Posts by Richard Howard2

If anyone happens to recall Cyborg, starring Van Damme, you'll probably notice that Universal Soldier was filmed almost identically, especially that final showdown. I don't remember the film particularly well, so I can't say for certain exactly how much was ripped off, but that similarity really stuck with me.

Perhaps you should just rename the poll to "Which is Emmerich's least terrible film?"...

Bradley Ramos2 said:I'm not sure if anyone else has picked up on this incredibly awkward detail that casts a shadow over the entire festival: the fact that someone like Karl-Heinz Dellwo—a former member of the terrorist organization RAF—is actually appearing here. Honestly, that speaks volumes.

I honestly can't wrap my head around how the organizers managed to overlook such a glaring oversight. But then again, in a city where the Crisis Management Committee is chaired by a total terrorist apologist like Pavle Kalinić, I suppose absolutely nothing is impossible.

Why call it an oversight? Even if the content itself was incredibly weak, I’d argue his presence was vital to cultivating that provocative atmosphere they were clearly trying to weave into the ironic branding of the "Sundance Film Festival."

On the other hand, I found myself genuinely impressed by Neil Leach. He actually managed to outshine Slavoj Žižek with just a handful of words, which he offered up quite bashfully between pauses. Of course, he only truly outdid him for those in the audience who actually understood the context of what was being discussed.

wearytinker8 said:Okay, let's try a hypothetical here;

Say you become a famous politician and, for example, Dada Matanić decides to make a biopic about your life.
But because they're terrified the audience will fall asleep halfway through, they decide to throw in something "exciting" just to keep people engaged—like, say, a recurring scene where you're having affairs with sheep.
So, everything else in the movie is historically accurate, except for that one awkward detail.

Would you still "experience the film in a way appropriate to a work of art" back then? Or would you still be stuck obsessing over that "tiny hole in its narrative machinery" that is, honestly, totally irrelevant...

Don't take this as me calling you dim-witted, but it is a rather foolish question.

Is it really just about me being misrepresented by a false claim? Was that even the motive for filming? Is my personal satisfaction crucial to the viewing experience? And is this film being made about me while I'm alive, or decades after I'm gone?

What kind of factor am I, really? Isn't the audience always the deciding factor?

Though, you did give me a decent prompt: let's discuss actual historical biopics centered on individuals (not events, mind you, but people!): JFK, Nixon, The Doors, Harry Flint vs. people, Walk the Line, and so on.

nimblemarlin6 said:I look at "Odyssey" as some kind of... super-film. (Not sure if that’s actually a term, but you get what I mean) It’s one of those things where I honestly don't know how anyone could ever make anything better than "Odyssey" using the medium of film.
"Odyssey" is just fundamentally superior to any sci-fi shot after it—it's just a shame that instead of showing us a possible future, it feels like it's depicting a parallel universe that we were unfortunate enough to miss out on.

As for historical movies: I think they’re really just various genres where history serves as nothing more than a backdrop.

We have the romances or the action flicks where history is just a stage for adventures, vendettas, and all sorts of schemes. Think "Cleopatra," "Gladiator," "King Arthur," or "Shakespeare."
In those cases, I can tolerate inaccuracies—like all the stuff people point out regarding "Gladiator."
(Just like how you tolerate impossible physics in an action movie.)

Then you have the dramas set in the past. When they make those, they actually try to get everything right. Those are the "real" historical films. I’d put "Master and Commander" or, I don't know... "Spartacus" in that category. With those, historical inaccuracies are EXTREMELY annoying.
(Similar to how car chases or reloading errors would bother you in a standard modern drama.)

Finally, we have the historical fantasies—where all you need is a bit of magic for them to be full-blown fantasy—like "300," "Pathfinder," or "10,000 BC" and things like that. In those, historical errors can slide by easily. As long as it doesn't get totally ridiculous—you know, like Roman legionnaires showing up with muskets.

