's historical revisionism into absurd degrees
To some extend, making the action more spectacular can be okay if it doesn't break the logic. An example I often use is the ice breaking under the Teutonic Knights in Alexander Nevsky, which didn't happen during the real battle.
Alexandre Dumas (writer of the Three Musketeers) had a great saying for that : "You can rape history, at the condition to give her beautiful children" Although the rape allegory might be ill-suited to the modern times, i like the idea : you can change history for your fiction, at the explicit condition that what you show is more interesting than what actually happened.
@@ohamatchhams Well congratulations on rambling from Scott's Napoleon bias to your own about Saddam and the U.S. in one long and barely comprehensible sentence.
The question might work if we were talking about something far more distant but Napolean was early 1800s mostly if I remember correctly. It isn't like he was a mystery lost to time. The guy had the relevancy of the US president has had since post WW2 in his time.
@@jacquelineking5783 Totally, in Napoleon case, there are tons of contemporary books talking about his achievements, comportement and all the important figures around him. It can even be boring as some testimony talks about his day to day life.
I saw a cartoon about the RS Napoleon flick. It showed Napoleon next to a pyramid firing a shoulder launched rocket at a Spitfire while a Tyrannosaurus Rex trotted past. The caption read you can't criticise this because you weren't actually there. Sums up Scott's "argument" in a nutshell.
Really? wow. I must admit that it does not surprise me in anyway. Now I like the artist Ridely Scott. I do think he makes great films and I do know they are the farthest away from historical accuracy, yet he was always an idiot.
It's the latest Hollywood trend: being as confrontational as possible when somebody even politely points out you're wrong,Hollywood is that spoiled child that throws an absolute world class tantrum if they get told no,and they're proud of it so you just have to get used to it Metatron *shrugs*
@@MrJoeBlaze We can choose to not except it however these people are fanatics and will not change,keep not taking it however understand it won't change much until the next generation comes in and realizes that kind of thing doesn't work.
Rather than Hollywood, it's more likely to be certain people working there. I'm sure there are still plenty of other directors in Hollywood that don't make the same mistakes as Ridley Scott. Regardless, I do agree that it's a bit of a trend.
The correct answer is "yes, yes I was". And if they question that just tell them that it is clear they weren't so they can't really say anything about it.
From The Duellists to this, I think he got too confortable. With that confort came laziness and arrogance. Since Gladiator was a success and an entertaining film, despite its many historical innacuracies, it seems he started thinking he could crap out whatever and the audiences would swallow it. More concerning is that this ignorant little man now believes his opinions are as valid as the knowledge academics have accumulated over the centuries, more so even, since it's his movie and what he says goes. Spreading a little education along with entertainment in his movies would cost him nothing, but the thundering choir of his own ego must mute all dissention. Shame on him.
Yeah, he seemed to forget - or perhaps just miss entirely - the fact that Gladiator wasn't good because it totally ignored history but rather because its historical inaccuracies still served to build the setting in a cinematic and satisfying way. It also helps that Maximus himself was a fictional person. Historians can nitpick things like the Romans wearing lorica segmentata at a time when they wouldn't be wearing much of it, but all Scott has to say is, "It's THE iconic Roman armor. It looks cool, everyone knows that it's 'Roman armor,' and anyone who's wearing it on-screen is clearly a Roman. The barbarians are all in fur and hide with shoddy axes because they're the *barbarians.* You see them, you know who they are. I'm telling a story, not filming a reenactment." Boom. Done. He nails the 'vibe' of ancient Rome and tells a good story at the same time without pretending he's recreating history on-screen. It seems like he really got a bit full of himself as, as you said, too comfortable. He missed the fact that the inaccuracies in something like Gladiator still contributed to the setting. It made the Romans look and feel like *Romans.* The barbarians look like *barbarians.* Rome looks like Rome. The characters act, at least in the average person's mind, like Romans. The praetorians look like praetorians. On and on, accurate or not. Napoleon just... doesn't act like Napoleon, from all the reviews and summaries I've heard.
"Since Gladiator was a success and an entertaining film, despite its many historical innacuracies" I don't think that Gladiator had anything accurate, it was all historical inaccuracies. He should stick to fiction, his greatest hits were Alien and Hannibal
In Ridley Scott's defense, he did cut the scene where Napoleon used his alien spaceships discovered under the Sphinx to beam up some his troops during the siege of Moscow. Scott figured people would consider it historically inaccurate the spaceships couldn't save all Napolean's troops.
As someone who enjoys cinema, and loves history, I'm so tired of the 'it's a movie, its entertainment not a documentary' excuse for bad historical filmmaking. Master and Commander is fiction, historical fiction but still. And yet it stands as one of the most historically 'AUTHENTIC' pieces of cinema ever made. Not accurate, but authentic. And it is a great movie. Ridley Scott looks and history and just presumes he can do better. Even when he actually just makes history look smaller, and less significant.
@@Blisterdude123 Alexandre Dumas (writer of the Three Musketeers) had a great saying for that : "You can rape history, at the condition to give her beautiful children" Although the rape allegory might be ill-suited to the modern times, i like the idea : you can change history for your fiction, at the explicit condition that what you show is more interesting than what actually happened.
Never mind how epically ridiculous it is for someone spending his life creating make believe telling people who study the history of mankind to "get a life".
I quit watching bio-pics and historical “dramas” a while ago because I got tired of all the ways the directors twist the stories, usually to promote whoever they want to be the hero. And all the sheeple watch the movies and think that they are historically accurate.
As a history prof. there are a lot of movies I have a hard time watching because they are so far off the mark of what we know about an era, event, or personality that I have to constantly remind myself that it is supposed to just be entertainment but then I find even schools sometimes using such silly movies to teach kids a "history lesson." It is very frustrating. I have to correct a lot of stuff. I have even heard some young people say it has to be true or they wouldn't have it in the movie as an objection to an actual historical account. So, I completely understand your frustration with this stuff.
As an ex-teacher I apologize for showing movies in the classroom, we just get so tired sometimes and need a break. LOL Esp now during the Christmas season it's going to be either a Christmas quiz or a movie that is remotely related to whatever topic we are going through. We do point out that it's not accurate, but I have to admit, not every student understands or remembers that. Also many students forget absolutely everything they have learned after a while, it's really depressing.
The education system uses movies with zero educational value and pretends they're educational a LOT. When I was in high school, some public school kids I knew were shown the Percy Jackson movies in class as part of the Greco-Roman unit in social studies...meanwhile, I was reading actual Greco-Roman literature through my Great Books homeschool curriculum. My dad is a schoolteacher and says another teacher at his school showed the kids Hamilton as part of their American Revolution unit. Hamilton has barely any educational value and Percy Jackson may have *negative* educational value. The teachers know as much as the kids do if they think these movies belong in a classroom.
I mean it happened with MatPat's episode of Game Theory covering "For Honor" it brought Skallagrim, Metatron and Shadiversity to my attention with them going, "You wot?"
As a historian, Scott's words were like a stab. Fortunately, I have a certain ability to separate the work from the artist, although sometimes it becomes very, very challenging.
Dan Snow is no average Tik Toker, this guy was the OG historian back in the day with his Dad. And he also rugby tackled a looter during the London riots. Top lad
@@jamesparke6252 Almost all media. You think the west is bad? Look beyond your cozy bubble. We wish our countries were at your levels of corruption. Why do you think so many want in and few ever go back beyond vacation?
@@jamesparke6252hes also an englishman who ‘earned’ a bafta Cymru for making a documentary about an Italian who built a wall in england, typical thieving saes bastard
Considering how recent Napoleon's life was compared to say, Julius Caesar or Qin Shi Huangdi, Ridley Scott really has no excuse going on for him. We have so much information on Napoleon because of how important he was in the world stage and because of the typical observation that we can obtain more information from people who lived closer to our time period than those from further back.
I'm 100% with you. Granted these are a lot newer, but there are channels which take a conflict, like the Battle of Stalingrad, and make videos about what happened every day because people would write diaries, reports, letters, and so on. To the extent that one of them I watch (the one doing the Battle of Stalingrad) goes through why a diary which has been used for decades as 'how the Germans on the ground saw the conflict' was probably written, or at least heavily edited by the KBG because he found discrepencies in the details of the record.
LazerPig has issues about historical accuracy because many reports that were written about certain events were fabricated and the other participants were too lazy to do more than the bare minimum... so the lies were then treated as truth by everyone else!
So Ridley Scott saw the issue of historic analysis and records being nebulous and sometimes hard to piece together, and decided to just say "screw it" and make up whatever the frak he wanted. So basically, the Hollywood attitude towards history and truth.
@@davidbouvier8895 sadly, yes. Also arguably world culture. How many people even know the term "Holodomor", or about the government poisoning alcohol during prohibition and killing 10,000 people, among other events?
Well, our race has have been a top contributor to innovation in the neutralization of hostile groups. Howver, its balanced out by all the contributions white men and some women have made to the betterment of the race and humans as a whole.
Ordinarily I'd agree but honestly, Ridley Scott IS just that incompetent. Never attribute to malice what can be attiributed to incompetence. Ridley Scott genuinely thought a 'clever' piece of imagery to communicate Napoleon's conquest of Egypt was to have him shoot cannons at the pyramids.
Funny how the real person who tried to destroy the pyramids hundreds of years earlier than that was actually Saladin’s son, but we can’t say shit about Muslims
I have a degree in History. While I certainly don't consider myself a historian, I have to say that not understanding how historical research works, to this degree, is kind of shocking. Good video.
When someone tries the whole “we YOU there?” I say “yes, I was, I saw it all….and if YOU weren’t ALSO there then you can’t tell me I wasnt”. That usually gets them to realize how dumb they are being. Usually. Not always.
I am totally with you. As a student of history I am flummoxed by this descent into fantasy! It seems these people think you can construct the world anyway you like. They fail to realise this ends in total chaos. How then can you know anything or trust anything. Thank you for your videos. Stay sane.
The irony here is that in one of his first films, Scott took a historical tale and made an excellent film set in the Napoleonic era. That film was "The Duellists." And he did it on a very meager budget. But now he's...superior. He took one of the most charismatic leaders in world history and turned him into a schlub. And in reference to his "Were you there?" comment, I can only point out that dozens of contemporary persons WERE there, recorded the facts at the time and set them down with some accuracy and established something some of us refer to as "History." Histories can be wrong...usually when written by people who weren't there and 200 years after the fact. But the facts of Austerlitz and Borodino and Waterloo are known. Napoleon's life is not a fantasy made up on a spaceship with upturned milk crates for decking (as it was in his film "Alien.") Men fought and died for this man. And when he fell and returned...they came back and fought and died for him again. And he was more than just a general...he was a political and legal innovator who's acts are still alive in the world today. Whereas Mr. Scott is...just a jester and should have bells on his hat.
Nah, he's more or less a clown. Jesters make fun of the audience for their entertainment, Clowns make fun of themselves for the audience's entertainment.
I mean, he did clean up the legal system but also took away the rights of most of France's citizens and brought back slavery. So, he wasn't really a legal innovator, more like a legal repealer.
Seriously, there are books that are widely known and published in the modern times, that were written by people who literally were there and knew Napoleon personally. Jomini and his works on the art of war for example, he participated in the Napoleonic wars on both sides of the conflict as a high ranking staff officer and his works are literally being published today
As a Czech, I was kind of surprised how it looked in the movie in Austerlitz (Slavkov in Czech), there are no bigger hills and that massive lake was just a pond, but I respect that it's just a movie, what I don't like is when creators know how it should be correctly and they don't do it on purpose to make historians angry.
He filmed it in an old quarry in Surrey where he filmed the battle scenes for Gladiator...very lazy especially with what you can do with CGI now. It was in the interview he had with Dan Snow for History Hit.
I live in Brno. When I saw the trailer I remembered a moment in cinema years ago where in the movie "Wanted" with Angelina Jolie the protagonist is on a pendolino train in "Moravia" that goes through a tunnel and than it goes straight to a bridge over a massive ravine where it crashes... At that moment one guy in the cinema shouted "Ty vole, Macocha" and the whole audience started laughing. After seeing Scot's depiction of Austerlitz, I must admit Wanted was the second worst depiction of Moravia in US cinema.
