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When the Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 said he will kill Arthur Wellesley because Sarah Conner was a ancestor of his. I knew the movie was lore accurate.
The same can be said of all his movies , take kingdom of heaven for example , it's even worse than Napoleon , the only difference with the Napoleon movie is the internet , if people had access to it back in the day all his movies even Gladiator would've bombed or at least taken down a peg or two rather than being overrated fictional drama.
Ending in total defeat, with a once juggernaut French military in shambles, a generation's worth of French boys in mass graves as France, under military occupation, gets the Bourbon Monarchy shoved right up its a.... was nothing positive for France.
The Napoleonic wars are one of those examples from history where you don’t need to exaggerate. The era was epic enough for it to be depicted how it actually went down and it would be entertaining enough.
A brutal and failed military dictator like Napoleon responsible for the death of millions is not epic, nor entertaining, nor triumphant, it is tragedy, a cautionary tale.
@@RidleyScottOwnsFailedDictators Here's a free tip : when trolling, you want to have a generic user name so your intentions aren't immediately obvious.
@@sba8710 Nothing good happens when a delusional thug seizes total power from a lost and confused nation, hijacking a powerful military and wages total war ending in defeat. We should know that by now.
No truer words sir. It is inexcusable that this was not a series of at least 3 movies like was brilliantly done with the Lord of the Rings. They were so short sided for stunting a film on the single greatest military genius that had to fit in 3 hours...criminal actually.
That's PRECISELY the criticism I have about Ridley Scott's movie, Kingdom of Heaven. If the movie has a less interesting plot, and more boring characters, than history, it fails in my book even as a piece of historical fiction.
Ridley's Scott's relationship to history is one of staggering arrogance. He doesn't need history, he can do better, or so he thinks. All he did was take Napoleon and turn a titan into a midget.
Amen to this, PERFECT brief way to describe/express my frustration with the movie, you’re bang on, most comments i kind of rant about how this movie not only insults history with no research no interest in how cool the real events are but that the dumbass script writer made it even more boring and unimaginative than real life. Its insane. with the historical epics of the 60s we all kind of know a lot of it is embellishments and exaggerated, but we don’t care because it generally stays somewhat faithful to the ideas and narratives of history, and ultimately it makes it even more exciting, entertaining with great writing and visuals and acting. This movie is insulting in every sense and its annoying how fervently people defend it and start calling historians and history-buffs assholes for criticising it, like seriously, i’m fine with historically inaccurate movies they’re all over, even Waterloo is inaccurate in places according to some, but when a director and writer blatantly slander and mock historians and even the idea of researching the movie, AND they do it so lazily and make it so much more boring and showing nothing of what made Napoleon so famous and renowned and remembered, and just mock him based on British propaganda that Scott remembered as a kid, its just childish, Ridley Scott comes off as more pompous, arrogant and petty than the Napoleon he claims to portray
Napoleon can only be handled properly with 3 options: - focus on one major event (e.g: the movie "Waterloo") - series (e.g: the one with Christian Clavier and Isabella Rossellini) - an actual trilogy (so, say Corsica to return from Egypt, the coup to the Spanish succession, then the rest, or something close to that) One movie about everything Napoleon was always gonna be a failure. Especially casting a 50 something man to be a 24 year old artillery captain. A trilogy would allow for a recast from the 1st to the 2nd (keeping for the 3rd), without it being too jarring. "You think you're so great because you have books !!! 😤😤😤" -- Ridley Scott
I like that this video is more centered in filling in the blanks with useful information and correcting the deviations, than criticizing the film itself for having them.
You guys may wanna make a video about the film Waterloo. It's from 1970 and soooo much better than what Ridley Scott did. Phoenix did an outstanding job with what he had to do. Sharpe is a really good series with Sean Bean....yes Sean Bean.@@KingsandGenerals
@@Sean12248 Then again, Napoleon's life is basically too long for one movie. Even 3 movies about it will not be enough. There is a reason Waterloo is a movie in of itself.
I think the movie would've benefited more from being a multi-season or multi-movie series instead of a single one. There's so much ground to cover when discussing Napoleon that it just becomes impossible to cram it all into 1 movie.
@@iordanvassilev8091 Yeah, I keep thinking of "The Crown" because that is probably the closest in a sense of how to do something like it (Albeit the crown isn't historically accurate either), but a multi-season show, with each season cover a campaign / period of napoleons rule would probably have worked very well.
I agree. A single movie cant cover the entirety of his career and life. It's baffling to imagine that these people probably think they're making something great.
Yeah but even in the 2.5 hours we got, Ridley Scott gives like half the screen time to Josephine. I mean, nothing against her or the actress but wtf, that's not what anyone interested in Napolean wanted.
I watched the first 30 minutes & it was unbearable!! Hollywood nutters trying to belittle & humiliate the greatest military & political leader Europe has ever had!
During the movies, I had friends asking me why the artillery didn't shoot at the squares. This is why geography is important in movies. (The answer is that the English were actually behind a slope, where the French artillery could not see them. The English weren't just outside, in the most vulnerable position to artillery and infantry.)
Again as the review points out lack of context, the very fact that the Anglo-Dutch army withdrew behind the slope is what prompted Ney to unleash the cavalry in the first place, he thought they were retreating
@@coinneachreid8971 Emphasis on the there Anglo-Dutch! ... and much of the Anglo bit wasn't English :) Germans, Scots, Irish even a few Welsh I guess as well as the English
Actually most of the British casualties whilst in the squares was due to artillery and skirmishers. During the initial cavalry charge french artillery fired between the waves, although due to range it didn’t cause much damage. After the remnants of D’Erlons corps took La Haye Saint, Ney managed to move horse artillery and skirmishers up within very close range. This was almost the breaking point of the anglo-allied army!
See I didn't know that, but sort of did due to having watched the 1970 Waterloo movie which is so different from ridley's movie, due to being a good movie, and shows this in a great way
I know a historian who always says that if we were talking about another country as we are talking about the past, we would all be in jail for hate crimes.
If 19th Century Europe had seen the affects of what happens when you glorify a brutal and failed military dictator who seizes a powerful military from a lost and confused nation and wages total war on Europe leaving millions dead like Napoleon, they would have apologized to 20th Century Europe for making them ignorant as to their own history. Those who do not know their own history are doomed to repeat it.
One thing that bothered me was in the battle of Austerlitz, Napoleon orders his infantry to take the high ground. But then we see his infantry charging downhill
@@firstconsul7286 Scott missed the point of Austerlitz by a Light-Year. The Austro-Russians *did* have the high ground. His plan was to tempt them off it to attack his apprently weak right flank. This they did, but more slowly than he expected because the Allied staff work was all over the place, so many enemy troops were still on the heights when Vandamme's and St Hilaire's divisions attacked.
This movie made me appreciate the movie Waterloo (1970) even more than i already did. Good acting, mostly historically correct and a non-cgi scale not seen in a long time. Literally thousands of extras on screen.
Also goes on to prove that you can't fit all those years of Napoleon's life into a 150 or so minute film and have it come out good like Scott tried to do. Used to watch Waterloo a lot when I was younger, and now that I'm older, I'd really like to see more cinematic adaptations of Napoleon's other battles! Like, hours dedicated to a single event. I think it would be cool.
Just imagine Kings and Generals and Epic History TV collaborating with Scott's 200mil budget on a Napoleon Series. That would be the greatest historical product ever conceived.
I dont know why these directors/producers dont hire historians to make sure everything is accurate. Robert Eggers did this and the northman ended up being easily the most accurate viking show/movie ever, and the writing was amazing as hell too
Ridley Scott went on the attack of Napoleon, but Napoleon never interrupted an enemy whom was making a mistake, so Napoleon let him does his thing… at the end Napoleon Is victorious towards Ridley Scott
@@Darius-_ Wellington was but the smallest kog, sorry for your nationalistic pride. Alexander, Blücher and the Spanish people were much more detrimental to Napoleon's downfall. If you actually want a British figure that balanced the war of Spain England Prussia Russia Austria Ottomans Sweden versus the single nation of that "thick' figure after 20 years of conflict, that would be Nelson. Without Nelson the British lose, and they lose fast. But what am I saying You're not intersted in history I guess.
I like the point that the movie doesn't show us why he had so many loyal followers or his brilliance in planning. I get that movies have to compromise. Sometimes compress significant events. And god knows you can't cover everything. But Napoleon is such a compelling figure. He deserved better.
They really butchered his character to the point where there is no reason for the french populace to follow his leadership. I watched the movie with a few friends are not as knowledgeable about history and they were simply confused during the battles, despite not knowing how atroucious the depiction of tactics used was. Meanwhile i really feel like the fact that there is several key campaigns entirely omitted from the movie, as well as all mentions off naval warfare except for a short mention of the continental system without context and the botched Scenes of the Siege of Toulon, also removes a lot of the essential continuity and reasoning.
Yeah in his other historical movies like kingdom of heaven or gladiator despite not being historically accurate you can see why people would follow someone into battle. Saladin, maximus ect. You can feel there leadership in every scene they are in. My favourite is baldwin IV who despite not showing mamy emotions sounds like a wise leader.
Any other Sharpe fans here?! It's largely due to Richard Sharpe that I took a deep dive into the history of British Rifleman of the Napoleonic era. They were certainly utilizing one of the most advanced weapons on the battlefield in that era in the Baker rifle. However, they certainly weren't using any sort of telescopic lens as a scope attached to the rifle as one was depicted in the film. I spotted multiple inaccuracies, but that one actually made me laugh out loud in the theatre!!
Sharpe's Waterloo battle was pretty weird if not outright funny. Given the budget, it isn't surprising. Understandable but quite comedic in its portayal, to say the least.
@eldorados_lost_searcher that's with a musket. No way could you reload a Baker rifle at that rate. The leather patch around the bullet requires a ton more time to push the bullet down the barrel.
For a fan of military history it was very disappointing. I am not sure what they were trying to say about Napoleon. I am not a big Napoleon fan. Not sure what his many fans do think. But I would be disappointed at that also. I would like to see future movies with great computer graphics showing the vast scale of these battles and much more historic accuracy.
I know its not related, but if this is how they present Napoleon, a very documented man, then id be terrified to see a movie about, say, Eastern Roman emperors or generals. Can you imagine the horror-- *remembers Cleopatra or Caesar* Pain
My first thought when the movie was over was "yeah now I really understand the criticism the movie gotten", and starting to have doubtful opinions after 10 minutes is also not a good sign. And besides all the unhistorical-things I still think its simply a bad movie. I have fairly high tolerance for stuff deviating from the source material either its history or books & can stand it as long as it still good entertainment, this had way to many jumps all over the place and was just a mess. So completly agree on the notion that any movie-goer that doesnt have an understanding of what happend the int the frenche revolution will be very confused to just about everything. Maybe the director cut improves it...
I watched this with both of my parents in theatres on November 22nd! I had to lean in every so often and say, "so this isn't very accurate" or "this did not happen." Haha. Very excited to very disappointed is one hell of a slope. It was also obvious to me that neither of them really understood what was going on, even though my dad knows just slightly less about Napoleon, and my mom, little to nothing. They couldn't even enjoy it with ignorance! Says a lot.
As a Masters Degree in European History, I expected some artistic liberties, but I was bummed by this. I have brothers with degrees in Biology and Forestry and they were super confused as you guys stated (saw it during the Thanksgiving weekend, so yes I’m a Yank.) I couldn’t explain in a movie theater all Scott missed, that’s what a beer after is for. This is why you guys are awesome, you explored and explained more than the stuff I didn’t mention to them. Keep up the good work!
@@halorecon95 for you that’s fine for me Kings and Generals just battles better than any other UA-cam channel so yes I would like them to do it and I’m sure they will
For anyone interested in actually good films about the Napoleonic Wars, I recommend: Waterloo (1970), Napoleon (2002 miniseries), War and Peace (1966-67) and the Sharpe series with Sean Bean.
@@matheusimon7316 Clavier did a better job portraying Napoleon than Phoenix, in my opinion. As did Rod Steiger in Waterloo. Bondarchuk's War and Peace series has incredibly good pacing and cinematography. It doesn't feature Napoleon a lot, though, since it is about the experiences of several Russian characters during that time.
@@Nuno.dos.Santos491 Funny how one of his earliest works is so much better in all regards except maybe special effects than his most recent. I'd wager success has made him arrogant. It would certainly explain his disdain directed at historians who criticise his film.