👍
I couldn't agree more.

goldeneagle2 said:I find the whole argument that morality doesn't exist in our daily lives to be pretty questionable, honestly. I mean, at its core, being human is about empathy—that basic connection to others—which naturally leads to the idea that we shouldn't go around causing unnecessary suffering. It’s pretty straightforward stuff; you’d get the same sentiment from Immanuel Kant as you would from Jesus—basically, don't do to others what you wouldn't want done to yourself. You don't really need a PhD to see that this is the foundation of goodwill. It’s a cardinal human value that drives progress and personal growth, or whatever. So, to me, morality isn't some abstract philosophical concept meant for high-society debates and salon arguments—it's just an everyday truth we live by.

This actually ties back to art, because that progressive way of behaving—you know, being rooted in truth and actual good intentions—eventually shows up in the filmmaking itself. If someone’s goal was clearly just to rake in a quick paycheck, then honestly, I don't even have anything left to say regarding the "artistic merit" of the project. It isn't just about whether the director nailed the technical minutiae—like, did the Romans hold their color formations correctly, did they have saddles, or were they sitting around eating ketchup and fries? No. It goes deeper than that. It bleeds into how shallow the emotional beats are, the character development, the pacing, the dialogue, all of it. One shallow deception leads to another, and you end up with a total pile of garbage that anyone with a shred of taste or intellect can barely stomach once, let alone ever watch again. Is that really the hallmark of a work of art, or is it just a failure? What exactly draws us back to a film like that? What feelings does it stir up in us? Nothing—maybe just a sense of disgust and a smirk.

The human mind—mostly because it’s wired to crave truth and basic morality—can sniff out a scam like this from a mile away. It doesn't just see through the deception; it genuinely despises it. If you look at the whole trajectory of human culture, it’s basically just one long, messy search for truth and justice—the everyday kind, sure, but also that deeper stuff that exists far beyond what we can actually wrap our heads around or put into words. Art is much the same way as mysticism—it's a path toward that state where the mind finally stops its endless, noisy chatter. To borrow a thought from Aristotle, art should be about catharsis—a real cleansing. It should strip away the mundane, the petty, and the profane, leaving a person in a state of genuine awe and bliss. Or at least, it should try to.

I still can't wrap my head around how someone who supposedly engages more seriously with these questions—despite all the modern ideas, from Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud to the critical theory and psychoanalysis of the postmodernists—hasn't moved an inch away from a classic, Christian worldview. It's a view that treats the world with such simplistic black-and-white logic that reading such blatantly contradictory statements is, frankly, unbearable.

I’m not saying morality doesn't exist, but it certainly isn't practiced with any transparency. The world operates on a double strategy, layered with illusions and hidden desires, where the key lies in the subconscious of the public or the masses. While they identify with the reproduction of moral principles, they are simultaneously sabotaging them in their own subconscious.

There truly are no indicators to support what you are claiming. The system is amoral, and it achieves this precisely by explicitly declaring its morality. That is exactly what shields it from actual moral retribution. There is no genuine contempt, aside from the performative kind (where even the actors don't realize they are acting); there is no true practice of morality. Action is always dualistic—on the first level, we loudly proclaim our value system, and on the second level, we reject it.

It is immorality that society supports, protected by the illusion within us all that we are incredibly moral, that we care about things, that we care about others, that we care about truth and justice. Yet, all we see is the sabotage of every one of those principles. If the situation were as you describe, the world would look much different. George W. Bush wouldn't have had two terms, and movies driven by bad morals (distorting prejudices just to turn a profit) couldn't exist, considering Hollywood does exactly what the audience demands, thereby creating the very desire itself.

Things are not simple at all, and I suggest we avoid this debate here; let's not "pollute" the space with philosophy again.

This societal obsession with exposing and detecting everything—trying to uncover some "ultimate truth," trying to correct every injustice or inaccuracy regardless of the purpose, diving into the technical minutiae of every media project (like a film)—is a symptomatic effect that sabotages morality itself.

Instead of experiencing Gladiator in a way appropriate for a work of art—viewing it as a conceptualization of man and society through historical preconception—we sabotage that exact experience. We avoid it, forcing ourselves to view it merely as technical apparatus, searching for tiny flaws in its narrative machinery that are, in themselves, entirely irrelevant.

