@@The.Nasty. Yeah, I play lots of games that are terribly written or have other problems. That doesn't alter the fact that criticisms of them are valid. Same with some of the movies I have enjoyed. There were still parts where I had to turn my brain off for a while to enjoy them. Or they were mostly good but there were parts where I was rolling my eyes. Back to the Future was a good example. It was a great trilogy. But there were certain parts that were pretty bad. Most of the conflicts in the movies were because Marty McFly made incredibly dumb mistakes that no one with a functioning brain would make.
Suggestions for battle autopsy. 1. Opening battle of Gladiator 2. Battle of Jerusalem (Kingdom of Heaven) 3. Battle of Troy(Troy) Both City and Achilles Beach invasion. 4. Battle of Stirling(Braveheart)
I wonder how fast those boats are! They are rowing so hard they even have a strong headwind! (Ramming speed!!!). I think a ship of that age did... 6km/h with a following wind, maybe 8 to 10 by oars if the Crew was well fed... but not 45miles per hour!
We’ve even seen in an episode of Jurassic World Chaos Theory S2 if a Hippo fighting and standing it’s ground against a Suchomimus. They’re tough creatures.
I laughed my arse off when the sharks appeared. Anybody want to hazard a guess how the Romans were able to safely transport LIVING saltwater sharks from the sea across half of Italy to a landlocked city? l m a o
To be fair to this movie at least Ridley Scott didnt do his old trick where he literally just shakes the camera for 5 seconds and then someone miraculously falls over dead.
No one expects a Monty Python reference! Their secret to humor was surprise. Surprise and absurdity. Their TWO secrets to humor were surprise and absurdity... and a little bit of nudity- THEIR THREE SECRETS!
Something that needs to be taken into consideration when putting siege towers on a single ship is a danger of capsizing the ship. The higher the siege tower, the higher the point of blance, the more likely you're going to capsize. Having it built on two ships largely overcomes that problem. Plus, making a telescoping tower would be incredibly complex and add a lot more weight. The ships would also be vulnerable to fire. P.S. STOP TAKING YOUR HELMETS OFF IN MOVIES!!!
I don't think its as commonly true for Classical Rome, but in the early medieval period I believe there were instances of various sieges of Constantinople where the men of the Fourth Crusade attached multiple ships to create platforms allowing them to climb the sea walls of the city.
I’d genuinely want to see a film about a siege where they’re just waiting for the enemy to starve, you could do so many interesting things with that as the background setting for a movie. You could have tense moments where the perspective changes between the besieged leader and the sieging leader and how they’re dealing with their problems and all that sort of thing. You’d never see it done by the mainstream but even as a more cheaply done indie film it could be awesome. A siege shouldn’t just be a full frontal assault with lots of action it should be a long buildup of tension between the two sides that ultimately explodes in payoff when one side is forced to act. Just my thoughts on sieges in films anyway.
I mean heck, a siege would provide an absolutely perfect background reason for there to be an internal drama going on (which could be the main focus of the movie). Or, even more random idea: imagine there being a zombie outbreak within a castle, but they have to find ways to figure out how to deal with it without going outside the walls, cause anyone who tries just gets shot by loads of archers.
With my (admittedly limited) understanding of the story, I think the writers could have justified the ship-based towers if they thought it through a bit more. And it could even justify his wife getting involved in the fight too. Start with a siege at the city walls on land, with him defending near the front and his wife in the city somewhere. Under the cover of darkness, the ships move in... but key here is that the towers are disguised as part of the prow. So even when they're spotted, they're dismissed as a threat - you'd have a nice scene of a messenger saying that ships have been spotted, but they shouldn't be a threat so only a small defending force is left there. Then in the middle of the main frontal assault, the towers are lifted into position (so you can have the super cool reveal of the clever mechanism) and the few defenders at the seaside wall are quickly overrun. That leads into the wife suddenly being right in the path of the invading army coming from behind... and with a bit of movie magic to make sure the timing is just perfect, you could have a scene where he sees her get killed just before he's able to reach her... you could even have her take out a couple with a bow since that's plausible, but she'd be unarmored and effectively defenseless when he sees her die. Boom, you've established a plausible attack with the cool-looking ships *and* a proper motivation for revenge.
And just like that, a random person on the internet did in a few minutes what all the writers for this movie couldn't do in months, if not years..man Hollywood sucks
I mean, that sounds cool. Obviously too cool for Hollywood... I mean, where's they/them? Where's a race-swapped red head? Where's women talking to other women about other women? Nah, man, can't have a scene that makes sense now, not in this economy!
I think the most practical reason why women rarely fought in battles in ancient times was simply that on a generational scale, women are far more necessary to a society with a high mortality rate. If a generation of men die in battle, the society can potentially recover in one generation, albeit with a smaller genetic pool. If a generation of women die, that society is finished. It can't recover, or it will take multiple generations to do so. Simply put, women didn't fight unless absolutely necessary (with few exceptions) because the men are more expendable and replaceable in comparison. Add to that that men are, on average, stronger and better at fighting, and it just makes sense that women would rarely fight.
I do think it at least makes more sense to see women taking part in battle in sieges though. Like a siege always feels a lot more like a desperate 'all hands on deck' sorta situation. Throwing more bodies in a bid to successfully defend your city would likely be a preferable option to gambling on the safety of the women and children if the enemy breaks in and sacks/plunders/enslaves/murders the populace. It was, by far, much less common in like matters of campaigns and open battles in the field. But sieges I could always buy it more easily. More bodies defending the city is more good. Simple math.
@@StylePoints14 women fought. Just rarely. Some fought successfully like Khutulun on both horseback and wrestling. But I agree that generally speaking it wasnt commonplace at all.
@ouromov2895 it's a myth. All these women warriors are fantasy tales. No woman ever fought successfully on a battlefield. There were no women soldiers. And if women were stupid enough to engage in mortal combat with men, they soon perished.
True for normal battles. But at a siege everyone needed to help. Including the woman, children and older people. Because if the city got concurred there was a big change everyone would be put to the sword. Normally they would help put out fires, help the wounded etc. But if she is a good shot then yes she would be put on the frontline.
I've been looking forward to this since I made the mistake of watching this movie!! Thinking about Shad going nuts was more entertaining to me than the movie itself!! Just got out of work, and excited for this!!
I don't think Python will get too old a reference any time soon, as it is the sort of quality humour that is practically banned now - so there are very few if any newer options. Which leaves everyone watching Python again and finding the bright side of crucifixion...
20:40 another thing to point out is her tyrian purple scarf and sash. They would need to be as wealthy as the emperor or a major regional governor to be anywhere close to the wealth needed to buy something like that.
