[protocolture]

It looks pretty shonky.

I dont care about the casting.

But the costumes look like ass (One of the extras was saying he had fit into the same armor for a low budget sword and sandal film), they are using a viking longboat as a greek ship (have already seen half a dozen experts spitting chips over the difference in boat design). I just cant bring myself to care about the film.

"Oh its a fantasy film" its set in a historical time period, I wouldnt watch a WW2 Zombie movie if the nazi zombies were wearing viking armor driving an Abrams tank either.

[cess11]

"I wouldnt watch a WW2 Zombie movie if the nazi zombies were wearing viking armor driving an Abrams tank either."

OK, so you didn't watch Kung Fury?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung_Fury

[jimnotgym]

Would you choose the weapons, armour and tactics as described in the Iliad? Even though it is thought they are inaccurate for the time period that they think the Iliad is set? Not so easy I would say.

And the extra you describe, where does he appear on screen? Front and centre, or in the fourth rank behind the people in better costumes?

And the longboat, does it appear on screen in its original form, or with additions to make it look more period accurate?

[bee_rider]

> Would you choose the weapons, armour and tactics as described in the Iliad? Even though it is thought they are inaccurate for the time period that they think the Iliad is set? Not so easy I would say.

Either “best attempt at historical accuracy” (although that would have been difficult given the sparse record), or “true to Homer’s anachronistic story” would have been reasonable ways to go. Sounds like they picked neither, though…

[protocolture]

>Would you choose the weapons, armour and tactics as described in the Iliad?

Thats fine but my ultimate preference would be fully period.

Theres an old painting of jesus getting stabbed by Longinus kicking around, and Longinus and the other romans are wearing modern (at the time of painting) Italian plate harness with sallet helms.

The reason we dont depict romans like this painting, or wearing modern army fatigues and carrying rifles, is that we know better.

>And the extra you describe, where does he appear on screen? Front and centre, or in the fourth rank behind the people in better costumes?

The gist here is that most of the costumes are rentals with a few exceptions. The extra himself is barely on screen, but he is one of apparently a large number of people in the same outfit. YMMV.

The costumes they have created for the film are no better in accuracy, the batmanesque helmet for Agamemnon has been thoroughly ridiculed online and I wont bother going over it again here.

>And the longboat, does it appear on screen in its original form, or with additions to make it look more period accurate?

They took the dragon head prow down at least. Not much more than that has been done.

[RobotToaster]

The costumes are completely wrong.

At least they bothered to CGI out the stirrups, but it's incredibly obvious from how he's sitting on the horse in the trailer.

[Ladioss]

I would do unfathomable things for a movie with period-accurate Bronze Age armor sets.

[protocolture]

Yeah same. I would book a full row to myself.

[protocolture]

I had forgotten about the stirrup controversy.

[fecal_henge]

Nothing like historical inaccuracy to stirrup some controversy.

[klausa]

> "Oh its a fantasy film" its set in a historical time period, I wouldnt watch a WW2 Zombie movie if the nazi zombies were wearing viking armor driving an Abrams tank either.

WW2 Zombie movie with Nazis in Viking armors and random tanks sounds so much more _fun_ than a "historically acurate Nazi Zombie" movie!

[zamadatix]

Different strokes for different folks. I think they are just used to the common trope of people immediately telling them because one aspect of a movie/film/play is unrealistic they shouldn't care if the entire thing is nonsense. Vice versa though, nobody should mind others enjoy or make such content, beyond these kinds of statements that it's not for them.

I also more often enjoy films which sit between "100% realistic/accurate" and "anything goes" than either extreme itself. 100% realistic/accurate and it tends to already be known unless it's relatively bland. 100% anything goes and it can still be good but there is a high risk it ends up feeling like every other "anything goes" movie of the same topic. In between you can often get the best of both worlds - something new, but still unique.

[protocolture]

>I also more often enjoy films which sit between "100% realistic/accurate" and "anything goes" than either extreme itself. 100% realistic/accurate and it tends to already be known unless it's relatively bland. 100% anything goes and it can still be good but there is a high risk it ends up feeling like every other "anything goes" movie of the same topic. In between you can often get the best of both worlds - something new, but still unique.

I think that Nolan sells himself (The online worship can hardly all be organic) as an authentic, technical director interested in accurate physical props.