Napoleon’s life can’t be jammed into a 158 minute movie, likewise with Alexander the Great. Their lives were too immense, too epic. A series or trilogy of some kind would’ve been more appropriate. With the Napoleon film, I felt like I was skim-reading a book. Didn’t work
The damn film was too busy "deconstructing" the character, just like every lazily written history movie ever, not too mention they put all the effort into overly dramatizing Josephine and Napoleon relationship, while ignoring why and how history remember him in the first place, and the movie is not bombastic enough for mainstream audience, so the movie piss off everyone
The best thing to come out of Ridley Scott’s movie is the amount of Napoleon content we have gotten across UA-cam. The movie itself was an entirely anti-bonapartist franciphobic caricature of the great man. 2:32 I was genuinely excited that somebody was making a movie about Napoleon backed with an enormous budget, the possibilities seemed endless. But we got a terrible representation of his life and really an assassination of his character. They should’ve called it Josephine or Josephine and Napoleon. Or at least they should’ve focused on one particular period of his life. Imagine making a movie about one of the greatest military geniuses of all-time and showing next to none of that. Jesus, Assassin’s Creed Unity had a better portrayal of Napoleon Bonaparte.
This was very interesting, but I'd have liked additional focus on the film's depiction of Napoleon's character and relationships. Particularly the scene of Napoleon panicking and hyperventilating in front of his troops when the French parliament rejected him felt like a bit of a liberty in that sense.
@@vis532 Not that he even did that well reduced her portrayal to nothing more than an entitled cheater, when in reality she contributed a lot to post-revolutionary French society
I watched the first 30 minutes & it was unbearable!! Hollywood nutters trying to belittle & humiliate the greatest military & political leader Europe has ever had!
My wife and I walked out. It wasn't that we thought it was bad (frankly, I have no idea) it's that we came to see a war movie and it was a romance movie about a lunatic French couple and there were better things we could do with our time. It felt very arthouse and I remember a comment in the lobby that the poster should have some wreaths and laurels to warn us. In the end, I came home, turned on my computer and watched some Kings and Generals videos about Napoleon. No kidding. That's exactly what I did! Because it wasn't a war movie!
You can’t make a Napoleon 1 movie and think your doing him justice. This should’ve been a tv show that had multiple seasons. You could make 10 episodes alone about his FIRST Italian campaign which ended in 1797
That's pretty much how Abel Gance's 1927 film turned out. It's six hours long and ends with Italy. He wanted to cover Napoleon's entire career, but ran out of money.
This Movie was, for me, the most anticipated Movie in years - i was so excited. Also, this movie, for me, was the biggest disappointment in recent memory. Thanks for this video, it sure points out the Glaring Mistakes and Omissions made by Ridley Scott. Dammit, Napoleon could have been such an Epic Movie.
I really appreciate this video! There are definitely glaring gaps in the movie and serious inaccuracies however I hope that the extended directors cut provides us more when it comes out and if we are lucky perhaps there will be a fully edition that is 6 hours long!
Our beloved narrator really let Ridley Scott have it this time around. Haha. Fantastic as always from Kings and Generals. Thank you for giving some MUCH needed context to the major audience of people who watched Napoleon.
You can't just fit Napoleon's career into a single movie, even if it was over 4 hours it wouldn't be enough. Napoleon deserves an entire series of movies, at least a trilogy, or a long tv series spanning his rise to power, his reign, and his fall. This would also give other key figures more time to shine as well, such as Napoleon's Marshals, they're just as deserving of the spotlight as he is. In fact, I want a series that focuses on his Marshals now that I think about it.
They skipped The Italian campaign, arguably napoleon’s most important campaign in his rise to fame and power. They skipped marengo, omitting the entire reason he actually went back to Europe from Egypt in favour of making jokes about him getting cucked and abandoning an entire army as a result. They omit Spain. The bloody ulcer that slowly sapped France of her strength while giving rise to Wellington. They skipped the wars of the fourth, fifth and sixth coalitions. Eight years of struggle to subdue Austria, Prussia and Russia, in favour of a single scene each with emperors Francis and Alexander. It practically removes Germany from the map with the decisiveness that one would almost think Ridley Scott had a vendetta against Germany. It almost feels like if Prussia wasn’t so important at Waterloo he would have omitted them there too just to see the British win alone(which again ignores that more than half wellingtons army was made up of Dutch or German troops). They omitted his marshals. Fascinating characters and leaders in their own right. Some of whom napoleon gave command of entire countries. It also means that instead of taking up a commanding position to observe and direct the battle, he leads multiple charges. Napoleon didn’t lead the cavalry at Borodino and Waterloo. Murat and Ney did. I thought the film was very pretty and Joaquin was a pretty good napoleon, but I was incredibly disappointed by the historical omissions. A lot of them can be pretty easily resolved so I look forward tentatively to the directors cut. But there is no chance that the amazing work of history UA-cam will be usurped by Hollywood anytime soon, if this is the best they can do for one of the most important figures of the last 500 years.
Phoenix did what he could, but I honestly don't know if I'd say he played all too great a Napoleon. I may also be biased because I'm comparing him to actors like Rod Steiger and Phillipe Torreton, who, in my opinion, characterized Napoleon better. There is also the fact that Pheonix played Napoleon throughout many years, and it just didn't seem like there was much development in his personality or demeanor...? Which isn't much of an issue for most other actors who play Napoleon for a much shorter period of his life.
I saw Napoleon with my friend, who's familiar with history but not a history buff / nerd like I am. He really did not understand what was going on in the film, which I think shows it is just a poorly made movie. He said it was just a series of vignettes about major battles or moments in Napoleon's life that had no context or meanining within the film. He actually lost the plot after the failed invasion of Russia and was so bored he fell asleep during Waterloo. There are also a number of scenes from the trailer that were not in the film, probably in the extended edition. There's a shot of Napoleon climbing onto a burning carriage on its side and gazing around at the crowd around him, which I believe was a depiction of the assassination attempt where someone tried to set off an explosive next to his carriage as it passed by.
Thank you for mentioning the Dutch contingents! British retellings also leave them out or actually discredit them actively, and the 17,000 that were there were actually pretty important.
Van Bylandt's Brigade, they held an inordinate responsibility for and acquitted themselves extremely well to maintaining the tactical integrity of Wellington's centre. Such an under-rated contribution, especially given the price they paid for it, first at Quatre Bras and then at Waterloo.
I'm french and it's a french defeat, that can't be denied. But it's not an english victory. One third of the english army's soldiers were english. They were bad soldiers and bad generals, they won thanks to foreign soldiers, and have been saved by their ally. Yet they claim this victory has their. They are clowns.
British propaganda is strong. For example, today there are many people who know of the Spanish Armada disaster trying to invade England in the late 1500s, but none know of the English navy's own disaster trying to do the same to Spain. Infact Spain won that War.
@@TheModeler99 They did the same trick after the Battle of Britain. The aerial campaign over France/Low Countries was pretty much a pointless effort for the RAF.
@@TheModeler99 American propaganda made everybody believe that they crushed Germany in WW2 and saved Europe, while Russia had finally beated them after a very hard war and millions of deaths. Americans just attacked weakened and retreating forces. English and american made everybody believe even in France, that french soldiers surrendered as soon as germans attacked. While the battle has been lost due to the shipping back (covered by the french army) of the english army in the middle of the fight. And a very violent fight between french and belgians against Germany.
That movie is just the British rethoric about Napoleon... after more than 200 years you would expect they were over it but... well they even still hate Joan of Arc. I watched it in Australia, lots of laughs and praises for the movie, which is basically what they get as a common knowledge from the Britts. Sad thing, with this movie that perception will reach more people. For example , I watched it with a friend. She was happy with the movie and surprised that all that had happened. I was in tiers...
Because ignorance is bliss. So long as you know ANYTHING about history, youd see many more people utterly disgusted by the movie (eventhough there are many already). But History is not seen as important everywhere and especially not by most students in school, eventhough the whole reason why we have it in school is to prevent manipulation of knowledge and repeating the mistakes of the past even more than teaching the history pf the country itself
Great video as always. I was excited for this one, but after seeing the reviews I changed my mind, and after Scott's comments about people pointing out historical accuracies, I'll skip the directors cut as well. One thing I always notice about your videos, is that on your maps, the Netherlands is shown as it is today. However, the province of Flevoland was actually constructed during the 20th century and most of the provinces of Northern and southern Holland were claimed in medieval times and so should be mostly water in any video about Rome, Gaul, Germania etc. This is a minor point, but I wanted to point it out for historical accuracy :).
As a Napoleonic history fan, i think i speak for most of us when i say that Napoleon had plenty of REAL action and drama surrounding him essentially his entire life that scenes need not be embellished for dramatic effect or whatever. It is possible to depict this period accurately while maintaining the qualities of a good film. The main issue i think is that they tried to cover the entire lifetime of this one man that had more battles and political intrigue than arguably anyone else in history, and its just impossible to do it any sort of justice in 2.5 hours, while keeping it entertaining. They should have picked a portion of his life: Napoleon:Rise of the Emperor, or Napoleon: War of the XYZ Coalition Napoleon: Invasion of Russia, Napoleon: Return of the Emperor, etc. Do better Mr. Scott
I don't have a problem with historical fiction (HBO's Rome is highly regarded, for instance) as long as it is made clear that it is a dramatization and that when it hits real, documented fact, it is accurate.
The major problem with Napoleon (the film) as I have heard it (I have yet to watch it), is that it not only commits the sin of being historically inaccurate (like Braveheart, Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven), but also commits the sin of being boring. A documentary can be boring, yet as long as it is accurate can still be worthwhile, and a historical epic can be inaccurate yet as long as it is engaging and entertaining is still worthwhile. Napoleon though commits both these sins and so has no worth.
Don't fall for this kind of "history experts" shallow criticism... the movie is not about military "facts", or one person's biography...it is an attempt to focus on certain aspects of an extraordinary man's psychology which always remain forgotten because of the great deeds and genius experts and "experts" always talk about. Having this in mind, the relationship with Josephine, as the movie shows, is the perfect choice to show what the director wanted to show. Probably not "accurate" in terms of "facts" ("experts" hate the discussion about the real "factuality" of "facts"...), but a great and legitimate interpretation! You may agree or disagree with him, that's the beauty of great subjects, but the best juice of history is exactly the interpretation of the psyche of men and women, specially the most complicated and decisive ones. The chronology is secondary, military accuracy, climate and weather, so on and so forth... exactly what makes great history different from common "factual" history... the movie is noisy, longer than it should be, messy sometimes (for my taste...), but it is a great historical interpretation of some sides of Napoleon's character we all read in good books about.... I really understood Scott's anger towards "experts" criticism after I watched the movie
@@BernardoBr1982 except the movies depiction of Napoleon’s relationship with Josephine is entirely in accurate and incorrectly based the majority of Napoleons actions as responses to developments in his relationship with Josephine. It doesn’t show his charisma as a leader, it doesn’t show his ability to pick brilliant subordinates, it doesn’t showcase his tactical and strategic genius. Scott nueters his main character all to show his own biased view of history, which not only fails to be accurate but also fails to be entertaining.
@@duncanharding8836 I am a historian... dictionnary definition is just a first approach to a complete unknown word...word, not science... you are the one that must get educated...🤣🤣🤣🤣
I think Napoleon 2004 series had better depictions, including the uniforms and tactics of the Grand Armeé, plus the battle scenes like Austerlitz, Jena and Eylau showed some good background and explanation of tactics (simple but comprehensible), at least for the budget. Sure, it may have had "liberties" as a production series but at least it's presented well enough (including Eylau's cavalry charge and Austerlitz scenes) as a spectacle without compromising immersion and accuracy too much. Let me know what you guys think :) Edit: I was incorrect about the year, it was 2002, not 2004...😅😅
The movie felt like an American political commercial made by the opposition. If you’re fortunate enough to never have seen these they harp on character flaws while ignoring every positive thing because that’s how it works here
A rail and road system, the judicial system, all still in use today in Europe. Napoleon was an innovator. Dictatorship is one of the most effective forms of government to be found. People are usually uneducated, easily swayed, fickle and foolish! This is why class differences exist. People!
@@Sirilere There are plenty of Dictators in the modern world today. Every single one of them is horrendously bad and incompetent who bring nothing but misery to their countries and the world around them. Please do tell me what greatness Dictators like Putin and Kim Jong-il have brought besides the further oppression and murder of their people, rampant corruption, and pointless hostilities with their neighbours.