Where does the immorality lie then? Is it in the fact that the film isn't technically flawless, or is it in the fact that we now demand technicality from a film rather than substance?

vividorca5 said:It’s easy to trash-talk American culture if all you care about is some "average couple's little getaway after work." What, do you guys just hop on a jet and head straight to Radio City Music Hall the second you clock out? I mean, sure, some people probably do, but let’s not get carried away here...
American politics has definitely played its part in making the world a whole lot stupider in a bunch of different ways—no argument there—but we can't just ignore the massive perks of American show business, whether it's movies or music. We spend all our time whining about the quality or the "intentions" behind Hollywood flicks, but does anyone ever stop to ask why some indie director or producer from overseas can't seem to pull off something like Schindler's List? Oh, wait, I bet someone will jump in to tell me exactly why... and yeah, there are plenty of excuses. Part of being high-quality is actually grabbing the public's attention, especially when you're looking at the marketing side of things. Take the ending of Schindler's List, for example—historically, it's not quite right (the goodbye scene)—and the artsy types absolutely lose their minds over how "sentimental" it is. Give me a break, look at the big picture! Besides, who was it that opened the doors to Rome in the first place?

Good post. That is precisely the false morality we practice. It’s an attempt to prove to ourselves that we recognize everything is a conspiracy, that we aren't stupid, and that we don't belong to the group of inert masses. That is when we start nitpicking and engaging in all sorts of other perversions.

Joseph Lee3 said:Great post, wearytinker8! You laid out those arguments perfectly. 👍

Jerry Martin19, I don't see how Odyssey fits in here either; it completely misses the point of why someone would bother putting together such an overambitious list. To me, you can split these types of movies into three distinct buckets. The first is just harmless fiction—a made-up story regardless of the genre. The second involves taking actual historical figures or events and twisting them out of shape. Then there’s the third—and by far the worst kind (think Fazli's Vrdoljak or a whole bunch of cheap American productions)—where the entire purpose is blatant political propaganda.

I don't see Odyssey fitting into any of those categories. In my eyes, Odyssey is pure cinema: a tapestry of images, music, and scattered ideas. It feels totally out of place among the titles mentioned. That’s exactly why I doubt the utility of lists like this, other than giving us something to pick apart and criticize! 👍

Oh yeah, I actually caught a segment on Channel A coming from the kitchen yesterday about this exact list! Honestly, I was stunned at how much weight people are trying to give this thing. My god, a whole feature dedicated to these specific titles, but unfortunately, without a single shred of critical insight.

You’re looking at Odyssey through too narrow a lens. That film is primarily a modernist contemplation of utopia, a pure reflection of the zeitgeist in which it was conceived. The 1960s perspective is terrifyingly well-articulated here—ranging from the inevitable progress we would have seen had the Cold War (and the space race) continued in that specific manner, to the dangerous potential of AI (or more broadly, the risk of machines assuming responsibility for humanity), all the way to a symbolically crafted re-examination of mankind, our nature, and our place in space.

At its core, Odyssey cannot be any more authentic than it already is.

It’s no different for 300, which also captures the spirit of our era perfectly.
The same applies to all the other historically inaccurate films mentioned. They are all precisely, historically accurate. Don't let minor details or trivial formalities mislead you. Besides, these aren't mistakes; the authors didn't design these developments by accident.

I find this constant urge within the public to perpetually prove—to themselves, mostly—that they are practicing some semblance of morality quite fascinating. It manifests in all sorts of ways, including this obsessive tendency to critique utterly trivialities, such as whether a feature film maintains historical accuracy.

It is quite obvious that this compulsion stems from the simple fact that true morality doesn't actually exist.

We scramble in every conceivable direction to convince ourselves that we aren't being fooled, desperately trying to ensure that media-driven narratives can't impose any sort of "false" truth upon us. We obsess over statistics, archives, historical data, a hollow version of "objectivity," rationalism, and skepticism.

This particular list of grievances is merely another symptom of the same disease, much like those endless debates over which sci-fi flick is the most scientifically accurate versus which one isn't.

And now, we see the exact same mindless pattern in these discussions. Enter the "prophets"—our supposed saviors—who arrive to reveal truths that are already painfully obvious to everyone: that movies are historically inaccurate. They lecture us on morality, adopting this critical stance to dictate how things ought to be instead of how they actually are.

