I wonder how good written sources (books, plays) and speeches are for actually capturing how people spoke day-to-day back then. I don’t have any kind of answer, just the sense that that kind of communication might be more formal or stilted.
I watched Avatar: The Way of Water the other night.
Yes, it was visually amazing. Almost to the point that you don’t realize that it’s mostly all CGI. But mostly I found it flat, bloated, derivative, and self-indulgent. For all its length, I feel like very little actual story happened. When you compare other James Cameron films like Terminator /T2, Aliens, Titanic, and The Abyss or similar sprawling epics (that he is clearly shooting for) like Star Wars, Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, the movie isn’t very quotable, the characters aren’t particularly interesting or developed, and there aren’t many (if any) memorable scenes.
Like it wasn’t bad. It was just very pretty and that was about it.
Yes, this. You nailed it. Visually stunning, even delightful. Not much else. Neither me nor the Mrs. found the characters or the story to be interesting, much the same as we felt about the original film. And we felt cheated by the ending, or should I say, non-ending. After more than three hours, we expected closure, not an open-ended set-up for a sequel.
I watched it on TV with my wife and found it to be…an OK TV show. I liked Avatar. Sequel was only adequate. Not one of James Cameron’s best movies.
Does it bother you to have the characters in films set 2000 years ago speak in modern English in the film? Does it bother you to have the characters in films set in modern countries where no one actually speaks in English speak in modern English in the film? Does it bother you to have characters in films set in England 800 years ago speak in modern English in the film, when actually their English would be barely comprehensible to you? Does it bother you to have characters in films set in England 400 years ago speak in modern English in the film, when actually their English would be full of vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciations that sound odd to modern English speakers?
A friend of mine wrote a book about Smalls - check it out: https://www.amazon.com/Steering-Freedom-Patrick-Gabridge/dp/1942756224
The dude got some love from the Cleveland Orchestra last year, as it happens: The Chevalier
The U.S. Navy is on your side: USS Robert Smalls - Wikipedia
It might bother me if I were watching a film set 2000 years ago and they were using modern slang. There is a fine line between connecting with familiar modern sensibilities and being weirdly anachronistic.
But what do I know? Maybe in the distant future some alien culture would seem very similar to a mix of Māori and California surfer brah to us.
Actually, it was a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…
Also too ‘the performance’ must be taken into account. The roaring 40’s movies all have characters deliver their lines at a machine gun clip. I think it’s supposed to show wit or sass. Moxie. It is not how most people talked at any point in history.
I just finished Rage & Honor II. Starring the always entertaining Cynthia Rothrock, Richard Norton, and the legendary martial artist Patrick Muldoon (who seems to be having a ball). I kid, but apparently he’s been doing it for awhile. If you like this kind of movie, this is the kind of movie you’ll like.
Season of the Witch with Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman. They both try hard but you’ve seen it all before and better. If you really want to see a movie set during the Black Plague with witches and warriors and A Mission, watch Black Death with Sean Bean and Carice Van Houten, but be forewarned: this movie is the grimmest thing you will ever see.
Ooh, a questionnaire! 
Nope, although it sometimes bothers me if their dialogue is using recognizably current or recent English slang, as msmith537 already noted.
I don’t want to hear ancient Romans referring to somebody’s clandestine lover as their “side piece”, for example. I’m fine with modern English dialogue presented in the guise of a translation of what the historical characters would actually have been saying, but if it’s obviously deliberately “updated” to currently trendy idioms and linguistic style, that pulls me out of the suspension of disbelief.
Nope and nope, with the same caveats as above. Modern English dialogue as a purported translation of speech in a different language is fine. But if the screenwriters are trying to make the speech patterns and linguistic style basically identical to colloquial speech of today, that jars.
If the original dialogue is by an actual English playwright of the period, like Shakespeare or Jonson, then FUCK YEAH it bothers me if it’s rewritten to mimic colloquial speech of today. I don’t object to occasional cuts in Shakespearean dialogue or occasional tweaks of particularly opaque idioms, which pretty much all Shakespeare directors engage in, AFAICT. But I’m not interested in some screenwriter’s version of how Shakespearean dialogue might be translated wholesale into colloquial English of today.
For original screenplays by modern authors set in Elizabethan England, I’m back to the criteria described above. No, you don’t have to make your characters speak in imitation Shakespearean or Jonsonian rhetorical flourishes, but they should at least sound as though they could more or less fit into a passage of the more prosaic and straightforward parts of Shakespearean dialogue.
If they don’t, it just sounds weird: it gives the impression that the screenwriter simply doesn’t know how to write dialogue in any English style other than their own modern idiom. Good historical-film dialogue should be both comprehensible to modern audiences and not jarringly anachronistic.
And that goes triple for films set in the 18th or 19th century, where most contemporary usage is far less archaic and unfamiliar than Elizabethan English.
Wow thanks ShadowFacts, looks intriguing!
May I be so bold as to suggest:
Not recommended for passive viewing.
Whoooaaaa, youz guyz are a fount of interesting unexpected recommendations today! So much stuff I never heard of, mind boggled.
They were using the slang of 2000 years ago. If you have them use non-slang language (i.e., clearly more formal language) in a situation where nobody would use non-slang terms, it’s not realistic. People have always used slang.
They used the slang of their period in the same sort of situations as which we use slang of our time. A movie in which everyone spoke too formally isn’t realistic. Slang has always existed. Also, what’s the difference between 400 years ago and 800 years ago? You can reasonably well understand Shakespeare, although modern productions of his plays use modern pronunciations of the words of his plays (and those pronunciations are different) and tend to skip some of the vocabulary that’s hard to understand. On the other hand, it would be hard to get anyone to go see a movie made from Chaucer’s works in the original language. It’s too different, although you would be able to pick out occasional words and sentences that you can understand. Languages constantly change. Constantly. There’s no point between 400 and 800 years ago that the English language made a sudden jump from an older version to a newer version.
On the other hand, sometimes you can understand a film despite the fact that you (and pretty much everyone else who’s seen it) don’t know what anyone in it is saying. Have you seen the movie The Tribe:
It’s entirely in Ukrainian Sign Language. Being able to understand any other sign language (like American Sign Language) doesn’t help you understand what they’re signing any better. There’s no dialogue or subtitles explaining what they are saying. You just watch what they are doing and understand what they are doing and are able to follow the plot of the film.
Revengers Tragedy’s soundtrack is actually by… Chumbawamba (they liked a bit of folk music, and english civil war folksongs, they’d done another one in 1988).
I re-watched Jeremiah Johnson (1972) last night. Great movie. Interestingly, I hadn’t noticed before (but according to IMDB trivia) the entire movie is constructed as a journey up and down a mountain. The characters he meets on the way up - which peaks at the scene at the Indian burial ground - he meets again in reverse order … on his way back down the mountain. One of my favorite Redford films.
Unless the characters are being visited from the future by Bill & Ted, having characters using modern period or subculture-specific slang and colloquial expressions (like “bruh”, “word to your Mom”, and “party on dudes!”) sounds very jarring and anachronistic.
I suppose that’s why “British” is sort of the default accent to indicate “people of yore didn’t talk like we do”. But it get’s confusing when you have films like Gladiator where the main character is called “The Spaniard” before “Spain” was a thing and speaks with an Australian accent. But I suppose if they had the Romans all speak with Italian accents it would feel like a Mafia movie.
Similarly in the film Valkyrie where all ze Germans are played by British actors speaking in British accents. I suppose if they all spoke in German accents the protagonists would be less sympathetic and we’d just be like “whose gives a fuck about these Nazis”.