I felt like the film was not entirely sure what exactly it wanted to portray? Was it supposed to be a romance? Napoleon's rise to power? Honestly, reminds me of Robin Hood. Were we supposed to watch the adventures of an outlaw or the lead up to the Baron's War? The lack of real focus really made it difficult to follow the plot.
Oh waoo fancy to see you on this channel Love your work of the Burmese history. Could you do another video about Burmese army but in the 18-19th century
Kubrick wanted to do a film on Napoleon. He was a stickler for details. He worked on it for years and did tons of research. I sure wished he had been able to make his film on Napoleon.
I thought about seeing this movie but I kept putting it off cause of the runtime length and I just didn't have enough motivation to see it while it was still in theaters. I didn't worry too much about the bad reviews because I like forming my own opinions on movies and not letting other people make them for me. Now, I don't make movies so I don't pertain to be an expert on how historical fiction or biopics should be made but for me personally I'd say the best way to do it is a way described in the video. Movies are entertainment presented in a visual medium and so at the end of the day they should be entertaining. However, when adapting the life of a person who actually existed (especially one who left a huge mark on history like Napoleon) it's important to present them in their entirety. In short, changing a few minor details for stylistic reasons are ok as long as you maintain the larger historical context. Now a lot of how this works can depend on how things are shot, presented and filmed and some writers/directors can make this work better than others, so I won't pretend like this is an easy answer.
Skip it, that's what the reviewers said before I went to see it, but I couldn't help myself because I am such a history nut....I shoulda listened, it was more than horrible, if anything, it just made me angry. After watching the terrific Epic History releases, detailing particular battles and campaigns, seeing and paying for the movie - I felt like I'd been robbed. The historical inaccuracies I can deal with, its a movie made as entertainment for the masses. None of the battle scenes were even in anyway impressive, they felt cheap. You know for instance in Band of Brothers, where they are storming Omaha beach, and the whole scene is so captivating....well there's nothing in anyway close to that. This movie was so hyped, and unfortunately, there's not even one scene where you're like...Yea, that was awesome...not one. Just a total flop.
As a historical novelist, I think we have a duty to keep the historical aspects of our books as true as we can possible know with today's knowledge. We can only play in the cracks of what we don't know or can't know.
Not to be that guy but it has caught my eye for some time. When Showing the Geopolitical map of Europe in the recent Napoleon videos, The Cities in France and Italy are placed relativly accuratly but In other Places like the Austrian Empire, the Cities are placed km off their actual place. Like Vienna is put around modern day Budapest, Budapest is put around in modern day Debrecen, Praga is put around modern day Brno, Agram(Zagreb) is put on the river Drava when it's actually on the Sava, Krakow is put where modern Tarnów would be, Warsaw is put a few km west of the Vistula river when it was on the western bank of the Vistula River near the merging of the Vistula and Narew rivers, Poznan is put a under the river Warta at its bend from modern day Śrem when it is actualy placed on the Eastern Bank of the Warta River almost halfway between two of the rivers major bends, one bending from modern day Śrem and the other bendin towards modern day Oborniki and Belgrade is put at the merging of the Danube and Tisza rivers insted of the Merging of the Sava and Danube on the sothern bank. Not to mention, Austria Should own Lower Austria where Vienna is and the lands between the Ore Mountains, Sumava Mountains and the Sudety mountains where Bohemia/Czechia lies should be under Austria. And the the area around Trenčín, Žilina and the Mountain peak Babia Góra should also be under Austria. Not Under Prussia This could have been a mistake or what not but I thought for the sake of locational accuracy which is important on maps and History on a whole, I would just point it out. Carry on the good work. love the videos :D
also Some borders are a bit pushed off their actualy location like the Bohemian with Silesia as it does not match with the actual Geografical border it's ment to sit on
Ridley Scott also directed Kingdom of Heaven, which faced similar issues and criticism. A director's cut was released later that did add many scenes which was generally praised as a great improvement over the theatrical version. IMHO Napoleon will leave a familiar legacy--an entertaining and technically well-produced film that has historical authenticity, even if lacking in historical accuracy. Ultimately, media like this isn't necessarily made for students of history like many of us here, but for the general public. From our perspective, there are many obvious downsides to this, but on a positive note, folks who otherwise would not even have been aware of such important historical figures and events might become more interested in the future.
Yesnt thats the problem in itself, the mainstream public MIGHT be more interested, but most will only see the movie and keep this knowledge without going further, spreading misinformation and ignorance. Plus where Kingdom of Heaven showed the more epic medieval stuff people love even if irl it was differant, it was epic enough to get people interested about the period, Napoleon is not even shown in a good light in this movie, to make people interested youd need to show the true charisma of the man, the genius of the battlefield etc... we didnt get that here. In our era where information is oh so easy to access and manipulate, spreading misinformation under the guise of it being a sorta biography in movie is dishonest at best and downright fallacious at worst. Scott took the easy and laziest route possible to make a correct movie on a technical level, but thats not even close to a proper adaptation of Napoleon's life, and its oh so easy to make a proper adaptation of something with only the bare minimum change in the scenario, LoTR did it by taking out scenes that was too lore heavy and instead made referance and clever interpretation so that both newbies and well read people could appreciate it. And no i utterly refuse to lower the bar from LoTR, quality is only an issue of logistics and willpower whennthe knowledge we have of the story(or history here) is this large
I think Ridley Scott should have released it as a series on Netflix or any other OTT platform because it’s difficult to squeeze in years of detailed history into 2-3 hours of movie time. He could have done it like The Crown series over a period of time showing all the events and characters as well as back stories.
I feel if Scott wanted to accurately portray Napoleon properly, he could’ve done a 3 part trilogy epic if it was meant to span his whole career. One movie on his early years as general 1793-1799 titled “The General” ending with the Coup against the Directory, another from 1799-1804 titled “The Consul” that ends with him being crowned as emperor, and finally a film covering 1805-1815 titled “The Emperor” covering Austerlitz, Borodino, retreat from Russia, Exile and Waterloo.
Thank you for this analysis. I watch Kings and Generals to learn the truth of historic events. I find that I too have thought I knew something only to find that I saw it in a movie or TV series. Unfortunately, I know far too many people who take things they see as historically accurate. I even had a former coworker claim that he is a descendant of William Wallace and the Princes as depicted in Braveheart. Keep up the amazing work . I love this channel.
Thanks for all your hard work, I have been following this channel for many years and I thoroughly enjoy it. I wanted to ask, will those exclusive videos at some point be on the main channel or will they be forever exclusive?
>Me, a Spaniard watching Napoleon >Boring as fiction, terrible as historical >No mention to the Peninsular War >Proceeds to destroy It at Rotten Tomatoes
I think my biggest gripe about this movie is that they sacrificed precious screen time to the ridiculous marriage drama with Josephine. I understand not being able to fit his entire life into one movie, especially one that the casual viewer can easily digest and understand, but instead of, as mentioned in the video, the Italian campaigns, we got sex scenes. Then the blatant inaccuracies in what few battles there were. I understand what there was in Toulon, things like having the mortars right in front of the fort so the audience can see the bombardment and the assault in one shot, as well as the theatrics. But the other battles should have at least attempted to explain why they were there and what was going on (the tactical and strategic situation), such as a brief synopsis between Napoleon and his Marshals when working out the plan. Honestly this movie should have been called "Josephine" with how much it obsesses over her and disregards what the titular character is known for, his miliary career. But in fairness, I do feel the need to mention that the costumes and uniforms looked amazing. Some later uniforms were used early in the movie, which is understandable (not paying a ton of money for costumes that would be used once, rather just reuse what would feature in many scenes), and many characters looked like doubles of their real life counterparts, even if they went unnamed the whole movie.
I couldn't agree more with you, but my take on that is....Men don't generally go see movies alone, they drag their wives & GF with them, who unfortunately just aren't interested in going to see a " War " movie, you've gotta lure your female companion in by telling her there's some kind of romance theme to it, or they're going to say they don't want to go, and instead you'll get dragged in to see some horrible "Chick Flick"...Putting up with a little romance is just the price you have to pay for " Wider Appeal "
I totally understand your point and agree. But there is not a chance in hell my wife would have watched that. That wasnt a romance story. That was a messed up relationship with no love. Just napoleon lusting after her. Not inspiring on the battlefield or in the bedroom@TheMormonPower
Just got an idea for one day. What would be interesting as a series one far day, would be 1 speed video about every roman province: who they were before the conquest, the conquest, the importance and the controll of the province (economy, military…)
Ironically, I think that this is a movie that would have benefitted from being broken into 2 or even 3 movies. It seems that the main interest was napoleons relationship with his wife Josephine but when you title your movie “Napoleon”, and advertise it with intense battle scenes, not many people will go in expecting a slow, tragic romance. It feels like they knew this and added parts about his campaigns more to not falsely advertise than because it was the actual focus. Of all the historical figures, I don’t think napoleons life is one that is ready made for a tragic romance. Instead it would have been both easier and more popular to do a more traditional retelling of his campaigns, political rise, and inevitable fall.
My friend, the movie - movie, not paper or book - is not about the weather, the clothes, the militaey actions per se... it is about psychology and psychology through personal drama... how do you do that artistically? You use clothes, weather, guns, sounds etc to convey your i terpretstion of psyche and drama. When you people focus on "facts" instead of on the artistic language, you loose the real discussion, you become so shallow... the best in history is exactly the attempt to understand tbe human drama, the human mind, not to know if it was 34 or 36 degrees. This is secondary. And the beauty of a movie about history is precisely the possibility of escaping for a moment all the "material accuracies" so to use all the colours and sounds and faces and clothes and landscapes etc etc etc to try and portray a human mind, a human sitution, a human behavior, human feelings, human disgraces and glories etc etc etc in a way we can feel just like the characters depicted felt, at least in one or a few aspects of the drama. Of course it is not accurate, it is impossible to show "everything".... the same way a paiting of a battle is not accurate, and show almost nothing of the "actual" event, but try to capture some essential abstract about the most important value the battle has/had to the artist....the movie is an interpretation about some forgotten aspects of Napoleon's psyche, not about "facts". This is great history. We can agree or disagree, this is what makes great history so beautiful. But history is not a bunch of data. It is interpretation of the data. Most properly is done on papers, books, academic debate, of course. But art may be a very useful tool so we can feel and visualize certain aspects of reality paper and ink can't show. So, let us not be fooled by shallowness
@@artm1973 that's it. Now we can have a conversation. About the artistic merits of the movie, not if it is historically "accurate", or shallowness stuff like this...
@@artm1973 I do agree with you that Phoenix was not a good choice, exactly because he normally can show just one side of the emotions set required, specially for Napoleon, specially for a movie which - my interpretation - wanted to show exactly the psychological complexity of this man, normally forgotten by every other portrait artists have been showing... I am an academic, about art stuff I am very limited, I must say, I cannot make a good artistic analysis, but I liked very much the path the director chose to try to understand all the contradictions (real or apparent) and psychological struggles the man had beyond the so badly understood "great general", "great" this, "great" that... What I think is unfair, and I think you will agree with me on this, is to judge the movie based on sun or snow during the battle... it's not an issue of "accuracy", it is just not understanding the different languages
Yeah I agree with a lot of what you said in this video on the many issues I had with the Napoleon movie: 1) They glossed over way too many key events to provide much needed context for why these events are happening or why this person is relevant to the event itself 2) They made Josephine the "heart & soul" of this movie and they improperly used her to give excuses for Napoleon doing things he did, but making it seem like she was the "sole reason" why he did certain things like leaving Egypt or leaving Elba from exile. 3) They casted Joaquin Phoenix who's much too old to play Napoleon during his Toulon/Egypt/Italy/etc. years! If you wanted to use Joaquin Phoenix, you should have focused on his later years like when he was defeated and forced into exile or do a remake of the 1970 Waterloo movie with him. 4) Like you said, you learn absolutely nothing about how Napoleon reformed the French Army into becoming the most feared army of that time, you learn nothing about how he would strategize for battles and why those strategies worked in the battles, and you learn nothing about his great generals/Marshals (Ney, Murat, Davout, Massena, Lannes, etc.) that played pivotal roles in the many victories he achieved. 5) Also, I'm very sure that Josephine was older than Napoleon by6 years, which I think changes the scope of how this marriage worked because you see a 50s Phoenix and 30s Kirby in this movie! Instead, she would have had political connections that would have helped Napoleon gain power and you get nothing about Josephine's son (Eugine) who was also a general of his and you could have maybe had him be a bridge between Napleon and Josephine for the movie. 6) Lastly, I felt no "gravitas" with the Napoleon portrayed by Phoenix to where I could believe millions of men would want to follow him into battle, how he used his intelligence to win so many battles, he was basically a "SIMP" for Josephine in this movie, and he showed much lack of emotional control for a general/leader who would lead his men to so many victories in battle.