In doing so, they create various flavors of absurdity. Some are banal, arguing that a movie should essentially be a documentary just to be considered legitimate as a film—be it a work of art or a consumer product. Others are more complex, suggesting that a film has a duty not to offend anyone through its inaccuracies, an idea that contradicts the very nature of almost every piece of art that has ever reshaped history.

This whole exorcism of political correctness, which serves as a convenient alibi for the world's obsessive behavior toward everything produced, is nothing more than a placebo for those of us who passively and inertly swallow whatever the media serves up on a silver platter.
Ultimately, the media itself has imposed this senseless need for validation—the very thing we take such immense pride in.

I suppose it’s perfectly acceptable to tweak history if it serves the cinematic vision. After all, a feature film isn't exactly trying to be a documentary.

Kate Torres said:@goldeneagle2, Joseph Lee3, thanks for the deep dives into Roman customs 😁

I'll add my thanks to theirs. Honestly, now we finally have a blueprint on how to avoid those same historical blunders in future films, which might actually result in an incredible cinematic experience.

Jerry Martin19 said:Taking a first look at this list gave me what felt like a permanent migraine, but reading Joseph Lee3 and goldeneagle2 actually helped me wrap my head around how things should be categorized. Still, nothing is getting me any closer to tackling this massive list obsession, not even Joseph Lee3 and goldeneagle2 at their absolute best...

btw, since we're talking historical facts about ancient Rome, I read somewhere that the "thumbs down" didn't actually mean death, but something else (can't recall exactly) and that it's one of those huge global myths that's been fooling modern civilization...

I can already see the quality here. It can't be bad if Milius is involved...

@Richard Howard2, even though we were going at it hard on a different thread about a week ago, I have to totally agree with you. Saying that Odyssey lacks historical accuracy is basically saying someone is sub-average. The fact that anyone put Odyssey or even 300 in this category is horrifying. The level of pure stupidity here is so extreme it swings between being pathetic and hilarious every few seconds...

Thanks.

Someone suggested this was meant as a joke. Honestly, I find it hard to believe anyone could make a joke like that without simultaneously mocking every other film on the list. The impulse to judge these movies based on historical accuracy is either pure idiocy or a complete lack of creative inspiration. I suspect it's the latter. Nowadays, we are constantly bombarded by endless, unnecessary "Top 10" lists that exist solely for the sake of existing. When a list appears that is this forced, contradictory, inconsistent, and utterly senseless, it only serves to highlight that fundamental stupidity.

wearytinker8 said:The list is pretty incredible.
It’s interesting how much Gibson was involved in three of those films—acting in one, directing one, and then pulling double duty as both director and actor in another.
They also conveniently left out the fact that the real William Wallace was basically a thief, a rapist, and a killer of innocent people.

Richard Howard2, if you didn't realize the inclusion of "2001" is a joke, then you're the idiot here, not the people who put the list together.
velvetgardener5, when a movie is titled "10,000 BC," I'd think the creators would feel some level of responsibility toward historical accuracy...
If they had just called it "The Wonderful World of Roland Emmerich," it would be a completely different story.

Then I suppose I am the one lacking sense, since I fail to see the joke.

I honestly can’t wrap my head around which moron put this list together or where on earth they got the idea that these belong in the same category.

Some are just physically impossible, others completely miss the mark on the core concepts entirely. Then you have those that merely use historical settings as a loose backdrop for something new—where history isn't even the point. As for Odyssey, I am genuinely at a loss for words regarding such pure idiocy. Even Star Trek is more accurate by comparison, given it doesn't rely on the absurd theory that we'll stumble upon Klingons in just 300 years.

swiftcobra15 said:I think those of us who used to sail under completely different stars experience movies quite differently than everyone else.

I think those of us who used to sail under completely different circumstances perceive movies quite differently than everyone else.

I’ll leave the obvious realities of the film industry and its marketing machine to speak for themselves regarding how much the masses actually decide for themselves when it comes to buying tickets, and how nobody can truly dictate whether something becomes a hit or a flop.