Going back to the Roman siege of Syracuse, it is said that Archimedes struck such terror into the Romans, that any time they spotted an old man with a white beard walking upon the top of the walls and ramparts, every man fled below deck in seconds, scared of what new fresh hell he was going to bring upon them next. A lot of myth surrounds the siege, such as the claim Archimedes made a “death ray” that burned ships. What he did actually do, according to the records, was polish shields and have a hundred trained soldiers bend them a bit like a modern satellite dish and point them at the Roman ships to direct and concentrate the sun’s rays. It would not light a ship on fire, but the records do indicate it was intense enough that any Roman caught on the deck in the beam was at the least severely (and very painfully) blinded, many permanently, or if caught in the beam for several seconds, walking away with severe sunburns on exposed skin. No wonder they fled below deck seeing any old man with a white beard. Any Roman ship that got too close to the walls found themselves being hit by what we would call a “grenade” filled with pitch, tar, animal tallow, and hair that was lit on fire. Again, probably not enough to light a ship on fire, but any man caught in it would be at least severely wounded… if not fatally. If not a fire grenade, then inside would be scorpions or nests of angry bees. Sometimes a crane would lift up with a large pot of the burning mixture that would dump a large mass of it on a Roman ship. Or what the Romans feared the most and kept them out to sea the longest: the Claw. A large crane suddenly appearing over the wall with a series of iron hooks that would drop onto a ship, grab it, then the crane would act as a large lever and lift the bow or stern and either destabilize the ship enough to sink it or at the least scare the crew witless. But in all the records, one weapon stood out that even today is called a complete myth… until, that is, someone tested it… and it worked. One day, the Romans looked to the walls and saw what looked like a massive pipe pointed at them with a board of wood across the end pointed their way and smoke from a fire behind it. They couldn’t make sense of it… hours passed, nothing happened… until… BOOM!!! A stone ball shot out of it and at them. It missed. But, it terrified them… since until then they had been safe, but this new weapon easily reached them. What was it? Couldn’t be a cannon! Gunpowder didn’t exist yet! …and yet, it seems it was. A steam cannon. Wildly inaccurate and you don’t know when it will fire… or if it will fire at all… or just explode. Yet according to several Roman accounts, it existed. Just one. It was fired several times until the barrel cracked, and they were never hit… but it scared them more than anything else. It is frustrating, not knowing when a steam cannon will fire when you are shooting it… but for those it is pointed at? Absolutely nerve wrecking! Since you don’t know when it will go off, and if it will hit you when it does. Again, it was counted as myth for 2,000 years… until, again, using the records and remaining as historically accurate to the technology of the time, built a working prototype-the only modern update being using modern steel instead of bronze for the barrel for safety reasons. Needless to say, the real Siege of Syracuse was a greater spectacle than the farce depicted in this movie… heck, when the Romans sieged the premier naval force of the day, Carthage, they attacked by land… and starved the city out. When they got in, they spared no one. No man, no woman, no child. But at Syracuse? Archimedes had proven himself to be such an engineer, he had not only Roman’s fear, but respect. Compared to other sieges, they were a lot more lenient when they finally made it in. This movie, however, deserves no mercy… two thumbs turned down.
it would be fun to see someone analyze that footage and calculate how far soldiers would have to jump to reach the wall.. I was kinda hoping Shad would go into that when I saw it
You rip apart a lot of fights and battles in modern films, but I'd love to see you go back in time and look at some good scenes from older films. For example, I saw a video talking about how good the final duel in the 70's adaptation of Macbeth was and how influential the film was on fantasy, but I'd love to see you analyze it. Just one example, there's tons of iconic battle scenes in older movies you should analyze to show us how it's done.
Master and Commander's portrayal of Napoleonic-era naval combat is also excellent. Some of the most authentic military history put to film, perhaps. Not so much 'accurate' because its adapting historical fiction, but authentic, yes.
I wonder if the writer's of this movie understand just how much STRENGTH is required to rapidly fire a warbow over and over again. Its definitely not something you would assign an all female squad to do.
Its an old trope of movies and games. They know vv0men suck at fighting but they desperately want to justify having them as fighters so they give them ranged weapons that they assume the vv0men could use as effectively as men. Its basically a cope.
@@Likexner Then why not give them slings or Javelins/Pilums? Historically they have proven to be deadly weapons and aren't as dependent on upper body strength as a warbow. As an added bonus they are great to deploy from an elevated position such as a besieged wall.
For the trebuchet, I'm nearly 100% sure that the set designers googled Big Catapult and looked at something that looked cool, then raided the medieval props storage for something that looked similar.
Haven't watched past 6mins in yet, but ... yeh they needed to make this city Tyre or something like it (Maybe Rhodes, Syracuse) where the city wall is basically a cliff straight into the sea (at least 1 side of it). ... actually Tyre proves Shad's point. The only way Alexander could defeat Tyre was taking an island, and ... Building New reclaimed Land out to it. Apparently BUILDING A GODDAMN PENINSULA was easier than doing a seaborne siege.
Whoa, even at 00:40 that CGI looks goddam awful, like XBOX One era graphics. The catapults (lol) look plastic, and the waves in the water look terrible even in a 2 second long cut. The ships appear to be floating in front of the water, not actually interacting with it. What the hell has happened to Hollywood artists, do they not know what reality looks like anymore? Is that why the CGI keeps getting worse as time goes on? Lucas knew to keep CGI dinosaurs in the dark or flashing lights in Jurassic Park, because he knew they didn't look realistic under careful scrutiny. These new guys keep making garbage where every cell looks like a generic AI composite image, because that's essentially how they're creating these scenes.
Omg that was it!? I thought it was games cutsceen he used randomly for background fortage 😅 i think its because of over working disney etc are making 20 big films a year +tv show. So good cgi is going down the drain
(1) - We’ve reached a point where Ridley Scott can’t make a good movie anymore in either fiction and/or non fiction. And he’s screwing up depicting history correctly from films like this & Napoleon. But he’s always had issues with historical inaccuracies like 1492, Black Hawk Down, and even GI Jane. It’s no surprise that he cannot do historically accurate films since correctly since as I’ve pointed out, he’s always had an issue with this.
@JohnFourtyTwo Most of us aren't asking for that, Helheim even "documentaries" can't be held to that statement anymore, all we're asking is to make it believable, and he won't do even the most basic of things for that half the time
@@JohnFourtyTwo No movie's ever going to be 100% historical accurate, but the least we can ask for is having at least 30-50% accuracy, at least in terms of style/gear/tactics.
Greetings Shad! Just noticed something that I had to point out - @5:45 when your showing the main characters garden there are pumpkins! PUMPKINS! A New World crop in Africa somewhere around 200 AD? Impossible! And i'm pretty sure those are Rhode Island Red chickens a New World breed of chicken. The pumpkins could have easily been replaced with ANY Old World crop and the Rhode Island Reds replaced by Dorking Chickens - which seem to have all the characteristics of chickens described by the likes of Cato(the Elder)and Columella. Now I know this is nitpicky and Ridley Scott clearly doesn't give a flip about Historical Accuracy but these are yet more pebbles on a preverbal mountain of crap that was put into the movie that makes it nothing more that 'historically-inspired fantasy shlock.' Anyway that all i got, great vid as always Shad! *edit for spelling
4:36 The shot that you use looks like Age of Empires cinematic. If this game taught me anything you can just send your soldiers to chop the walls down with their swords and eventually they'll get in. Siege towers are there just so some soldiers can get on the wall and clear up any danger to those down below.
I didn't know Gladiator had a sequel. The story didn't lend itself to one. Edit: OK, I think ChatGPT could've written a better script. And ChatGPT hallucinates.
Modern Hollywood keeps doing this thing where they feel like they need to make battle insanely intricate or complicated. Like what did the opening of gladiator do? A battle in the forest with a simple but effective cavalry flank. Maximus didn’t think “ah what I need to do is make a overly complicated series of traps to make this seem smart”.
I read about how in ancient Rome gladiators had a layer of fat to protect them in combat. I'm gonna start telling people I have the body of a gladiator.
And (2) - the last truly good movie that Ridley Scott has directed & released was The Martian (2015). Other Ridley Scott movies I can recommend aside from The Duelist, Alien, & Blade Runner, are the following: Legend (1985) Black Rain (1989) Thelma & Louise (1992) Hannibal (2001) Matchstick Men (2003) And Finally… American Gangster (2007)
So the romans hated and feared open water. Like most sailors of that time, they would cruise along the coast and only when absolutely necessary did they stray away from the coast (most of the time losing sight of the coast was a death sentence because storms can sneak up on you and happen like that). Surely their first and logical step would be for the navy to blockade out any aid or food coming in, while dropping off troops further down the coast for a possible land assault or to blockade land routes. Now if either of those aren't possible than sure siege tower ships might have been employed but they would need to be custom built. You can't slap a siege tower on front of a normal roman ship and it would work as seen in this movie. You tried to do that and your ship would likely be unable to support the extra weight and it would nosedive downwards and god forbid you encounter a storm at sea. A boat with basically a large thick mast at the front seems like hell to sail correctly. Not only because of it's size and sheer manpower required to get it moving but the wind will be blasting against it, making it effectively a sail that you can't take down. Masts were as thin as possible with sails being able to taken up or down for good reason. Go and try holding up a towel on a windy day and trying to walk against it, it's very difficult to do so.
