# Historically inaccurate movies **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 21, 2008, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-inaccurate-movies/442269 "2008-03-21T21:21:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2008, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-inaccurate-movies/442269/41 "2008-03-23T02:18:09Z")
[QUOTE=Miss Purl McKnittington] Regardless of whether or not the Scots share their history, the errors in _Braveheart_ were whoppers. It’s not like the stirrup thing in _Gladiator,_ which is a piddling detail and doesn’t effect the plot. Doing things like aging a character twenty years to provide an adulterous romance is when people start rolling their eyes. [/QUOTE] As I was during the defenestration scene, too. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2008, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-inaccurate-movies/442269/42 "2008-03-23T03:36:36Z")
“Jason and the Argonauts,” on just this evening on TCM, had two ridiculous situations in one scene: There are some walking skeletons, about to do battle. They’re only skeletons. No muscles. How the hell are they able to get the bones to move? Then, as they’re about to attack, they let out a scream. Hellooooo! No vocal cords or lungs. Not happen’n’. ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2008, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-inaccurate-movies/442269/43 "2008-03-23T04:05:06Z")
[QUOTE=chowder] U571. I mean c’mon guys. The USA capturing the Enigma machine, you gotta be kidding [/QUOTE] Prior to U-571, not too many Americans had ever heard of an “enigma machine,” (or, if they had, would have assumed it was something inserted anally to cleanse the bowels, thus making Baby Jesus weep), so take some cold comfort from the screen-roll at the end, in which, IIRC, Brits actually got most of the credit they were due for The Battle of the Atlantic. ---
**Author:** ![Man\_With\_a\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cab0a1/32.png) [@Man\_With\_a\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Man_With_a_Cat)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2008, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-inaccurate-movies/442269/44 "2008-03-23T04:14:57Z")
I’m pretty sure Meet the Flintstones is not an entirely accurate portrayal of Bedrock, USA. ---
**Author:** ![Bobotheoptimist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/919ad9/32.png) [@Bobotheoptimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bobotheoptimist)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2008, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-inaccurate-movies/442269/45 "2008-03-23T04:41:09Z")
[QUOTE=chowder] U571. I mean c’mon guys. The USA capturing the Enigma machine, you gotta be kidding [/QUOTE] “THE Enigma”? There was more than one, you know. Pretty sure we Yanks did capture one, heck even the Canadians managed to get one at one point. Now, if the movie was called _ **U110** _, that’d be even worse. Anyway, speaking of dissing Brits during WWII, my pet peeve is _The Bridge on the River Kwai_ - An insult to the men that actually were there, and especially … dangit, what was his name? Colonel Toosy? IIRC he took beatings for himself rather than let the men suffer, didn’t kiss up and cooperate with the enemy or harangue the men to build a great bridge, but instead sabotaged the construction every chance they got. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2008, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-inaccurate-movies/442269/46 "2008-03-23T05:08:03Z")
[QUOTE=ExTank] Prior to U-571, not too many Americans had ever heard of an “enigma machine,” (or, if they had, would have assumed it was something inserted anally to cleanse the bowels, thus making Baby Jesus weep), so take some cold comfort from the screen-roll at the end, in which, IIRC, Brits actually got most of the credit they were due for The Battle of the Atlantic. [/QUOTE] When that movie came out, the internet medium of choice was USENET. The historical newsgroups were suddenly full of very angry Brits, who had a point about the movie’s accuracy. But other pointed out that it wasn’t as if the Brits weren’t capable of making films themselves. The online Brits also started overstepping their bounds, claiming credit for all things enigma and that Americans smelled bad and such. But yah-boo! No matter how much they smelled, only Brits had anything to do with Enigma! Rah-Rah! Then some Poles showed up, and they were not happy. There was much schooling. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2008, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-inaccurate-movies/442269/47 "2008-03-23T05:17:27Z")
[QUOTE=Miller] I can spot one error in that movie, and I haven’t even seen it. [/QUOTE] You’re thinking of a different movie. Cal’s is the one about the group of high school students taking revenge on a teacher who is a lousy grader. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2008, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-inaccurate-movies/442269/48 "2008-03-23T05:22:13Z")