Sadly we live in a time when ignorance and arrogance are worshipped. We live in a time when people honestly think that they can make up their own reality, and that their personal fiction overrides history and science.
The Metatron has more godlike knowledge in his little finger than all of these haters combined!!! Keep clapping those historical cheeks Metatron!!! All of mankind thanks you!!!!
It's not even god-like knowledge. Anyone can learn the stuff he knows. And those who watch his videos learn what he knows. It's just that many people would rather live in ignorance than discover the truth
@The_Ragequit_Cannon it's more that the first thing someone is told about a topic is the truth they stick with because they don't want to explore the topic further or it fits a narrative they're trying to push as truth.
And if I recall it was the Seljuks that attacked the Egyptian(documented by Seljuk scribes) monuments before Europeans even ever ruturned to appreciate them.
@@alihenderson5910You kids are so obsessed with your phones you're still texting your emoticons over the web behind Heaven's pearly gates. P.S. My condolences, I am praying for your departed soul.
I really dislike filmmakers ignoring historical accuracy. Big budget movies get watched by millions of people who can get a very distorted view of the past this way. Such an inportant source of information should keep high standarts.
I wish filmmakers would just admit that their historical movies are just supposed to be fun and not taken seriously. Like how historical anime that make Oda Nobunaga a demon aren't supposed to be taken seriously. But in Hollywood, every historical movie is treated like it's the pinnacle of high art and accuracy.
It depends on the movie. By a movie's nature, it has to condense complicated history into a restricted time frame with a restricted budget and have to make a profit. So they cannot be 100% accurate in any way. But that doesn't excuse just plain ignoring or dismissing the facts.
Ah, I don't mind, if they upfront about it. After the spectators Stomped "We will Rock you" in a Knight's tale", I was down for anything. I didn't mind Octavian's mom to be alive until the end of the Rome series. It was just fun and entertaining and she was a deliciously evil matriarch. I don't know if there is a hard line for me, but as long as the vibe is right, I forgive a lot.
Historian makes comments about a movie based on actual historical figures and events. Tells that historian to get a life. "But... history IS my life...."
Ridley Scott's first feature film was about two officers in Napoleon's Army who carry a grudge and demand 'satisfaction' across a few decades. Released in 1977 it is called 'The Duellists'. Favorably critiqued and highly rated it comes with this note from its wikipedia entry "The film is lauded for its historically authentic portrayal of Napoleonic uniforms and military conduct, as well as its generally accurate early-19th-century fencing techniques as recreated by fight choreographer William Hobbs."
The question is, did he write and direct both movies or only directed both or wrote and directed one? Not all directors write their own films and many are essentially hired guns. The studio has a script that they like and so they look around fr someone to direct and that director may or may not have much or any input in wat the final shooting script is like. But giong by his statement, it sounds like maybe he either wrote the script or screenplay for Napoleon or, at the very least, had considerable input in the script/screenplay.
Ridley was only ever a good director, i hope people finally unglue their mouths from his rear and realize that all of his greatest movies had a stellar cast of scriptwriters and producers that have been overshadowed by him.
Remember the Rosetta Stone? It might have not even been discovered if Napoleon and his peeps weren’t trying to conquer Egypt. They cared more for ancient Egypt than the descendants who lived there. That Scott had the artillery use the Sphinx as target practice was over the top. It was not necessary for the story line. What was he trying to portray?
The fuckin' EGO of Hollywood as a whole has grown beyond anything I thought I'd ever see. We all know that celebrities have an inflated sense of self-importance, but the whole town has just gone off the rails with narcissism.
Scott was leagues better when he was: a) younger and not as spoiled by fame as he is now b) restrained by limited budgets and kept in check by studio execs (yes, they DO sometimes work as a healthy boundaries setters for overambitious buffoons) an actor/director getting over their heads throughout their career is a story as old as that industry itself.
I just was thinking about his first movie The Duellists that was also set in Napoleonic times. That one was really good. But, well, like many artists before... after a certain time, they lose their Mojo.
To be fair, he is not the only one; in the film King Arthur, one of the Roman was using a bow and arrow while riding a horse that did not exist until centuries later with the Mongols of Genghis Kahn, a bow and arrow used by the Roman, would have been too long to be used while riding the horse, and of course barbed wire, also seen in the film did not exist either. Norman Freeman plying a black Muslim, warrior moving to cold Nottingham with Robin Hood, (Kevin Costner) who presumably joined the Crusades to kill Muslims.
The Napoleon movie looks like an absolute farce of a film. I honestly fear its the beginning of the bastardization of history for entertainments sake and I'm terrified with the possibilities it could result in.
Unfortunately, history has been treated this way for decades. Look at the likes of Braveheart, regarded as one of the most historically inaccurate movies ever made.
@@akl2k7yup also the movies Titanic , Pearl Harbor, and The Patriot (especially the scene of slaves defending their slave owner against joining the British army)
@@CharlesChristinaWHI have to defend Titanic here. The love story aside, its a good representation. Cameron knows his stuff, and did some serious research. And on top of that you got of course some dramatisation
the irony is Scott's first film, his directorial debut, "the Duelists" is one of the best historical films ever made. I have no idea why/how he forgot to make good/accurate films when he made "the Last Duel" or potentially "Napoleon"(haven't seen it yet).
Ridley Scott would probably walk into the airplane’s cockpit and yelled at pilots “can you fly on your own? do you have wings? Well then shut the eff up!” 😂😂😂😂😂
Black Hawk Down is another one of his films and that was an excellent and extremely accurate portrayal of the events it was based on. This is just embarrassing.
@@elian958 I like some of his films as well. I actually really liked Robin Hood and he created some classic films like Alien and Blade Runner. But yes, I think this is bad. First, it’s too short for the amount of time he’s trying to show. If Scott wanted to show the entirety of Napoleon’s rise and fall, he needed at least two, maybe three films. Second, he completely rewrites parts of well documented history and doesn’t do anything interesting in the film to justify it. You can edit history in certain ways, and still be authentic but he apparently did it just because he could. Third, his general attitude towards people raising concerns about the film was (and still is) completely dismissive and arrogant. He seems to have such a inflated opinion of himself and blames others for his failures. He basically told everyone who criticized the changes to history that he was right and that everyone should shut up and deal with it which, unsurprisingly, angered a lot of people and immediately turned them against the film. I highly recommend looking up some other reviews of the film as they do a much better job at explaining its flaws than I can but to sum it up, this film was a massive disappointment.
Once famous creators aging out of their field of employment to the point that they have no idea anymore what their target demographic wants, or even considers a good idea, is a thing. I wish they wouldn't pretend it wasn't.
seems like we're seeing that same sort of thing play out across the world really. Politicians are getting older, many people cant get promoted because people above them arent retiring even after they've aged to the point that their abilities have degraded (which often leads to those under them doing their superiors job for them without a raise OR promotion), and overall it seems like older generations are just refusing to relinquish control even after they've grown out of touch with the modern world like boomers yelling at Gen Z service workers about how things were so much harder in their day back when a high school drop out could afford to buy a house while that Gen Z worker is making slave wages to pay off his college degrees that he needed to work at McDonalds.
It’s a shame because his first movie The Duellists is a really great movie set in the Napoleonic era. Scott’s movies are always beautifully shot but storywise his track record is so all over the place it makes me think the guy is not a storyteller AT ALL but basically just a glorified cameraman who sometimes is lucky enough to work with good screenwriters and then he gets the credit (because people tend to exaggerate the importance of directors and ignore the writers).
Basically, the way I see it, Ridley Scott entered this stage of movie creator's life cycle where he is intoxicated by illusion of his own grandeur induced from sniffing his own farts.
@@Minions91113 He _was_ a good director. Other than The Martian, he hasn't made a good film since 2010. He's just another George Lucas now. Insisting Jar Jar Binks is cool.
@@KathrynsWorldWildfireTrackingGeorge Lucas doesn’t even pretend to be like that. The prequels had direct homages and parallels to the works of early cinema. Lucas is no hack… I’d also say Ridley works a whole lot at his late age and he does have great work after the Martian. Raised by Wolves has his son and Ridley directing a few episodes and also producing…
As a member of Generation X, I would like to acknowledge the fact that in Metatron's rant about generations not liking Mr. Scotts film, we (Gen X) were in fact not acknowledged, as is almost always the case when generations are brought up. (Don't get me wrong. We literally don't care. But we do think it's funny that everyone almost always forgets about us). Love the channel, by the way.
I wrote this a month ago, in response to a video I saw, where he talked about the behind the scenes of the movie; _While I'm certainly intrigued by his perspective as a film maker, I do question his simplistic thoughts on the books about him (Napoleon/ historical figures)- yes, sometimes the earliest accounts come from eyewitnesses/ people who had access to eyewitnesses/ information, & later accounts might be written long after eyewitnesses are dead- but beyond authorial bias, the information available can change over time, too._ _Some writers have a role that allows them access to information that others simply aren't privy to. For others, Government documents become accessible after a certain amount of time- people leave hithertofore unknown artefacts & private papers to museums & whathaveyou._ _So long as a writer applies a rigorous standard (knowing the background of the sources, & so on) - there's no reason a newer work can't be just as valid as the first._ _And saying 'Were you there?' is a foolish retort; No, I wasn't there for Marie Antoinette's execution, but there is documentation for it- we know the date, the month & the year (& thus, the likely weather)- preceding events are also known (she attracted a great deal of sympathy during her trial, due to the vileness of some of the accusations leveled at her, struck a chord with mothers in the gallery when she appealed to them)- so that can give a stronger impression of her attitude & mindset (unlikely she was haughty & arrogant, & that the _*_entire_*_ crowd was screaming abuse at her)_ _We also know what she was wearing- because she'd _*_requested_*_ to wear black, & the revolutionary authority _*_*forced*_*_ her to wear white; her hair was cut short at the prison & she was made don a mobcap._ _We also know how she came to her execution (the route, means, & company)- as well as the process for it._ _I'm not trying to sh*t on the movie, or anything- but if so much was gotten wrong in such a small section, then I do have to wonder how so much of Napoleon's life & reign, & campaigns can be accurately depicted in a movie, rather than a mini-series..._ While my comment got more than 100 likes- I got 4-5 responses with some variation of 'It's just a movie, bro- it's entertainment, not a history book!' - but I responded to a person who politely engaged with me, & was mostly agreeing with my comments. I then added to this later response, my thoughts *after* seeing the movie: _I find this {changing _*_history_*_ to suit a film} frustrating; I agree that some _*_small_*_ changes, to benefit the smoothing of the directorial narrative, can prove necessary (& the film medium can helpfully establish in seconds & minutes- what a book takes paragraphs & pages to describe) - I feel the same way with novel series being adapted: I'm not a 💯% purist-type- I do understand that some things may get left out, but that should be a carefully made series of choices- not just for sh*ts & giggles- or because the scriptwriters/ showrunners were too stupid to craft the plot, a la Dumbarse & Dipsh^t of GoT infamy._ _But it absolutely went _*_beyond_*_ judicious choices in 'Napoleon' - my brother won tickets for the premiere, but wasn't able to go- so my mother & I did._ _Overall, it didn't feel worth it: it looked ok (Mum thought the palette & lighting for the battles/ uniforms was too muddy to follow things clearly, & all sides speaking English* didn't help) & was decently shot - the costumes & sets were good._ _But it was the story & characterisation predominantly, that let it down- Pheonix is too old to play Napoleon across a near 30-year period (1793-1821, 28 years to be precise), & Kirby, too young for Josephine; their wedding had _*_both_*_ their ages altered- aging him up, & her down- she was like 6-9 years older than him, I believe. It was certainly a choice to cover so much of Napoleon's life in a single film, as opposed to a series or trilogy- & split the story so sharply between his military career, & personal life._ _I feel like the portrayal maybe could have worked, had Scott really gone for it, in terms of Napoleon being single-minded- that would have paired better with a military focus- or, his penchant for cruelty, & sense of exactitude & internal inferiority to the elder royal houses of Europe, had the focus been more on his personal life. There was also the lack of detail within his administration/ relationships with people- the lack of personality - Pheonix looking tired/ bored did not help._ _When we left, Mum said, & I quote: "I would have no interest in paying to see this- he seemed so juvenile for so much of it." And she also felt the multiple sex-scenes were over-the-top (& after the first one, pointless). Aesthetically, it's quite reasonable- but even in generalities, let alone closer details- it absolutely falls over..._ *We had a good-natured debate on the way home, over the choices in historical/ foreign topic films- of native language/s, subtitled- accented English- & the actor's own English - in something like 'The Death of Stalin', for instance- everyone speaking English worked- because it was utilised as a way of emphasizing the differences between people of a larger geographic area - Scott could have used that similarly, to show the difference between Napoleon/ his family (Corsicans), the aristocrats like Josephine- & others, to give the audience a stronger sense of place/ alienation, & so on- but there's no focus on that aspect. We get no real sense of these people, their background, nor their journey- or, _we_ didn't, at least...