"Napoleon reformed the French Army into becoming the most feared army of that time, you learn nothing about how he would strategize for battles and why those strategies worked in the battles, and you learn nothing about his great generals/Marshals (Ney, Murat, Davout, Massena, Lannes, etc.) that played pivotal roles in the many victories he achieved".....You speak as if Napoleon won, you do realize that Napoleon LOST, right? That simple fact did not go over your head, I am assuming. What ever reforms Napoleon made to the French army DID NOT WORK, as the once juggernaut French military lay in total shambles, a generation's worth of French boys in mass graves, and enemy troops marched down the streets of Paris leaving France in total defeat. Do not speak as if Napoleon won, because he did not.
@@RidleyScottOwnsFailedDictators Yeah Napoleon ultimately lost in the grand scheme, but he went from a nobody from Corsica to the most powerful man in Europe. By the way, he won like 50-60 battles, which I find it very hard to think of many other people in the post 19th century to have achieved! Napoleon did actually reform the way armies were used by designing what was called the "Corps" system where he would have 8K to 30K of men formed into one army under a general (similar to how the Romans used legions). This gave the French Army under Napoleon more strategic mobility and flexibility because this allowed his army to move since communications would be easier for 20K men than a 100k grand army under one general, they could cover more ground, and yet come together when needed to for battle. Because of the success of this system, the Coalition Powers of Europe began adopting this use of the "Corps" system and used it against Napoleon!
@@mojojojoslyfoxharris Napoleon hijacked the most powerful military in the world when he seized total power from a lost and confused France, and still ended in total defeat.....So why do you speak as if Napoleon won when he lost, and lost so poorly?!
@@mojojojoslyfoxharris Yeah results do matter, even to losers who have to pretend that they won when they lost, like Napoleonic France. Why do you think this exists #arcdetriomphe
I found the movie entertaining but the inaccuracies and lack of context stressed me out so much. I took a list that I wrote down before the movie and started marking out the events that did not appear in the film and those that did. There’s a video published by the Prado Museum in Madrid showing Scott and Phoenix appreciating Francisco Goya’s paintings on the peninsular war. That leads me to think that the extended version may include it somewhere
I initially gave the movie a 4/10. But after a little sobering up I reflected on it and I now struggle to justify anything higher than a 3.5/10. The movie was bad. There is no other way to spin it.
Napoleon’s life is too eventful for a single movie. Some people are famous for doing one thing and their lives can be made into a movie (ie desmond Dawes, Charlie Brown (no not that one), Leo majors) but some people define entire eras and need a tv series instead (Napoleon, hitler, etc)
Napoleon is depicted like a mere warrior, but if you do so, you totally miss the point why he's still considered as one of the most important person in the French history. He took over power after the french revolution, and the country was surrounded by regimes that hated the idea of democracy. Coalitions were formed one after the other to give back the power to a king. Napoleon modernized the country deeply, including in its institutions, in such manner that even when he was defeated, there was no way back to the former regime, and Louis Philippe, Charles X who followed him, failed to restore the 'ancien regime'. That is the real and powerful impact of Napoleon; securing revolution gains, and managing a transition to a modern France.
Once thing I also noticed is the complete lack of any mention of naval battles such as the Nile or Trafalgar which both had an impact on how Napoleon proceeded with his plans
Hey K&G theres been a question on my mind for a while,will you guys follow up on the Aspern-Essling video (the last one in your Napoleon series) uptil Waterloo?
after The Woman King, im hardly surprised anymore. These studios should be scared by how good youtube historians are with historical content. You guys will replace the History Channel
According to the film, Napoleon left Elba because he was jealous of Josephine's socialising with Tsar Alexander. But Josephine was already ten months dead when he left Elba. He must have been brooding over it for a long time.
This point is significant because it exposes the contortions that the film imposes on history in order to conform to its Napoleon❤Josephine narrative. The script is predicated on the fictional conceit that everything Napoleon did was motivated by his devotion to Josephine. Where real events deviate from this self-imposed straight-jacket, the real events are simply corrupted.
One thing stuck out above all else was when Napoleon and Josephine got married and the priest says their birth dates. Both were wrong. The movie says Napoleon was born in 1768(moved 1 year back) while Josephine was born in 1767(4 entire years forward). This is one of the easiest possible things to check and it’s so bafflingly stupid that it has to have been intentionally done. My guess is to avoid some problems of the 20 year age gap between Joaquin and Vanessa. But the film already shows Josephine being an older woman already married with kids when they meet for the first time. Maybe a different actress should have been used from 1805 onward(not like they don’t massively skip huge chunks of time anyway) but the changing of ages is one of those mistakes that’s so easy to miss but bothers me above all else once I noticed it.
The largest omission that I noticed was the complete lack even mentioned the Peninsular War in Spain. I do enjoy historical fiction. Which is exactly what this movie is.
I am not gonna lie, when I saw Napoleon in theatres. I really felt like Ridley Scott was on a mission to make Napoleon seem as lame and pathetic as possible. Half the movie was him being a simp/incel over Josephine, and the other was just him acting pathetic. Napoleon as an individual definitely had faults, and he definitely had an unhealthy relationship with Josephine, but as a person he was an incredibly charismatic, a genius, and a brilliant person who motivated entire armies to fight and die for him. It really felt like Ridley had an immense bias/agenda against Napoleon.
Ridley Scott called Napoleon a Dictator, put him in a row with Hitler. Napoleon Always almost always defended himself, as Coalitions were called there, and when they were created against France, And the shooting of civilians was a typical event for the 19th century.
It's an extremely British view of Napoleon. He actually represented a grave threat to monarchical rule in Europe. It's one of the reasons disenfranchised peoples in Europe, such as the Poles, rallied to his banner.
Movie is hot garbage... very little about the man himself, or the genius behind what he became or the ideas he took on and fostered. More soap opera than anything else.
This wasn’t Ridley Scott making a movie about Napoleon and the Napoleonic Era. This was Ridley Scott making HIS Napoleonic “Epic” for his filmography. The history meant nothing to him. This was how HE saw Napoleon, not how history sees him.
If you want fantasy, do fantasy. If you want to make a film about a historical person, make a film about a historical person. He did not even get the timeline right.
@@xornxenophon3652 It was quite clear that wasn’t on Scott’s priority. Another $200 million goes down the drain because Scott clearly doesn’t care about history. Good job, Hollywood, good job.
I'm on a mission to watch all of the film's that are nominated for this year's Academy Awards. I've heard the criticisms surrounding this movie's historical accuracy and it made me not want to see it. Thank you for making this video, as it will keep me informed while watching the film!
Even if you exclude all the inaccuracies, it’s still a very messy movie with horrible pacing and very underwhelming performances. How can an 86 year old seasoned director think that squeezing in 20 years of one of history’s most impressive military/political career into a 2 1/2 hour movie would be a good idea?? Phoenix wasn’t awful, but he could’ve been so much better with actual proper directing by someone who actually understands Napoleon.
@@tomislavblazevic2742 Hell, if Scott just wanted to focus on Napoleon and Josephine, just focus on that. We don’t need to see Toulon, Austerlitz, Borodino, Moscow, or Waterloo. Just focus on the domestic life and the relationship they share. Sure, it may be boring and underwhelming for someone as big as Napoleon, but it would at least have focus and the ability to actually explore the topic.
I think a good idea for episode (or a series of episodes) is war in the Vendee. There very little materials about this on youtube, especially in this battle-presenting style.
The main historical inaccuracy is that Joaquin Phoenix played a young twentysomething vigorous, ambitious, charismatic Napoleon like a weary, tired, middle aged creep.
I think it would have helped to point out Napoleon's health/medical history at certain points. Such as by the time of Waterloo, he could no longer sit atop a horse for more than half-an-hour or so-ish for discomfort, and he left the field of battle in his coach.
16:05 “prepare to face calvary. proceeds to leave entrenchments which in the film already had anti-calvary stakes” yep pretty much sums it all up xD i can imagine KaG trying not to laugh while recording that haha
One needs to ask oneself, " is there a difference between memory and imagination ". Regardless of historical inaccuracies, what really matters is, was the story told interesting and entertaining and was it great art. I think most people who saw the film would say it failed on all counts.
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When the Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 said he will kill Arthur Wellesley because Sarah Conner was a ancestor of his.
I knew the movie was lore accurate.
Is Ridley Scotts Napoleon historically accurate?
Does this channel focus exclusively on kings and generals?
They should have done a series
The same can be said of all his movies , take kingdom of heaven for example , it's even worse than Napoleon , the only difference with the Napoleon movie is the internet , if people had access to it back in the day all his movies even Gladiator would've bombed or at least taken down a peg or two rather than being overrated fictional drama.
Ending in total defeat, with a once juggernaut French military in shambles, a generation's worth of French boys in mass graves as France, under military occupation, gets the Bourbon Monarchy shoved right up its a.... was nothing positive for France.
The Napoleonic wars are one of those examples from history where you don’t need to exaggerate. The era was epic enough for it to be depicted how it actually went down and it would be entertaining enough.
A brutal and failed military dictator like Napoleon responsible for the death of millions is not epic, nor entertaining, nor triumphant, it is tragedy, a cautionary tale.
@@RidleyScottOwnsFailedDictatorsit’s epic in scale - not epic in the sense of being amazing.
@@RidleyScottOwnsFailedDictators Here's a free tip : when trolling, you want to have a generic user name so your intentions aren't immediately obvious.
@@sba8710 Nothing good happens when a delusional thug seizes total power from a lost and confused nation, hijacking a powerful military and wages total war ending in defeat. We should know that by now.
@@RidleyScottOwnsFailedDictatorsthen why are you even in here?
I have always been amazed by film makers that shows stories that are less interesting that the real history.
No truer words sir. It is inexcusable that this was not a series of at least 3 movies like was brilliantly done with the Lord of the Rings. They were so short sided for stunting a film on the single greatest military genius that had to fit in 3 hours...criminal actually.
That's PRECISELY the criticism I have about Ridley Scott's movie, Kingdom of Heaven. If the movie has a less interesting plot, and more boring characters, than history, it fails in my book even as a piece of historical fiction.
Ridley's Scott's relationship to history is one of staggering arrogance. He doesn't need history, he can do better, or so he thinks.
All he did was take Napoleon and turn a titan into a midget.
Amen to this, PERFECT brief way to describe/express my frustration with the movie, you’re bang on, most comments i kind of rant about how this movie not only insults history with no research no interest in how cool the real events are but that the dumbass script writer made it even more boring and unimaginative than real life. Its insane. with the historical epics of the 60s we all kind of know a lot of it is embellishments and exaggerated, but we don’t care because it generally stays somewhat faithful to the ideas and narratives of history, and ultimately it makes it even more exciting, entertaining with great writing and visuals and acting. This movie is insulting in every sense and its annoying how fervently people defend it and start calling historians and history-buffs assholes for criticising it, like seriously, i’m fine with historically inaccurate movies they’re all over, even Waterloo is inaccurate in places according to some, but when a director and writer blatantly slander and mock historians and even the idea of researching the movie, AND they do it so lazily and make it so much more boring and showing nothing of what made Napoleon so famous and renowned and remembered, and just mock him based on British propaganda that Scott remembered as a kid, its just childish, Ridley Scott comes off as more pompous, arrogant and petty than the Napoleon he claims to portray
Their "vision" is apparently more important than simply replicating history
Napoleon can only be handled properly with 3 options:
- focus on one major event (e.g: the movie "Waterloo")
- series (e.g: the one with Christian Clavier and Isabella Rossellini)
- an actual trilogy (so, say Corsica to return from Egypt, the coup to the Spanish succession, then the rest, or something close to that)
One movie about everything Napoleon was always gonna be a failure. Especially casting a 50 something man to be a 24 year old artillery captain. A trilogy would allow for a recast from the 1st to the 2nd (keeping for the 3rd), without it being too jarring.
"You think you're so great because you have books !!! 😤😤😤" -- Ridley Scott
Yes a youtuber i watch razerblade said the exact same in his napoleon review
Spot on
Yes, we do think we're so great because we have books.