Christian Sanchez4 said:That’s a fair point. It's interesting how that works. Honestly, I've sat through plenty of absolute garbage that was way worse than Waterworld, yet those films still managed to pop up on the most-watched lists for a while.
As for Waterworld, I found it incredibly tedious. It felt slow, repetitive, and just plain slimy...🤷 I'd describe it as gloomy and boring, if I'm being honest.

Take Armageddon, for example. It is the very definition of stupidity, yet it made an insane amount of money.

swiftcobra15 said:👍

Personally, I think all three are great. 🙂 But maybe the answer to why certain films succeed is simpler:

I expected a bit more intellectual depth from you, frankly. There is a fundamental difference between a crowd and a collection of individuals. You could gather a thousand scientists and philosophers in a single room, and they would still behave like nothing more than a disorganized mob of idiots.

redowl90 said:And what about the Sixth Sense?

You can't compare Star Wars to anything else. It's in a galaxy of its own.

You make a fair point; Sixth Sense was a massive hit because of its actual substance, but honestly, I view it more as a fluke than a standard. It managed to pull those numbers mainly because it hit theaters during an era when that kind of success was still somewhat plausible.

redowl90 said:You can't compare Star Wars to anything else. It's a completely different galaxy.

That’s precisely my point. Star Wars is built on the back of an intense cult following, and once you have that foundation, huge box-office numbers are basically a mathematical certainty.

redowl90 said:Look, the first Matrix movie didn't come from anything other than the heads of the Wachowski siblings, yet it still became what it did (and I'm strictly talking about that 1999 original).

I had intended to bring up The Matrix as an outlier, specifically because it stands as one of the last truly cult films—the final representative of global phenomenon driven primarily by substance.

That said, we shouldn't ignore how perfectly it slotted into the geek subculture right at the height of the internet revolution. The timing wasn't entirely coincidental.

Furthermore, one must consider that its earnings were significantly lower compared to other massive blockbusters; it pulled in nearly three times less than Star Wars Episode I released that same year, making it quite obvious which film held the larger cultural footprint.

That is actually a rather astute question, and I have developed my own personal thesis regarding this matter.

I am referring specifically to high-budget blockbusters from the last fifteen years. In order to succeed at the American box office, these films simply cannot afford to be original in their core concepts.

If they fail to anchor themselves to some "external" universe—something that is currently trending or has long been etched into the public consciousness—they face the threat of total audience apathy.

Take the latter half of the 1990s; that era was definitively defined by disaster movies. Disaster was an incredibly potent trend back then, fueled by that general sense of impending doom at the turn of the millennium.

Then we move into the beginning of the 21st century, where concepts were almost exclusively harvested from established pop culture—ranging from the new Star Wars and Spider-Man, to Lord of the Rings, X-Men, Sin City, Batman, 300, and eventually Transformers, Cloverfield, Indiana Jones, Iron Man, and so on.

Every single one of them relies on an existing momentum; they are incapable of generating their own acceleration independently. (Of course, it goes without saying that they require such a foundation to maintain enough velocity to reach massive profits!)

Waterworld was conceptually unrecognizable. Any attempt to draw a parallel to Mad Max is incredibly forced and, frankly, a weak argument; that film was actually marketed as something quite distinct, a fairly unique idea in its own right.

The Postman serves as an even more extreme example of this phenomenon.

They lacked their own intrinsic "boost"—that specific catalyst required to drive revenue. If you look closely, you will notice that all these films (with a few exceptions, such as Titanic) derive almost all of their earnings from that initial surge during the first two weeks of release, after which the curve begins to plummet sharply. Without that built-in motivation, they would lose at least 70% of their commercial potential.

Just look at Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. At the time, it became the second highest-grossing film of all time worldwide. It is difficult to argue that the actual content of the film dictated that success—most people were deeply disappointed, quite frankly—rather, it succeeded because it rode the wave of the existing Star Wars brand and the massive fanbase that flooded the theaters.

Had Waterworld emerged from something deeply entrenched in pop culture, perhaps as a new adaptation of a powerhouse property (much like how Lord of the Rings was drawn from literature), it would have earned at least twice as much.