Historical Inaccuracies in Movies

[Lissa]

My husband is almost to the point of refusing to watch movies with me that have a historical setting. He says it sort of ruins it for him when I bark out every five minutes, "Hey! They weren't wearing that in (year)," or "That hadn't even been invented yet!"

I understand that sometimes perfect accuracy is seen as "getting in the way" of plot lines, but minor details such as incorrect costumes or props can totally turn me off to a film. (And that's not even mentioning major gaffes such as dates and characters.)

Just as an example, Hubby and I watched the North And South miniseries not too long ago, and I pointed out that married women did not wear low-cut ball gowns outside in the daytime. When we watched The Patriot I laughed at the spiffy-clean uniforms of the British soldiers. (Portable dry-cleaning on the battlefield?)

Do little mistakes like this bother the rest of you history buffs?

[Zoe]

Forsooth! But even Shakespeare had them. I seem to remember a clock and a jacket in Julius Caesar.

For me part of the fun of movies is spotting them. But if your husband is into a state of suspended disbelief, I can understand why he would not want to be brought back to reality.

I'm pretty good at spotting music from the late 1950's in movies about the early and mid fifties. And I'm pretty good at remembering hair-styles by decade.

As for historical importance, I believe that in the last couple of years a movie about the Enigma decoding device had the U.S. Navy doing something that the British Navy actually did.

[Evil Captor]

you're talking historical nitpicking. I'm no history buff, but I do think they're fun. Spotting a jet contrail or a set of telephone lines in a story set in Roman times or thereabouts is always a hoot.

[Baker]

Lissa, I agree with you. What bugs me most though are not costuming inaccuracies, as I can't always spot them. It's the historical accuracies. Like having Mel Gibson boink a French princess that wouldn't even have arrived in England yet. Or Cate Blanchett going nuts the way she did in Elizabeth. That movie was probably the most historically inaccurate of any I've seen. Or seeing wheeled vehicles in the city of Rome during the day, or armed troops(at least during the Republican period).

[ChalkPit]

There are gazillions of these kinda things, and many internet sites devoted to them.

MovieMistakes.com and SlipUps.com for example.

Take pretty much ANY warfilm, and you can usually rip them to pieces for using the wrong rifle, or using a wrong period armoured vehicle etc etc

[Hodge]

Originally posted by Lissa
When we watched The Patriot I laughed at the spiffy-clean uniforms of the British soldiers. (Portable dry-cleaning on the battlefield?) That's the least of this movie's crimes against history.

FTR, minor inaccuracies like clothing details or hairstyles don't really bother me that much, but the really egregious stuff drives me up the wall. Worst recent example was that execrable submarine movie U571 in which an American sub crew recovers a German Enigma machine. And to top it all off, the director was actually surprised when UK moviegoers were pissed off.

[legion]

Well, I watched "We Were Soldiers" on DVD last night and the whole film was ruined by the location. I don't know where it was filmed but it looked like some country club or a golf course somewhere. :(

[Intaglio]

I get bent out of shape when I watch a Movie or TV show that features specifically the US Navy, but other branches of the Military incorrectly.

For example, I was checking out JAG on CBS and they had an episode, where a woman was the first fighter pilot off an Aircraft Carrier, and a woman Senator, was making the Navy fly her, even though the Commanding Officer grounded her. A senator has that kind of pull, sticking her nose where it doesn't belong, over the CO, or the fleet Admiral. OK, the pilot goes back to flight rotation, and she crashes her very expensive jet and kills herself, but not her Navigator - who was also a Woman. Gee, Senator, you think the CO knows what he's doing when he grounds the pilot.

In that same episode two JAG officers are on the Aircraft Carrier's flight Deck, one male and one female in Uniform, and they're talking and the girl goes, if you want to kiss me you can, and he does. You can not kiss anyone on a ship and especially not in Uniform.

Shows/Movies who can't get a military consultant, or do homework about the military - kill me. For the proper dress in uniform cause I've seen where the uniform is worn wrong, and a female has long hair and doesn't put it up, or too much or wrong kind of make up, or jewelry is incorrect, or a male has his hair too long. Or when they have regulations, military etiquette incorrect.