Or rather, we think you're so crap because you don't have books lmao.
Haiti is a major event also
A trilogy would have been great, but it requires a great director - Scott isn't one. Spielberg could do it though.
I like that this video is more centered in filling in the blanks with useful information and correcting the deviations, than criticizing the film itself for having them.
We are not movie critics. Thanks for liking the video!
You guys may wanna make a video about the film Waterloo. It's from 1970 and soooo much better than what Ridley Scott did. Phoenix did an outstanding job with what he had to do. Sharpe is a really good series with Sean Bean....yes Sean Bean.@@KingsandGenerals
@@Sean12248 Then again, Napoleon's life is basically too long for one movie. Even 3 movies about it will not be enough.
There is a reason Waterloo is a movie in of itself.
You should be doing more movie reviews @@KingsandGenerals
Their errors are worthy of criticism though
I think the movie would've benefited more from being a multi-season or multi-movie series instead of a single one. There's so much ground to cover when discussing Napoleon that it just becomes impossible to cram it all into 1 movie.
Honestly, a game of thrones sort of show with dozens of characters, all with their own objectives and archs, would be amazing
@@iordanvassilev8091 Yeah, I keep thinking of "The Crown" because that is probably the closest in a sense of how to do something like it (Albeit the crown isn't historically accurate either), but a multi-season show, with each season cover a campaign / period of napoleons rule would probably have worked very well.
I agree. A single movie cant cover the entirety of his career and life. It's baffling to imagine that these people probably think they're making something great.
Yeah but even in the 2.5 hours we got, Ridley Scott gives like half the screen time to Josephine. I mean, nothing against her or the actress but wtf, that's not what anyone interested in Napolean wanted.
I watched the first 30 minutes & it was unbearable!! Hollywood nutters trying to belittle & humiliate the greatest military & political leader Europe has ever had!
During the movies, I had friends asking me why the artillery didn't shoot at the squares.
This is why geography is important in movies.
(The answer is that the English were actually behind a slope, where the French artillery could not see them. The English weren't just outside, in the most vulnerable position to artillery and infantry.)
Again as the review points out lack of context, the very fact that the Anglo-Dutch army withdrew behind the slope is what prompted Ney to unleash the cavalry in the first place, he thought they were retreating
@@coinneachreid8971 Emphasis on the there Anglo-Dutch! ... and much of the Anglo bit wasn't English :) Germans, Scots, Irish even a few Welsh I guess as well as the English
I'm surprised really Scott just didn't have the Air Force come in and straife napoleon's calvary.
Actually most of the British casualties whilst in the squares was due to artillery and skirmishers. During the initial cavalry charge french artillery fired between the waves, although due to range it didn’t cause much damage. After the remnants of D’Erlons corps took La Haye Saint, Ney managed to move horse artillery and skirmishers up within very close range. This was almost the breaking point of the anglo-allied army!
See I didn't know that, but sort of did due to having watched the 1970 Waterloo movie which is so different from ridley's movie, due to being a good movie, and shows this in a great way
If Napoleon were still alive, he'd be able to successfully sue Ridley Scott for libel and character defamation.
I know a historian who always says that if we were talking about another country as we are talking about the past, we would all be in jail for hate crimes.
Same with Private Ryan and Spielberg.
Its not a documentary.
If 19th Century Europe had seen the affects of what happens when you glorify a brutal and failed military dictator who seizes a powerful military from a lost and confused nation and wages total war on Europe leaving millions dead like Napoleon, they would have apologized to 20th Century Europe for making them ignorant as to their own history. Those who do not know their own history are doomed to repeat it.
Maybe start the film with the following statement
This film is fan fiction. Any similarities between it and actual events are pure fluke.
worst.
episode.
EVAR.
One thing that bothered me was in the battle of Austerlitz, Napoleon orders his infantry to take the high ground. But then we see his infantry charging downhill
"Let them think they have the high ground" Said the guy standing on the only hill in sight.
@@firstconsul7286 Scott missed the point of Austerlitz by a Light-Year. The Austro-Russians *did* have the high ground. His plan was to tempt them off it to attack his apprently weak right flank. This they did, but more slowly than he expected because the Allied staff work was all over the place, so many enemy troops were still on the heights when Vandamme's and St Hilaire's divisions attacked.
Film is just afull.... only good thing is face expresions of main actor.... rest is discrase
it's the reverse battle of Bolton vs Baratheon in Game of Thrones.
@@firstconsul7286 Obi Wan taught him well
This movie made me appreciate the movie Waterloo (1970) even more than i already did. Good acting, mostly historically correct and a non-cgi scale not seen in a long time. Literally thousands of extras on screen.
Also goes on to prove that you can't fit all those years of Napoleon's life into a 150 or so minute film and have it come out good like Scott tried to do. Used to watch Waterloo a lot when I was younger, and now that I'm older, I'd really like to see more cinematic adaptations of Napoleon's other battles! Like, hours dedicated to a single event. I think it would be cool.
that acting was horrible, such a letdown
Just because there's no cgi doesn't mean there's no special effects involved
Just imagine Kings and Generals and Epic History TV collaborating with Scott's 200mil budget on a Napoleon Series. That would be the greatest historical product ever conceived.
I dont know why these directors/producers dont hire historians to make sure everything is accurate. Robert Eggers did this and the northman ended up being easily the most accurate viking show/movie ever, and the writing was amazing as hell too
Personally I don't want anyone of repute to even approach Scott with a ten foot pole.
The man has become a menace
Ridley Scott went on the attack of Napoleon, but Napoleon never interrupted an enemy whom was making a mistake, so Napoleon let him does his thing… at the end Napoleon Is victorious towards Ridley Scott
@@Darius-_where's wellingtons empire?
@@Darius-_ a decade isn't "a few years" but napoleon was dense tho
@@RustyHistory-l9h ik,i was referring to him saying napoleon's crumbled "within a few years"
Napoleon fed Ridley to his own Aliens
@@Darius-_ Wellington was but the smallest kog, sorry for your nationalistic pride.
Alexander, Blücher and the Spanish people were much more detrimental to Napoleon's downfall.
If you actually want a British figure that balanced the war of Spain England Prussia Russia Austria Ottomans Sweden versus the single nation of that "thick' figure after 20 years of conflict, that would be Nelson. Without Nelson the British lose, and they lose fast.
But what am I saying You're not intersted in history I guess.
I like the point that the movie doesn't show us why he had so many loyal followers or his brilliance in planning. I get that movies have to compromise. Sometimes compress significant events. And god knows you can't cover everything. But Napoleon is such a compelling figure. He deserved better.
You cant make a movie about him it has to be a series
They really butchered his character to the point where there is no reason for the french populace to follow his leadership. I watched the movie with a few friends are not as knowledgeable about history and they were simply confused during the battles, despite not knowing how atroucious the depiction of tactics used was. Meanwhile i really feel like the fact that there is several key campaigns entirely omitted from the movie, as well as all mentions off naval warfare except for a short mention of the continental system without context and the botched Scenes of the Siege of Toulon, also removes a lot of the essential continuity and reasoning.
Yeah in his other historical movies like kingdom of heaven or gladiator despite not being historically accurate you can see why people would follow someone into battle. Saladin, maximus ect. You can feel there leadership in every scene they are in. My favourite is baldwin IV who despite not showing mamy emotions sounds like a wise leader.
@@schneejacques3502This. I Expected a Movie like Gladiator or Kingdom of Heaven. In the end I got a Bad Romcom with a few nice Pictures
@@e.l.b6435well gladiators is fictional story
Any other Sharpe fans here?! It's largely due to Richard Sharpe that I took a deep dive into the history of British Rifleman of the Napoleonic era. They were certainly utilizing one of the most advanced weapons on the battlefield in that era in the Baker rifle. However, they certainly weren't using any sort of telescopic lens as a scope attached to the rifle as one was depicted in the film. I spotted multiple inaccuracies, but that one actually made me laugh out loud in the theatre!!
Three shots a minute in any weather.
Sharpe's Waterloo battle was pretty weird if not outright funny. Given the budget, it isn't surprising. Understandable but quite comedic in its portayal, to say the least.
@eldorados_lost_searcher that's with a musket. No way could you reload a Baker rifle at that rate. The leather patch around the bullet requires a ton more time to push the bullet down the barrel.
I am here. And also a fan of Sharp
For a fan of military history it was very disappointing. I am not sure what they were trying to say about Napoleon. I am not a big Napoleon fan. Not sure what his many fans do think. But I would be disappointed at that also. I would like to see future movies with great computer graphics showing the vast scale of these battles and much more historic accuracy.
I know its not related, but if this is how they present Napoleon, a very documented man, then id be terrified to see a movie about, say, Eastern Roman emperors or generals. Can you imagine the horror--
*remembers Cleopatra or Caesar*
Pain
You know you fucked up when an entire country sues you
How dare they, HE WAS A CONSUL OF ROME
We’ll never get a good history film
Its why I am lowkey happy Byzantium has been shunned from western film because i just know it would be awful
@@aegonthedragon7303 Oh boy I think you just jinxed it
My first thought when the movie was over was "yeah now I really understand the criticism the movie gotten", and starting to have doubtful opinions after 10 minutes is also not a good sign.
And besides all the unhistorical-things I still think its simply a bad movie. I have fairly high tolerance for stuff deviating from the source material either its history or books & can stand it as long as it still good entertainment, this had way to many jumps all over the place and was just a mess. So completly agree on the notion that any movie-goer that doesnt have an understanding of what happend the int the frenche revolution will be very confused to just about everything. Maybe the director cut improves it...
I watched this with both of my parents in theatres on November 22nd! I had to lean in every so often and say, "so this isn't very accurate" or "this did not happen." Haha. Very excited to very disappointed is one hell of a slope. It was also obvious to me that neither of them really understood what was going on, even though my dad knows just slightly less about Napoleon, and my mom, little to nothing. They couldn't even enjoy it with ignorance! Says a lot.
As a Masters Degree in European History, I expected some artistic
liberties, but I was bummed by this. I have brothers with degrees in Biology and Forestry and they were super confused as you guys stated (saw it during the Thanksgiving weekend, so yes I’m a Yank.) I couldn’t explain in a movie theater all Scott missed, that’s what a beer after is for. This is why you guys are awesome, you explored and explained more than the stuff I didn’t mention to them. Keep up the good work!
This video looks so good you guys have to redo the entire Napoleonic series. We gotta get Austerlitz and everything else in the latest graphics
No need. EpicHistoryTV already covers Napoleon's entire career with honestly a higher level of quality than KnG.
@@halorecon95even cover their marshal
@@halorecon95 for you that’s fine for me Kings and Generals just battles better than any other UA-cam channel so yes I would like them to do it and I’m sure they will
For anyone interested in actually good films about the Napoleonic Wars, I recommend: Waterloo (1970), Napoleon (2002 miniseries), War and Peace (1966-67) and the Sharpe series with Sean Bean.
The one from 2002 it's awesome in every aspect including some quotes, really cool how such old thing can be better in everyway than a newly made movie
God I do love all the "Now that's soldiering!" comments in every Sharpe clip lol
@@matheusimon7316 Clavier did a better job portraying Napoleon than Phoenix, in my opinion. As did Rod Steiger in Waterloo.
Bondarchuk's War and Peace series has incredibly good pacing and cinematography. It doesn't feature Napoleon a lot, though, since it is about the experiences of several Russian characters during that time.
Don't forget 1977 "The Duelists", by Ridley Scott himself.
@@Nuno.dos.Santos491 Funny how one of his earliest works is so much better in all regards except maybe special effects than his most recent. I'd wager success has made him arrogant. It would certainly explain his disdain directed at historians who criticise his film.
Napoleon’s life can’t be jammed into a 158 minute movie, likewise with Alexander the Great. Their lives were too immense, too epic.
A series or trilogy of some kind would’ve been more appropriate.
With the Napoleon film, I felt like I was skim-reading a book. Didn’t work
In the other side, Alexander The Great movie was many times better than Napaleon.
@@MendogologyThis. Yes it mentioned maybe 10% of Alexanders life but it summarized Alexanders Character very well
💯 this ☝🏾
I mean... Just Murat's (blatantly ignored) life alone could make for a great spinoff. Without having to modify anything from the historical record.
With how much details on Napoleon's life AND his legacy, he might as well have a dedicated cinematic universe saga.