[QUOTE=Saint Cad] First I would take out 300 and 2001. 300 was a stylized piece and must be judged accordingly. 2001 was about the future. I never saw 10,000BC but form what I heard, it wasn’t meant to present a historical treatment of 12,000 years ago. [/QUOTE] I’m pretty sure they added 2001 as a joke - they could have added 1984 in the same way. As for 10,000 BC, the lack of interest in historical accuracy is not reason to exclude someone. I suspect many of the other movies on the list involved the screenwriter or director tossing out the suggestions of experts for the story. Though I wouldn’t trust these guys to get a film about a trip to the mall yesterday right. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2008, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-inaccurate-movies/442269/49 "2008-03-23T05:46:04Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] I’m pretty sure they added 2001 as a joke - they could have added 1984 in the same way. As for 10,000 BC, the lack of interest in historical accuracy is not reason to exclude someone. I suspect many of the other movies on the list involved the screenwriter or director tossing out the suggestions of experts for the story. Though I wouldn’t trust these guys to get a film about a trip to the mall yesterday right. [/QUOTE] Surely a movie like _10,000 B.C._ , which is in essence an historical **fantasy** in the same vein as _History of the World Part I_ or _A Knight’s Tale_, are exempt from demands for historical accuracy. Marc ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2008, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-inaccurate-movies/442269/50 "2008-03-23T06:22:42Z")
[QUOTE=pravnik] And by spooky coincidence, Abraham Lincoln was shot in a porn theater and died in a subway! [/QUOTE] Does anyone know how to get coffee off an LCD monitor? 😛 Back on topic, I have to nominate _Lawrence of Arabia_ is a great film, but took a great many liberties with known historic facts, as well as other things that aren’t quite as important, but are still noticeably inaccurate if you’re up on your military history- e.g. Lawrence never carried a Webley revolver in Arabia, and the Turkish Army did not use SMLE rifles. Doesn’t make it any less of a brilliant film, though, but I’d hardly rely on it as an accurate historic record of events in the Arab Revolt 1915-1918 either. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2008, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-inaccurate-movies/442269/51 "2008-03-23T13:38:25Z")
[QUOTE=chowder] U571. I mean c’mon guys. The USA capturing the Enigma machine, you gotta be kidding [/QUOTE] FWIW, the US did capture an Enigma machine off a U-boat. They even captured the whole sub. [U-505](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-505) I’m not trying to deny the many years previous accomplishment of the RN in getting an Enigma machine off the U-110. But to categorically state the US did not capture an Enigma machine from a U-boat is false. ---
**Author:** ![SCSimmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e495f1/32.png) [@SCSimmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCSimmons)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2008, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-inaccurate-movies/442269/52 "2008-03-24T04:23:18Z")
[QUOTE=Guinastasia] And let’s not forget Wallace sleeping with the heir’s wife, even though she would have only been two years old at the time. [/QUOTE] I think the part where _Braveheart_ finally broke my suspension of disbelief was when the princess & her handmaiden tried to guard against eavesdroppers by conversing in French. “Right,” I thought, “because nobody in the royal court of Edward I was likely to understand French!” :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2008, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-inaccurate-movies/442269/53 "2008-03-24T05:32:18Z")
[QUOTE=SCSimmons] I think the part where _Braveheart_ finally broke my suspension of disbelief was when the princess & her handmaiden tried to guard against eavesdroppers by conversing in French. “Right,” I thought, “because nobody in the royal court of Edward I was likely to understand French!” :smack: [/QUOTE] Especially ironic since one of Edward I’s claims to fame was that he was the first English king to have actually _learned_ any English (he’s said to have been fluent which probably means he could say the 13th century equivalents of “Hello”, “Goodbye”, and “Let’s continue in French”). I love the fact that the [Battle of Stirling Bridge](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stirling_Bridge) had no bridge in it. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2008, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-inaccurate-movies/442269/54 "2008-03-24T08:03:38Z")
