The Most Historically Inaccurate Movies
We all accept that movies stretch the truth in the interest of building drama. The following ten flicks, however, treat the truth like it was Silly Putty — pulling and twisting it until it’s unrecognizable.
10,000 B.C.
Director Roland Emmerich is usually a stickler for realism (see: sending a computer virus via Macintosh to aliens in Independence Day).
So we hate to inform him that woolly mammoths were not, in fact, used to build pyramids.
Heck, woolly mammoths weren’t even found in the desert.
They wouldn’t need to be woolly if that were the case. And there weren’t any pyramids in Egypt until 2,500 B.C or so.
Gladiator
Emperor Commodus was not the sniveling sister-obsessed creep portrayed in the movie.
A violent alcoholic, sure, but not so whiny.
He ruled ably for over a decade rather than ineptly for a couple months. He also didn’t kill his father, Marcus Aurelius, who actually died of chickenpox.
And instead of being killed in the gladiatorial arena, he was murdered in his bathtub.
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300
Though this paean to ancient moral codes and modern physical training is based on the real Battle of Thermopylae, the film takes many stylistic liberties. The most obvious one being Persian king Xerxes was not an 8-foot-tall Cirque du Soleil reject.
The Spartan council was made up of men over the age of 60, with no one as young as Theron (played by 37-year-old Dominic West).
And the warriors of Sparta went into battle wearing bronze armor, not just leather Speedos.
The Last Samurai
The Japanese in the late 19th century did hire foreign advisers to modernize their army, but they were mostly French, not American.
Ken Watanabe’s character was based on the real Saigo Takamori who committed ritual suicide, or “seppuku,” in defeat rather than in a volley of Gatling gun fire.
Also, it’s doubtful that a 40-something alcoholic Civil War vet, even one with great hair, would master the chopsticks much less the samurai sword.
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Apocalypto
This one movie has given entire Anthropology departments migraines.
Sure the Maya did have the odd human sacrifice but not to Kulkulkan, the Sun God, and only high-ranking captives taken in battle were killed.
The conquistadors arriving at the end of the film made for unlikely saviors: an estimated 90% of indigenous American population was killed by smallpox from their infected livestock.
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Memoirs of a Geisha
The geisha coming-of-age, called “mizuage,” was really more of a makeover, where she changed her hairstyle and clothes.
It didn’t involve her getting… intimate with a client. In the climactic scene where Sayuri wows Gion patrons with her dancing prowess, her routine – which involves some platform shoes, fake snow, and a strobe light – seems more like a Studio 54 drag show than anything in pre-war Kyoto.
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Braveheart
Let’s forget the fact that kilts weren’t worn in Scotland until about 300 years after William Wallace’s day and just do some simple math.
According to the movie, Wallace’s blue-eyed charm at the Battle of Falkirk was so overpowering, he seduced King Edward II’s wife, Isabella of France, and the result of their affair was Edward III.
But according to the history books, Isabella was three years old at the time of Falkirk, and Edward III was born seven years after Wallace died.
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
In 1585, when the movie takes place, Queen Elizabeth was 52 years old – Cate Blanchett was 36 when she shot the film – and was not being courted by suitors like Ivan the Terrible (who was dead by then).
And though the movie has her rallying the troops at Tilbury astride a white steed in full armor with a sword, in fact she rode side saddle, carrying a baton. She was more of a regal majorette than Joan of Arc.
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The Patriot
Revolutionary War figure Francis “The Swamp Fox” Marion was the basis for Mel Gibson’s character, but he wasn’t the forward-thinking family man they show in the flick.
He was a slave owner who didn’t get married (to his cousin) until after the war was over. Historians also say that he actively persecuted and murdered native Cherokees. Plus, the thrilling Battle of Guilford Court House where he vanquishes his British nemesis? In reality, the Americans lost that one.
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31 Responses to “The Most Historically Inaccurate Movies”
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how is it that Inglourious Basterds isn’t on the list? is there a cooling period?:)
Notice the big thing on this list? Yep, Mel Gibson. Historically inaccurate, Anglophobic shite from a talentless anti-semitic Australian. *spits on Gibson*
If a historical set movie is trying to be an “action” movie, it’s gonna be inaccurate. That’s the better point to make here.
Oh, and I don’t think the conquistadors in Apocalypto were meant to represent the “savior” of anyone. I’m pretty sure they are the reason for the title. Most think the title is referring to the protagonist’s tribe and it’s destruction, but I think gibson’s main point is about the destruction of all the tribes/civilizations due to the arrival of the conquistadors.
What about the appearance of an American lead character in a POW camp comprised of entirely British soldiers in the Great Escape?
I haven’t seen all of these movies, but I have seen the majority and I will say that, while they aren’t historically accurate, they never claim to be. But I do suppose that some people out there don’t bother to crack open a history book and would rather just be spoon-fed this “mammoth in a desert” bullsh!t…
hey, that’s why it’s called entertainment.
Pretty sure this is from Cracked…
Great list my only tiff is that at the end of Apocalypto the ships were not seen as saviors, thus the name Apocalypto or apocalypse ie; the end of there humanity.