[Tapioca Dextrin]

I reccomend avoiding Shanghai Knights (http://us.imdb.com/Goofs?0300471). Fast and loose with history - but in a good way ;)

[Neurotik]

Ha! U-571, may have been bad, but let's face it - Braveheart had them fighting the Battle of Stirling Bridge with no bridge! Especially when the bridge was such an integral part of the English defeat. And that business about inventing really long spears to take down the horses? What a crock. And no mention of Andrew de Moray? Another crock.

And of course, the Scots didn't put up nearly the fight at Falkirk as it looks like in the movie. And no Irish troops charging and joining the Scots. Just English bowmen severely thinning the Scottish ranks and then a cavalry charge that annihilated them.

And of course, Robert Bruce wasn't really prompted by nationality but because he had killed the Comyn in a church and if he didn't take the Scottish throne and hold of Edward he was dead.

And they call Edward a cruel pagan in the intro. Cruel he may have been, but not any worse than anyone else at the time, and a pagan he certainly was not.

OK, I'm done.

[Agrippina]

Well, in The Elephant Man they called him "John" when there was already proof that his real name was "Joseph". For some reason, the real Treves crossed out the name "Joseph" when writing his memoirs and called him "John". Also, they switch some events around, but probably for dramatic purposes.

[burundi]

Oh, yeah, my friends know better than to go see history-based movies with me. Comedies like Shanghai Knights don't bug me--it's clearly all in fun, and no one is supposed to take it seriously. It's when movies claim to be serious studies of an event that it gets me. It's torturous--I love history and a good story, but so often those movies drive me mad with their inaccuracies.


What gets me most are anachonistic attitudes. 'Cause we all know that the only racists in the 19th century were nasty villains, not people like Leo DiCaprio. And, of course, working class servants or medieval peasants would think nothing of talking back to wealthy landowners. Gaah!

Originally posted by Baker
Cate Blanchett going nuts the way she did in Elizabeth. That movie was probably the most historically inaccurate of any I've seen.

I think I must have been the only person in the theater thinking "Enough with the kissy-face! Give me more 16th century politics!"

[Max Torque]

Originally posted by legion
Well, I watched "We Were Soldiers" on DVD last night and the whole film was ruined by the location. I don't know where it was filmed but it looked like some country club or a golf course somewhere.

I'm in complete agreement. Strange, I never knew that Vietnam looked so much like southern California....

[Little Nemo]

And how about Enemies at the Gate and the way they had all those Germans and Russians talking English?

[FisherQueen]

Yeah, I noticed in 'A Knight's Tale...'

Never mind.

[Rodd Hill]

I am already clenching my buttcheeks in anticipation of how much the upcoming Colditz movie is going to piss me off (and not only because that yammering mannequin Tom Cruise is slated to star).

Lissa, have you seen Topsy-Turvey?

[Feynn]

My brother in law who knows a great deal about military history was pretty peeved to see the British soldiers wearing their red coats in combat in "The Four Feathers". He tells me they changed their field uniforms a few years prior to this after a failed Egyptian campaign.

He also knews what kind of weapons they would have been carrying, their effective ranges, and calibre.

He knew that in this Sudanese war, it was the first time the British square formation was broken.

Pretty cool and not really that annoying.

[Governor Quinn]

Originally posted by Feynn
He tells me they changed their field uniforms a few years prior to this after a failed Egyptian campaign.


I presume that he was thinking of the Sudanese War (Gordon Relief) of 1884-1885. The Brits won all the battles, but they failed to save Gordon.

The film "Manhattan Melodrama" (best known for the fact that Dillinger was shot after seeing it) has a great error. As I recall, a plot point is that the gangster saved the DA in the General Slocum fire of 1904. Not only do neither of them have German names, but they're also a few years too young (the film is set in 1934).

[plastic conspiracy]

I'm usually not nit-picky about some innacuracies. I didn't mind that they changed the order of events for Man On The Moon, for example.

The one movie with inaccuracies that did really bug me was Quills. The depictions of de Sade and his writings/philosophy were inaccurate and ridiculous.

[Guinastasia]

Braveheart-Cecil debunked the whole "right of first night" thingy, for crying out loud! ARGH!