To be fair at the siege of Syracuse Romans attempted to straight up take the citadel via seaborne assault- ofc it failed, courtesy of Archimedes, and it was coordinated with a land assault on Euryalos fortress as well
I'm sure I've seen references or maybe references to older references of mangonel with cups, from memory that method seemed to be used as it allowed for launching hot rocks and sand etc - stuff you can't use a sling for that will get into people's armour, blind them etc. its not to smashing stuff so much as causing massive discomfort and minor wounds that may go septic etc.
I can accept lots of the boats not carrying the towers - it would be I'd suspect seriously more challenging act of seamanship to sail a functional sized version such a thing where you need it, and constructing such a thing also costs time and money - so having 3 to 1 normal to siege tower or so on the approach actually makes sense to me. You have a large body of men on easier to navigate boats ready to jump onto the boat with the tower as soon as it creates that beachhead on the walls and they can meanwhile be peppering the walls with slings/bows.
I was thinking it was the difference between low tide and high tide but then I remembered it's the Mediterranean sea and I don't think it has that drastic of a tide
But Shad! Ancient siege engines had just as much range as modern artillery. Rings of Power taught me that. Also, I can’t believe the Romans didn’t think to collapse the mountain to drain the ocean. SMH!
Trebuchet being used there is logical as it is the set originally created for Kingdom of Heaven (Jerusalem is easily identifiable from the movie) - it is located in the studio of Ouarzazate in Morroco and we can visit it, it was also used in other movies and tv shows too apparently. ^-^
21:21 Romans often engaged an economic interdependence and trade with places they were about to conquer. I don't find it surprising that _a few_ defenders would be carrying Roman weapons and wearing roman armor. I would also expect a few of the civilian population wearing Roman style dress and having Roman currency in there coin purses. Also a few works of literature, the Roman calendar, some sample business ledgers. It was a primitive form of propaganda dropping.
Surprisingly enough, as per Vegetius telescopic towers- on land, that is- were actually a thing "Besides this the part of the wall which the machine attempts to reach is made higher by building it up with cement and stones, or mud or bricks, and finally with hoarding, so that the machine cannot destroy the defenders of the walls by attacking the city from above.” Naturally the machine is rendered ineffective if it is found to be lower. But besiegers are in the habit of using the following kind of stratagem. First they build a tower in such a way that it looks smaller than the battlements of the city. Ten they secretly make another turret inside out of planks and, when the machine is joined to the walls, suddenly the turret is pulled up from the middle on ropes and pulleys. From it emerge soldiers who, because it is found to be higher, at once capture the city.’"
wouldn't burning jars of oil smash like giant Molotov cocktails? i have no experience with oil jars but i do have experience lighting stuff on fire with Molotovs for fun (large bon fires mainly)
On the topic of catapults: There is a LARP event I go to once a year and there one army actually has a catapult. It is not at all historically accurate, using elastic bands, a more fantasy approach to the mechanism and a lot of modern parts. Since it was made with modern parts and tools it could have been made more powerful than historic counterparts, but in the spirit of fairness it was made to be not overpowered. I always get the feeling that some people are a little disappointed when they ask how close to a wall we have to get to be effective and the answer is "about 20 to 25 paces". If I get the chance I could try to get some footage of it this summer and send it to you. Last year, when we were defending our camp during a siege we barely cleared our own wall with about 30 cm between the path of our shot and the top of the wall.
You have mentioned the problem with siege towers on ships- that the soldiers that have access to the siege tower are only those who are on the ship. However, that makes me think of a possible advantage to such tactics: siege towers on ships are far more faster approching to the walls than those on land. Mostly, a land siege tower will move towards the enemy walls about several tens of meters a day (maybe even ten) and will require a system of cables, poles, oxens, manpower and sometimes even rails to advance. The ground betwin the siege tower and the enemy fortifications needs to be leveld- in several sieges on Jerusalem for example (at list two), that took place around about between 50 BC to 70 AC, the Romans (or the Roman supported Herod's army in one case) had to build earth ramps (Agars) climbing to weak points in the walls for the siege towers to be mounted upon. Due to such complexities siege towers were rarely ever used in general (mostly as last resort); And thats why I think siege towers mounted on ships could be much more agile option in certain scenarios.
If they were celts, it wouldn't necessarily be out of place. There's evidence suggesting that lorica hamata was inspired by mail armour worn by the gallic celts. Of course, they aren't celts, so it's just bad filmmaking.
@lonelystrategos Having seen surviving examples of both I agree with the Celtic armour looking similar. But as you say they aren't celts. And honestly I kinda wished the misplaced armour was the only thing wrong with Gladiator 2.
tbh chainmail is not copyrighted, it spread with the Celts and everyone started to adopt it to some extent in fact it was used from africa to japan at a point
@@SockAccount111 By your logic it's okay to give the characters in a American Revolutionary War flim M16s because the muzzleloaders they should be using also used explosive powder to propel metal objects down range.
11:50 It would make more sense if the frontal ships without siege towers had only sailors. Then, they could potentially be used as a screening force (or whatever equivalent that's designed to draw fire instead of avoid engagement). Maybe just have some scorpions or other ballistas on them.
Despite all the glaring flaws and inaccuracies, there are some good points- *the Costuming of the soldiers looks much improved over the first film, with clear reference to historical examples *The ships look good overall *The city looks ok *The sea and sky look fantastic (when not magically appearing out of nowhere).
Vikings did the siege towers better in season 3 when they try to take Paris by sea, iirc oil gets dumped on them, they get lit up & most of the Vikings die (they were much bigger too, closer to historical size)
A point about the end is the tide might create enough of a shift in the water level to justify the difference. I think it's obvious to strike at hide tide with the siege ships especially if it's during the daytime. Therefore any other time would have the water level lower.
When I watched it, (only once) But the shot at 6:23 to me, was from INSIDE the city, meaning behind those walls is the ocean, also the guys on the boats without towers broke down the gates. and poured through. They showed that
The funny thing about the final beach shot is that the sand in the foreground is dry. So one can not even consider high/low tide. Also spotted in the initial arrow exchange the defenders when called to draw, have a nice shot of each archer having arrows on the wall to hand, but all the merlons have mysteriously vanished and wall is only waist height. Just for that shot. I feel Ridley's last few movies he has seen a picture or reference to something that "might" be usable, ie towers on boats, water in the arena, technologies that were not in the region but were available somewhere in the world at that time. Then he has just run with it and not thought further about it and wether it is actually viable in the context of both story and historically for his movie.
Regular triremes could be used to provide a manpower reserve for the ship with the seige tower if they have boarding ramps. This would somewhat alleviate the problem of being limited by the manpower of the ship carrying the siege tower during your assault.
Interesting. You made that video about the algorithm that finally got through, and all of a sudden, I am recommended all of your videos again. This is my favorite type of yours. It's like a good lecture presented in a way that holds attention and entertains. Just talking with your passion and going into the kind of details that inspire the imagination. No offense, but the outdoor, "practical" stuff too often just feels like watching a couple of kids screwing around in their backyard. I understand I'm probably in the minority there, though.
You forgot about Alexander's use of siege towers. He used them not to storm walls, but to get archers to be able to attack the archers on the enemy walls in order to protect those building a bridge to assault the walls.
Now that you mentioned that extra land near the wall, I just realized how inconsistent this movie was. Both him and his wife fell straight down into the sea, and yet when he wakes up, suddenly there's a land.
36:42 In Polish movie "Teutons" (1960) there is a duel between one of protagonists and one of antagonists when they agree to a duel "for death, not for captivity" and then are takking off helmets.
