Seconded. If you don't already know your Napoleonic history, you'll find it impossible to follow, if you do, you'll find it impossible to endure, and in either instance you'll be bored to tears.
Very pithy! And almost certainly spot-on accurate. Thanks! You could have a side hustle in capsule movie reviews.
I'm plo[w|ough]ing my way through Adam Zamoyski's "Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna". It has lots of maps and pictures of the dramatis personae but it's still very confusing. And I know it's been simplified for a modern audience, and to keep the book to a reasonable length.
Thanks for the feedback. I really do appreciate it. Under the advice of half the people I've ever known in my life, I recently decided to give becoming a writer a genuine crack. Of course, once you start trying to make this a reality the voices start spinning reasons why you're no good and bound to fail, so this little bit of encouragement made my day.
As for books, I recently picked up a copy of The Wars Against Napoleon on the (very) cheap by luck, so I'm about to devour that. It's not a meaty volume by any stretch, but I've been meaning to read it for the better part of a decade now, so better late than never.
I read andrew roberts napoleon front and back three times and I still love the new movie. must be the odd one out.
then again I love gladiator and walked into that one knowing it's not gonna be a real representation of historical accuracy. i am always curious what other folks interpretation of Napoleon (and other rome emperors for that matter) and it's very interesting to see this is what Ridley thinks of him. Definitely a new perspective worth dinner table chat.
Watched it yesterday and hated it. I was looking forward to it too based on the trailers but it turned out to be a big hit ahistorical hit piece.
For example, no matter what you think of the guy, Napoleon was a bonafide military genius. In the movie, they made him seem like just one more of the bunch. Napoleon was famous for never being bothered by the gore of battle and the buzzing of billets, in the same vein as general Grant. In the movie they made him seem like a scaredy cat
In “Waterloo” you could see why French soldiers joined his cause in droves. Extreme charisma
I wanted to watch it but seeing the "ice lake trap" in the trailer I figured I should read some reviews before going. And yeah it seems brit propaganda about napoleon rather than actual facts, at least according to what I read.
Arguably, I know more about WW1 and 2 than the Napoleanic wars. I always had the impression so, tgat Napoleon came incredibly close to winning at Waterloo. Two things, mainly, sealed his defeat: one of his Generals failure to pin, defeat of aggressivle pursue Blüchers Prussian army and said armies arrival at the Battle of Waterloo. And arrival Napoleon didn't exepect due to his generals "failure" mentioned above.
I am not sure how history would have gone had Napoleon won there: France was again confined to its orld borders, Napoleons alliances across Europe were history and Spain a lot stronger. All in all, pretty much the situation he found himself in before the first coalition. Or maybe the Prussians would again have fallen in line, Great Britain exited the war. Highly unlickely so, if you ask me.
Is that the only thing to hate about it? That's it's ahistorical?
If someone was capable of separating the Napoleon they read about in books from the Napoleon on the screen and was interested in watching a movie with some good cavalry charges glued together by a story about some undeserving wuss finally getting his comeuppance, would you recommend it in that case?
No the movie really just was bad. I’m not even sure what the goal of the movie was. To make Napoleon look bad? To show his human side with his relationship with Josefine? Honestly afterwards I just have no idea. Really it was just a weird speed run through history. They just jumped from random event to random event over the course of like 25 years. Contrast this with the movie Lincoln which portrayed him during a relatively short period of his life. Ignoring everything else (there are many reasons why the Lincoln film is much better), the fact that the Napoleon film tries to cover so much really is an odd choice.
I personally would have walked out of the movie, but I was seeing it with a group of people and didn’t want to be too overly negative. (Afterwards I found out that most felt the same.)
It always puzzled me not just with Napoleon but a couple other recent European expansionist dictators, why they kept overextending their reach. Why did they not just stop at a reasonable point and reinforce the conquest, instead of losing it all.
Actually maybe Putin is one example where this may be in fact happening.
There are lots of reasons for this which the YouTuber Caspian Report covers well [0][1]. In short, it's to strengthen their warm water port access; Ukraine being relatively flat so making sure they control the lands up to the natural border of the Carpathian mountains lest NATO invades; et cetera.
But again what was the march on Russia for? Why not save those troops reinforcing the homeland instead of gallivanting who knows where in the middle of winter?
They're criminal minds of a certain type, and criminal minds often harbor a secret compulsion to be stopped or caught.
> Actually maybe Putin ...
Maybe this is why democracies have been somewhat long-lasting, because no one mind bears the full madness of crimes of the magnitude e.g. the U.S. or Britain commit fairly continuously.
Are democracies long lasting? The longest lasting French Republic lasted from 1870 to 1940, 70 years. The current one started in 1958 so it will be the longest lasting by 2028. In contrast, the pre-revolution Kingdom of France lasted from 987 to 1792.
We must have seen different movies, because this one didn't showcase any of his genius. Instead, they opted to show an unambitious little man (not talking about his height) whose fortunes are pushed forward by others rather than himself. Very odd indeed.