So I watched Apocolypto last night

[Mags 112]

I find that Hollywood changes history AND makes out the British to be the "baddies" all too often.

U-571 being a prime example of Hollywood doing what it does best. Rather irritating if you're British. Even more irritating if you were one of the British men who captured the Enigma machine (which won the damn war in the end) and you suddenly find that the Americans appear to have done it instead...

I hate Hollywood sometimes.

Edited December 20, 2006 by mags

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I find that Hollywood changes history AND makes out the British to be the "baddies" all too often.

U-571 being a prime example of Hollywood doing what it does best. Rather irritating if you're British. Even more irritating if you were one of the British men who captured the Enigma machine (which won the damn war in the end) and you suddenly find that the Americans appear to have done it instead...

I hate Hollywood sometimes.

U-571 was a bad movie anyway - it is sad though that some studio exec thought that throwing out the specifics of the original story would have turned off the American audience. Yes - taking credit for something like the capture of the first Enigma Machine is really criminal.

Incidentally the destroyer that the submarine crew ends up facing off with in that movie isn't even a WW2 era ship. Try... 1970's...

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I guess it all comes down to your perspective. I loved The Patriot. I really don't know about the specific atrocities shown there but we are taught that things like that did happen. But as far as an action/war movie goes it was very good.

If I remember rightly it is where the villagers are shut up in the church by the British soldiers and then burned to death. Also I didn't like that the villain had no redeeming qualities of any kind. I like my villains a little more ambiguous than that.

[mRx 16]

mel gibson was great in braveheart, the patriot and We were soldiers. I lost interest at Passion of the Christ. To me it just seems wrong to try to make money off of religion. ( Yes, he made mad money off of that movie)

Whats next Jesus Christ action figures?

Who is low enough to profit off of religion? I answer with......

Mel Gibson!

[Fischkoepfin 1]

I just watched the movie last night, and I liked it despite its historical inaccuracies. The Mayan Empire was already in decline when the Spaniards arrived on the Mainland, and the Spaniards did not face an empire but an assortment of small city states. So the movie while claiming to portray the beginning of the decline actually picks up 500 years later.

The arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in Yucatan was somewhat pointless. On the one hand, the landing of the Spanish explorers seemed to serve as the event that saved Jaguar Paw, which is of course a glorification of the real impact of the Spaniards in the area (compared to which the Mayans and their ritual killings look harmless). On the other hand, it did not fit with the prophecy in the movie.

/the spoiler feature rocks/

Anyway, the movie was beautifully shot, and I liked it better than the other Mel Gibson movies I've seen. The plot was a little flat in that it set up all these characters in the beginning but then only dealt with one of them in detail. It was cool that the whole movie was in the Mayan language. So, if you haven't seen it yet, go watch it.

[almaty 19]

mel gibson was great in braveheart, the patriot and We were soldiers. I lost interest at Passion of the Christ. To me it just seems wrong to try to make money off of religion. ( Yes, he made mad money off of that movie)

Whats next Jesus Christ action figures?

Who is low enough to profit off of religion? I answer with......

Mel Gibson!

good post and i agree.... i hope to see the movie over the week-end....i always liked most mel gibson movies....starting with the road warrior....

[Ban Hammer 14,647]

mel gibson was great in braveheart, the patriot and We were soldiers. I lost interest at Passion of the Christ. To me it just seems wrong to try to make money off of religion. ( Yes, he made mad money off of that movie)

Whats next Jesus Christ action figures?

Who is low enough to profit off of religion? I answer with......

Mel Gibson!

good post and i agree.... i hope to see the movie over the week-end....i always liked most mel gibson movies....starting with the road warrior....

those were good. like to see a few more in that series. same for conan the barbarian (maybe when arnie stops being the guv)

[almaty 19]

mel gibson was great in braveheart, the patriot and We were soldiers. I lost interest at Passion of the Christ. To me it just seems wrong to try to make money off of religion. ( Yes, he made mad money off of that movie)

Whats next Jesus Christ action figures?

Who is low enough to profit off of religion? I answer with......

Mel Gibson!

good post and i agree.... i hope to see the movie over the week-end....i always liked most mel gibson movies....starting with the road warrior....

those were good. like to see a few more in that series. same for conan the barbarian (maybe when arnie stops being the guv)

i agree on that..i use to like the comics and always wished there was more in the series than 2 movies..arnold was great as Conan

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

mel gibson was great in braveheart, the patriot and We were soldiers. I lost interest at Passion of the Christ. To me it just seems wrong to try to make money off of religion. ( Yes, he made mad money off of that movie)

Whats next Jesus Christ action figures?

Who is low enough to profit off of religion? I answer with......

Mel Gibson!

good post and i agree.... i hope to see the movie over the week-end....i always liked most mel gibson movies....starting with the road warrior....

those were good. like to see a few more in that series. same for conan the barbarian (maybe when arnie stops being the guv)

Mad Max is a nono for Mel Gibson, he's pretty much retired from acting these days. There was talk of a sequel for a while...

Conan is being done in some form, a anime cartoon I think, with Ron Perlman voicing the character. The Arnie movie (the first one) was ok, but an extremely pale imitation of Robert E Howard's work.

[Artegal 1]

I didn't see the end where the conquistadors are arriving as a representation of Christians saving the day--I saw it as a case of there is always a bigger fish concept--that the ruin of the quiet villagers by the mayapolis, then being ruined by the arrival of another larger stronger civilization--culture clash etc.

Other wise the movie was pretty good and the fact that it was totally in a language no one I know speaks didn't bother me--its pretty primitive--that is "tribal" or on the scale that really what was said didn't matter--but you do have subtitles if you need to know what they are saying.

Also here is something interesting: Mayan Calendar Conversion Tools