It's so satisfying to know there are people out there who don't scoff at using their brains for something more than just serving their superiors, following orders and cluelessly consuming mediocrity wrapped in glitter. Thank you!
about the mangonel : 1) it's an onagre, mangonel are medievals 2) they hadn't this bar above them, because it prevent aiming and adjust the length of the shot 3) being generous, they are made specifically to shot above the walls, the engine would have been build the other way around, so the spoon, being stopped, would libertae the projectile in a far more convenient angle and 4 ) a civilisation contemporain of rome would have been able to copy romans siege weapons, and roman catapults existed, but, they looked a lot more like what you would have call a ballista. oh, and if sambuca is hard to say, use corvus, basically the same tool. But theses two weapon were used to assault... other boats. Not walls. it have been developped by rome in her naval warfare with carthage. All of theses infos came from "the punic wars", written by polybes in 146.
Doyalist explanation for those Siege Towers: Safety guys probably would have not liked the idea of a crane-suspended bridge thing. Smaller towers on a single boat would also be easier/cheaper to build. I doubt the set guys would want to try to do two boats lashed together. Also a lot cheaper to just use some clever cuts than to build a bigger tower and bridge set. Watsonian explanation for the Non-Tower Boats: Tower boats establish the beachhead. Non-tower boats follow up with range support and reinforcements. There's only going to be so much space along the wall and the towers are also an extra material expense. The non-tower boats would probably come up behind the tower boats and lash on to the rear to transfer troops. Even on D-day, most troops didn't arrive via the specialized landing-craft. Once a beachhead is established you then bring in the more general purpose troop-carriers with reinforcements. Watsonian theories for the Sea-Attack: Those land-side walls looked huge, much bigger than the sea wall. We also only see the very immediate surroundings of the land-side. Perhaps there's some other physical impediment to the land-side approach that isn't shown. This is Nubia, in Africa, the continent whose geography is notorious for having steep elevation rises close to shore, so the city might easily have geographic advantage from a land approach that would make it exceedingly difficult to approach with siege equipment. City Gate Facing the Water: This could actually be realistic. One of your own castle tours videos highlighted such a feature on a real life castle on a river. The gate supposedly allowed for direct unloading of cargo into the castle from the water. This would be great for withstanding a land-based siege. For the mass of Roman soldiers using the gate, I presume that off-screen some of the initial landing party opened up the gate to let a troop ship unload from the dock. Beach at the End: This is actually good continuity. By the end of the battle the tides would have changed. Presumably they would have attacked at peak high tide. The protag is implied to be unconscious for a while by the time the battle is done and over and in cleanup mode, and that's a fairly reasonable amount of tidal difference in the amount of beach.
this highlights the issue with dependence on CGI rather than practical effects, no one stops to thing whether what is being shown is actually possible.
All of these things that your describing would happen in a real battle for real tactics sound so cool and makes me want to see it in cinema instead of the typical Hollywood battle tactics
(not my comment) Ridley Scott just announced he is doing a Julius Caesar biopic. It centers around Caesar's conquest of the Aztecs (played by a bunch a Kenyans), his invasion of Australia and conquering of the Aboriginal people (played by Chinese), and of course, his battle against Ulysses S. Grant at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, with the barbarians played by Cajuns.
On a different scene lucius says a fake story about a captured centurion that probably there were other conflicts with romans before the final assault of Pedro Pascal, and thats why they have roman like armour and artillery (as spoils of war). About the naval assault probably they tried it successfully because defenders dont have navy and romans tried assault both walls and harbour because in another scene shows romans storm the city not by towers but threw land gates. Before pedro Pascal released the bridge was shown that archers on the wall was firing on anyone that was unprotected on the tower and probably trying to lower the bridge so that's why he had to take the risk. Thats my head canon but of course the movie had problems of organising the battle
The only thing I can think of for why there is land for the guy to stand on is that the battle boats with the towers showed up at high tide, but even then, showing us what low tide looks like, you ain’t getting a boat that close
45:35 Obviously, the attack took place during high tide while it's low tide now. So on top of everything else, the battle apparently took place outside Mediteranean, as the Mediterranean tide is barely noticable.
I think it was originally planned and shot as a land battle, and then the ships and sea part was added later on. That explains why some of the shots don't make a lot of sense, since they can only edit based on what was filmed, not based on what would necessarily make sense in the final version. Oh, and 45:40. Maybe the tide went out a bit?
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
It’s been said a million times but the first Gladiator did not need a sequel…
It was great.
Nobody forced you to watch it
It needed burned, I hate the fact I watched the first piece of trash. France got it right banning Napoleon for the historical fraud piece.
@ I never said anyone did, you’re allowed to enjoy crappy things… I played the heck out of Fallout 4.
@@The.Nasty.
Yeah, I play lots of games that are terribly written or have other problems. That doesn't alter the fact that criticisms of them are valid. Same with some of the movies I have enjoyed. There were still parts where I had to turn my brain off for a while to enjoy them. Or they were mostly good but there were parts where I was rolling my eyes. Back to the Future was a good example. It was a great trilogy. But there were certain parts that were pretty bad. Most of the conflicts in the movies were because Marty McFly made incredibly dumb mistakes that no one with a functioning brain would make.
@@TerryProthero I’ve always liked the third Back to the Future tbh 😂
Suggestions for battle autopsy.
1. Opening battle of Gladiator
2. Battle of Jerusalem (Kingdom of Heaven)
3. Battle of Troy(Troy) Both City and Achilles Beach invasion.
4. Battle of Stirling(Braveheart)
When I heard of gladiator 2, my first thought was why? Ahh well guess I didn’t miss anything
The siege in "the Last of the Mohicans"
1. for sure. That or Maximas's failed execution.
Stirling
the battle of cowpens from the patriot might be fun if abit outside his wheelhouse
That clip of the (I assume) Roman warships looks like an Age of Empires 2 cut scene.
The CGI just looks sooo bad.
Jesus, I'd seen people say stuff like this, but I thought it was hyperbole. I was...way off, how could anybody have signed off on that lmao
I wonder how fast those boats are! They are rowing so hard they even have a strong headwind! (Ramming speed!!!).
I think a ship of that age did... 6km/h with a following wind, maybe 8 to 10 by oars if the Crew was well fed... but not 45miles per hour!
The monkeys were terrible
Hippos would have been better than sharks.
Those things are scary!
Or crocodiles. I imagine hippos would literally be impossible to contain during transport
We’ve even seen in an episode of Jurassic World Chaos Theory S2 if a Hippo fighting and standing it’s ground against a Suchomimus. They’re tough creatures.
@BaithNa That is true. But hippos fights did happen. There is historical context for it.
paralizing durgs did exist@@DerpASherpa117
I laughed my arse off when the sharks appeared. Anybody want to hazard a guess how the Romans were able to safely transport LIVING saltwater sharks from the sea across half of Italy to a landlocked city?
l m a o
To be fair to this movie at least Ridley Scott didnt do his old trick where he literally just shakes the camera for 5 seconds and then someone miraculously falls over dead.
No one expects a Monty Python reference! Their secret to humor was surprise. Surprise and absurdity. Their TWO secrets to humor were surprise and absurdity... and a little bit of nudity- THEIR THREE SECRETS!
The actors of the Monty Python group may succumb the whims of fate and die, but may their works never be forgotten
I didn't expect this comment. Nobody did.
@@benmaske9598 NO ONE EXPECTS THIS COMMENT! NO ONE!
@@yeknomd bring!!!! The comfy chair!
Something that needs to be taken into consideration when putting siege towers on a single ship is a danger of capsizing the ship. The higher the siege tower, the higher the point of blance, the more likely you're going to capsize. Having it built on two ships largely overcomes that problem.
Plus, making a telescoping tower would be incredibly complex and add a lot more weight.
The ships would also be vulnerable to fire.
P.S. STOP TAKING YOUR HELMETS OFF IN MOVIES!!!
"But the dumb audience needs to see the characters' faces to tell who is who!"- idiotic Hollywood producers
I don't think its as commonly true for Classical Rome, but in the early medieval period I believe there were instances of various sieges of Constantinople where the men of the Fourth Crusade attached multiple ships to create platforms allowing them to climb the sea walls of the city.