The "where you there", is nothing short of a hissyfit comment, I half expect people that use it, to throw themselves on the floor kicking and screaming....
Everything I’ve heard about Ridley Scott’s perspective on making this movie and the following criticism. Just makes me wonder why no one said to him “you know you don’t _have_ to make this movie?” Like he seems to not give a shit about any of the subject matter at all.
I think social media overall has massively overreacted to Napoleon, since many of the historical inaccuracies fall well within the standards for “good” directors like Kubrick and even Scott himself. There’s a lot of time compression adding people to scenes where they were not present and having characters talk who never met. That’s all standard movie stuff, and not particularly egregious. However, Scott himself also completely overreacted. He could have just said, “Who cares? We changed a few things to help with narrative and pacing. If we’d covered everything the movie would be 12 hours long and only of interest to war buffs. “
I agree, though I have to add something. He could’ve turned the movie concept into a 12 episode single season series since TV is much bigger and creatively freer than the film landscape. The director of Australia turned his film into a mini series, so it’s not unheard of. His overreaction turned me off of him for the moment.
I recently went to see Napoleon, despite seeing the ludicrous trailers depicting Napoleon leading a cavalry charge. Like 300, I went to see it in the theater for the spectacle. Unlike 300, I will not be buying the DVD. If the title had been "Napoleon and Josephine" I would not have been as disappointed. The sets and uniforms were superb, and most of the acting was top-notch. However, due to the script I kept having to check my ticket stub to be sure I was watching Napoleon and not Joker. Having apparently used exclusively British sources (who pathologically hated the man) for any research he may have done, Napoleon comes off as a total buffoon, which Joaquin Phoenix plays very well. Not only does he not physically change (did Scott not hire any makeup artists) over a period of 20+ years, but the character doesn't change. He's the same throughout the movie. 2 and a half hours with no character development in the title character? WTF? The 'battle' scenes were about what I'd expect from a Hollywood epic: cringeworthy. Apparently all battles of the Napoleonic Wars involved WWI-style entrenchments except Borodino (which prominently featured field fortifications ). Mr. Scott's goal fopr the movie can be summed up in the final 'scene' where Napoleon's legacy is reduced to the number of battles he fought ant the casualties inflicted flashed on a black screen. I would have regretted not going to see it in the theater as a lost opportunity. That said, I regret going to see the movie. By the way, I'm 72, not a Millennial. So, F*** Off, Mr. Scott.
Shooting the pyramids with cannons? What the french actually did in Egypt was finding the Rosetta stone, deciphering it. Giving birth to the study of Egyptology.
One thing that seems to have changed since The Last Duel, is that we millenials are no longer the intergenerational whipping boy. Thanks GenZ (and in Scott's case historians, as well as the French, apparently). I'd dance a dance of joy, but my back has been acting up lately...
I watched the movie last week. It's basically what you'd expect from a Ridley Scott movie: good action/battle scenes but little to no reference to reality. For example - SPOILERS! - the battle of Austerlitz was shown to be won by Napoleon using his canons to break the ice of a frozen lake. This actually happened as far as I know but it wasn't as significant to the victory as shown in the movie. The battle of Leipzig on the other hand was left out entirely. For the entire movie Napoleon was shown to be a man which I feel would've been called weird in his time and today as well... there's a scene in which he wails like a dog in front of his servants because he wants to sleep with his wife Josephine. I expected to see a demonstration of the most powerful man in France but instead I got this... it was rather disturbing to witness.
Concerning Austerlitz, from what I read the whole part with the ice happened when the battle was essentially already won and a small group of Austrians and Russians (around 200 I think?) were retreating across a frozen body of water. The idea of the entire coalition army just marching onto a frozen lake they didn't know was there is unfathomably retarded; this is literally their home turf. I recommend Tolstoi's War and Peace for a dramatic yet historically accurate fictional depiction.
I'm actually really glad you pointed out that radio carbon dating has issues as well. When I went for my Anthropology/Archaeology degree we were trained on RCD and other forms as well and I was stunned to learn that the error correction pretty much boils down to 'the community decided these were good ranges and anything outside of it is null'. More surprised to learn that null points are FAR FAR more common than 'correct' data points.
I saw Napoleon. Let's just say he didn't come off as the most feared man in Europe. Funny thing about shooting the pyramid (that didn't really happen) is that they could have shown soldiers shooting the nose off the Sphinx to even greater dramatic effect and at least he would be repeating a popular lie instead of inventing one. You were hilarious in this one, Metatron! I almost peed myself when I heard that scream while Napoleon was holding his ears! Love it!
I know it's a tiny bit off-topic for "Napoleon", but if they wanted to add an interesting tidbit about the Egyptian campaign, they could have shown the discovery of the Rosetta Stone by a French soldier.
@@simpsondr12 yeah, that would have been great. Of course, there's no explosion in that story, and it's a true story, so that's a big "NO" from Hollywood!
I really apreciate Scott's work in general - kingdom of heaven and gladiator are all time classics. He never paid much attention to historical accuracy, but in those movies, oh boy, he did it the right way. When creating a history-based fiction, you have to create the authentic feeling about the setting. Fantasy is in this case somehat similar. It is not necessary to be glued to facts everywhere, but you need to chose some important details that will create the general feeling. It can be armor, fashion (extremely important), landscape, architecture, the way people are behaving, language and music. You can add details and plot elements that will work on viewers imagination, but are not necessarly realistic, quasi-legendary things that will make the story even more immersive and enhance the general experience. Example is Baldwin IV steel mask. It made him somewhat unreal, mysterious, but noble and majestic at the same time. Such things can not distract the viewer, they must be there purposefully and should not feel like a shortcut. The viewer hates, when he is treated like an idiot and won't notice. Napoleon lacks the feeling. It sticks to wrong facts, has annoying historical shortcuts, the details do not create the mood. This is the main problem in my opinion.
I liked Gladiator, but Kingdom of Heaven not so much. The historical inaccuracies went far beyond details and gave a terrible impression of what life and war in that time and place for those characters would have been like.
Gladiator was a good story, but to me it was completely ruined by the blatant and egregious artistic license/lack of historical accuracy. Shame, because it could have been more accurate and still highly entertaining, because that was a truly fascinating point in Roman history. I wish, if movie makers want to neglect historical accuracy, they’d cease using historical figures. The end of the Pax Romana would have still been an interesting backdrop without the need to desecrate the truth.
The argument, 'its just a movie' would make sense if most people dont consider historical movies as informative media. Many people watch historical movies and consider much of it as atlest kinda accurate to most of it very accurate. And so it makes sense that movies have a responsibility to not misslead and lie to people
The problem with "this is a fictional film, not a documentary" is that 1000 people will see the film (if it's successful) for every ten people who read a book or even watch a documentary about the real history. So it's one thing to change a few minor details but if you give a false impression on a larger historical point that's going to be the "history" that 99% of the public thinks they know.
A college professor I know whose field is literally in Revolution France & Napoleonic History is said to be so colossally disappointed by the film that he fell asleep half way in the theatre and told his collogues that it's horrible afterwards (advising them to not waste time and money to watch it)
@@ericvulgate7091 He's got a point. If you fall asleep half way, you were apparently _bored_ and weren't really paying attention anyway. You are thus disqualified from commenting on the content of the movie/lecture you attended. You can report that it was a snoozefest, but you can't say it was horrible, because you simply don't know. Indeed, if an historian falls asleep during a movie, then there can't have been that many errors to be annoyed by - because when you're annoyed, you will be kept awake. No one falls asleep while annoyed.
@@ericvulgate7091 Yes I'll use academic writing to fill out 20 pages of forms and a master thesis to request your permission next time I want to post a comment on UA-cam, your lordship.
I would also recommend tv series from 2002 starring Christian Clavier as Napoleon and John Malkovich as Talleyrand, there are reuploads posted here on youtube (I've even seen someone posting version upscaled to 4k)
Unfortunately we need more video like this one because of the poor level of the modern education. 50 years ago everyone will have understood that this movie was a pure fiction because they knew basic historical facts. Last century we were wondering how civilisation collapses, now we know.
Some people here mentioned The Duelists. This film was based on a story/legend going around at the time about two French generals Dupont and Fournier fighting a series of duels. At the last duel, Fournier fired his pistol and missed. Dupont pointed his pistol at Fournier and said, go away, but remember that I will always have the right to another shot at you.
His first movie "The Duelists" was well done with correct uniforms and event chronology. I still have to see the movie, but seeing Napoleon leading a cavalry charge makes me skeptical. By the way, latters were used to storm Regisburg in 1809, and Napoleon was shot in the foot leading the assault.
Napoleon's rise to power all the way to Waterloo is too big of a story for a 2-1/2 hour canvass. There's no real focus to it at all. Many moons ago, I read David G Chandler's 1100 page work: The Campaigns of Napoleon, and this only covered the military aspects of the man's career and life. Diving into his personal life with Josephine, and throughout his Mastery of Europe---there's no way to capture all of that in one feature film. This should have been three movies--his rise to power, from Toulon to his coronation. His mastery of Europe, from 1805 Austerlitz campaign through 1809 and the battle of Wagram, and the beginnings of his Spanish Ulcer. And then his fall 1812-1815. These are still huge time pieces with enormous scope, but this would give the movies some degree of focus which Scott's lacked.
@@andrewlustfield6079 It's inarguable that you can't fit Napoleon's whole story into a 2.5 hour movie, noobdy's arguing that dipshit. The movie sucked all around. Phoenix's Napoleon completely lacked all of the real one's charisma, he had no presence, and the movie was boring all on its own.
Suppose one were to claim that the Romans were Aboriginal Australians and that there were no genocides of any kind in history and that the alleged victims of such were just left under the sofa cushions, would Ridley still say "Were you there? No, so shut up!"
Is it not probable that Ridley's design for the helmet is intentional, a custom design as per thematic representation of the character's internal world. Customized, not by Ridley, but by literary demand of the character. He's two faced, and can be perceived as a noble Knight, or as a man of frailty depending on the context. Extrapolating this out to any future film Ridley releases, we'd be hardpressed not to consider that what's done with the helmet is done with much if not most of his craft.
I have no problems with historical movies, because I know how to separate out most of the bulls4it that's shown. My heartburn is the folks who watch these movies and take it as TRUTH. They're the once being poorly served by the material.
I had to stop watching movies that were "based on a true story" or "inspired by real events" with certain family members because they'll believe it was portrayed with 100% accuracy.
@@johnandrewserranogarcia7223 The movie "Fire in the sky" did that with Travis Walton's story...he said the aliens he met were nice and that he was the aggressor In the film the aliens were the studio basically "read the room" and said that alien abduction angles were popular at that time so they decided to fabricate his story Since he gave them the rights he had to accept but it He said he does hope his actual story gets told
as a frenchman, I'd like to tell americans to leave our history alone. it is not yours to rewrite, it is our culture, our history. if you want to practice your revisionism : do it with your own five minute 'culture'.
