The trouble with any fictional movies involving history is there can be no suspense when it comes to the big picture.
The Titanic is going to sink.
The plot against Hitler will fail.
The plot against Churchill will fail.
The modern aircraft carrier that time-travels back to Hawaii the beginning of December in 1941 will be sent back before it can stop the Japanese.
Has any movie dared to to defy written history by re-writing it? Special bonus points if it comes as a complete shock to the movie viewer.
There was a TV-movie, that was based on a novel of the same name, called Fatherland, which was set in a post WWII Germany where Germany won the war.
I read the book, but didn’t see the movie, and this was maybe 15 or 20 years ago, so I can’t remember much of the plot. It’s basically a detective / murder-mystery story with the protagonist being an officer in the German army. He’s basically presented as a good guy all around who by the end of the novel/movie discovers that the holocaust – which was officially covered up somehow by the government – really did happen.
Anyway … like I said, can’t remember many details, but it’s set smack dab in the middle of alternate history.
Fatherland was a very good mini-series, but I’m look for the history-burp to happen during the movie, so as to cause a general “WTF!!” reaction in the audience.
The Titanic is struck by an iceberg, but the iceberg was deliberately placed in the ship’s way by a group of thuggish sharks with arms who convinced a giant octopus with a dog’s face to throw it in the ship’s path. There were enough lifeboats on the ship for everyone, but some people inexplicably remained on board, and the giant octopus atoned for his mistake by holding the ship together long enough for everyone to leave the ship via Jesus-whales. The dog octopus sank with the ship, but not before heroically saving the captain who tried to go down with his ship. Even though the dogtopus was killed when the ship crushed him against the sea floor, he inexplicably reappeared completely hale and hearty to join in the celebrations back at port where every single person on board the Titanic had survived.
I wish to every god that might ever have existed that I was making this up.
I had totally blocked the fact that I’ve seen this movie, it was so ghodawful! It was as if my mind walled up that memory out of mercy just so…
just so…
just so…
I find it amazing that no one can find any examples of what I’m look for, but hope springs eternal.
There’s Zipang. It’s an animated TV series, following a Japanese version of The Final Countdown. Only, instead of a US vessel being sent to just before Pearl Harbor, a modern Japanese Aegis destroyer is sent to just before the battle of Midway. There is no cheap “get out of jail free” ending - the sailors sent back are irrevocably there, and their actions begin to affect the larger world almost immediately.
Inglorious Basterds is the only film I can think of that is presented as a historical drama (as opposed to a fantasy involving time travel) that blatantly defies universally accepted History (as opposed to History that has traditionally been tainted by conspiracy and/or legend).
Movies twist historical facts to improve the story or jibe with factally questionable legend all the time, but I think Tarentino is the only film maker who has intentionally done so to give the audience a totally unexpected dénouement.
I am going to be pedantic about it and say that pretty much every movie dealing with historical events rewrites history for sake of a) the director’s intentions, b) accessibility, c) the intended market, d) fill in one of the other x reasons.
Movies in historical settings lie, whether they are called Gladiator or The Patriot or Mutiny on the Bounty. And they rewrite history in the sense that a good portion of the audience does not know what happened or rather what historical research knows so far about the real events. And so, the fictional events will at least to some degree shape the image the audience has of the era and the culture portrayed in the movie. When it comes to history, movies have created alternative realities from the start.
And it starts to get sad when outright distortions of history told in other works of art or historical sources are retold in a movie to reiterate and rejuvenate the old lies in the public awareness.
I think, quite a lot of historical events would turn out to be shocking if they were ever told historically correct. Even insignificant details might prove to be baffling, like brightly-painted statues and temples in ancient Greece and Rome, instead of the white marble that almost everyone expects to see.
I don’t think I would put it on the list because it completely invents several events that ignore history entirely instead of just screwing with a specific point in history.
In books, Jasper fforde’s The Eyre Affairs changes the ending to Jane Eyre – to what it is now.
In “City of Death” from Doctor Who, the Mona Lisa is destroyed. Luckily, there was an extra version (with the words “This is a fake” written in felt tip pen underneath the painting) that now hangs in its place.
Leaving out comic books, science fiction and fantasy of the sorts mentioned above, are there examples? I say this to fend off the inevitable Sanctuary cite involving an immortal Tesla, or Warehouse 13’s female H.G. Wells.