They could have a large keel to stop capsizing. Then get absolutely nowhere near shore 😂
Agree with the stop taking off helmets
@@Blisterdude123 It was a thing since Classical times, eg Demetrius Poliorcetes did it at Rhodes
I’d genuinely want to see a film about a siege where they’re just waiting for the enemy to starve, you could do so many interesting things with that as the background setting for a movie. You could have tense moments where the perspective changes between the besieged leader and the sieging leader and how they’re dealing with their problems and all that sort of thing.
You’d never see it done by the mainstream but even as a more cheaply done indie film it could be awesome. A siege shouldn’t just be a full frontal assault with lots of action it should be a long buildup of tension between the two sides that ultimately explodes in payoff when one side is forced to act. Just my thoughts on sieges in films anyway.
I mean heck, a siege would provide an absolutely perfect background reason for there to be an internal drama going on (which could be the main focus of the movie). Or, even more random idea: imagine there being a zombie outbreak within a castle, but they have to find ways to figure out how to deal with it without going outside the walls, cause anyone who tries just gets shot by loads of archers.
You might like 'The Day of the Siege'. It's a foreign film.
If you are intrested in film about a siege, I recommend the Korean movie "The Great Battle" (2018).
@ I’ll give it a watch thanks for the recommendation
Ironclad (2011) Not quite as you want but you will like it.
With my (admittedly limited) understanding of the story, I think the writers could have justified the ship-based towers if they thought it through a bit more. And it could even justify his wife getting involved in the fight too.
Start with a siege at the city walls on land, with him defending near the front and his wife in the city somewhere. Under the cover of darkness, the ships move in... but key here is that the towers are disguised as part of the prow. So even when they're spotted, they're dismissed as a threat - you'd have a nice scene of a messenger saying that ships have been spotted, but they shouldn't be a threat so only a small defending force is left there. Then in the middle of the main frontal assault, the towers are lifted into position (so you can have the super cool reveal of the clever mechanism) and the few defenders at the seaside wall are quickly overrun. That leads into the wife suddenly being right in the path of the invading army coming from behind... and with a bit of movie magic to make sure the timing is just perfect, you could have a scene where he sees her get killed just before he's able to reach her... you could even have her take out a couple with a bow since that's plausible, but she'd be unarmored and effectively defenseless when he sees her die. Boom, you've established a plausible attack with the cool-looking ships *and* a proper motivation for revenge.
And just like that, a random person on the internet did in a few minutes what all the writers for this movie couldn't do in months, if not years..man Hollywood sucks
I mean, that sounds cool. Obviously too cool for Hollywood... I mean, where's they/them? Where's a race-swapped red head? Where's women talking to other women about other women? Nah, man, can't have a scene that makes sense now, not in this economy!
I think the most practical reason why women rarely fought in battles in ancient times was simply that on a generational scale, women are far more necessary to a society with a high mortality rate.
If a generation of men die in battle, the society can potentially recover in one generation, albeit with a smaller genetic pool.
If a generation of women die, that society is finished. It can't recover, or it will take multiple generations to do so.
Simply put, women didn't fight unless absolutely necessary (with few exceptions) because the men are more expendable and replaceable in comparison. Add to that that men are, on average, stronger and better at fighting, and it just makes sense that women would rarely fight.
I do think it at least makes more sense to see women taking part in battle in sieges though. Like a siege always feels a lot more like a desperate 'all hands on deck' sorta situation. Throwing more bodies in a bid to successfully defend your city would likely be a preferable option to gambling on the safety of the women and children if the enemy breaks in and sacks/plunders/enslaves/murders the populace.
It was, by far, much less common in like matters of campaigns and open battles in the field. But sieges I could always buy it more easily. More bodies defending the city is more good. Simple math.
It's both reasons. But honestly, women have no chance against men in a fight
Even trained female UFC fighters lose to average men.
@@StylePoints14 women fought. Just rarely. Some fought successfully like Khutulun on both horseback and wrestling. But I agree that generally speaking it wasnt commonplace at all.
@ouromov2895 it's a myth. All these women warriors are fantasy tales. No woman ever fought successfully on a battlefield.
There were no women soldiers. And if women were stupid enough to engage in mortal combat with men, they soon perished.
True for normal battles. But at a siege everyone needed to help. Including the woman, children and older people. Because if the city got concurred there was a big change everyone would be put to the sword.
Normally they would help put out fires, help the wounded etc. But if she is a good shot then yes she would be put on the frontline.
I've been looking forward to this since I made the mistake of watching this movie!!
Thinking about Shad going nuts was more entertaining to me than the movie itself!!
Just got out of work, and excited for this!!
Look on the bright side, it was such a bad movie that made all errors from the original Gladiator look like features! Now they all pale in comparison!
I don't think Python will get too old a reference any time soon, as it is the sort of quality humour that is practically banned now - so there are very few if any newer options. Which leaves everyone watching Python again and finding the bright side of crucifixion...
20:40 another thing to point out is her tyrian purple scarf and sash. They would need to be as wealthy as the emperor or a major regional governor to be anywhere close to the wealth needed to buy something like that.
How else are we supposed to know who she is without her wearing PURPLE? lmao.
Going back to the Roman siege of Syracuse, it is said that Archimedes struck such terror into the Romans, that any time they spotted an old man with a white beard walking upon the top of the walls and ramparts, every man fled below deck in seconds, scared of what new fresh hell he was going to bring upon them next. A lot of myth surrounds the siege, such as the claim Archimedes made a “death ray” that burned ships. What he did actually do, according to the records, was polish shields and have a hundred trained soldiers bend them a bit like a modern satellite dish and point them at the Roman ships to direct and concentrate the sun’s rays. It would not light a ship on fire, but the records do indicate it was intense enough that any Roman caught on the deck in the beam was at the least severely (and very painfully) blinded, many permanently, or if caught in the beam for several seconds, walking away with severe sunburns on exposed skin. No wonder they fled below deck seeing any old man with a white beard. Any Roman ship that got too close to the walls found themselves being hit by what we would call a “grenade” filled with pitch, tar, animal tallow, and hair that was lit on fire. Again, probably not enough to light a ship on fire, but any man caught in it would be at least severely wounded… if not fatally. If not a fire grenade, then inside would be scorpions or nests of angry bees. Sometimes a crane would lift up with a large pot of the burning mixture that would dump a large mass of it on a Roman ship. Or what the Romans feared the most and kept them out to sea the longest: the Claw. A large crane suddenly appearing over the wall with a series of iron hooks that would drop onto a ship, grab it, then the crane would act as a large lever and lift the bow or stern and either destabilize the ship enough to sink it or at the least scare the crew witless. But in all the records, one weapon stood out that even today is called a complete myth… until, that is, someone tested it… and it worked. One day, the Romans looked to the walls and saw what looked like a massive pipe pointed at them with a board of wood across the end pointed their way and smoke from a fire behind it. They couldn’t make sense of it… hours passed, nothing happened… until… BOOM!!! A stone ball shot out of it and at them. It missed. But, it terrified them… since until then they had been safe, but this new weapon easily reached them. What was it? Couldn’t be a cannon! Gunpowder didn’t exist yet! …and yet, it seems it was. A steam cannon. Wildly inaccurate and you don’t know when it will fire… or if it will fire at all… or just explode. Yet according to several Roman accounts, it existed. Just one. It was fired several times until the barrel cracked, and they were never hit… but it scared them more than anything else. It is frustrating, not knowing when a steam cannon will fire when you are shooting it… but for those it is pointed at? Absolutely nerve wrecking! Since you don’t know when it will go off, and if it will hit you when it does. Again, it was counted as myth for 2,000 years… until, again, using the records and remaining as historically accurate to the technology of the time, built a working prototype-the only modern update being using modern steel instead of bronze for the barrel for safety reasons. Needless to say, the real Siege of Syracuse was a greater spectacle than the farce depicted in this movie… heck, when the Romans sieged the premier naval force of the day, Carthage, they attacked by land… and starved the city out. When they got in, they spared no one. No man, no woman, no child. But at Syracuse? Archimedes had proven himself to be such an engineer, he had not only Roman’s fear, but respect. Compared to other sieges, they were a lot more lenient when they finally made it in. This movie, however, deserves no mercy… two thumbs turned down.