Ridley's anti-intellectual, _bullying the nerds_ attitude has made me lose even more respect for him. I loved Blade Runner, Alien and enjoyed Gladiator. He's had more flops than masterpieces. Maybe he's not as good as I once thought.
To be completely honest? The Alien series stopped really being his thing after James Cameron and so on took it over. So that’s one franchise. And most of the things he’s done since were never really on my radar. Though I did like Robin Hood. Prometheus was just awful to me and I wrote him off ever since especially any of his older work I didn’t see. I don’t see the hype over him, personally. If he didn’t act like an arrogant twat and admitted he wanted to do something fun with it like the Death of Stalin or Jojo Rabbit, there’d be nothing wrong. But whatever. People like him make the rest of Hollywood look like assholes and are why I don’t blame people for wanting them to lose their jobs from the extended strike. I certainly feel sorrier for the lower people on the tentpole like the caterers and the crew who lost money, smaller actors, writers and directors, etc.
Now don't be muppets, and come check out my patreon page
www.patreon.com/themetatron
Metatron you should collect roman coins now that you can legally cause you live in the US also you can get many coins for under $15
Hitler was Black.
Where did you get the funny hat, I need one.
Till this day, "Waterloo" is still the best Napoleon movie in my opinion, and it was filmed 53 years ago, ironically.
Dan Snow isn't a "TikToker".
He may utilise TikTok, but his career goes well beyond that.
Imagine a criminal going to the judge: "Well were you there? No? So stfu and get a life!"
It's more akin to the criminal telling the investigators who spent days collecting data, leading up to his arrest.
Judge: “ understandable. Have a nice day”…
You won the Internet today 🤣🤣🤣
Imagine how cool for the criminal to be asked "well were you there?"
"No judge. I wasn't."
"Great. No guilty. You are free to go. Case dismissed."
@@williamshelton4318 Wouldn't peers mean that they would be criminals as well?
I used to know a guy who always tried to win every argument by saying, "Were you there?" It was such an ignorant, arrogant and hypocritical way to argue his point since he obviously wasn't there either, and would ignore all evidence and testimony from people who actually were there.
Ken Ham?
How did he think juries work? The whole point is to gather people to determine whether a crime took place. They examine evidence, listen to witnesses, and make a decision based on the thing called "reason."
I got into it with a Western History professor regarding the Berlin Wall coming down and surrounding events. Apparently his academic credentials trumped my first-hand direct experience from being in the military and stationed in West Germany at the time.
@@FortunaeSD
nisonatic is right.
It is true that first hand experience is important but Academics do not go of one singular persons experience. They need an overview with as many sources as possible, which would include you and your perspective.
A thing you'd need to understand is that there are a whole lot of other first hand Accounts which may claim different things from you or your group. Historians need to navigate all of that.
This is literally an informal logical fallacy called "argument from ignorance". You can't prove me wrong with definitive evidence, therefore I'm right.
my history prof had a doctorate in Egyptian history. she said she was consulted for several movies and tv shows. she said they tell them what they need to know but whether or not they use it or even listen to you is up to them, but they can still say they consulted historians.
yeah if it isn't in line with the director's "Vision" the director will discard it for some made up bunk. Clothing historians go through the same battle. Especially with "Of Corset hurts!" scenes where actresses get laced in a corset without a chemise. Corsets historically never was worn without a chemise. The chemise is there to protect the corset from the wearer's oils, and the wearer from the corset. Oh and directors who have actresses tightlace corsets in the 1700s. A thing that wouldn't exist till 100 years later. Looking at you, Pirates of the Caribbean!
the historians working for babrians on netflix made video why they quit season 2 😅
ua-cam.com/video/tnsrb6povuE/v-deo.html
@@zombiedoggie2732 My first thought exactly. I remember reading some article where the main costume designer of Vikings said she consulted various experts or something of that sort. All I could think was: "You may have consulted them, but you sure as hell didn't listen to their counsel..."
Well, you get an A for your thesis but you get an F for spelling, grammar and coherent sentence structure.
@@feedigli Heh he's a History major, not an English one. Even History majors have proofreaders for their books.
As an alien I can assure you that Ridley Scott knows nothing about us either.
Also, Dude, "alien" is not the preferred nomenclature. Xenomorph-American, please.
@@brucetucker4847 ... story about the guy insisting a guy who never set foot in the US, nor did his parents, must be "African-American" and all other terms are impermissible ...
@@forbidden-cyrillic-handle😂
@KaiHenningsen I remember at least hearing about an interview where a reporter was asking a black British athlete about his experiences, but kept referring to him as African American.
As you are one, I was sort of wondering if you consider us racist if we have trouble telling a Xenomorph, a Zerg, and a Tyranid apart. When I'm dropping onto planets and removing hostile predatory species for the waves of colonists, I don't want to think I'm some kind of bigot while looking through my scope. Just so I can rest easily, as I'm letting out streams of HEAP ammo, is there some kind of slant to the eyes of curve to the teeth that you can be told apart by? I mean I wouldn't want to be thought a bigot as I misidentify a head before I crush it under a servo assisted boot..... Tyranids are the ones with the acid blood, right? :)
Napoleon Bonaparte: "History is a set of lies agreed upon."
Ridley Scott: "And I took that quote to heart."
😂😂😂
every tyrant makes this claim to justify their own lies.
Napoleon was talking about bias in the aftermath of his fall, he never dismissed history.
lenin said winners right history books and i bet i could find at least one roman emperor who makes the same claim.
napoleon wasnt as bad as he is made out to be.@@die1mayer
😂😂😂👍
My dad made fun of me for not wanting to go see Napoleon with him(I already had plans anyway). But once he came back, he congratulated me on deciding not to go because it was awful.
I'm 45 now. I saw countless movies and tv-shows in my life. I was really entertainted when GLADIATOR came out in the year 2000. Yes, that one was as historically accurate as Star Trek, but it was at least very entertaining. By God, I watched Naploeon on Sunday and I felt Nothing, NOTHING. Ridley Scott might be just too old and stubborn now - he's 86... many people don't even live that long. And usually people get more and more stubborn and entitled in old age. He made some masterpieces, but WTF was Napoleon!
@@beyondlimitationsvideo Scott began his downfall in 2005, with Kingdom of Heaven. Since then, he made a few decent films here and there, but most of them are atrocious.
Is your dad a boomer?
@@ArseneGray He's on the older end of Gen X, with a couple older siblings who are Boomer.
@allisk8001 so we have evidence of at least one person who is not a millenial who does not like ridley scott's movie 😅
"My ignorance is as valid as your expertise." is the most modern statement of the year.
I don't know about that.
Also don't forget "It's my emotional truth"
I dont like how its modern to use „ignorance“ instead of „unawareness“.
And as we know, modern is not the same as good.
It's an *old* quote:
"Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”
― Isaac Asimov (sometime prior to 1970, I think)
I believe Carl Sagan repeated the quote in the original COSMOS as well.
When a filmmaker says "get a life" to people discussing films, he means we should stop wasting our time watching his childish movies.. right?
Correct
You people thought Ridley Scott was still relevant? He's 86 for the record.
That explains a lot. Senile dementia is a horrible thing…
Right-o!
Thank you for help me understand it. Now, I can follow his sugestion.
Metateon .. I was one of the mounted Pretorian guard in the Germania Scene of Gladiator. ( filmed in Surrey ) I was also by the horrendous “war chariot “ that transported Comodious to the battle front .. We as extras where all told to bow when Comodious appears out of the war wagon .. I stepped forward and pointed out to Scott that as Pretorian guards we would not bow low as instructed as that would endanger Comodious .. He went ballistic and was about to throw me off set when the poor old historical advisor ( yeah, they had one honest ) stepped up and agreed with me.. He calmed down and reluctantly allowed us guards to stay up right .. true story ..
That must have been an amazing experience! And thank you for sharing it.
Damn I hope you got to work with a better director after that
That is SUCH an amazing story! Good for you for standing up!
Thanks
A wise person once said, "Just because you're famous does not mean you're smart."
Scott is very good a one very specific thing. He can make very good looking movies. And the results are great when that's all he has to do. But the man can't recognize a good story if it walked up to him and punched him. He needs to work with good writers and good producers to keep him in line. That's why his movie started going downhill after Gladiator gave him enough clout to do whatever he wanted to do.
It's a subset of the Dunning Kruger effect, where if you know a little bit about something you think you know a lot more than you do, but when people are famous or have expertise in a high profile field that gives them high social status they think they know EVERYTHING about it, more than the experts.
This is why a doctor will tend to think they know more about cars than a mechanic for example.
It's also why we men tend to think we know more than women about subjects even when they're experts in them, it's because we're fooled into thinking social superiority equals expertise. Everyone does this to varying degrees though so it's pointless to single out a person or a group.
@@fattiger6957"Raised by wolves" is not a very good looking film (OK, TV series). It looks like a low budget crap from 60s. The rest you said I agree with.
@@TheduckwebcomicsI'm sorry but your understanding of the Dunning Kruger effect is skewed. DKE tells nothing about assessing of the competence of others but only about self-assessment. And even more: it was demonstrated that low competent people correctly estimate their competence with regard to the competence of high competent people.
you just demolished all the "celebrities" preaching morals theatre
The thing is that every day of his active career, Napoleon's every move was recorded and reported in every newspaper in Europe, every diary of every politician, and every dispatch from every ambassador. After he was deposed, every other one of these people composed memoirs. Not just his followers and friends, but every one of his enemies. We may not know the color of the slippers he slipped into on some particular day, but every order, piece of law, and who he spoke with can be known if you look in the right document. A movie maker who disregards the historical record in favor of whatever he dreams up after too rich a meal is not going to make a very good movie about such a well known man. Every scene is probably going to ring wrong.
Red or green leather for the Emperors slippers.
You're welcome. 😉
🦁☀️🐝⚡🦅⚡🐝☀️🦁
🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝
🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝
🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝
🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝
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From this perspective, it would make sense why Hollywood likes Medieval movies as they have a lot of flexibility, too bad they just bastardize everything.
@@wastrelperv The problem is that too many of movie makers place medieval Europe somewhere between Avalon and Camelot and slightly west of Sherwood. They have to stick in a bunch of dragons, witches, goblins, and magic. Being a bastard was a legitimate problem for a medieval person. the problem with most medieval plots today is being over fantasized.
@@emmitstewart1921 Too many Robin Hoods, that's for sure. Too much Templar conspiracy theories. Too much Viking romanticization. Too many witch trials going on despite belief in witchcraft being much lower than before and after the Medieval period.
Ridley Scott told me everything I need to know about this film when he decided to relegate historians to fairy tale peddlers. Hard pass.
Wise choice. The movie it most reminded me of was actually Alexander...except without the close adherence to history.
Unfortunately, Hollywood is also re-writing the fairy tales, too. The Grimm brothers were serious about being accurate with their stories.
@@antontaraskin8727 Same thing with Snow White.
Historians know details scientifically correct but the overarching stories they tell are mostly speculation. The actually verifyable facts also play a secondary role in what is taught as "history". Being from Germany and critical both of the industry around it and its instrumentalization as well as of the "deniers", from my expirience most people around the world have completely skewed ideas about the "history" and the crimes of the 3rd Reich
People are getting tired of altering history for the sake of either diversity or sensationalism.
For this case, it's probably more leaning into Ridley Scott's British's anti-French biases and anti-historical sentiments, making Napoleon an emotionally malleable military general with the film very specific angle to undermine his military achievements throughout DECADES OF ABLE TO CONQUER EUROPE, undermining his double-edged sword of his legacy with blatant biases on a film based of a historical figure, it's giving me reminiscence to the more recent and seemingly unrelated kind of USA lying about WMDs in Iraq or the incubator babies in Kuwait to brushing out the highway of death alongside Saddam's role in stabilising Iraq into national order, relative growth and notable anti-terrorism containment in the Middle East (so mass immigrations to The West are minimised to teeth), in spite of Saddam's many flaws and crimes (especially letting Uday's deranged antics existing) but I digress
Making Napoleon being so submissive to his wife while not focusing on the actual women that's waaay more instrumental to Napoleon's life (namely his very own mother which he highly respected and loved so much) are akin to making an Ottoman series where Suleiman I's military and administrative achivements being reduced to him simping for Roxelana/Hurrem, it's historical revisionism into absurd degrees
To some extend, making the action more spectacular can be okay if it doesn't break the logic. An example I often use is the ice breaking under the Teutonic Knights in Alexander Nevsky, which didn't happen during the real battle.