The damn film was too busy "deconstructing" the character, just like every lazily written history movie ever, not too mention they put all the effort into overly dramatizing Josephine and Napoleon relationship, while ignoring why and how history remember him in the first place, and the movie is not bombastic enough for mainstream audience, so the movie piss off everyone
Probably should have called the film "Napoleon and Josephine"
The best thing to come out of Ridley Scott’s movie is the amount of Napoleon content we have gotten across UA-cam. The movie itself was an entirely anti-bonapartist franciphobic caricature of the great man.
2:32 I was genuinely excited that somebody was making a movie about Napoleon backed with an enormous budget, the possibilities seemed endless. But we got a terrible representation of his life and really an assassination of his character. They should’ve called it Josephine or Josephine and Napoleon. Or at least they should’ve focused on one particular period of his life.
Imagine making a movie about one of the greatest military geniuses of all-time and showing next to none of that. Jesus, Assassin’s Creed Unity had a better portrayal of Napoleon Bonaparte.
This was very interesting, but I'd have liked additional focus on the film's depiction of Napoleon's character and relationships. Particularly the scene of Napoleon panicking and hyperventilating in front of his troops when the French parliament rejected him felt like a bit of a liberty in that sense.
How do you know? Were you there?
@@flashgordon6670 No. Was Ridley Scott?
Scott just wants to focus on the Josephine angle it seems
@@vis532 Not that he even did that well reduced her portrayal to nothing more than an entitled cheater, when in reality she contributed a lot to post-revolutionary French society
@@flashgordon6670 Keep Your Seatbelt on at all times!!
I wrote a research paper on the battle of Waterloo during college and this movie's depiction of it made my brain hurt.
You should another great nepoleon movie it mostly focus on Waterloo with no cgi soldier with human army in movie
I watched the first 30 minutes & it was unbearable!! Hollywood nutters trying to belittle & humiliate the greatest military & political leader Europe has ever had!
My wife and I walked out. It wasn't that we thought it was bad (frankly, I have no idea) it's that we came to see a war movie and it was a romance movie about a lunatic French couple and there were better things we could do with our time. It felt very arthouse and I remember a comment in the lobby that the poster should have some wreaths and laurels to warn us. In the end, I came home, turned on my computer and watched some Kings and Generals videos about Napoleon.
No kidding. That's exactly what I did! Because it wasn't a war movie!
Yeah. It felt like a weird romance movie about a man child.
definitely want to see more of this kind of content
You can’t make a Napoleon 1 movie and think your doing him justice. This should’ve been a tv show that had multiple seasons. You could make 10 episodes alone about his FIRST Italian campaign which ended in 1797
I was going to make the same comment but you beat to it.
That's pretty much how Abel Gance's 1927 film turned out. It's six hours long and ends with Italy. He wanted to cover Napoleon's entire career, but ran out of money.
This Movie was, for me, the most anticipated Movie in years - i was so excited. Also, this movie, for me, was the biggest disappointment in recent memory. Thanks for this video, it sure points out the Glaring Mistakes and Omissions made by Ridley Scott. Dammit, Napoleon could have been such an Epic Movie.
I really appreciate this video! There are definitely glaring gaps in the movie and serious inaccuracies however I hope that the extended directors cut provides us more when it comes out and if we are lucky perhaps there will be a fully edition that is 6 hours long!
Our beloved narrator really let Ridley Scott have it this time around.
Haha.
Fantastic as always from Kings and Generals. Thank you for giving some MUCH needed context to the major audience of people who watched Napoleon.
You can't just fit Napoleon's career into a single movie, even if it was over 4 hours it wouldn't be enough. Napoleon deserves an entire series of movies, at least a trilogy, or a long tv series spanning his rise to power, his reign, and his fall. This would also give other key figures more time to shine as well, such as Napoleon's Marshals, they're just as deserving of the spotlight as he is. In fact, I want a series that focuses on his Marshals now that I think about it.
They skipped The Italian campaign, arguably napoleon’s most important campaign in his rise to fame and power.
They skipped marengo, omitting the entire reason he actually went back to Europe from Egypt in favour of making jokes about him getting cucked and abandoning an entire army as a result.
They omit Spain. The bloody ulcer that slowly sapped France of her strength while giving rise to Wellington.
They skipped the wars of the fourth, fifth and sixth coalitions. Eight years of struggle to subdue Austria, Prussia and Russia, in favour of a single scene each with emperors Francis and Alexander. It practically removes Germany from the map with the decisiveness that one would almost think Ridley Scott had a vendetta against Germany. It almost feels like if Prussia wasn’t so important at Waterloo he would have omitted them there too just to see the British win alone(which again ignores that more than half wellingtons army was made up of Dutch or German troops).
They omitted his marshals. Fascinating characters and leaders in their own right. Some of whom napoleon gave command of entire countries. It also means that instead of taking up a commanding position to observe and direct the battle, he leads multiple charges. Napoleon didn’t lead the cavalry at Borodino and Waterloo. Murat and Ney did.
I thought the film was very pretty and Joaquin was a pretty good napoleon, but I was incredibly disappointed by the historical omissions. A lot of them can be pretty easily resolved so I look forward tentatively to the directors cut. But there is no chance that the amazing work of history UA-cam will be usurped by Hollywood anytime soon, if this is the best they can do for one of the most important figures of the last 500 years.
THere is no way anyone can squeeze all that in one movie, it will take a series to do that
Phoenix did what he could, but I honestly don't know if I'd say he played all too great a Napoleon. I may also be biased because I'm comparing him to actors like Rod Steiger and Phillipe Torreton, who, in my opinion, characterized Napoleon better. There is also the fact that Pheonix played Napoleon throughout many years, and it just didn't seem like there was much development in his personality or demeanor...? Which isn't much of an issue for most other actors who play Napoleon for a much shorter period of his life.
I saw Napoleon with my friend, who's familiar with history but not a history buff / nerd like I am. He really did not understand what was going on in the film, which I think shows it is just a poorly made movie. He said it was just a series of vignettes about major battles or moments in Napoleon's life that had no context or meanining within the film. He actually lost the plot after the failed invasion of Russia and was so bored he fell asleep during Waterloo.
There are also a number of scenes from the trailer that were not in the film, probably in the extended edition. There's a shot of Napoleon climbing onto a burning carriage on its side and gazing around at the crowd around him, which I believe was a depiction of the assassination attempt where someone tried to set off an explosive next to his carriage as it passed by.
Thank you for mentioning the Dutch contingents! British retellings also leave them out or actually discredit them actively, and the 17,000 that were there were actually pretty important.
Van Bylandt's Brigade, they held an inordinate responsibility for and acquitted themselves extremely well to maintaining the tactical integrity of Wellington's centre. Such an under-rated contribution, especially given the price they paid for it, first at Quatre Bras and then at Waterloo.
I'm french and it's a french defeat, that can't be denied. But it's not an english victory.
One third of the english army's soldiers were english.
They were bad soldiers and bad generals, they won thanks to foreign soldiers, and have been saved by their ally.
Yet they claim this victory has their. They are clowns.
British propaganda is strong. For example, today there are many people who know of the Spanish Armada disaster trying to invade England in the late 1500s, but none know of the English navy's own disaster trying to do the same to Spain. Infact Spain won that War.
@@TheModeler99 They did the same trick after the Battle of Britain. The aerial campaign over France/Low Countries was pretty much a pointless effort for the RAF.
@@TheModeler99 American propaganda made everybody believe that they crushed Germany in WW2 and saved Europe, while Russia had finally beated them after a very hard war and millions of deaths. Americans just attacked weakened and retreating forces.
English and american made everybody believe even in France, that french soldiers surrendered as soon as germans attacked. While the battle has been lost due to the shipping back (covered by the french army) of the english army in the middle of the fight. And a very violent fight between french and belgians against Germany.
That movie is just the British rethoric about Napoleon... after more than 200 years you would expect they were over it but... well they even still hate Joan of Arc. I watched it in Australia, lots of laughs and praises for the movie, which is basically what they get as a common knowledge from the Britts. Sad thing, with this movie that perception will reach more people. For example , I watched it with a friend. She was happy with the movie and surprised that all that had happened. I was in tiers...
Because ignorance is bliss.
So long as you know ANYTHING about history, youd see many more people utterly disgusted by the movie (eventhough there are many already).
But History is not seen as important everywhere and especially not by most students in school, eventhough the whole reason why we have it in school is to prevent manipulation of knowledge and repeating the mistakes of the past even more than teaching the history pf the country itself
Great video as always.
I was excited for this one, but after seeing the reviews I changed my mind, and after Scott's comments about people pointing out historical accuracies, I'll skip the directors cut as well.
One thing I always notice about your videos, is that on your maps, the Netherlands is shown as it is today. However, the province of Flevoland was actually constructed during the 20th century and most of the provinces of Northern and southern Holland were claimed in medieval times and so should be mostly water in any video about Rome, Gaul, Germania etc.
This is a minor point, but I wanted to point it out for historical accuracy :).
Surprised they didn't have an end credit scene with Ridley Scott pissing on Napoleon tomb at midnight
As a Napoleonic history fan, i think i speak for most of us when i say that Napoleon had plenty of REAL action and drama surrounding him essentially his entire life that scenes need not be embellished for dramatic effect or whatever. It is possible to depict this period accurately while maintaining the qualities of a good film. The main issue i think is that they tried to cover the entire lifetime of this one man that had more battles and political intrigue than arguably anyone else in history, and its just impossible to do it any sort of justice in 2.5 hours, while keeping it entertaining.
They should have picked a portion of his life:
Napoleon:Rise of the Emperor, or Napoleon: War of the XYZ Coalition
Napoleon: Invasion of Russia, Napoleon: Return of the Emperor, etc.
Do better Mr. Scott
It would have better if it was a Netflix style series. From Napoleon's birth to his rise to fame and meeting his future marshals
I don't have a problem with historical fiction (HBO's Rome is highly regarded, for instance) as long as it is made clear that it is a dramatization and that when it hits real, documented fact, it is accurate.
The major problem with Napoleon (the film) as I have heard it (I have yet to watch it), is that it not only commits the sin of being historically inaccurate (like Braveheart, Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven), but also commits the sin of being boring.
A documentary can be boring, yet as long as it is accurate can still be worthwhile, and a historical epic can be inaccurate yet as long as it is engaging and entertaining is still worthwhile.
Napoleon though commits both these sins and so has no worth.
Don't fall for this kind of "history experts" shallow criticism... the movie is not about military "facts", or one person's biography...it is an attempt to focus on certain aspects of an extraordinary man's psychology which always remain forgotten because of the great deeds and genius experts and "experts" always talk about. Having this in mind, the relationship with Josephine, as the movie shows, is the perfect choice to show what the director wanted to show. Probably not "accurate" in terms of "facts" ("experts" hate the discussion about the real "factuality" of "facts"...), but a great and legitimate interpretation! You may agree or disagree with him, that's the beauty of great subjects, but the best juice of history is exactly the interpretation of the psyche of men and women, specially the most complicated and decisive ones. The chronology is secondary, military accuracy, climate and weather, so on and so forth... exactly what makes great history different from common "factual" history... the movie is noisy, longer than it should be, messy sometimes (for my taste...), but it is a great historical interpretation of some sides of Napoleon's character we all read in good books about.... I really understood Scott's anger towards "experts" criticism after I watched the movie
@@BernardoBr1982 except the movies depiction of Napoleon’s relationship with Josephine is entirely in accurate and incorrectly based the majority of Napoleons actions as responses to developments in his relationship with Josephine. It doesn’t show his charisma as a leader, it doesn’t show his ability to pick brilliant subordinates, it doesn’t showcase his tactical and strategic genius. Scott nueters his main character all to show his own biased view of history, which not only fails to be accurate but also fails to be entertaining.
@@BernardoBr1982 if it were to showcase Napoleons psychology, then why does the film spend more than half its runtime on battle scenes?
Yea a boring film that's also inaccurate , really bad combination .
@@duncanharding8836 I am a historian... dictionnary definition is just a first approach to a complete unknown word...word, not science... you are the one that must get educated...🤣🤣🤣🤣
I think Napoleon 2004 series had better depictions, including the uniforms and tactics of the Grand Armeé, plus the battle scenes like Austerlitz, Jena and Eylau showed some good background and explanation of tactics (simple but comprehensible), at least for the budget. Sure, it may have had "liberties" as a production series but at least it's presented well enough (including Eylau's cavalry charge and Austerlitz scenes) as a spectacle without compromising immersion and accuracy too much.