Look at the bridge and tower on the boat in that last scene, in the background. It doesnt extended beyond the bow... Incredible.
it would be fun to see someone analyze that footage and calculate how far soldiers would have to jump to reach the wall.. I was kinda hoping Shad would go into that when I saw it
Hell, it doesn't extend TO the bow. Even if the ship got to the wall, they would've been better off bringing ladders to the bow!
Is it me or the "siege engines" look like they're made out of cardbox, plastic and tape with some paint sprayed on them?
You rip apart a lot of fights and battles in modern films, but I'd love to see you go back in time and look at some good scenes from older films. For example, I saw a video talking about how good the final duel in the 70's adaptation of Macbeth was and how influential the film was on fantasy, but I'd love to see you analyze it. Just one example, there's tons of iconic battle scenes in older movies you should analyze to show us how it's done.
Ridley Scott's first film "The Duellists" is excellent in terms of realistic single combat with swords.
Master and Commander's portrayal of Napoleonic-era naval combat is also excellent. Some of the most authentic military history put to film, perhaps.
Not so much 'accurate' because its adapting historical fiction, but authentic, yes.
Waterloo, rokts drifts theres a lot.
I love these breakdowns and historical examples of tactics, medieval weaponry and equipment. I'd love to see more! Cheers shad!
37:30 and to add insult to injury: the ropes are hanging slack from the drum. There is no tention at all holding that bridge!
I wonder if the writer's of this movie understand just how much STRENGTH is required to rapidly fire a warbow over and over again. Its definitely not something you would assign an all female squad to do.
Its an old trope of movies and games. They know vv0men suck at fighting but they desperately want to justify having them as fighters so they give them ranged weapons that they assume the vv0men could use as effectively as men. Its basically a cope.
@@Likexner Then why not give them slings or Javelins/Pilums? Historically they have proven to be deadly weapons and aren't as dependent on upper body strength as a warbow. As an added bonus they are great to deploy from an elevated position such as a besieged wall.
@grantpflum6844 If you want to make sense, just dont have female fighters.
@@Likexner That would be the smartest way but I was trying to be nice and let them have their cake and eat too! 😂
@grantpflum6844 We really need to stop doing that.
For the trebuchet, I'm nearly 100% sure that the set designers googled Big Catapult and looked at something that looked cool, then raided the medieval props storage for something that looked similar.
The set honestly looks like the Jerusalem swt from Kingdom of Heaven. So I wonder if they already had the trebuchet sitting there
We know from his Mando show, Pedro doesn’t want to wear a helmet. He must show his face.
Ah, The Mandalorian... that show had such a promising start.
I call it the 'Sly Stallone Complex'. Case in point, Stallone's awful Judge Dredd movie lmao
@@Blisterdude123 "You betray the law!" "LOOOOAAAAAAAW!"
@@Blisterdude123 I've read that Stallone was ordered to remove his helmet by the director, who knows at this point
Dont forget his iconic "i dont need a helmet" before his skull got crushed in Game of thrones
Haven't watched past 6mins in yet, but ... yeh they needed to make this city Tyre or something like it (Maybe Rhodes, Syracuse) where the city wall is basically a cliff straight into the sea (at least 1 side of it).
... actually Tyre proves Shad's point. The only way Alexander could defeat Tyre was taking an island, and ... Building New reclaimed Land out to it. Apparently BUILDING A GODDAMN PENINSULA was easier than doing a seaborne siege.
The Female Archer Division. Remember folks, drawing a war bow does not require any particular upper body or grip strength.
45:34 They sieged at high tide, that was low tide
not that tides are that important in the mediterranean sea compared to major oceans
Lmao
good point 🤔
Here we go again baby! Love your work Shad!
The darn sequal of gladiator fails, where palm tree catapults succeed.
Ill believe the palm tree catapults before i believe stronk whamen fighting as Roman soldiers.
41:00 its like an enemy spawner where 50 guy run out from around a corner. After you kill em and go in there, it's a dead end alley.
Classic monster closet.
You want to talk about boob armor? Look at those helmets!
I'm sorry for anyone who cant unsee it.
I also noticed. 😂
Oh no, you aren't. ;)
Whoa, even at 00:40 that CGI looks goddam awful, like XBOX One era graphics. The catapults (lol) look plastic, and the waves in the water look terrible even in a 2 second long cut. The ships appear to be floating in front of the water, not actually interacting with it. What the hell has happened to Hollywood artists, do they not know what reality looks like anymore? Is that why the CGI keeps getting worse as time goes on? Lucas knew to keep CGI dinosaurs in the dark or flashing lights in Jurassic Park, because he knew they didn't look realistic under careful scrutiny. These new guys keep making garbage where every cell looks like a generic AI composite image, because that's essentially how they're creating these scenes.
Omg that was it!? I thought it was games cutsceen he used randomly for background fortage 😅 i think its because of over working disney etc are making 20 big films a year +tv show. So good cgi is going down the drain
(1) - We’ve reached a point where Ridley Scott can’t make a good movie anymore in either fiction and/or non fiction. And he’s screwing up depicting history correctly from films like this & Napoleon. But he’s always had issues with historical inaccuracies like 1492, Black Hawk Down, and even GI Jane. It’s no surprise that he cannot do historically accurate films since correctly since as I’ve pointed out, he’s always had an issue with this.
Unless he’s making a documentary, to expect 💯 historical accuracy in a movie is never going to happen.
It's not just a matter of having a problem, he has gone on record about how he outright refuses and argues with everything they say.
@JohnFourtyTwo Most of us aren't asking for that, Helheim even "documentaries" can't be held to that statement anymore, all we're asking is to make it believable, and he won't do even the most basic of things for that half the time
He can make one he's just must spread the message as with all modern media. Therefore they ruin it.
@@JohnFourtyTwo No movie's ever going to be 100% historical accurate, but the least we can ask for is having at least 30-50% accuracy, at least in terms of style/gear/tactics.
Greetings Shad! Just noticed something that I had to point out - @5:45 when your showing the main characters garden there are pumpkins! PUMPKINS! A New World crop in Africa somewhere around 200 AD? Impossible! And i'm pretty sure those are Rhode Island Red chickens a New World breed of chicken.
The pumpkins could have easily been replaced with ANY Old World crop and the Rhode Island Reds replaced by Dorking Chickens - which seem to have all the characteristics of chickens described by the likes of Cato(the Elder)and Columella.
Now I know this is nitpicky and Ridley Scott clearly doesn't give a flip about Historical Accuracy but these are yet more pebbles on a preverbal mountain of crap that was put into the movie that makes it nothing more that 'historically-inspired fantasy shlock.'
Anyway that all i got, great vid as always Shad! *edit for spelling
This channel deserves way more views!
Ridley Scott once again wants his movie to be the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan. He did the same in Robin Hood.
4:36 The shot that you use looks like Age of Empires cinematic. If this game taught me anything you can just send your soldiers to chop the walls down with their swords and eventually they'll get in. Siege towers are there just so some soldiers can get on the wall and clear up any danger to those down below.
Becoming deadweight because you saw your wife killed in battle is a decent reason why wives didn't tend to fight in battles...
I didn't know Gladiator had a sequel. The story didn't lend itself to one.
Edit: OK, I think ChatGPT could've written a better script. And ChatGPT hallucinates.
Modern Hollywood keeps doing this thing where they feel like they need to make battle insanely intricate or complicated. Like what did the opening of gladiator do? A battle in the forest with a simple but effective cavalry flank. Maximus didn’t think “ah what I need to do is make a overly complicated series of traps to make this seem smart”.
So how should the battle have looked like??
I read about how in ancient Rome gladiators had a layer of fat to protect them in combat.
I'm gonna start telling people I have the body of a gladiator.
Fat over muscle though is the gladiator build not just fat.