Alexandre Dumas (writer of the Three Musketeers) had a great saying for that : "You can rape history, at the condition to give her beautiful children"
Although the rape allegory might be ill-suited to the modern times, i like the idea : you can change history for your fiction, at the explicit condition that what you show is more interesting than what actually happened.
Always write die-worse-ity.
Do it.
Let us bark back a bit.
@@ohamatchhams Well congratulations on rambling from Scott's Napoleon bias to your own about Saddam and the U.S. in one long and barely comprehensible sentence.
The whole "were you there?" argument makes about as much sense as asking a quantum physicist whether they have actually seen a boson particle.
The question might work if we were talking about something far more distant but Napolean was early 1800s mostly if I remember correctly. It isn't like he was a mystery lost to time. The guy had the relevancy of the US president has had since post WW2 in his time.
@@jacquelineking5783 Totally, in Napoleon case, there are tons of contemporary books talking about his achievements, comportement and all the important figures around him.
It can even be boring as some testimony talks about his day to day life.
Religious people often say it. Ken Ham uses it basically in every reply to every comment that a scientist says to him.
You're implying the average person even knows what those things are 🤦♂🤦♂
@@MarcelNLDon’t lump wappies like Ken Ham with all of us normal humans.
I saw a cartoon about the RS Napoleon flick. It showed Napoleon next to a pyramid firing a shoulder launched rocket at a Spitfire while a Tyrannosaurus Rex trotted past. The caption read you can't criticise this because you weren't actually there.
Sums up Scott's "argument" in a nutshell.
Once again, metatron suffers for both our entertainment and education against the forces of inaccuracy. Hats of to you, sir
“Forces of inaccuracy”
*puts on glasses*
(Forces of liberalism)
The fact that he had a consultant on Gladiator who asked to have her name removed when he ignored her input, says everything.
Really? wow. I must admit that it does not surprise me in anyway. Now I like the artist Ridely Scott. I do think he makes great films and I do know they are the farthest away from historical accuracy, yet he was always an idiot.
This wouldn't surprise me...
It's the latest Hollywood trend: being as confrontational as possible when somebody even politely points out you're wrong,Hollywood is that spoiled child that throws an absolute world class tantrum if they get told no,and they're proud of it so you just have to get used to it Metatron *shrugs*
No, We have to change it. The world has hit a new low.
@@MrJoeBlaze We can choose to not except it however these people are fanatics and will not change,keep not taking it however understand it won't change much until the next generation comes in and realizes that kind of thing doesn't work.
They have become so rich and powerful that they can afford it, and they got that from the people, but the people are changing.
I will not get used to it. But I will expect it.
Getting used to it implies acceptance of their behavior, which I won't do, ever.
Rather than Hollywood, it's more likely to be certain people working there. I'm sure there are still plenty of other directors in Hollywood that don't make the same mistakes as Ridley Scott. Regardless, I do agree that it's a bit of a trend.
"Were you there? So stfu." has the same energy as "I remember my grandmother said 'I don't care what they teach you in school' " 😅
CLEOPATRA WAS FROM THE MOON
@@ericvulgate7091Yeah she was a moon princess from an ancient moon kingdom.
Not sure the whole grandma disagreeing with what you learn in school is the best argument in 2023
@@ericvulgate7091 No she was albanian
The correct answer is "yes, yes I was". And if they question that just tell them that it is clear they weren't so they can't really say anything about it.
From The Duellists to this, I think he got too confortable. With that confort came laziness and arrogance. Since Gladiator was a success and an entertaining film, despite its many historical innacuracies, it seems he started thinking he could crap out whatever and the audiences would swallow it.
More concerning is that this ignorant little man now believes his opinions are as valid as the knowledge academics have accumulated over the centuries, more so even, since it's his movie and what he says goes.
Spreading a little education along with entertainment in his movies would cost him nothing, but the thundering choir of his own ego must mute all dissention. Shame on him.
Yeah, he seemed to forget - or perhaps just miss entirely - the fact that Gladiator wasn't good because it totally ignored history but rather because its historical inaccuracies still served to build the setting in a cinematic and satisfying way. It also helps that Maximus himself was a fictional person. Historians can nitpick things like the Romans wearing lorica segmentata at a time when they wouldn't be wearing much of it, but all Scott has to say is, "It's THE iconic Roman armor. It looks cool, everyone knows that it's 'Roman armor,' and anyone who's wearing it on-screen is clearly a Roman. The barbarians are all in fur and hide with shoddy axes because they're the *barbarians.* You see them, you know who they are. I'm telling a story, not filming a reenactment." Boom. Done. He nails the 'vibe' of ancient Rome and tells a good story at the same time without pretending he's recreating history on-screen.
It seems like he really got a bit full of himself as, as you said, too comfortable. He missed the fact that the inaccuracies in something like Gladiator still contributed to the setting. It made the Romans look and feel like *Romans.* The barbarians look like *barbarians.* Rome looks like Rome. The characters act, at least in the average person's mind, like Romans. The praetorians look like praetorians. On and on, accurate or not. Napoleon just... doesn't act like Napoleon, from all the reviews and summaries I've heard.
"Since Gladiator was a success and an entertaining film, despite its many historical innacuracies" I don't think that Gladiator had anything accurate, it was all historical inaccuracies. He should stick to fiction, his greatest hits were Alien and Hannibal
You go and make your own movie then
@@oscaralegre3683 No thanks. I'll just not see his anymore.
@@oscaralegre3683, any creator who blames the consumer/audience for not liking their product is wrong, we decide what content we enjoy not him.
In Ridley Scott's defense, he did cut the scene where Napoleon used his alien spaceships discovered under the Sphinx to beam up some his troops during the siege of Moscow.
Scott figured people would consider it historically inaccurate the spaceships couldn't save all Napolean's troops.
🤧 I cri for the lost.
…and I really missed that scene; I was really looking forward to it, since I’ve always heard so much about it…
Napoleon would have won Waterloo, but SG1 blew up his Al'kesh
Scot has never been told "no" as a child. Ego is insane.
As someone who enjoys cinema, and loves history, I'm so tired of the 'it's a movie, its entertainment not a documentary' excuse for bad historical filmmaking. Master and Commander is fiction, historical fiction but still. And yet it stands as one of the most historically 'AUTHENTIC' pieces of cinema ever made. Not accurate, but authentic. And it is a great movie.
Ridley Scott looks and history and just presumes he can do better. Even when he actually just makes history look smaller, and less significant.
@@Blisterdude123 Alexandre Dumas (writer of the Three Musketeers) had a great saying for that : "You can rape history, at the condition to give her beautiful children"
Although the rape allegory might be ill-suited to the modern times, i like the idea : you can change history for your fiction, at the explicit condition that what you show is more interesting than what actually happened.
or as an adult .
@@Cancoillotteman Love it! Should be placarded on every historical show as a reminder.
@@CancoillottemanBetween Dumas and Hugo I think we have a good insight that Scott has no idea wtf he is talking about.
Historian: discusses history
Filmmaker: Get a life!
Sir, that IS his life.
Never mind how epically ridiculous it is for someone spending his life creating make believe telling people who study the history of mankind to "get a life".
Not to mention, history is literally the culmination of human life in extended periods of time. 😂🤦♂️
I quit watching bio-pics and historical “dramas” a while ago because I got tired of all the ways the directors twist the stories, usually to promote whoever they want to be the hero. And all the sheeple watch the movies and think that they are historically accurate.
As a history prof. there are a lot of movies I have a hard time watching because they are so far off the mark of what we know about an era, event, or personality that I have to constantly remind myself that it is supposed to just be entertainment but then I find even schools sometimes using such silly movies to teach kids a "history lesson." It is very frustrating. I have to correct a lot of stuff. I have even heard some young people say it has to be true or they wouldn't have it in the movie as an objection to an actual historical account. So, I completely understand your frustration with this stuff.
Haha, yeah its just entertainment but nowadays movies arent even entertaining... :-(
As an ex-teacher I apologize for showing movies in the classroom, we just get so tired sometimes and need a break. LOL Esp now during the Christmas season it's going to be either a Christmas quiz or a movie that is remotely related to whatever topic we are going through. We do point out that it's not accurate, but I have to admit, not every student understands or remembers that. Also many students forget absolutely everything they have learned after a while, it's really depressing.
The education system uses movies with zero educational value and pretends they're educational a LOT. When I was in high school, some public school kids I knew were shown the Percy Jackson movies in class as part of the Greco-Roman unit in social studies...meanwhile, I was reading actual Greco-Roman literature through my Great Books homeschool curriculum. My dad is a schoolteacher and says another teacher at his school showed the kids Hamilton as part of their American Revolution unit. Hamilton has barely any educational value and Percy Jackson may have *negative* educational value. The teachers know as much as the kids do if they think these movies belong in a classroom.
We should weaponise angry internet historians.
*Do it*
youtube.com/@InternetHistorian?si=G1jfRKRn6UhQ1-Dz
I am on board with this. I support this.
Nah. Use them as a power source.
I mean it happened with MatPat's episode of Game Theory covering "For Honor" it brought Skallagrim, Metatron and Shadiversity to my attention with them going, "You wot?"
As a historian, Scott's words were like a stab. Fortunately, I have a certain ability to separate the work from the artist, although sometimes it becomes very, very challenging.
As a Historian I always wonder how many of us actually have sheep skins that claim this. lmao
As AN Historian!!!
He's pissed us VFX artists off as well by saying "it's all practical" when over 360 digital artists worked on the film.
@@jaredmccormickHuh?
@@jaredmccormick A 'oop! An Hoop!
Monty python, great sketch.
Dan Snow is no average Tik Toker, this guy was the OG historian back in the day with his Dad. And he also rugby tackled a looter during the London riots. Top lad
yeah nothing says top lad like a nepo baby sticking it to the poors.
@@michaelcoward1902I'm confused. Is this in regards to his views or tackling a rioter/looter/whoever it was he tackled?
@wastrelperv he only became a successful TV historian because his dad brought him on to his own, British media is rife with nepotism
@@jamesparke6252 Almost all media. You think the west is bad? Look beyond your cozy bubble. We wish our countries were at your levels of corruption. Why do you think so many want in and few ever go back beyond vacation?
@@jamesparke6252hes also an englishman who ‘earned’ a bafta Cymru for making a documentary about an Italian who built a wall in england, typical thieving saes bastard
What's insane is Scott directed The Duelists, which is an awesome film that had a lot of attention to detail regarding the Napoleonic period.
Ridley Scott is a hit or (very) miss director. No consistency at all with the man.
he is an old man now, with more fame and more money, and more ego
I guess we can contribute it to the writers who kept the script right.
not really 'insane' that an artist in his 80s is less inspired than he was in his 20-30s
Had to watch some P's and Q's still at that time. Stick to the book.
Considering how recent Napoleon's life was compared to say, Julius Caesar or Qin Shi Huangdi, Ridley Scott really has no excuse going on for him. We have so much information on Napoleon because of how important he was in the world stage and because of the typical observation that we can obtain more information from people who lived closer to our time period than those from further back.
I'm 100% with you. Granted these are a lot newer, but there are channels which take a conflict, like the Battle of Stalingrad, and make videos about what happened every day because people would write diaries, reports, letters, and so on.
To the extent that one of them I watch (the one doing the Battle of Stalingrad) goes through why a diary which has been used for decades as 'how the Germans on the ground saw the conflict' was probably written, or at least heavily edited by the KBG because he found discrepencies in the details of the record.
LazerPig has issues about historical accuracy because many reports that were written about certain events were fabricated and the other participants were too lazy to do more than the bare minimum... so the lies were then treated as truth by everyone else!