Let me know what you guys think :)
Edit: I was incorrect about the year, it was 2002, not 2004...😅😅
It was released in 2002. But I agree regardless!
@@Latinkon whoops, I thought it was 2004...thanks for the correction :)
The movie felt like an American political commercial made by the opposition. If you’re fortunate enough to never have seen these they harp on character flaws while ignoring every positive thing because that’s how it works here
What "positive" did that loser Napoleon bring when he ended in total defeat?!
Code of Law.
A rail and road system, the judicial system, all still in use today in Europe. Napoleon was an innovator. Dictatorship is one of the most effective forms of government to be found. People are usually uneducated, easily swayed, fickle and foolish! This is why class differences exist. People!
@@Edninety On the negative terms, most modern dictators of last one hundred years were/are Nappy wannabe to a different degree.
@@Sirilere There are plenty of Dictators in the modern world today. Every single one of them is horrendously bad and incompetent who bring nothing but misery to their countries and the world around them. Please do tell me what greatness Dictators like Putin and Kim Jong-il have brought besides the further oppression and murder of their people, rampant corruption, and pointless hostilities with their neighbours.
I felt like the film was not entirely sure what exactly it wanted to portray? Was it supposed to be a romance? Napoleon's rise to power? Honestly, reminds me of Robin Hood. Were we supposed to watch the adventures of an outlaw or the lead up to the Baron's War? The lack of real focus really made it difficult to follow the plot.
Oh waoo fancy to see you on this channel
Love your work of the Burmese history.
Could you do another video about Burmese army but in the 18-19th century
If it wasn't for channels like these i wouldn't have been so dissappointed. Thank you for all of your work
Thank you. Great video as always. I’m disappointed by the movie and I’m skeptical that the 4 hour version will redeem it.
Kubrick wanted to do a film on Napoleon. He was a stickler for details. He worked on it for years and did tons of research. I sure wished he had been able to make his film on Napoleon.
I thought about seeing this movie but I kept putting it off cause of the runtime length and I just didn't have enough motivation to see it while it was still in theaters. I didn't worry too much about the bad reviews because I like forming my own opinions on movies and not letting other people make them for me.
Now, I don't make movies so I don't pertain to be an expert on how historical fiction or biopics should be made but for me personally I'd say the best way to do it is a way described in the video. Movies are entertainment presented in a visual medium and so at the end of the day they should be entertaining. However, when adapting the life of a person who actually existed (especially one who left a huge mark on history like Napoleon) it's important to present them in their entirety. In short, changing a few minor details for stylistic reasons are ok as long as you maintain the larger historical context.
Now a lot of how this works can depend on how things are shot, presented and filmed and some writers/directors can make this work better than others, so I won't pretend like this is an easy answer.
Skip it, that's what the reviewers said before I went to see it, but I couldn't help myself because I am such a history nut....I shoulda listened, it was more than horrible, if anything, it just made me angry. After watching the terrific Epic History releases, detailing particular battles and campaigns, seeing and paying for the movie - I felt like I'd been robbed. The historical inaccuracies I can deal with, its a movie made as entertainment for the masses. None of the battle scenes were even in anyway impressive, they felt cheap. You know for instance in Band of Brothers, where they are storming Omaha beach, and the whole scene is so captivating....well there's nothing in anyway close to that. This movie was so hyped, and unfortunately, there's not even one scene where you're like...Yea, that was awesome...not one. Just a total flop.
As a historical novelist, I think we have a duty to keep the historical aspects of our books as true as we can possible know with today's knowledge. We can only play in the cracks of what we don't know or can't know.
Not to be that guy but it has caught my eye for some time. When Showing the Geopolitical map of Europe in the recent Napoleon videos, The Cities in France and Italy are placed relativly accuratly but In other Places like the Austrian Empire, the Cities are placed km off their actual place.
Like Vienna is put around modern day Budapest, Budapest is put around in modern day Debrecen, Praga is put around modern day Brno, Agram(Zagreb) is put on the river Drava when it's actually on the Sava, Krakow is put where modern Tarnów would be, Warsaw is put a few km west of the Vistula river when it was on the western bank of the Vistula River near the merging of the Vistula and Narew rivers, Poznan is put a under the river Warta at its bend from modern day Śrem when it is actualy placed on the Eastern Bank of the Warta River almost halfway between two of the rivers major bends, one bending from modern day Śrem and the other bendin towards modern day Oborniki and Belgrade is put at the merging of the Danube and Tisza rivers insted of the Merging of the Sava and Danube on the sothern bank.
Not to mention, Austria Should own Lower Austria where Vienna is and the lands between the Ore Mountains, Sumava Mountains and the Sudety mountains where Bohemia/Czechia lies should be under Austria. And the the area around Trenčín, Žilina and the Mountain peak Babia Góra should also be under Austria. Not Under Prussia
This could have been a mistake or what not but I thought for the sake of locational accuracy which is important on maps and History on a whole, I would just point it out.
Carry on the good work. love the videos :D
also Some borders are a bit pushed off their actualy location like the Bohemian with Silesia as it does not match with the actual Geografical border it's ment to sit on
Ridley Scott also directed Kingdom of Heaven, which faced similar issues and criticism. A director's cut was released later that did add many scenes which was generally praised as a great improvement over the theatrical version. IMHO Napoleon will leave a familiar legacy--an entertaining and technically well-produced film that has historical authenticity, even if lacking in historical accuracy.
Ultimately, media like this isn't necessarily made for students of history like many of us here, but for the general public. From our perspective, there are many obvious downsides to this, but on a positive note, folks who otherwise would not even have been aware of such important historical figures and events might become more interested in the future.
Yesnt thats the problem in itself, the mainstream public MIGHT be more interested, but most will only see the movie and keep this knowledge without going further, spreading misinformation and ignorance. Plus where Kingdom of Heaven showed the more epic medieval stuff people love even if irl it was differant, it was epic enough to get people interested about the period, Napoleon is not even shown in a good light in this movie, to make people interested youd need to show the true charisma of the man, the genius of the battlefield etc... we didnt get that here.
In our era where information is oh so easy to access and manipulate, spreading misinformation under the guise of it being a sorta biography in movie is dishonest at best and downright fallacious at worst.
Scott took the easy and laziest route possible to make a correct movie on a technical level, but thats not even close to a proper adaptation of Napoleon's life, and its oh so easy to make a proper adaptation of something with only the bare minimum change in the scenario, LoTR did it by taking out scenes that was too lore heavy and instead made referance and clever interpretation so that both newbies and well read people could appreciate it.
And no i utterly refuse to lower the bar from LoTR, quality is only an issue of logistics and willpower whennthe knowledge we have of the story(or history here) is this large
I think Ridley Scott should have released it as a series on Netflix or any other OTT platform because it’s difficult to squeeze in years of detailed history into 2-3 hours of movie time. He could have done it like The Crown series over a period of time showing all the events and characters as well as back stories.
Probably the best video of this month, excellent work m8, kings and generals should review more historical movies, a new awesome series
I feel if Scott wanted to accurately portray Napoleon properly, he could’ve done a 3 part trilogy epic if it was meant to span his whole career. One movie on his early years as general 1793-1799 titled “The General” ending with the Coup against the Directory, another from 1799-1804 titled “The Consul” that ends with him being crowned as emperor, and finally a film covering 1805-1815 titled “The Emperor” covering Austerlitz, Borodino, retreat from Russia, Exile and Waterloo.
Imagine Ridley pissing on Napoleon for 3 movies. No thanks.
Thank you for this analysis. I watch Kings and Generals to learn the truth of historic events. I find that I too have thought I knew something only to find that I saw it in a movie or TV series.
Unfortunately, I know far too many people who take things they see as historically accurate. I even had a former coworker claim that he is a descendant of William Wallace and the Princes as depicted in Braveheart.
Keep up the amazing work . I love this channel.
Fair enough Ridley is perfectly within his own right to depict this how he wanted guys. Please just give me the rights to his film if the time comes
Thanks for all your hard work, I have been following this channel for many years and I thoroughly enjoy it. I wanted to ask, will those exclusive videos at some point be on the main channel or will they be forever exclusive?
I don't care if you're not a movie channel, I still expect a full screenplay analysis
Superb, you got most of the inaccuracies!! I'd like to point out the scoped weapons that the 95th had as well!
>Me, a Spaniard watching Napoleon
>Boring as fiction, terrible as historical
>No mention to the Peninsular War
>Proceeds to destroy It at Rotten Tomatoes
greetings from argentina! my favorite channel of this 2023!
I think my biggest gripe about this movie is that they sacrificed precious screen time to the ridiculous marriage drama with Josephine. I understand not being able to fit his entire life into one movie, especially one that the casual viewer can easily digest and understand, but instead of, as mentioned in the video, the Italian campaigns, we got sex scenes.
Then the blatant inaccuracies in what few battles there were. I understand what there was in Toulon, things like having the mortars right in front of the fort so the audience can see the bombardment and the assault in one shot, as well as the theatrics. But the other battles should have at least attempted to explain why they were there and what was going on (the tactical and strategic situation), such as a brief synopsis between Napoleon and his Marshals when working out the plan.
Honestly this movie should have been called "Josephine" with how much it obsesses over her and disregards what the titular character is known for, his miliary career.
But in fairness, I do feel the need to mention that the costumes and uniforms looked amazing. Some later uniforms were used early in the movie, which is understandable (not paying a ton of money for costumes that would be used once, rather just reuse what would feature in many scenes), and many characters looked like doubles of their real life counterparts, even if they went unnamed the whole movie.
I couldn't agree more with you, but my take on that is....Men don't generally go see movies alone, they drag their wives & GF with them, who unfortunately just aren't interested in going to see a " War " movie, you've gotta lure your female companion in by telling her there's some kind of romance theme to it, or they're going to say they don't want to go, and instead you'll get dragged in to see some horrible "Chick Flick"...Putting up with a little romance is just the price you have to pay for " Wider Appeal "
I totally understand your point and agree. But there is not a chance in hell my wife would have watched that. That wasnt a romance story. That was a messed up relationship with no love. Just napoleon lusting after her. Not inspiring on the battlefield or in the bedroom@TheMormonPower
You got it right. It should have been named Josephine. That would have made more sense and changed expectations to what it was going to be
Just got an idea for one day. What would be interesting as a series one far day, would be 1 speed video about every roman province: who they were before the conquest, the conquest, the importance and the controll of the province (economy, military…)
Ironically, I think that this is a movie that would have benefitted from being broken into 2 or even 3 movies. It seems that the main interest was napoleons relationship with his wife Josephine but when you title your movie “Napoleon”, and advertise it with intense battle scenes, not many people will go in expecting a slow, tragic romance. It feels like they knew this and added parts about his campaigns more to not falsely advertise than because it was the actual focus.
Of all the historical figures, I don’t think napoleons life is one that is ready made for a tragic romance. Instead it would have been both easier and more popular to do a more traditional retelling of his campaigns, political rise, and inevitable fall.
Thank you for doing this and happy new year!
My favourite was "Italy fell without a fight"
I was really looking forward to this, we need more historical films/tv.
It really agitated me in the cinema that the battle of Austerlitz was fought in a snowstorm 😂😂😂 couldn't eat my popcorn afterwards 😅
My friend, the movie - movie, not paper or book - is not about the weather, the clothes, the militaey actions per se... it is about psychology and psychology through personal drama... how do you do that artistically? You use clothes, weather, guns, sounds etc to convey your i terpretstion of psyche and drama. When you people focus on "facts" instead of on the artistic language, you loose the real discussion, you become so shallow... the best in history is exactly the attempt to understand tbe human drama, the human mind, not to know if it was 34 or 36 degrees. This is secondary. And the beauty of a movie about history is precisely the possibility of escaping for a moment all the "material accuracies" so to use all the colours and sounds and faces and clothes and landscapes etc etc etc to try and portray a human mind, a human sitution, a human behavior, human feelings, human disgraces and glories etc etc etc in a way we can feel just like the characters depicted felt, at least in one or a few aspects of the drama. Of course it is not accurate, it is impossible to show "everything".... the same way a paiting of a battle is not accurate, and show almost nothing of the "actual" event, but try to capture some essential abstract about the most important value the battle has/had to the artist....the movie is an interpretation about some forgotten aspects of Napoleon's psyche, not about "facts". This is great history. We can agree or disagree, this is what makes great history so beautiful. But history is not a bunch of data. It is interpretation of the data. Most properly is done on papers, books, academic debate, of course. But art may be a very useful tool so we can feel and visualize certain aspects of reality paper and ink can't show. So, let us not be fooled by shallowness
@@BernardoBr1982 Alas psychology through personal drama was completely absent too. The dull, leaden performance of Phoenix was just painful to watch.