Think of heavy weight boxers. Lots of muscle and physically fit with a layer of fat over it. They may look a little fat, but they are deadly.
It's called a joke.
“How can we remake this but this time lame and gay?”
Hollywood for the last 15 years
And (2) - the last truly good movie that Ridley Scott has directed & released was The Martian (2015).
Other Ridley Scott movies I can recommend aside from The Duelist, Alien, & Blade Runner, are the following:
Legend (1985)
Black Rain (1989)
Thelma & Louise (1992)
Hannibal (2001)
Matchstick Men (2003)
And Finally…
American Gangster (2007)
So the romans hated and feared open water. Like most sailors of that time, they would cruise along the coast and only when absolutely necessary did they stray away from the coast (most of the time losing sight of the coast was a death sentence because storms can sneak up on you and happen like that). Surely their first and logical step would be for the navy to blockade out any aid or food coming in, while dropping off troops further down the coast for a possible land assault or to blockade land routes. Now if either of those aren't possible than sure siege tower ships might have been employed but they would need to be custom built. You can't slap a siege tower on front of a normal roman ship and it would work as seen in this movie. You tried to do that and your ship would likely be unable to support the extra weight and it would nosedive downwards and god forbid you encounter a storm at sea. A boat with basically a large thick mast at the front seems like hell to sail correctly. Not only because of it's size and sheer manpower required to get it moving but the wind will be blasting against it, making it effectively a sail that you can't take down. Masts were as thin as possible with sails being able to taken up or down for good reason. Go and try holding up a towel on a windy day and trying to walk against it, it's very difficult to do so.
Bayesian
To be fair at the siege of Syracuse Romans attempted to straight up take the citadel via seaborne assault- ofc it failed, courtesy of Archimedes, and it was coordinated with a land assault on Euryalos fortress as well
I'm sure I've seen references or maybe references to older references of mangonel with cups, from memory that method seemed to be used as it allowed for launching hot rocks and sand etc - stuff you can't use a sling for that will get into people's armour, blind them etc. its not to smashing stuff so much as causing massive discomfort and minor wounds that may go septic etc.
I can accept lots of the boats not carrying the towers - it would be I'd suspect seriously more challenging act of seamanship to sail a functional sized version such a thing where you need it, and constructing such a thing also costs time and money - so having 3 to 1 normal to siege tower or so on the approach actually makes sense to me. You have a large body of men on easier to navigate boats ready to jump onto the boat with the tower as soon as it creates that beachhead on the walls and they can meanwhile be peppering the walls with slings/bows.
They should have just used the shield catapult tactic used in a certain Indian movie…
Don't give up! Loved your channel for years.
I was thinking it was the difference between low tide and high tide but then I remembered it's the Mediterranean sea and I don't think it has that drastic of a tide
now I can get my hobbie work going! Love these videos on the backgroud!
But Shad! Ancient siege engines had just as much range as modern artillery. Rings of Power taught me that.
Also, I can’t believe the Romans didn’t think to collapse the mountain to drain the ocean. SMH!
I think you need to test "female formed" hardened leather armor against arrows.
THIS is the kind of content that kept me hooked to this channel 🤩🤩🤩
Trebuchet being used there is logical as it is the set originally created for Kingdom of Heaven (Jerusalem is easily identifiable from the movie) - it is located in the studio of Ouarzazate in Morroco and we can visit it, it was also used in other movies and tv shows too apparently. ^-^
The 0.5th crusade , 3th century, colorized
I’m getting flashbacks of another Ridley Scott historical movie Robin Hood when he used Higgins boats for the invasion of England by the French.
21:21 Romans often engaged an economic interdependence and trade with places they were about to conquer. I don't find it surprising that _a few_ defenders would be carrying Roman weapons and wearing roman armor. I would also expect a few of the civilian population wearing Roman style dress and having Roman currency in there coin purses. Also a few works of literature, the Roman calendar, some sample business ledgers. It was a primitive form of propaganda dropping.
Surprisingly enough, as per Vegetius telescopic towers- on land, that is- were actually a thing
"Besides this the part of the wall which the machine attempts to reach is made higher by building it up with cement and stones, or mud or bricks, and finally with hoarding, so that the machine cannot destroy the defenders of the walls by attacking the city from above.” Naturally the machine is rendered ineffective if it is found to be lower. But besiegers are in the habit of using the following kind of stratagem. First they build a tower in such a way that it looks smaller than the battlements of the city. Ten they secretly make another turret inside out of planks and, when the machine is joined to the walls, suddenly the turret is pulled up from the middle on ropes and pulleys. From it emerge soldiers who, because it is found to be higher, at once capture the city.’"
Great vid as always! Thanks for making it!
It's a Ridley Scott movie . I would expect The Life of Brian to be more historically accurate, including the alien scene .
wouldn't burning jars of oil smash like giant Molotov cocktails? i have no experience with oil jars but i do have experience lighting stuff on fire with Molotovs for fun (large bon fires mainly)
They're supposed to, but apparently here these clay pots are made of iron to smash towers 😂
It’s not filled with oil, it’s filled with the anti-cliffside high explosive munition rocks from rings of power
I loved your discussion of Syracuse! I learned something new today!
Random Film Talk brought me to this channel, and I appreciate that now with more videos covering so many topics.
On the topic of catapults:
There is a LARP event I go to once a year and there one army actually has a catapult.
It is not at all historically accurate, using elastic bands, a more fantasy approach to the mechanism and a lot of modern parts.
Since it was made with modern parts and tools it could have been made more powerful than historic counterparts, but in the spirit of fairness it was made to be not overpowered.
I always get the feeling that some people are a little disappointed when they ask how close to a wall we have to get to be effective and the answer is "about 20 to 25 paces".
If I get the chance I could try to get some footage of it this summer and send it to you.
Last year, when we were defending our camp during a siege we barely cleared our own wall with about 30 cm between the path of our shot and the top of the wall.
Bro I missed these kinds of videos of shad just relaxing and Rambling to use the situation
You have mentioned the problem with siege towers on ships- that the soldiers that have access to the siege tower are only those who are on the ship.
However, that makes me think of a possible advantage to such tactics: siege towers on ships are far more faster approching to the walls than those on land.
Mostly, a land siege tower will move towards the enemy walls about several tens of meters a day (maybe even ten) and will require a system of cables, poles, oxens, manpower and sometimes even rails to advance.
The ground betwin the siege tower and the enemy fortifications needs to be leveld- in several sieges on Jerusalem for example (at list two), that took place around about between 50 BC to 70 AC, the Romans (or the Roman supported Herod's army in one case) had to build earth ramps (Agars) climbing to weak points in the walls for the siege towers to be mounted upon.
Due to such complexities siege towers were rarely ever used in general (mostly as last resort); And thats why I think siege towers mounted on ships could be much more agile option in certain scenarios.
I love your movie critiques they are very fun, relaxing and educational
Pushing this up! Keep on going Shad!
A bunch of barbarians in Roman chainmail.We're off to a good start.
If they were celts, it wouldn't necessarily be out of place. There's evidence suggesting that lorica hamata was inspired by mail armour worn by the gallic celts.
Of course, they aren't celts, so it's just bad filmmaking.
@lonelystrategos Having seen surviving examples of both I agree with the Celtic armour looking similar.
But as you say they aren't celts. And honestly I kinda wished the misplaced armour was the only thing wrong with Gladiator 2.
@@lonelystrategos I just lost it with the "it would make sense if X, but this is not X, it's just bad"
tbh chainmail is not copyrighted, it spread with the Celts and everyone started to adopt it to some extent
in fact it was used from africa to japan at a point
@@SockAccount111 By your logic it's okay to give the characters in a American Revolutionary War flim M16s because the muzzleloaders they should be using also used explosive powder to propel metal objects down range.
Really enjoy your battle autopsy episodes.
11:50 It would make more sense if the frontal ships without siege towers had only sailors. Then, they could potentially be used as a screening force (or whatever equivalent that's designed to draw fire instead of avoid engagement). Maybe just have some scorpions or other ballistas on them.