So Ridley Scott saw the issue of historic analysis and records being nebulous and sometimes hard to piece together, and decided to just say "screw it" and make up whatever the frak he wanted.
So basically, the Hollywood attitude towards history and truth.
Not just Hollywood. US 'culture' is steeped in historical unawareness.
@@davidbouvier8895 sadly, yes.
Also arguably world culture.
How many people even know the term "Holodomor", or about the government poisoning alcohol during prohibition and killing 10,000 people, among other events?
Peter Weir directed Master and Commander and did a great job with his research, a great film of it's period! A great director
I’m still sad that the planned sequel(s) never happened. One of my favorite films.
M&C is an outstanding film!
Now, this one should be an absolute reference
Indeed it is. I wish we’d gotten sequels too.
@@staggerlee7301 If you haven't read the books then do yourself a favour, a great read!
The Pyramid scene is just more fuel to make Europeans look like the "destroyers of cultures" we're always accused of being.
Well, our race has have been a top contributor to innovation in the neutralization of hostile groups.
Howver, its balanced out by all the contributions white men and some women have made to the betterment of the race and humans as a whole.
Ordinarily I'd agree but honestly, Ridley Scott IS just that incompetent. Never attribute to malice what can be attiributed to incompetence. Ridley Scott genuinely thought a 'clever' piece of imagery to communicate Napoleon's conquest of Egypt was to have him shoot cannons at the pyramids.
Not much different to how Ridley Scott depicted (demonized) the crusaders in KoH.
[Edit: but at least KoH was actually a fairly entertaining movie.]
Dont tell them that archeology and anthropology were almost entirely created by Europeans
Funny how the real person who tried to destroy the pyramids hundreds of years earlier than that was actually Saladin’s son, but we can’t say shit about Muslims
I have a degree in History. While I certainly don't consider myself a historian, I have to say that not understanding how historical research works, to this degree, is kind of shocking. Good video.
When someone tries the whole “we YOU there?” I say “yes, I was, I saw it all….and if YOU weren’t ALSO there then you can’t tell me I wasnt”. That usually gets them to realize how dumb they are being. Usually. Not always.
I'm using that lol 🤔.
Those who forget the past are destined to make movies about it.
😄
I am totally with you. As a student of history I am flummoxed by this descent into fantasy! It seems these people think you can construct the world anyway you like. They fail to realise this ends in total chaos. How then can you know anything or trust anything. Thank you for your videos. Stay sane.
The irony here is that in one of his first films, Scott took a historical tale and made an excellent film set in the Napoleonic era. That film was "The Duellists." And he did it on a very meager budget. But now he's...superior. He took one of the most charismatic leaders in world history and turned him into a schlub. And in reference to his "Were you there?" comment, I can only point out that dozens of contemporary persons WERE there, recorded the facts at the time and set them down with some accuracy and established something some of us refer to as "History." Histories can be wrong...usually when written by people who weren't there and 200 years after the fact. But the facts of Austerlitz and Borodino and Waterloo are known. Napoleon's life is not a fantasy made up on a spaceship with upturned milk crates for decking (as it was in his film "Alien.") Men fought and died for this man. And when he fell and returned...they came back and fought and died for him again. And he was more than just a general...he was a political and legal innovator who's acts are still alive in the world today. Whereas Mr. Scott is...just a jester and should have bells on his hat.
"The Duellists" was a great movie, i agree.
Nah, he's more or less a clown. Jesters make fun of the audience for their entertainment, Clowns make fun of themselves for the audience's entertainment.
I mean, he did clean up the legal system but also took away the rights of most of France's citizens and brought back slavery. So, he wasn't really a legal innovator, more like a legal repealer.
Seriously, there are books that are widely known and published in the modern times, that were written by people who literally were there and knew Napoleon personally. Jomini and his works on the art of war for example, he participated in the Napoleonic wars on both sides of the conflict as a high ranking staff officer and his works are literally being published today
He has to push the self made man american dream
As a Czech, I was kind of surprised how it looked in the movie in Austerlitz (Slavkov in Czech), there are no bigger hills and that massive lake was just a pond, but I respect that it's just a movie, what I don't like is when creators know how it should be correctly and they don't do it on purpose to make historians angry.
He filmed it in an old quarry in Surrey where he filmed the battle scenes for Gladiator...very lazy especially with what you can do with CGI now. It was in the interview he had with Dan Snow for History Hit.
I'd like a movie/series in period about skirmish and probe units. Similar to the Sharps' series.
That would be cool.
I live in Brno. When I saw the trailer I remembered a moment in cinema years ago where in the movie "Wanted" with Angelina Jolie the protagonist is on a pendolino train in "Moravia" that goes through a tunnel and than it goes straight to a bridge over a massive ravine where it crashes... At that moment one guy in the cinema shouted "Ty vole, Macocha" and the whole audience started laughing. After seeing Scot's depiction of Austerlitz, I must admit Wanted was the second worst depiction of Moravia in US cinema.
@@neverstopschweiking It looked like some Norway or something. 😀
Were when draining the pond after the battle they found several bodies and dead horses
Sadly we live in a time when ignorance and arrogance are worshipped. We live in a time when people honestly think that they can make up their own reality, and that their personal fiction overrides history and science.
So sad but so true
The Metatron has more godlike knowledge in his little finger than all of these haters combined!!! Keep clapping those historical cheeks Metatron!!! All of mankind thanks you!!!!
It's not even god-like knowledge. Anyone can learn the stuff he knows. And those who watch his videos learn what he knows. It's just that many people would rather live in ignorance than discover the truth
@The_Ragequit_Cannon it's more that the first thing someone is told about a topic is the truth they stick with because they don't want to explore the topic further or it fits a narrative they're trying to push as truth.
@@panzer00Thus: Propaganda
And if I recall it was the Seljuks that attacked the Egyptian(documented by Seljuk scribes) monuments before Europeans even ever ruturned to appreciate them.
@@badlaamaurukehu I guess that one word sums up my word vomit
The moment the alien burst out of Napoleon's chest, i knew Scott had gone astray.
He held it back as long as he could. (Hand in coat)
When Josephine declared she was non binary, it killed me.
That was the most historically accurate scene in the movie….
@@alihenderson5910You kids are so obsessed with your phones you're still texting your emoticons over the web behind Heaven's pearly gates.
P.S.
My condolences, I am praying for your departed soul.
Ridley Scott seems to be such a strong narcissist and an as***le. Imagine how his staff likes to work with him.
I really dislike filmmakers ignoring historical accuracy. Big budget movies get watched by millions of people who can get a very distorted view of the past this way. Such an inportant source of information should keep high standarts.
I wish filmmakers would just admit that their historical movies are just supposed to be fun and not taken seriously. Like how historical anime that make Oda Nobunaga a demon aren't supposed to be taken seriously. But in Hollywood, every historical movie is treated like it's the pinnacle of high art and accuracy.
It depends on the movie. By a movie's nature, it has to condense complicated history into a restricted time frame with a restricted budget and have to make a profit. So they cannot be 100% accurate in any way. But that doesn't excuse just plain ignoring or dismissing the facts.
Ah, I don't mind, if they upfront about it. After the spectators Stomped "We will Rock you" in a Knight's tale", I was down for anything. I didn't mind Octavian's mom to be alive until the end of the Rome series. It was just fun and entertaining and she was a deliciously evil matriarch. I don't know if there is a hard line for me, but as long as the vibe is right, I forgive a lot.
Historian makes comments about a movie based on actual historical figures and events.
Tells that historian to get a life.
"But... history IS my life...."
So I guess whenever Scott wants to criticize a movie for mistakes in film making techniques, people have the right to tell him to get a life.
Should have replied with "get an education!"
I just watched Waterloo (1970). Brilliant film and the portrayals of Napoleon and Wellington were terrific!
A fantastic film
Ridley Scott's first feature film was about two officers in Napoleon's Army who carry a grudge and demand 'satisfaction' across a few decades. Released in 1977 it is called 'The Duellists'.
Favorably critiqued and highly rated it comes with this note from its wikipedia entry "The film is lauded for its historically authentic portrayal of Napoleonic uniforms and military conduct, as well as its generally accurate early-19th-century fencing techniques as recreated by fight choreographer William Hobbs."
Age is getting to Ridley Scott.
A fall from grace.
The question is, did he write and direct both movies or only directed both or wrote and directed one? Not all directors write their own films and many are essentially hired guns. The studio has a script that they like and so they look around fr someone to direct and that director may or may not have much or any input in wat the final shooting script is like. But giong by his statement, it sounds like maybe he either wrote the script or screenplay for Napoleon or, at the very least, had considerable input in the script/screenplay.
Ridley was only ever a good director, i hope people finally unglue their mouths from his rear and realize that all of his greatest movies had a stellar cast of scriptwriters and producers that have been overshadowed by him.
@@T-h-a-t_G-u-y It was his first film. He was not a big shot then. It may be age but also ego and its a bad combination.
This is how Mr Scott pais respect to the work of others. This behavior speaks volumes about the character of a person.
Remember the Rosetta Stone? It might have not even been discovered if Napoleon and his peeps weren’t trying to conquer Egypt. They cared more for ancient Egypt than the descendants who lived there. That Scott had the artillery use the Sphinx as target practice was over the top. It was not necessary for the story line. What was he trying to portray?
The fuckin' EGO of Hollywood as a whole has grown beyond anything I thought I'd ever see. We all know that celebrities have an inflated sense of self-importance, but the whole town has just gone off the rails with narcissism.
Its because normal people like us keep telling how awesome they are, asking for signatures, paying money to see them etc etc..
Scott was leagues better when he was:
a) younger and not as spoiled by fame as he is now
b) restrained by limited budgets and kept in check by studio execs (yes, they DO sometimes work as a healthy boundaries setters for overambitious buffoons)
an actor/director getting over their heads throughout their career is a story as old as that industry itself.
"The Duelists" is a gem of a movie, and way more historically accurate. Scott lost that touch along the way.
I just was thinking about his first movie The Duellists that was also set in Napoleonic times. That one was really good. But, well, like many artists before... after a certain time, they lose their Mojo.
Usually, the main thing is getting old, and thus, not as good as the arts and making a story.
The simple truth@Thsnk you friend
To be fair, he is not the only one; in the film King Arthur, one of the Roman was using a bow and arrow while riding a horse that did not exist until centuries later with the Mongols of Genghis Kahn, a bow and arrow used by the Roman, would have been too long to be used while riding the horse, and of course barbed wire, also seen in the film did not exist either. Norman Freeman plying a black Muslim, warrior moving to cold Nottingham with Robin Hood, (Kevin Costner) who presumably joined the Crusades to kill Muslims.
You owe everything to your viewers! Thanks for remembering us, and thank you for all your hard work. I love your channel!
The Napoleon movie looks like an absolute farce of a film. I honestly fear its the beginning of the bastardization of history for entertainments sake and I'm terrified with the possibilities it could result in.
Its a bad love story, with "highlights" so to speak of Napoleon's life scattered without any explination.
Unfortunately, history has been treated this way for decades. Look at the likes of Braveheart, regarded as one of the most historically inaccurate movies ever made.
@@akl2k7yup also the movies Titanic , Pearl Harbor, and The Patriot (especially the scene of slaves defending their slave owner against joining the British army)
@@CharlesChristinaWHI have to defend Titanic here. The love story aside, its a good representation. Cameron knows his stuff, and did some serious research. And on top of that you got of course some dramatisation
@thepubknight6144 you do know not all slave owners were hated by slaves don't you?
the irony is Scott's first film, his directorial debut, "the Duelists" is one of the best historical films ever made. I have no idea why/how he forgot to make good/accurate films when he made "the Last Duel" or potentially "Napoleon"(haven't seen it yet).
Too much money and too few constraints are the twin assassins of relevant art.
He loves to take creative liberties, Gladiator was innacurate in pretty much all of its portrayal of Roman history.
@@johnandrewserranogarcia7223 Sure, but that was decades after The Duelists, and after he cut his teeth on Aliens et al.
Ridley Scott would probably walk into the airplane’s cockpit and yelled at pilots “can you fly on your own? do you have wings? Well then shut the eff up!”