[Wendell Wagner]

Here's some books about historical inaccuracies in movies:

_Reel v. Real: How Hollywood Turns Fact into Fiction_ by Frank Sanello

_Past Imperfect: History according to the Movies_, edited by Mark C. Carnes, Ted Mico, Jon Miller-Munzon, and David Rubel

_History Goes to the Movies_ by Joseph Roquemore

_American History/American Movies: Interpreting the Hollywood Image_ edited by John E. O'Connor and Martin A. Jackson

[CadburyAngel]

My movie buddies have forced me to shut up about accents. I'm hardly Henry Higgins, but I get frustrated by lots of movies. Like "Ever After." So they're in France and they all speak with British accents? And the background music is vaguely Irish? Ooookay.

Same with Moulin Rouge - I realize it would have been weird to have Ewan and Nicole doing their Scottish and Australian accents respectively, but having nearly everybody in the movie be vaguely British drives me up the wall.

[Odesio]

In The Patriot we're suppose to believe that Mel Gibson's southern plantation is being worked by free blacks, not slaves. That just completely took me out of the movie and I had trouble getting back into it.

Marc

[Duke]

Originally posted by burundi, writing about the movie Elizabeth
I think I must have been the only person in the theater thinking "Enough with the kissy-face! Give me more 16th century politics!" FWIW, I talked about Elizabeth just after it came out with my history supervisor, who didn't like it. She thought the historical adaptation with the movie made it turn out all wrong! Just like Baker I guess....so maybe less politics were needed.

[Caesar's Ghost]

Originally posted by CadburyAngel
Same with Moulin Rouge - I realize it would have been weird to have Ewan and Nicole doing their Scottish and Australian accents respectively, but having nearly everybody in the movie be vaguely British drives me up the wall.

No matter how much I love this movie I have to agree here. They couldn't have let Nicole keep her regular accent, because it doesn't make sense, obviously--Australian hooker in France? But Ewan's would have worked. He's supposed to be coming from Britain to France with the Bohemian Revolution. He could have kept his accent. It's just too bad he didn't.

Besides that, the only one that really seriously annoys me is the 'right of first night' and Braveheart.

[Lissa]

Originally posted by Rodd Hill
Lissa, have you seen Topsy-Turvey?

No, I haven't. Should I be grateful?

FisherQueen:

Yeah, I noticed in 'A Knight's Tale...'

Never mind.

We watched that excreable thing not too long ago. I didn't have a problem with the rock music as much as the funky hairstyles and makeup of the lead actress. The premise of injecting modern music and behaviour might have been vaguely interesting if they could have been consistent in at least one area! Some of the costumes were spot-on-- why not carry that throughout the film, or conversely, modernize all of the costumes? One woman in the ballroom scene was wearing PANTS!!!

[trupa]

Originally posted by Hodge
That's the least of this movie's crimes against history.

FTR, minor inaccuracies like clothing details or hairstyles don't really bother me that much, but the really egregious stuff drives me up the wall.

I couldn't agree more. What I find even more aggravating is when they make a big effort to get the details right, and then make a huge glaring mistake. On of my biggest peeves is in Gladiator: they do a pretty good job with the Roman uniforms and weapons (even get the centurion helmet crests the right direction, from side to side, for once) , but in the opening battle seen theyhave the legionaires break rank and fight in a free-for all. The whole success of the Roman army in beating the Gauls and Germans was due to the fact that they didn't break rank, kept formation, and hacked the bear-chested barbarians down from behind those huge shields. All those Gauls, who were looking for glorious man to man combat, ever saw was a wall of sheilds with short swords poking out. It was like sending them against a belt grinder with teeth.

Makes for boring cinema though...

Cheers,

-Trupa

PS.: Hi everyone, first post on the boards.

[whiterabbit]

I'm willing to completely forgive any errors in Braveheart, because it has Mel Gibson in a kilt. Sorry, guys.

:D

[Miller]

So, do y'all freak out when you go to see Richard III and he's protrayed as a hunchback? When you read the Iliad, do you get pissed off at all these clearly fictional gods being on the battlefield?

Seriously, history has been altered to make better entertainment for as long as we've had the concepts of "history" and "entertainment." If you want a history lesson, read a book. You don't go to movies to learn history, you go to movies to be entertained. They could have had William Wallace fighting Imperial Stormtroopers, and I wouldn't have cared so long as it made a good movie.

[Wendell Wagner]

That would be great if people read a book about the subject every time that they saw a movie. They don't. Lots of people know nothing about history except what they've seen in inaccurate movies and TV shows.