Despite all the glaring flaws and inaccuracies, there are some good points-
*the Costuming of the soldiers looks much improved over the first film, with clear reference to historical examples
*The ships look good overall
*The city looks ok
*The sea and sky look fantastic (when not magically appearing out of nowhere).
The Spanish inquisition reference was not too old. If it is too old, so am i, and I'm emortal.
Take some time in your immortal lifespan to learn spell correctly.
Is 'emortal' the digital equivalent of 'immortal'?
Vikings did the siege towers better in season 3 when they try to take Paris by sea, iirc oil gets dumped on them, they get lit up & most of the Vikings die (they were much bigger too, closer to historical size)
A point about the end is the tide might create enough of a shift in the water level to justify the difference. I think it's obvious to strike at hide tide with the siege ships especially if it's during the daytime. Therefore any other time would have the water level lower.
Very little tidal shift in the Med.
When I watched it, (only once) But the shot at 6:23 to me, was from INSIDE the city, meaning behind those walls is the ocean, also the guys on the boats without towers broke down the gates. and poured through. They showed that
I love the watches! Like the style very much ❤
The funny thing about the final beach shot is that the sand in the foreground is dry. So one can not even consider high/low tide.
Also spotted in the initial arrow exchange the defenders when called to draw, have a nice shot of each archer having arrows on the wall to hand, but all the merlons have mysteriously vanished and wall is only waist height. Just for that shot.
I feel Ridley's last few movies he has seen a picture or reference to something that "might" be usable, ie towers on boats, water in the arena, technologies that were not in the region but were available somewhere in the world at that time. Then he has just run with it and not thought further about it and wether it is actually viable in the context of both story and historically for his movie.
Regular triremes could be used to provide a manpower reserve for the ship with the seige tower if they have boarding ramps. This would somewhat alleviate the problem of being limited by the manpower of the ship carrying the siege tower during your assault.
Interesting. You made that video about the algorithm that finally got through, and all of a sudden, I am recommended all of your videos again. This is my favorite type of yours. It's like a good lecture presented in a way that holds attention and entertains. Just talking with your passion and going into the kind of details that inspire the imagination. No offense, but the outdoor, "practical" stuff too often just feels like watching a couple of kids screwing around in their backyard. I understand I'm probably in the minority there, though.
Starting the movie with that opening battle would be like starting a World War 2 movie with the Boston Tea Party.
Love to see Gladiator 1 opening battle autopsy!
You forgot about Alexander's use of siege towers. He used them not to storm walls, but to get archers to be able to attack the archers on the enemy walls in order to protect those building a bridge to assault the walls.
Now that you mentioned that extra land near the wall, I just realized how inconsistent this movie was. Both him and his wife fell straight down into the sea, and yet when he wakes up, suddenly there's a land.
This video ought to have 100k + views
36:42 In Polish movie "Teutons" (1960) there is a duel between one of protagonists and one of antagonists when they agree to a duel "for death, not for captivity" and then are takking off helmets.
I haven't had time to watch this yet, but I will when I get home from work.
48 minutes showing the mistakes in the first 10 minutes. How long will it take to address all of the movie's mistakes?
Pedro takes his helmet off, so we know which soldier he is! WOW, this film looks incredibly stupid.
It's so satisfying to know there are people out there who don't scoff at using their brains for something more than just serving their superiors, following orders and cluelessly consuming mediocrity wrapped in glitter.
Thank you!
about the mangonel : 1) it's an onagre, mangonel are medievals 2) they hadn't this bar above them, because it prevent aiming and adjust the length of the shot 3) being generous, they are made specifically to shot above the walls, the engine would have been build the other way around, so the spoon, being stopped, would libertae the projectile in a far more convenient angle
and 4 ) a civilisation contemporain of rome would have been able to copy romans siege weapons, and roman catapults existed, but, they looked a lot more like what you would have call a ballista.
oh, and if sambuca is hard to say, use corvus, basically the same tool. But theses two weapon were used to assault... other boats. Not walls. it have been developped by rome in her naval warfare with carthage.
All of theses infos came from "the punic wars", written by polybes in 146.
Yes please do a battle scene autopsy for the first gladiator!
Doyalist explanation for those Siege Towers: Safety guys probably would have not liked the idea of a crane-suspended bridge thing. Smaller towers on a single boat would also be easier/cheaper to build. I doubt the set guys would want to try to do two boats lashed together. Also a lot cheaper to just use some clever cuts than to build a bigger tower and bridge set.
Watsonian explanation for the Non-Tower Boats: Tower boats establish the beachhead. Non-tower boats follow up with range support and reinforcements. There's only going to be so much space along the wall and the towers are also an extra material expense. The non-tower boats would probably come up behind the tower boats and lash on to the rear to transfer troops. Even on D-day, most troops didn't arrive via the specialized landing-craft. Once a beachhead is established you then bring in the more general purpose troop-carriers with reinforcements.
Watsonian theories for the Sea-Attack: Those land-side walls looked huge, much bigger than the sea wall. We also only see the very immediate surroundings of the land-side. Perhaps there's some other physical impediment to the land-side approach that isn't shown. This is Nubia, in Africa, the continent whose geography is notorious for having steep elevation rises close to shore, so the city might easily have geographic advantage from a land approach that would make it exceedingly difficult to approach with siege equipment.
City Gate Facing the Water: This could actually be realistic. One of your own castle tours videos highlighted such a feature on a real life castle on a river. The gate supposedly allowed for direct unloading of cargo into the castle from the water. This would be great for withstanding a land-based siege. For the mass of Roman soldiers using the gate, I presume that off-screen some of the initial landing party opened up the gate to let a troop ship unload from the dock.
Beach at the End: This is actually good continuity. By the end of the battle the tides would have changed. Presumably they would have attacked at peak high tide. The protag is implied to be unconscious for a while by the time the battle is done and over and in cleanup mode, and that's a fairly reasonable amount of tidal difference in the amount of beach.
this highlights the issue with dependence on CGI rather than practical effects, no one stops to thing whether what is being shown is actually possible.
All of these things that your describing would happen in a real battle for real tactics sound so cool and makes me want to see it in cinema instead of the typical Hollywood battle tactics
(not my comment) Ridley Scott just announced he is doing a Julius Caesar biopic. It centers around Caesar's conquest of the Aztecs (played by a bunch a Kenyans), his invasion of Australia and conquering of the Aboriginal people (played by Chinese), and of course, his battle against Ulysses S. Grant at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, with the barbarians played by Cajuns.
Outward-facing trebuchets from a sea wall become precision weapons?
Literally incredible.
On a different scene lucius says a fake story about a captured centurion that probably there were other conflicts with romans before the final assault of Pedro Pascal, and thats why they have roman like armour and artillery (as spoils of war). About the naval assault probably they tried it successfully because defenders dont have navy and romans tried assault both walls and harbour because in another scene shows romans storm the city not by towers but threw land gates. Before pedro Pascal released the bridge was shown that archers on the wall was firing on anyone that was unprotected on the tower and probably trying to lower the bridge so that's why he had to take the risk. Thats my head canon but of course the movie had problems of organising the battle
The only thing I can think of for why there is land for the guy to stand on is that the battle boats with the towers showed up at high tide, but even then, showing us what low tide looks like, you ain’t getting a boat that close
45:35 Obviously, the attack took place during high tide while it's low tide now.
So on top of everything else, the battle apparently took place outside Mediteranean, as the Mediterranean tide is barely noticable.
"Gerald Ford invented a personal transport vehicle called 'The Automocar,' which was powered by a tank of burning fossils."
I think it was originally planned and shot as a land battle, and then the ships and sea part was added later on. That explains why some of the shots don't make a lot of sense, since they can only edit based on what was filmed, not based on what would necessarily make sense in the final version.
Oh, and 45:40. Maybe the tide went out a bit?
I bet the city is glad there are no Palm trees outside the walls...the Romans could of flung the army into the city 🤣