I think we tend to overjudge this sort of thing.
I’m not really talking about changes of story in the interest of a “good yarn”, as is the case with Gladiator. I don’t think that was ever intended to be a historic film, but in the case of, say, Braveheart (which, comparatively, was).
In order to really get across the political climate in Scotland at that time through historically accurate means, the film would have had to be a good 2 hours longer, and it would have been a damn boring two hours. Instead, the event in which the Scottish nobles betray Wallace and quit the field was invented to portray, in one simple scene, what would take hours to explain (unless, of course, they used exposition, which is a poor film making technique and very dull).
In truth, almost all entertainment films based on historic events are historically inaccurate. The interests of time and entertainment are both part of that. I think instead of judging a film’s accuracy, we should be looking at what and why the inaccuracies are included. In Braveheart, I think most of it is justified and has purpose.
Not so with, say, Kingdom of Heaven, which has inexplicable inaccuracies that can only be motivated by the film maker’s desire to make a political point… and a misguided one at that. Kingdom of Heaven’s inaccuracies (which I note does not make your list, but 300, another movie who’s historical inaccuracies are partially due to political motivations, does, though the essence of 300 is more accurately portrayed than is that of the story in Kingdom of Heaven).
So, I guess what I’m saying is, I think your list is 90% politically motivated and you took a very lazy intellectual approach to making the list.
Well 300 is based off a graphic novel, not the historical battle, therefore its not really historically inaccurate. its supposed to be a glorification of the battle, did the 20ft monsters not give you that idea??
Re: 300
My biggest problem with 300 was the way it portrayed the other (non-spartan) Greeks. The Athenians are played as willing, but wimpy.
Funny, these are the same Athenians who fought Sparta to a standstill for over ten years, including several Spartan surrenders, during the Peloponnsian War.
It also neglects the fact that it was primarily Athenian soldiers and sailors who finished off the Persian invading force.
Fuck, oh dear–we have history texts for history, moves are for entertainment, OK? It’s great to pick the flicks apart (as an academic, I delight in it), as long as you don’t do it, out loud, in the theater.
And, well, lists will be lists and, of course, unless they are meant to be comprehensive or billed as “the Best 10…” or some such, much will be left off that might have made it on given different circumstances…
So may I nominate 4 movies for your next list of historically-laughable movies? You mention Apocalypto driving entire Anthropology Departments insane–these four have been grinding the gears of Archeology Departments for 3 decades…
I speak, of course, of the entire Indiana Jones franchise–not only are the times they take place in portrayed inaccurately, the process of archeology as shown is pure fiction and the distant past they try to illuminate through monuments and artifacts is non-existent.
Hugely fun movies, don’t get me wrong, but you wanna talk about historical inaccuracies? Your list awkwardly pits the amateurs at inaccuracy against the pros–Indiana Jones’ historical inaccuracies ore of the gods themselves!
Anyway…bad thing to get me started on–next I’ll be popping off about “They Died With Their Boots On” and “Gallipoli”.
Re: Memoirs of a Geisha
The author knew some pre-war geishas and asked for their input, etc, so while the movie may be Hollywood’d up, it’s still historically accurate.
What about what Michael Bay did to World War II history with his egregious cinematic offense titled “Pearl Harbor”? There were so many stretches of the truth that I can’t even begin to list them … but Army Air Corps pilot Ben Affleck flying fighters in Europe and then bombers in the Pacific? That’s gotta be top 10.
ditto on the Apocalypto comments.
Of course these movies never pretend that they are historically accurate, movies never do. Even movies who claim to be always add ‘based on real events’.
On the other hand, the movie makers use historical persons and events to sell the movie, distorting significally the actual history. And what’s worse, those who see the movie believe the shown ‘thruth’ without thinking twice.
That’s why kids believe Americans captured a Nazi coding device, in an epic submarine fight (U571), thereafter inventing Ultra, which ended the war sooner than thought, completely disregarding Poles (the device) and British efforts (Ultra) and the fact that actually the Soviet Union were of much more importance for the end of the war.
Keep in mind that many of the characters your covering are supposed to be multiple historic figures rolled into one, for instance Emperor Commodus in the movie was supposed to have been a mix of Lucius Aurelius Commodus Antoninus (the Emperor Commodus you mention) and Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (AKA Caligula) which is why he is the peverse sniveling sister obsessed cretin he is in the movie and not the Hercules obssessed ostrich decapitator who killed a 100 lion in a single day, fought combatants in the arena every afternoon, killed three elephants in the arena by himself and flaunted his physique by erecting many statues of himself dressed as Hercules throughout the city that Emperor Commodus really was.
And on the subject of Apocalypto, while the Mayans worshipped kulkulkan, the sacrifices they made were more reminiscent of the Aztecs (whom also worshipped kulkulkan but the referred to him as Quetzalcoatl) sacrifices to Huitzilopochtli (to return to him the blood he loses in his daily battles and thus postpone the end of the world) especially during the re-consecration fo the pyramid of Tenochtitlan of 1487 in which 80,400 prisoners were sacrificed (several thousand a day which the priests achieved by removing the heart through the abdominal cavity and up through the diaphragm with 3-4 cuts.) whatever most people don’t know much about mesoamerican culture anyway.
