Movie industry bombarding us with historic epics

[Al B. Sure!]

Boris:

why not Schwarzenegger? or Stallone? or Segel? all back in the 70's and 80's? or were gay men all crazy about them back then too

as for spartans... no i'm pretty sure most spartans kept their male lovers well into adulthood and into death... i used to play age of empires and it got me all into that stuff and i remember reading about how spartans had life-long male lovers. if you want me to search on the internet for it, i can try

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Re Commodus:

He wasn't killed in the gladiator arena at all, he was strangled to death by an athlete named Narcissus in either his bed or his bath. It was one of many assassination plots against him orchestrated by the praetorian prefect Laetus.

Commodus had become such a megalomaniacal madman that everyone wanted him gone. He was far more interesting than the film depicted. If they had shown him as he was, he would have stolen the film.

Especially with Joaquin Phoenix playing him. He was fantastic in that scene where he killed his father, and if it weren't for the cowardice of the people who produced the movie and turned it into an extraordinarily simple revenge film, it might have acutally desreved the best picture Oscar.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

You should ask MtG if he thinks it was a good depiction of the war .

Did he win WW2 singlehandedly too?

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Sikander


Did he win WW2 singlehandedly too?

[The Vagabond]

Originally posted by Sikander
Especially with Joaquin Phoenix playing him. He was fantastic in that scene where he killed his father, and if it weren't for the cowardice of the people who produced the movie and turned it into an extraordinarily simple revenge film, it might have acutally desreved the best picture Oscar.

Very true.

Gladiator: gorgeous background, great acting, but an extremely dull storyline.

[Al B. Sure!]

what else did yall want from gladiator? could you make a real quick summary of an alternative plot because i personally can't think of anything but the revenge plot.

[The Vagabond]

A revenge plot is OK, but it should not be so dull and straightforward.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
what else did yall want from gladiator? could you make a real quick summary of an alternative plot because i personally can't think of anything but the revenge plot.

A revenge plot can be enough, but a film loses half of its power as soon as you can't relate to the villain. They made the villain so ridiculously evil that no one could relate to what his motivations were, or care. Ditto the hero. With such crimes perpetrated against him there are no surprises, no gray area, no nuance. He's going to kill the bad guy if it's the last thing he does.

A better film (like say Apocolypse Now) doesn't let us escape so mindlessly. We are shown the good parts of Colonel Kurtz before the end of the film, as well as the bad parts of Captain Willard. First they make us fear and loath Kurtz, and then they humanize him. By the end of the film he is on our side in wishing for and finally arranging his own demise.

Similarly, other films can have us start out liking the villain, only to have him change into something that we don't like at all. The same sort of thing can happen to the hero as well. In The Fisher King Jeff Bridges starts out as an enormous ass hole. His cynical callousness brings him very low. Against the entire momentum of his life he begins to slowly change into a better person. It's an interesting story, and ultimately more compelling and fulfilling than a revenge fantasy that can be summed up in one second.

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by Azazel
Oh, and I wonder how similar was phoenician to hebrew. It should've been pretty close.

You mean because of how YOUR PEOPLE drove them out of their homeland?

[Al B. Sure!]

nah Mad Monk... they're still there... just they have their villages demolished and their cities (like Beirut and Sidon) bombed and shelled...

[The Mad Monk]

Canaan, Phoenicia, Carthage...they certainly ticked somebody off.

[Timexwatch]

Originally posted by MrFun
There are some Jews I guess, who think you're anti-Semitic if you acknowledge the historical fact that there were some people who were advocating Jesus' execution, who were Jewish.

One can't deny the fact that the Jews, like the Christians and the Muslims, had a habit of stomping out "splinter" groups that didn't agree with the general interpretation of their religion. Denying that they didn't and thinking that they're to blame for what was going to happen anyway is silly.


As for historical Epics, I have yet to see anyone do a movie about the Roman Civil War after the death of Caesar. I'd love to see a biopic of Octavian. I was disappointed that the Caesar miniseries didn't even mention him.

[GePap]

Augustus gets so little attention for a man who created the Roman Empire.

Best depiction of him (and best depiction of Roman society, even if all the "facts" were not 100% sure [damn fossipy Roman writers]) was in I Claudius.

[Ned]

Timexwatch, the civil war was depicted in Cleopatra, with Richard Burton as Antony.

[Az]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
You mean because of how YOUR PEOPLE drove them out of their homeland?

Oh no. We actually always had great relations with the maritime canaanites! They were to the north, and we bought some great timber from them.


Historically, though, Findings show that there was no major difference in the language, art, and behavior in that area. Monotheism probably emerged from a cult of the deity of Jerusalem, and one of the main gods of the canaanite mythology, 'El' ( which is still the world for god in hebrew. AFAIK, Allah had the same place in the arab mythology. ).

When you're reading the first parts of the old testament, it's fascinating, really. You read about Abraham meeting the high-priest of El in Jerusalem, that congratulates him over his military victory. At this point, YAHWEH HAS ALREADY REVEALED HIMSELF TO ABRAHAM! amazing, simply amazing.