Is it surprising that many historical movies are wildly inaccurate? Perhaps not. Is it suprising that we are going to complain about that fact? Of course not. This is the SDMB. That's what we do here. We fight ignorance.

[Lissa]

Originally posted by Wendell Wagner
That would be great if people read a book about the subject every time that they saw a movie. They don't. Lots of people know nothing about history except what they've seen in inaccurate movies and TV shows.


I think this spells out my main beef with Hollywood "history" quite well. Considering that a great deal of Americans get all of their history from the movies, my gut reaction is that there's a vague responisbility that Hollywood should have towards accuracy. I know that Hollywood's response would be that they're there to entertain, not to educate, but do the two need to be mutually exclusive?

[Katisha]

Originally posted by Miller
So, do y'all freak out when you go to see Richard III and he's protrayed as a hunchback?

Well, there are people who do, you know... (http://www.r3.org) ;)

(Actually, I have a friend who was a history major as an undergrad, and she has issues with Shakespeare's history plays precisely because "people read them, and they think that's how it really happened." I love and obsess over these plays, but we get along swimmingly anyway.)

BTW, I really liked Topsy-Turvy. But then, I would... ;)

[Dragonblink]

Okay, so the recent The Mummy series of movies isn't supposed to be a documentary, but I still haven't gotten over the sheer amount of mystery they attach to the Book of the Dead. For crying out loud, I can go to Borders and buy a copy! Even in the '30s, when the film is supposedly set, anyone who could read heiroglyphics could read the Book off tomb walls.

My view of Braveheart's alterations of Scottish history is a mite skewed, because I'm best friends with a Coman/Comyn and some kinda removed cousin to the current holder of the Bruce's titles. :D

I do recognize that fanatical attention to historical accuracy in entertainment is a recent phenomenon (Even Shakespeare's 'historical' plays have people the wrong ages, in the wrong places at the wrong times, etc etc etc) but I figure if you're gonna make the pretense of being accurate, you should do it all the way. Or at least get the important bits right.

[vivalostwages]

Mutiny on the Bounty (1936) is the one people think is historically accurate, but it is pretty far off the mark, for the most part. Just a few facts:

--Bligh was not the one-dimensional ogre he was made out to be.

--Bligh and Christian were good friends before they went on this particular voyage.

--Nobody much liked Fryer.

--Ned Young may have actually incited the mutiny.

--There was no Roger Byam.

--Tom Ellison was a teenager, unmarried, no kids.

And so on.

And Christian certainly would not have had an American accent.


The Bounty (1984) is much more accurate.

[Baldwin]

In a single movie, you may see scenes where the art director has made a fetish of authenticity, only to have it spoiled by ridiculous things in the script. For instance, in Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves they went to the trouble of getting short-legged cows to be in the background (supposedly similar to 12th century breeds), and then blithely threw telescopes and gunpowder into the story.

In the case of Gladiator, it wasn't meant to reflect history, but rather to be inspired by 19th century French artistic visions of Rome. Too bad, because real history would have been a lot more interesting.

[Incubus]

This may be a stretch, but I think one of the problems with historical inaccuracies in movies is just the day and age we live in. We have a modern bias based on our own familiarity with the world, plus our own interests. We like to think the past was full of neat discoveries, so movies always have to have pivotal technologies blatantly thrown in. Gunpowder is the biggest example- According to 'Hollywood' history, Gunpowder was independently invented/forgotten by about three dozen various eccentric intellectuals who use it in alliance with the 'good guys' generally for nothing more than a diversion/eye candy. (I think the most obnoxious example of this was Scorpion King. Yeah, I know the movie was entirely fiction, but it was set in like like 8000 B.C. and we have gunpowder used.

Another thing I noticed is that when a movie is 100% historically accurate, it is no longer a movie, it is a documentary. Frankly if I wanted to actually learn about it, I'd look it up in the encyclopedia. However if I wanted to see a visual deptiction taking very generous liberties, I'll shell out 8 bucks at the movie theater. At the very least it will be worth some laughs.

[SnugTheJoiner]

I could go on forever about factual screw-ups in movies, but my absolute favorite is at the very end of THE SOUND OF MUSIC, when the Trapp family is shown crossing the Alps in the wrong direction--into Germany! Of course the makers of the film knew that that was Germany in the distance, but thought that the mountains in that direction looked prettier, and figured that no one in the audience would know.