😂😂😂😂😂
Compare Napoleon to Ridley Scott’s “The Duelists” and the drop in quality, historic accuracy and attention to detail is undeniable.
Black Hawk Down is another one of his films and that was an excellent and extremely accurate portrayal of the events it was based on. This is just embarrassing.
@@robertwalker5794 I havent watched Napoleon, I am a Scott fan. Is it really that bad? I loved the duel, I thought it was very original.
@@elian958 I like some of his films as well. I actually really liked Robin Hood and he created some classic films like Alien and Blade Runner. But yes, I think this is bad.
First, it’s too short for the amount of time he’s trying to show. If Scott wanted to show the entirety of Napoleon’s rise and fall, he needed at least two, maybe three films.
Second, he completely rewrites parts of well documented history and doesn’t do anything interesting in the film to justify it. You can edit history in certain ways, and still be authentic but he apparently did it just because he could.
Third, his general attitude towards people raising concerns about the film was (and still is) completely dismissive and arrogant. He seems to have such a inflated opinion of himself and blames others for his failures. He basically told everyone who criticized the changes to history that he was right and that everyone should shut up and deal with it which, unsurprisingly, angered a lot of people and immediately turned them against the film.
I highly recommend looking up some other reviews of the film as they do a much better job at explaining its flaws than I can but to sum it up, this film was a massive disappointment.
@@robertwalker5794 well, nobody is perfect I guess
Over the years he’s stopped knowing how to develop a narrative. “the Duellists” captured the Napoleonic era so much better
Once famous creators aging out of their field of employment to the point that they have no idea anymore what their target demographic wants, or even considers a good idea, is a thing. I wish they wouldn't pretend it wasn't.
seems like we're seeing that same sort of thing play out across the world really. Politicians are getting older, many people cant get promoted because people above them arent retiring even after they've aged to the point that their abilities have degraded (which often leads to those under them doing their superiors job for them without a raise OR promotion), and overall it seems like older generations are just refusing to relinquish control even after they've grown out of touch with the modern world like boomers yelling at Gen Z service workers about how things were so much harder in their day back when a high school drop out could afford to buy a house while that Gen Z worker is making slave wages to pay off his college degrees that he needed to work at McDonalds.
Scott knows his target demographic and it isn't anyone interested in truth.
Scott was obviously "there", so he's totally qualified to depict Napoleon as an eight-legged Martian gas crab if he wants to!
It’s a shame because his first movie The Duellists is a really great movie set in the Napoleonic era. Scott’s movies are always beautifully shot but storywise his track record is so all over the place it makes me think the guy is not a storyteller AT ALL but basically just a glorified cameraman who sometimes is lucky enough to work with good screenwriters and then he gets the credit (because people tend to exaggerate the importance of directors and ignore the writers).
You hit the nail squarely on the head with this comment
Basically, the way I see it, Ridley Scott entered this stage of movie creator's life cycle where he is intoxicated by illusion of his own grandeur induced from sniffing his own farts.
He is a very good director. Knows absolutely nothing about history though
Very well summarized.
@@Minions91113 He _was_ a good director. Other than The Martian, he hasn't made a good film since 2010. He's just another George Lucas now. Insisting Jar Jar Binks is cool.
@@KathrynsWorldWildfireTrackingGeorge Lucas doesn’t even pretend to be like that. The prequels had direct homages and parallels to the works of early cinema. Lucas is no hack… I’d also say Ridley works a whole lot at his late age and he does have great work after the Martian. Raised by Wolves has his son and Ridley directing a few episodes and also producing…
They began ripping on Scott immediately after that history comment “how do you know, you weren’t there shut up!”
I love when casuals try to use the “were you there?” argument. Absolute classic.
I can say that Riddley Scott does not exist according to him. I was never there ......
Also: don't like, don't read. And of course "don't criticize if you can't make it better yourself". 🙄
Simple reply to such cretins - ask them if they believe Alaska, Antarctica, Africa, or Australia exist.
Shocking part is that this "argument" wasnt made by kindergarten kid but a grown up man...
That reminds me of religious apologetics. Many apologists use the schtick.
As a member of Generation X, I would like to acknowledge the fact that in Metatron's rant about generations not liking Mr. Scotts film, we (Gen X) were in fact not acknowledged, as is almost always the case when generations are brought up.
(Don't get me wrong. We literally don't care. But we do think it's funny that everyone almost always forgets about us).
Love the channel, by the way.
I wrote this a month ago, in response to a video I saw, where he talked about the behind the scenes of the movie; _While I'm certainly intrigued by his perspective as a film maker, I do question his simplistic thoughts on the books about him (Napoleon/ historical figures)- yes, sometimes the earliest accounts come from eyewitnesses/ people who had access to eyewitnesses/ information, & later accounts might be written long after eyewitnesses are dead- but beyond authorial bias, the information available can change over time, too._
_Some writers have a role that allows them access to information that others simply aren't privy to. For others, Government documents become accessible after a certain amount of time- people leave hithertofore unknown artefacts & private papers to museums & whathaveyou._
_So long as a writer applies a rigorous standard (knowing the background of the sources, & so on) - there's no reason a newer work can't be just as valid as the first._
_And saying 'Were you there?' is a foolish retort; No, I wasn't there for Marie Antoinette's execution, but there is documentation for it- we know the date, the month & the year (& thus, the likely weather)- preceding events are also known (she attracted a great deal of sympathy during her trial, due to the vileness of some of the accusations leveled at her, struck a chord with mothers in the gallery when she appealed to them)- so that can give a stronger impression of her attitude & mindset (unlikely she was haughty & arrogant, & that the _*_entire_*_ crowd was screaming abuse at her)_
_We also know what she was wearing- because she'd _*_requested_*_ to wear black, & the revolutionary authority _*_*forced*_*_ her to wear white; her hair was cut short at the prison & she was made don a mobcap._
_We also know how she came to her execution (the route, means, & company)- as well as the process for it._
_I'm not trying to sh*t on the movie, or anything- but if so much was gotten wrong in such a small section, then I do have to wonder how so much of Napoleon's life & reign, & campaigns can be accurately depicted in a movie, rather than a mini-series..._
While my comment got more than 100 likes- I got 4-5 responses with some variation of 'It's just a movie, bro- it's entertainment, not a history book!' - but I responded to a person who politely engaged with me, & was mostly agreeing with my comments.
I then added to this later response, my thoughts *after* seeing the movie: _I find this {changing _*_history_*_ to suit a film} frustrating; I agree that some _*_small_*_ changes, to benefit the smoothing of the directorial narrative, can prove necessary (& the film medium can helpfully establish in seconds & minutes- what a book takes paragraphs & pages to describe) - I feel the same way with novel series being adapted: I'm not a 💯% purist-type- I do understand that some things may get left out, but that should be a carefully made series of choices- not just for sh*ts & giggles- or because the scriptwriters/ showrunners were too stupid to craft the plot, a la Dumbarse & Dipsh^t of GoT infamy._
_But it absolutely went _*_beyond_*_ judicious choices in 'Napoleon' - my brother won tickets for the premiere, but wasn't able to go- so my mother & I did._
_Overall, it didn't feel worth it: it looked ok (Mum thought the palette & lighting for the battles/ uniforms was too muddy to follow things clearly, & all sides speaking English* didn't help) & was decently shot - the costumes & sets were good._
_But it was the story & characterisation predominantly, that let it down- Pheonix is too old to play Napoleon across a near 30-year period (1793-1821, 28 years to be precise), & Kirby, too young for Josephine; their wedding had _*_both_*_ their ages altered- aging him up, & her down- she was like 6-9 years older than him, I believe. It was certainly a choice to cover so much of Napoleon's life in a single film, as opposed to a series or trilogy- & split the story so sharply between his military career, & personal life._
_I feel like the portrayal maybe could have worked, had Scott really gone for it, in terms of Napoleon being single-minded- that would have paired better with a military focus- or, his penchant for cruelty, & sense of exactitude & internal inferiority to the elder royal houses of Europe, had the focus been more on his personal life. There was also the lack of detail within his administration/ relationships with people- the lack of personality - Pheonix looking tired/ bored did not help._
_When we left, Mum said, & I quote: "I would have no interest in paying to see this- he seemed so juvenile for so much of it." And she also felt the multiple sex-scenes were over-the-top (& after the first one, pointless). Aesthetically, it's quite reasonable- but even in generalities, let alone closer details- it absolutely falls over..._
*We had a good-natured debate on the way home, over the choices in historical/ foreign topic films- of native language/s, subtitled- accented English- & the actor's own English - in something like 'The Death of Stalin', for instance- everyone speaking English worked- because it was utilised as a way of emphasizing the differences between people of a larger geographic area - Scott could have used that similarly, to show the difference between Napoleon/ his family (Corsicans), the aristocrats like Josephine- & others, to give the audience a stronger sense of place/ alienation, & so on- but there's no focus on that aspect.
We get no real sense of these people, their background, nor their journey- or, _we_ didn't, at least...
We appreciate your accuracy. They should consult you for historical input! Hats off! 🎉
The "where you there", is nothing short of a hissyfit comment, I half expect people that use it, to throw themselves on the floor kicking and screaming....
Everything I’ve heard about Ridley Scott’s perspective on making this movie and the following criticism. Just makes me wonder why no one said to him “you know you don’t _have_ to make this movie?” Like he seems to not give a shit about any of the subject matter at all.
The Apple money they got for the movie helped a lot to not think about stuff like that.
Sort of like Jack Sparrow's response after hearing that the cursed pirates left no survivors: "I wonder where the stories come from then."
I think social media overall has massively overreacted to Napoleon, since many of the historical inaccuracies fall well within the standards for “good” directors like Kubrick and even Scott himself. There’s a lot of time compression adding people to scenes where they were not present and having characters talk who never met. That’s all standard movie stuff, and not particularly egregious. However, Scott himself also completely overreacted. He could have just said, “Who cares? We changed a few things to help with narrative and pacing. If we’d covered everything the movie would be 12 hours long and only of interest to war buffs. “
I agree, though I have to add something. He could’ve turned the movie concept into a 12 episode single season series since TV is much bigger and creatively freer than the film landscape. The director of Australia turned his film into a mini series, so it’s not unheard of.
His overreaction turned me off of him for the moment.
I recently went to see Napoleon, despite seeing the ludicrous trailers depicting Napoleon leading a cavalry charge. Like 300, I went to see it in the theater for the spectacle. Unlike 300, I will not be buying the DVD. If the title had been "Napoleon and Josephine" I would not have been as disappointed.
The sets and uniforms were superb, and most of the acting was top-notch. However, due to the script I kept having to check my ticket stub to be sure I was watching Napoleon and not Joker. Having apparently used exclusively British sources (who pathologically hated the man) for any research he may have done, Napoleon comes off as a total buffoon, which Joaquin Phoenix plays very well. Not only does he not physically change (did Scott not hire any makeup artists) over a period of 20+ years, but the character doesn't change. He's the same throughout the movie. 2 and a half hours with no character development in the title character? WTF?
The 'battle' scenes were about what I'd expect from a Hollywood epic: cringeworthy. Apparently all battles of the Napoleonic Wars involved WWI-style entrenchments except Borodino (which prominently featured field fortifications ).
Mr. Scott's goal fopr the movie can be summed up in the final 'scene' where Napoleon's legacy is reduced to the number of battles he fought ant the casualties inflicted flashed on a black screen.
I would have regretted not going to see it in the theater as a lost opportunity. That said, I regret going to see the movie.
By the way, I'm 72, not a Millennial. So, F*** Off, Mr. Scott.
Shooting the pyramids with cannons? What the french actually did in Egypt was finding the Rosetta stone, deciphering it. Giving birth to the study of Egyptology.
Maybe Mr. Scott should change his name to Michael.
Scott's refusal to address Napoleon's three day disappearance to San Dimas, California is unforgivable.
I want to congratulate you. I actually googled that as I hadn't seen the movie in a couple decades.
Was honestly a bit excited.