When mostly what he does is potter about and destroy sound design.

I agree no one is going to be 100% accurate and accuracy isnt always desirable. But an attempt? When thats the guys reputation? Doesnt feel like too much to ask for.

[klausa]

>I think that Nolan sells himself (The online worship can hardly all be organic) as an authentic, technical director interested in accurate physical props.

I'm not a huge Nolan-discourse-insider, but that seems like a pretty bizarre reputation to have for someone who's famous for directing three Batman movies, Inception, Interstellar and Tenet?

Is this reputation just because of Oppenheimer?

I haven't seen Dunkirk (and I'm not a WWII buff so couldn't tell if they used right planes/boats/guns/uniforms/whatever even if I tried), but even a short blurb on Wikipedia talks about a "balance historical accuracy with aesthetics that would favour the film stock".

[protocolture]

>three Batman movies

The first batman movie was a paint by numbers reimplementation of The Shadow (1997). You can find comparisons online, nearly shot by shot and most of the same plot beats. The second and third went sort of back towards a very mechanical batman representation that reminded me of the planned low budget Iron Man movie where he wouldn't have had the ability to fly. Just stomping around punching badguys like a Power Rangers extra. The new Bat Mobile seems to inspire some of this reputation

>Inception

Inceptions pretty flat for a film about dreams.

>Interstellar

Neuro-Diverse level of detail until the bits with space magic at the end.

>Tenet

I couldnt sit through 10 minutes of it. Its like the antifilm. It didnt want me to observe it otherwise it wouldnt have emitted such a piercing screeching noise.

>Dunkirk

He has an old period watch, and he recorded the ticking. He overlays the ticking constantly. Also he tells the story out of sequence for some reason. But theres lots of practical effects if you include the stupid watch.

>Oppenheimer

Between tenet hating me on a physical level, and the perfectly servicable fat man and little boy film from the 70s I just havent seen it to comment.

[SvenL]

Well, interstellar has also some nerd stuff in it. If I remember correctly Kip Thorne did physics consulting on the movie and they even use a simulation running on a cluster to visualize the black hole physically correct.

They could have used some arbitrary CGI…but no, they wanted it accurate according to science.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1502.03808

[klausa]

Maybe we run in different circles, but I feel like “appreciates scientific accuracy” and “appreciates historical accuracy” are pretty disjoint sets?

Not entirely without overlap, but pretty distinct.

[aragilar]

And yet the rest of the movie runs on movie logic, enough so that every physicist I know rolls their eyes at it. It gives me the vibe of the "IFLS" crowd, not anyone who actually understands science.

[prawn]

Your sound design comment reminds me of seeing Inception in the cinema sitting next to a friend who works in sound (Frozen, John Wick films, etc). Early in the film, I offered him some of my popcorn, and he politely declined. I spent a good portion of the film partially distracted by the idea that maybe he didn't want to be crunching away on popcorn because he was keenly focused on thinking about the sound experience, and the cinema speakers and the like. I ate my popcorn even more quietly than usual.

After the film, I asked if he'd turned down the popcorn for professional reasons. He said, "No, I just didn't feel like popcorn."

[vidarh]

The example was really to me because one of the better Nazi zombie movies is Norwegian (Dead Snow) and given the Nazi obsession with old Germanic and Norse myths, it wouldn't seem wrong at all to come across Nazi Vikings in a movie like that.

[kakacik]

This is fairly typical level of detail for Hollywood, most of stuff they do around Europe is insulting as hell if one cares about the topic, historical stuff being the most visible source of offense.

Dumbed down far more than required for short movie transition of any topic. But I guess they know their US audience, their level of knowledge and care for authenticity better than me.

[joshuahedlund]

For someone who purports not to care about the film, you seem very familiar with the discourse about it. (I have seen zero experts, or anyone really, discussing boat design.)

[protocolture]

I said I dont care about the casting. Not the other discourse.

[zulux]

Stop noticing, eh?

[ourmandave]

Would you watch a 1965 WW2 "historical" movie if the Nazis were driving M47 Patton tanks?

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/the-battle-of-...

[protocolture]

I get pretty cranky at WW2 films that dress up modern tanks as WW2 ones. Particularly the tiger in Kellys Heroes that is definitely not a Tiger.

Also A Bridge too Far had this issue too.