[Rodd Hill]

I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by Topsy-Turvey, Lissa. I'm not an expert on Victorian civilian costume, but they had some great stuff on Victorian technology that I think you'll really appreciate. Besides, great film, great story, great music!

[Baker]

The worst part about The Sound of Music is that their escape just didn't happen that way. The Von Trapps did not make a dramatic run for it, they just drove out of Austria. And Maria had had time to birth at least one child before their exile. Captain von Trapp was hardly the martinet he was depicted as either. I could go on, but their real story is just as interesting as the Hollywood version.

[Gyrate]

I loved Topsy Turvy -- there was a real effort to get as many historical details right as possoble (without messing with the story, of course).

One thing that the spouse and I always marvel at in films is how good medieval orthodontia was. Sure, they're dressed in rags, but wow! Everyone has clean, white, straight teeth! (Unless it's a British-made film, of course. ;))

Does anyone else remember the brief-lived TV show Covington Cross, starring Ione Skye? I realize it was semi-tongue-in-cheek, but I used to love watching it anyway just to play "Spot the Anachronism".

[ruadh]

Michael Collins:


the Auxiliaries did not drive an armoured car onto the Croke Park pitch on Bloody Sunday
car bombs had not been invented yet
nobody seriously believes that De Valera had anything to do with Collins's assassination
Kitty Kiernan was no Julia Roberts.


Good film, though.

[RikWriter]

Originally posted by Max Torque
I'm in complete agreement. Strange, I never knew that Vietnam looked so much like southern California....

I believe We Were Soldiers was filmed in North Carolina. And BTW, have you looked at pictures of the battle sight? Read the book perhaps? It looked a lot like where they filmed it. Vietnam isn't all rain forest and rice paddies, ya know?

[G. Cornelius]

Originally posted by Neurotik
...Braveheart had them fighting the Battle of Stirling Bridge with no bridge! Especially when the bridge was such an integral part of the English defeat. And that business about inventing really long spears to take down the horses?...

Yes, the bridge was indeed the most important feature of the battle and it does seem ludicrous to leave it out. AFAIK the bit about the long spears was accurate.Battle of Stirling Bridge (http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/2653/battleofstirlingbridge.htm). Essentially to Scots re-invented the phalanx, but it was an inovation at the time and affected medieval tactics for some time.

[Shade]

Why do we get upset? If the movie loses self-consistancy.

In crouching tiger, hidden dragon, we expect people to run up walls. If a movie is a historical romp, no-one cares. But if it's mostly accurate, anachronisms are as glaring as someone running up a wall.

[Neurotik]

Originally posted by G. Cornelius
Yes, the bridge was indeed the most important feature of the battle and it does seem ludicrous to leave it out. AFAIK the bit about the long spears was accurate.Battle of Stirling Bridge (http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/2653/battleofstirlingbridge.htm). Essentially to Scots re-invented the phalanx, but it was an inovation at the time and affected medieval tactics for some time.
You're right. I thought that Wallace was just using the schiltron tactic that was already in existence. Apparently, he was credited with its invention. My mistake.

[AvidReader]

Re: John Wayne war movies of the 40's and early 50's:

The Sands of Iwo Jima
The Fighting Seabees
Flying Leathernecks
Desert Command
They Were Expendable
Back to Bataan
Flying Tigers.....and others but these will suffice.

Now, I realize that these movies were made during a time of world conflict and because of this these movies were as much propaganda as they were entertainment vehicles calling for some "stretches" when it came to conceptual plotting, dialog, scenery, etc. Also, the strict censorship code of that era makes our current code pale to insignificance.

The inaccuracies both historical and general are many. The pressed and starched uniforms (with creases!!!) in the midst of battle; the sometimes "dummy" rifles; the stilted, pristine dialog; nary the use of obscenity (this among seasoned combat soldiers); the condescending attitude of officers towards entlisted men; the potrayal of officers as intelligent, well educated, urbane, and sophisticated counterpoints that of the enlisted man as a naive, gullible, "aw shucks"-"gee whiz" type of person.

And by far the greatest irony was John Wayne himself. He rose to super stardom by his portrayal of the gruff, stalwart, resolute, super patriotic, swaggering military character in these movies; yet Wayne successfully used every legally available avenue to escape the draft and remain stateside while other stars such as JImmy Stewart, Tyrone Power, Ronald Reagan, and many others volunteered for military service.