So bogus, dude. 😂
😂 awesome comment 😂
Was staring at San Dimas for a good 5 seconds. Gears turning. Then I got it.
Bogus.
ua-cam.com/video/6GmNwR3rQ0I/v-deo.htmlsi=64s2fCFupbjFkMuJ
3:54 Ridley Scott thinks Napoleon lived in the 1600s 💀
One thing that seems to have changed since The Last Duel, is that we millenials are no longer the intergenerational whipping boy. Thanks GenZ (and in Scott's case historians, as well as the French, apparently). I'd dance a dance of joy, but my back has been acting up lately...
I watched the movie last week. It's basically what you'd expect from a Ridley Scott movie: good action/battle scenes but little to no reference to reality. For example - SPOILERS! - the battle of Austerlitz was shown to be won by Napoleon using his canons to break the ice of a frozen lake. This actually happened as far as I know but it wasn't as significant to the victory as shown in the movie. The battle of Leipzig on the other hand was left out entirely.
For the entire movie Napoleon was shown to be a man which I feel would've been called weird in his time and today as well... there's a scene in which he wails like a dog in front of his servants because he wants to sleep with his wife Josephine. I expected to see a demonstration of the most powerful man in France but instead I got this... it was rather disturbing to witness.
Concerning Austerlitz, from what I read the whole part with the ice happened when the battle was essentially already won and a small group of Austrians and Russians (around 200 I think?) were retreating across a frozen body of water. The idea of the entire coalition army just marching onto a frozen lake they didn't know was there is unfathomably retarded; this is literally their home turf. I recommend Tolstoi's War and Peace for a dramatic yet historically accurate fictional depiction.
@@KitteridgeStudios that's precisely what I read as well.
This reminds me of when I was in school back in the seventies a teacher saying that Napoleon and his army shot the nose off the Spinx.
He did
No, it was broken off by a Sufi Muslim in 1378 who was outraged that local peasants were making offerings to the Sphinx.
@@charlespayne1707 Same Egyptologists that say that claim Egypt was white.. they have no credibility. white supremacists ALWAYS lie.
Im gonna spread that myth to my local preschool
An alien ate the nose
I'm actually really glad you pointed out that radio carbon dating has issues as well. When I went for my Anthropology/Archaeology degree we were trained on RCD and other forms as well and I was stunned to learn that the error correction pretty much boils down to 'the community decided these were good ranges and anything outside of it is null'. More surprised to learn that null points are FAR FAR more common than 'correct' data points.
I saw Napoleon. Let's just say he didn't come off as the most feared man in Europe.
Funny thing about shooting the pyramid (that didn't really happen) is that they could have shown soldiers shooting the nose off the Sphinx to even greater dramatic effect and at least he would be repeating a popular lie instead of inventing one.
You were hilarious in this one, Metatron! I almost peed myself when I heard that scream while Napoleon was holding his ears! Love it!
I know it's a tiny bit off-topic for "Napoleon", but if they wanted to add an interesting tidbit about the Egyptian campaign, they could have shown the discovery of the Rosetta Stone by a French soldier.
@@simpsondr12 yeah, that would have been great. Of course, there's no explosion in that story, and it's a true story, so that's a big "NO" from Hollywood!
I really apreciate Scott's work in general - kingdom of heaven and gladiator are all time classics. He never paid much attention to historical accuracy, but in those movies, oh boy, he did it the right way. When creating a history-based fiction, you have to create the authentic feeling about the setting. Fantasy is in this case somehat similar. It is not necessary to be glued to facts everywhere, but you need to chose some important details that will create the general feeling. It can be armor, fashion (extremely important), landscape, architecture, the way people are behaving, language and music. You can add details and plot elements that will work on viewers imagination, but are not necessarly realistic, quasi-legendary things that will make the story even more immersive and enhance the general experience. Example is Baldwin IV steel mask. It made him somewhat unreal, mysterious, but noble and majestic at the same time. Such things can not distract the viewer, they must be there purposefully and should not feel like a shortcut. The viewer hates, when he is treated like an idiot and won't notice. Napoleon lacks the feeling. It sticks to wrong facts, has annoying historical shortcuts, the details do not create the mood. This is the main problem in my opinion.
Kingdom of Heaven is typical woke pseudohistory and propaganda
I liked Gladiator, but Kingdom of Heaven not so much. The historical inaccuracies went far beyond details and gave a terrible impression of what life and war in that time and place for those characters would have been like.
Gladiator was a good story, but to me it was completely ruined by the blatant and egregious artistic license/lack of historical accuracy. Shame, because it could have been more accurate and still highly entertaining, because that was a truly fascinating point in Roman history.
I wish, if movie makers want to neglect historical accuracy, they’d cease using historical figures. The end of the Pax Romana would have still been an interesting backdrop without the need to desecrate the truth.
The argument, 'its just a movie' would make sense if most people dont consider historical movies as informative media. Many people watch historical movies and consider much of it as atlest kinda accurate to most of it very accurate.
And so it makes sense that movies have a responsibility to not misslead and lie to people
I jokingly say that the name of the movie should have been "Josephine"
It should be called that, but even still it's more of a Josephine FAN-FICTION film than an actual historic biopic.
@@winstonsmith8482 WhErE yOu ThErE?!
The problem with "this is a fictional film, not a documentary" is that 1000 people will see the film (if it's successful) for every ten people who read a book or even watch a documentary about the real history. So it's one thing to change a few minor details but if you give a false impression on a larger historical point that's going to be the "history" that 99% of the public thinks they know.
Oh don't worry they know what they're doing.
Thing is? They know exactly what they are doing.
thats on people tho, not the directors fault if they are stupid
Wait, so Abraham Lincoln wasn’t a Vampire Hunter?
Absolutely!
This is like a detective pulling out all the evidence and getting a "but were you actually there" from the defense.
A college professor I know whose field is literally in Revolution France & Napoleonic History is said to be so colossally disappointed by the film that he fell asleep half way in the theatre and told his collogues that it's horrible afterwards (advising them to not waste time and money to watch it)
If i fall asleep during his lectures and tell everyone it was horrible, does that make common sense? Fair enough?
Don't reply to comments if you can't think of anything worthwhile to respond with.
Fair?
@@ericvulgate7091 He's got a point. If you fall asleep half way, you were apparently _bored_ and weren't really paying attention anyway. You are thus disqualified from commenting on the content of the movie/lecture you attended. You can report that it was a snoozefest, but you can't say it was horrible, because you simply don't know. Indeed, if an historian falls asleep during a movie, then there can't have been that many errors to be annoyed by - because when you're annoyed, you will be kept awake. No one falls asleep while annoyed.
you liked the movie what are you even mad about.
they are lying about history what about that do you condone?@@majormarketing6552
@@ericvulgate7091 Yes I'll use academic writing to fill out 20 pages of forms and a master thesis to request your permission next time I want to post a comment on UA-cam, your lordship.
My 11 year old son wanted to go watch Napoleon but i said i have a better movie so we watched Waterloo (1970) together.
👍 Good choice, well done !
I would also recommend tv series from 2002 starring Christian Clavier as Napoleon and John Malkovich as Talleyrand, there are reuploads posted here on youtube (I've even seen someone posting version upscaled to 4k)
Unfortunately we need more video like this one because of the poor level of the modern education. 50 years ago everyone will have understood that this movie was a pure fiction because they knew basic historical facts. Last century we were wondering how civilisation collapses, now we know.
I come away from this video thoroughly convinced that Christmas crackers should henceforth contain authentic 15th century style hats.
Some people here mentioned The Duelists. This film was based on a story/legend going around at the time about two French generals Dupont and Fournier fighting a series of duels. At the last duel, Fournier fired his pistol and missed. Dupont pointed his pistol at Fournier and said, go away, but remember that I will always have the right to another shot at you.
Cold
His first movie "The Duelists" was well done with correct uniforms and event chronology. I still have to see the movie, but seeing Napoleon leading a cavalry charge makes me skeptical. By the way, latters were used to storm Regisburg in 1809, and Napoleon was shot in the foot leading the assault.
Him and History Bro tearing Scott a new hole is just beautiful 😗🤌
Napoleon's rise to power all the way to Waterloo is too big of a story for a 2-1/2 hour canvass. There's no real focus to it at all. Many moons ago, I read David G Chandler's 1100 page work: The Campaigns of Napoleon, and this only covered the military aspects of the man's career and life. Diving into his personal life with Josephine, and throughout his Mastery of Europe---there's no way to capture all of that in one feature film. This should have been three movies--his rise to power, from Toulon to his coronation. His mastery of Europe, from 1805 Austerlitz campaign through 1809 and the battle of Wagram, and the beginnings of his Spanish Ulcer. And then his fall 1812-1815. These are still huge time pieces with enormous scope, but this would give the movies some degree of focus which Scott's lacked.
@@andrewlustfield6079 It's inarguable that you can't fit Napoleon's whole story into a 2.5 hour movie, noobdy's arguing that dipshit.
The movie sucked all around. Phoenix's Napoleon completely lacked all of the real one's charisma, he had no presence, and the movie was boring all on its own.
@@andrewlustfield6079Write a sceenplay and send it to your dad.
Suppose one were to claim that the Romans were Aboriginal Australians and that there were no genocides of any kind in history and that the alleged victims of such were just left under the sofa cushions, would Ridley still say "Were you there? No, so shut up!"
Flat Earth has entered the chat.
Maybe it used to be flat and then became round. 🤪
@@Dowlphin "We live inside the Hollow Earth" now joins to give it's two cents. Disc World will soon follow.
Is it not probable that Ridley's design for the helmet is intentional, a custom design as per thematic representation of the character's internal world. Customized, not by Ridley, but by literary demand of the character. He's two faced, and can be perceived as a noble Knight, or as a man of frailty depending on the context. Extrapolating this out to any future film Ridley releases, we'd be hardpressed not to consider that what's done with the helmet is done with much if not most of his craft.
Just for reference, Dan Snow isn’t just a “Tik-Toker” him and his dad have been doing documentaries for the BBC for years.
Like Scott, I used to believe historians only read older history books and summarised them in their own. Then I turned 12.
Scott telling a historian to get a life...history is a historian's life, so Dan Snow really does have a life!!!
Crazy how the new Godzilla movie cares more about history than the Napoleon movie.
And it is also an all around better film.
I heard right down to the Japanese war ships involved.
Godzilla Minus One was so good!
I have no problems with historical movies, because I know how to separate out most of the bulls4it that's shown.
My heartburn is the folks who watch these movies and take it as TRUTH. They're the once being poorly served by the material.
I had to stop watching movies that were "based on a true story" or "inspired by real events" with certain family members because they'll believe it was portrayed with 100% accuracy.
@@johnandrewserranogarcia7223
The movie "Fire in the sky" did that with Travis Walton's story...he said the aliens he met were nice and that he was the aggressor
In the film the aliens were the studio basically "read the room" and said that alien abduction angles were popular at that time so they decided to fabricate his story
Since he gave them the rights he had to accept but it
He said he does hope his actual story gets told
as a frenchman, I'd like to tell americans to leave our history alone.
it is not yours to rewrite, it is our culture, our history.
if you want to practice your revisionism : do it with your own five minute 'culture'.
Ridley's anti-intellectual, _bullying the nerds_ attitude has made me lose even more respect for him. I loved Blade Runner, Alien and enjoyed Gladiator. He's had more flops than masterpieces. Maybe he's not as good as I once thought.
To be completely honest? The Alien series stopped really being his thing after James Cameron and so on took it over. So that’s one franchise. And most of the things he’s done since were never really on my radar. Though I did like Robin Hood. Prometheus was just awful to me and I wrote him off ever since especially any of his older work I didn’t see. I don’t see the hype over him, personally.
If he didn’t act like an arrogant twat and admitted he wanted to do something fun with it like the Death of Stalin or Jojo Rabbit, there’d be nothing wrong. But whatever.
People like him make the rest of Hollywood look like assholes and are why I don’t blame people for wanting them to lose their jobs from the extended strike. I certainly feel sorrier for the lower people on the tentpole like the caterers and the crew who lost money, smaller actors, writers and directors, etc.