@@artm1973 that's it. Now we can have a conversation. About the artistic merits of the movie, not if it is historically "accurate", or shallowness stuff like this...
@@artm1973 I do agree with you that Phoenix was not a good choice, exactly because he normally can show just one side of the emotions set required, specially for Napoleon, specially for a movie which - my interpretation - wanted to show exactly the psychological complexity of this man, normally forgotten by every other portrait artists have been showing... I am an academic, about art stuff I am very limited, I must say, I cannot make a good artistic analysis, but I liked very much the path the director chose to try to understand all the contradictions (real or apparent) and psychological struggles the man had beyond the so badly understood "great general", "great" this, "great" that... What I think is unfair, and I think you will agree with me on this, is to judge the movie based on sun or snow during the battle... it's not an issue of "accuracy", it is just not understanding the different languages
Nitpicking here, but check the map at 8:44. Vienna and Budapest are a few hundred kilometers out of place towards east. Maybe some other town as well.
Yeah I agree with a lot of what you said in this video on the many issues I had with the Napoleon movie:
1) They glossed over way too many key events to provide much needed context for why these events are happening or why this person is relevant to the event itself
2) They made Josephine the "heart & soul" of this movie and they improperly used her to give excuses for Napoleon doing things he did, but making it seem like she was the "sole reason" why he did certain things like leaving Egypt or leaving Elba from exile.
3) They casted Joaquin Phoenix who's much too old to play Napoleon during his Toulon/Egypt/Italy/etc. years! If you wanted to use Joaquin Phoenix, you should have focused on his later years like when he was defeated and forced into exile or do a remake of the 1970 Waterloo movie with him.
4) Like you said, you learn absolutely nothing about how Napoleon reformed the French Army into becoming the most feared army of that time, you learn nothing about how he would strategize for battles and why those strategies worked in the battles, and you learn nothing about his great generals/Marshals (Ney, Murat, Davout, Massena, Lannes, etc.) that played pivotal roles in the many victories he achieved.
5) Also, I'm very sure that Josephine was older than Napoleon by6 years, which I think changes the scope of how this marriage worked because you see a 50s Phoenix and 30s Kirby in this movie! Instead, she would have had political connections that would have helped Napoleon gain power and you get nothing about Josephine's son (Eugine) who was also a general of his and you could have maybe had him be a bridge between Napleon and Josephine for the movie.
6) Lastly, I felt no "gravitas" with the Napoleon portrayed by Phoenix to where I could believe millions of men would want to follow him into battle, how he used his intelligence to win so many battles, he was basically a "SIMP" for Josephine in this movie, and he showed much lack of emotional control for a general/leader who would lead his men to so many victories in battle.
they reduced the arguably greatest general ever to a 'simp'... history wouldn't be kind to this movie
"Napoleon reformed the French Army into becoming the most feared army of that time, you learn nothing about how he would strategize for battles and why those strategies worked in the battles, and you learn nothing about his great generals/Marshals (Ney, Murat, Davout, Massena, Lannes, etc.) that played pivotal roles in the many victories he achieved".....You speak as if Napoleon won, you do realize that Napoleon LOST, right? That simple fact did not go over your head, I am assuming. What ever reforms Napoleon made to the French army DID NOT WORK, as the once juggernaut French military lay in total shambles, a generation's worth of French boys in mass graves, and enemy troops marched down the streets of Paris leaving France in total defeat. Do not speak as if Napoleon won, because he did not.
@@RidleyScottOwnsFailedDictators Yeah Napoleon ultimately lost in the grand scheme, but he went from a nobody from Corsica to the most powerful man in Europe. By the way, he won like 50-60 battles, which I find it very hard to think of many other people in the post 19th century to have achieved!
Napoleon did actually reform the way armies were used by designing what was called the "Corps" system where he would have 8K to 30K of men formed into one army under a general (similar to how the Romans used legions). This gave the French Army under Napoleon more strategic mobility and flexibility because this allowed his army to move since communications would be easier for 20K men than a 100k grand army under one general, they could cover more ground, and yet come together when needed to for battle.
Because of the success of this system, the Coalition Powers of Europe began adopting this use of the "Corps" system and used it against Napoleon!
@@mojojojoslyfoxharris Napoleon hijacked the most powerful military in the world when he seized total power from a lost and confused France, and still ended in total defeat.....So why do you speak as if Napoleon won when he lost, and lost so poorly?!
@@mojojojoslyfoxharris Yeah results do matter, even to losers who have to pretend that they won when they lost, like Napoleonic France. Why do you think this exists #arcdetriomphe
I found the movie entertaining but the inaccuracies and lack of context stressed me out so much. I took a list that I wrote down before the movie and started marking out the events that did not appear in the film and those that did.
There’s a video published by the Prado Museum in Madrid showing Scott and Phoenix appreciating Francisco Goya’s paintings on the peninsular war. That leads me to think that the extended version may include it somewhere
I initially gave the movie a 4/10. But after a little sobering up I reflected on it and I now struggle to justify anything higher than a 3.5/10. The movie was bad. There is no other way to spin it.
10:55 That was Berthier in the Egypt sequence? That guy looked more like Ney than any other marshal.
Napoleon’s life is too eventful for a single movie. Some people are famous for doing one thing and their lives can be made into a movie (ie desmond Dawes, Charlie Brown (no not that one), Leo majors) but some people define entire eras and need a tv series instead (Napoleon, hitler, etc)
Napoleon is depicted like a mere warrior, but if you do so, you totally miss the point why he's still considered as one of the most important person in the French history. He took over power after the french revolution, and the country was surrounded by regimes that hated the idea of democracy. Coalitions were formed one after the other to give back the power to a king. Napoleon modernized the country deeply, including in its institutions, in such manner that even when he was defeated, there was no way back to the former regime, and Louis Philippe, Charles X who followed him, failed to restore the 'ancien regime'. That is the real and powerful impact of Napoleon; securing revolution gains, and managing a transition to a modern France.
Where were some of napoleon’s marshal. Like Murat, Davout, or Berthier. Some of his marshals were important to his success.
Once thing I also noticed is the complete lack of any mention of naval battles such as the Nile or Trafalgar which both had an impact on how Napoleon proceeded with his plans
Do another video but this time about Assassin's Creed: Origins!
Hey K&G theres been a question on my mind for a while,will you guys follow up on the Aspern-Essling video (the last one in your Napoleon series) uptil Waterloo?
after The Woman King, im hardly surprised anymore.
These studios should be scared by how good youtube historians are with historical content. You guys will replace the History Channel
According to the film, Napoleon left Elba because he was jealous of Josephine's socialising with Tsar Alexander. But Josephine was already ten months dead when he left Elba. He must have been brooding over it for a long time.
This point is significant because it exposes the contortions that the film imposes on history in order to conform to its Napoleon❤Josephine narrative. The script is predicated on the fictional conceit that everything Napoleon did was motivated by his devotion to Josephine. Where real events deviate from this self-imposed straight-jacket, the real events are simply corrupted.
One thing stuck out above all else was when Napoleon and Josephine got married and the priest says their birth dates. Both were wrong. The movie says Napoleon was born in 1768(moved 1 year back) while Josephine was born in 1767(4 entire years forward).
This is one of the easiest possible things to check and it’s so bafflingly stupid that it has to have been intentionally done. My guess is to avoid some problems of the 20 year age gap between Joaquin and Vanessa. But the film already shows Josephine being an older woman already married with kids when they meet for the first time. Maybe a different actress should have been used from 1805 onward(not like they don’t massively skip huge chunks of time anyway) but the changing of ages is one of those mistakes that’s so easy to miss but bothers me above all else once I noticed it.
They actually changed their birthdays on the marriage certificate to hide the real age gap, so the priest saying wrong dates is accurate :).
The largest omission that I noticed was the complete lack even mentioned the Peninsular War in Spain. I do enjoy historical fiction. Which is exactly what this movie is.
I am not gonna lie, when I saw Napoleon in theatres. I really felt like Ridley Scott was on a mission to make Napoleon seem as lame and pathetic as possible. Half the movie was him being a simp/incel over Josephine, and the other was just him acting pathetic. Napoleon as an individual definitely had faults, and he definitely had an unhealthy relationship with Josephine, but as a person he was an incredibly charismatic, a genius, and a brilliant person who motivated entire armies to fight and die for him. It really felt like Ridley had an immense bias/agenda against Napoleon.
A movie about Napoleon should not be a movie, it should be a series, with at least 3 season and 12 episode per season.
Ridley Scott called Napoleon a Dictator, put him in a row with Hitler. Napoleon Always almost always defended himself, as Coalitions were called there, and when they were created against France, And the shooting of civilians was a typical event for the 19th century.
It's an extremely British view of Napoleon. He actually represented a grave threat to monarchical rule in Europe. It's one of the reasons disenfranchised peoples in Europe, such as the Poles, rallied to his banner.
I've not yet seen the film but I hope to soon! Great video.
NAPOLEON 2023 IS TRASH
Zelenskyy Napoleon is better
Thank you for doing this video
Movie is hot garbage... very little about the man himself, or the genius behind what he became or the ideas he took on and fostered. More soap opera than anything else.
I’ve been looking forward to this. I hoped this video answered if this film was as historically accurate as Gladiator; and am not disappointed:)
This wasn’t Ridley Scott making a movie about Napoleon and the Napoleonic Era.
This was Ridley Scott making HIS Napoleonic “Epic” for his filmography.
The history meant nothing to him. This was how HE saw Napoleon, not how history sees him.
If you want fantasy, do fantasy. If you want to make a film about a historical person, make a film about a historical person. He did not even get the timeline right.
@@xornxenophon3652 It was quite clear that wasn’t on Scott’s priority. Another $200 million goes down the drain because Scott clearly doesn’t care about history. Good job, Hollywood, good job.
I'm on a mission to watch all of the film's that are nominated for this year's Academy Awards. I've heard the criticisms surrounding this movie's historical accuracy and it made me not want to see it. Thank you for making this video, as it will keep me informed while watching the film!
Historicity or lack thereof aside, this is, sadly, a terrible movie.
Even if you exclude all the inaccuracies, it’s still a very messy movie with horrible pacing and very underwhelming performances. How can an 86 year old seasoned director think that squeezing in 20 years of one of history’s most impressive military/political career into a 2 1/2 hour movie would be a good idea??
Phoenix wasn’t awful, but he could’ve been so much better with actual proper directing by someone who actually understands Napoleon.
He could have picked 2 or 3 anecdotes from Napoleon's life, at random, and made a much better movie. This is just shallow af.
@@tomislavblazevic2742 Hell, if Scott just wanted to focus on Napoleon and Josephine, just focus on that. We don’t need to see Toulon, Austerlitz, Borodino, Moscow, or Waterloo. Just focus on the domestic life and the relationship they share. Sure, it may be boring and underwhelming for someone as big as Napoleon, but it would at least have focus and the ability to actually explore the topic.
I think a good idea for episode (or a series of episodes) is war in the Vendee. There very little materials about this on youtube, especially in this battle-presenting style.
The main historical inaccuracy is that Joaquin Phoenix played a young twentysomething vigorous, ambitious, charismatic Napoleon like a weary, tired, middle aged creep.
I think it would have helped to point out Napoleon's health/medical history at certain points. Such as by the time of Waterloo, he could no longer sit atop a horse for more than half-an-hour or so-ish for discomfort, and he left the field of battle in his coach.
I mean it's Hollywood so that's to be expected but I do agree with the fast pacing. Thank you for the information. Awesome video.
16:05 “prepare to face calvary. proceeds to leave entrenchments which in the film already had anti-calvary stakes” yep pretty much sums it all up xD i can imagine KaG trying not to laugh while recording that haha
One needs to ask oneself, " is there a difference between memory and imagination ".
Regardless of historical inaccuracies, what really matters is, was the story told interesting and entertaining and was it great art.
I think most people who saw the film would say it failed on all counts.
When I heard a film was being made about Napoleon, I thought, "Oh, interesting!" When I heard Ridley Scott was directing I said, "Oh, no..."