[Guinastasia]

Actually, all Reagan did was make propaganda and training films, IIRC. Although he did make claims that he was there when they liberated the camps, I think.

[Mr. Miskatonic]

Even the best made historical movie is going to have some errors.

In Richard Lester's Four Musketeers (along with 3M was accurate near to a fault). Milady dewinter hold a small pistol whose design and firing mechanism is decidedly 19th century. She tries hiding it a bit with her hand (they obviously wanted her to have an exotic assasins weapon and could find none suitable.) but in the next seen it is seen in the hands of the Duek of Buckingham. Oh well.

I've learned to take it while mentioning it.

I don't think I've found perfection in a movie yet. I'd actually be scared if I did.

[vivalostwages]

Originally posted by Duke
FWIW, I talked about Elizabeth just after it came out with my history supervisor, who didn't like it. She thought the historical adaptation with the movie made it turn out all wrong! Just like Baker I guess....so maybe less politics were needed.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
It really bugged me when they started using some of Mozart's music towards the end of the movie. It doesn't mesh, given that he wasn't even born when she was reigning--was he? And it made me think of Amadeus instead of Elizabeth.

[astorian]

Originally posted by Baker
The worst part about The Sound of Music is that their escape just didn't happen that way. The Von Trapps did not make a dramatic run for it, they just drove out of Austria. And Maria had had time to birth at least one child before their exile. Captain von Trapp was hardly the martinet he was depicted as either. I could go on, but their real story is just as interesting as the Hollywood version.

Quite true. Moreover, some of the von Trap "children" are still alive and well (though quite old), and while they all profess to enjoy the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, they all hasten to point out that, far from being a militaristic disciplinarian, their father was a very jolly sort of fellow. Maria, they say, was the real disciplinarian of the family (well, what would you expect from a former nun?).

[Nichol_storm]

Originally posted by Miller
So, do y'all freak out when you go to see Richard III and he's protrayed as a hunchback? When you read the Iliad, do you get pissed off at all these clearly fictional gods being on the battlefield?

You're forgetting one thing -- Shakespeare and Homer are a hell of a lot better than Randall Wallace and Ridley Scott. I'll accept inaccuracies from Shakespeare and Homer, much in the same way I'll accept sentences that go on for three pages from William Faulkner. If anyone else tried to pull that off, they'd be hanged by their toenails -- but if Faulkner does it, it's accepted. Why? For the same reason we accept Shakespeare and Homer's "imaginative reworkings" of history -- he's talented enough to pull it off.

By the way -- wasn't Richard III actually deformed? IIRC, it wasn't a hunchback, but a slight stooping of his shoulders.

.:Nichol:.

[Lissa]

Originally posted by Nichol_storm
By the way -- wasn't Richard III actually deformed? IIRC, it wasn't a hunchback, but a slight stooping of his shoulders.

.:Nichol:.

As I understand, most references to his "deformities" were made after his death. At the time, evil was thought to be physically manifested. A deformed person had the "devil's mark" and any phyiscal oddity was thought to be because of your sin, or that of your parents (such as being concieved in a "unnatural" sexual position.) So, after Richard died, rumors of his deformities spread. (Much as happened to Anne Boleyn.)

IIRC, one painting of Richard was actually re-done later to make him appear hump-backed. (Sorry, I don't have a cite.)

[Dr. Rieux]

Originally posted by RikWriter
I believe We Were Soldiers was filmed in North Carolina. And BTW, have you looked at pictures of the battle sight? Read the book perhaps? It looked a lot like where they filmed it. Vietnam isn't all rain forest and rice paddies, ya know? When I saw Randall Wallace at a screening of We Were Soldiers here last fall, he told us the Army base scenes were filmed in North Carolina and the Vietnam combat scenes were shot in central California.

[Eliahna]

Maybe I'm missing something... but I didn't think Nicole Kidman was doing an English accent in Moulin Rouge. She sounded Australian to me - that's how I sound too.

[RikWriter]

Originally posted by Dr. Rieux
When I saw Randall Wallace at a screening of We Were Soldiers here last fall, he told us the Army base scenes were filmed in North Carolina and the Vietnam combat scenes were shot in central California.

Ah, ok. I knew part of the film had been shot in Carolina...I didn't know the Nam scenes were done somewhere else. My bad.