Inglorious Basterds was made precisely to be an ALTERNATE ending to WWII so leave it alone.
And Don’t ever mess with Mel Gibson he gave you Road Warrior, Mad Max, Lethal Weapon, Braveheart and all you’ve ever given back is a bunch of cro-magnon bumbling bullsh$% on the internet as you navigate from chat room to chat room trying to escape the horrid friendless jobless spineless reality you’ve placed yourself in praying that one day you’ll be able to summon enough libido to masturbate to the terabyte of incestuous scatophile porn you spend your waking hours looking for when your not saying racist repugnant shit in the chat rooms you spend your meaningless life residing in. I hope you put my name in your suicide note Mr “Mel Gibson Is A Fascist Cretin.” The rest of you take it easy.
I think that the climatic battle in The Patriot isn’t Guilford, but rather the Battle of Cowpens, which the Revolutionary Army did win.
Haha, why do I have feeling admin hates Mel Gibson? Bravo, exactly as you’re told xD
As regards the Spartans. They were worse than the Nazis in reality (murdering and browbeating their million strong slave empire of true Greek helots) and Xerxes had a deposed Spartan King sitting right next to him advising him how to defeat the Greeks during the entire campaign.
ah the facts of history unfortunatly the facts of these events will be lost in the infamous mists of time. while these monsrous films will live on and maybe in the future will be accepted as fact but such is human nature. but there is one fact he is missing from 300, in the ancient world it would be totally impossible to raise an army of a million men according to actual evidence of the time there was only 10,000-12,000 persians
The mizauge was the ceremony for a maiko (apprentice) to signify her coming of age. Symbolically, the topknot of her hair was cut when she was deemed ready, followed by a party in the girls honor.
Maiko undergoing mizuage were paid hansomly by a patron who had the right of taking their virginity, a practice that became illegal in 1959.
Once the mizuage patron’s had deflowered the young maiko, he was to have no further relations with the girl. Mizuage was not considered by geishas to be an act of prostitution. The money acquired for a maiko’s mizuage was a great sum and it was used to promote her debut as a geisha.
So, no, it was not just a makeover.
You definitely didn’t do your research on 10,000 BC. This film was not trying to be accurate according to traditional archaeological consensus. They were presenting an alternative (albeit pseudo-scientific) theory concerning the pyramids and an ancient civilization that PRE-dated the ancient egyptians. It is called the Orion Correlation Theory. While I disagree with it, the proponents of the pre-egyptian civilization theory bring up very interesting flaws in the current archaeological record, and other strange coincidences. Considering that the movie was trying to “re”create this alternative history, they did an amazingly “accurate” job.
Out of all of these, 10,000 BC easily is the worst offender. Not only for the mammoths, but majority of the creatures they depict in the movie did not live at the same time. (This thoroughly enraged me while I was watching it in theaters, much to the irritation of everyone else present) For starters the Terror Bird (the giant colourful chicken encountered towards the beginning of the movie) would not have existed at the same time as either mammoths or saber tooth cats, it was in fact alive far earlier than either of the 2 which came around after the age of dinosaurs, the terror bird was around before dinosaurs during the time of prehistoric animals and was the largest predator of its time and was a precursor to the raptors of a later era. Another thing that bothered me was that the movie was clearly operating with the idea that humans and mammoths would have been around before the splitting of pangea. There’s simply no way a person could have gone from a frozen tundra to the Egyptian desert in only a few days unless this was true but early humans were not alive during the time when the continents were still fully connected in such a way. Bottom line, this movie pissed me off. Alot. I’m glad other people were annoyed by it’s inaccuracy.
I think Inglorious Bastards isn’t on here because it was not meant to be historically accurate, whereas the movies on this list are meant to make you believe that they are.
How about Inglorious Basterds!!!
MVSillilagh -
It is not just the end of Inglourious Basterds that is historically inaccurate. That part is forgiveable, as it is obviously well known to most likely everyone on the planet that the war did not end that way.
A major historical mistake is made right at the start of the film. According to the film the persecution/deportation of French jews started in 1940, just after Germany had invaded France. In reality, the deportation/persecution of French jews was only decided upon and set in motion after June, 1942. Thus what happens to Shosanna’s family in the opening scene would only have happened in late 1942 or 1943. This is a major historical inaccuracy that will have an incorrect subconscious impact on people’s interpretation of WW2 and its belligerents.
Sorry I mispelled your name, MCShillilagh
Re: 300 … it was based on a graphic novel. It was not supposed to be historically accurate. It was Frank Miller’s version of how he wanted the movie to be portrayed.
Some movies are supposed to be entertaining as well as loosely based on facts….
Hello,
I’m from the better USA! and I think I found my new hangout
So, what’s everyone’s thoughts about the Canadian Olymipic Games?
Windtalkers?