[QUOTE=SCSimmons] I think the part where _Braveheart_ finally broke my suspension of disbelief was when the princess & her handmaiden tried to guard against eavesdroppers by conversing in French. “Right,” I thought, “because nobody in the royal court of Edward I was likely to understand French!” :smack: [/QUOTE] 😃😃😃😃😃😃😃 ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2008, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-inaccurate-movies/442269/55 "2008-03-24T08:29:44Z")
As much as I love the movie, _We Were Soldiers Once_ gets on this list, if only for… The conclusion of the battle, with the American infantry charge backed at the last second by helicopter gunships (the Cavalry arriving) and overrunning the enemy base. In the book, as well as history, the battle more or less just sorta petered out, after two more American battalions arrived on foot to reinforce Colonel Moore’s troops. Shortly after, both the Vietnamese and American forces withdrew before the Air Force flattened the entire area with a B-52 strike. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2008, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-inaccurate-movies/442269/56 "2008-03-24T10:19:26Z")
The Demi Moore _Scarlett Letter_ had some whopper deviations from history as well as from the book. Two that stood out when I watched it were- -Goody Demi/Hester Prynne makes the women gasp when she announces that she sometimes prays to God directly and not through a priest. This would be like a Catholic getting gasps for saying “Sometimes I pray to saints.” -When Reverend Dimmesdale (sp?) tells her that it’s as if she’s reading his mind she says, jokingly, “Maybe I’m a witch”. Cause, yeah… that’s something that women in late 17th century New England joked about with ministers they just met allllll the time, right up there twixt knock-knock jokes and “dost thou mind if I fellate thy hunting dog once I finish chanting in a bizarre tongue?” jokes. (Of course this movie has a whole slew of witch-hunt/witch trial sideplots that weren’t in the book so it comes back to bite her in the Ass.) ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2008, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-inaccurate-movies/442269/57 "2008-03-24T11:58:17Z")
**The Gangs of New York** has its climactic scene during the Civil War Draft Riots. One of the main characters, Bill the Butcher, died during the 1850’s, while another main character, Monk McGinn (based very closely on Monk Eastmann), wasn’t born until after the war. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2008, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-inaccurate-movies/442269/58 "2008-03-24T16:26:56Z")
I thought “Bill the Butcher” of _Gangs of New York_ was based on Bill “the Butcher” Poole and Isaiah Rynders. Poole was an uptown politician associated with the Whigs and the anti-immigration Know-Nothings and Rynders was a flamboyant gang leader in the five points area. In the movie P.T. Barnum was acting as a pimp in one scene. “What do I hear bid for this flaxen haired teutonic beauty?” or something like that. The presence of the Chinese was way overrepresented while Italians, Jews, and Germans were underrepresented. The Irish were treated a bit unfairly. When they were coming off the boat it appeared as though they were being drafted with no idea the country was even at war. In reality a lot of Irish people knowingly fought in the war on account of their own convictions. The U.S. Navy did not shell the Five Points area. Other than the lame romance plot I still enjoyed the movie. Marc ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2008, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-inaccurate-movies/442269/59 "2008-03-24T16:52:50Z")
[QUOTE=Bobotheoptimist] Anyway, speaking of dissing Brits during WWII, my pet peeve is _The Bridge on the River Kwai_ - An insult to the men that actually were there, and especially … dangit, what was his name? Colonel Toosy? IIRC he took beatings for himself rather than let the men suffer, didn’t kiss up and cooperate with the enemy or harangue the men to build a great bridge, but instead sabotaged the construction every chance they got. [/QUOTE] I tried to watch _Bridge on the River Kwai_ two weeks ago and just couldn’t. Now that I know what I do, I just can’t suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy the flick. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2008, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-inaccurate-movies/442269/60 "2008-03-24T17:53:31Z")
[QUOTE=Boyo Jim] Flintstones: the Movie 1 Million BC [/QUOTE] These are not historically inaccurate; they are **pre** historically inaccurate. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-inaccurate-movies/442269.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historically-inaccurate-movies/442269.md?page=4)