Will we ever see big scale historical epics with real history?

Talking about Hollywood.
What do i mean by that. The romantic notions pretty much are going away from the history books about what went down before the enlightenment. Game of Thrones is popular an a lot of it is based on actual Dark Age history in terms of power relations and behavior of the characters.

Would Hollywwod ever dare to make big scale historical epics that respect the spirit of the era like South Korea or Japan does?

I'd say probably not... the track record for historical epics has always had artistic licence thrown in.


Braveheart, Gladiator, Ben Hur, Spartacus... none of them have accuracy about them apart from the occasional nod to a setting or two, like the Colosseum in Gladiator or the beach scene in Saving Private Ryan.


The closest movies I can think of off the top of my head are Apollo 13 and Young Guns... but even still, they too had handfuls of changes thrown in.


The day Hollywood makes a historical movie that doesn't have some sort of artistic licence bullcrap added to it, I will eat my hat.
If you want accuracy, then I'm afraid we'll be stuck with Documentaries for now.

__________________

They are called documentaries

You're using a show with dragons as an example of what you mean by Hollywood epics with "real history"? lol

You're definitely right, since making a buck is priority #1 and 'accuracy' takes a back seat.

Thing I'm wondering though is why is accuracy automatically "desirable"? My rule is that as long as it isn't so inaccurate that even a HS student could point it out, then it isn't a big problem - since movies are supposed to be entertaining anyway. Sure Braveheart and Private Ryan might not be completely accurate, but they've well done enough that unless someone is a history major, it shouldn't stand out like a sore thumb.

Take away the little magic the show has and everything was inspired by IRL history.

Some artistic licence does not bother me as long as it's not romanticized nonsense.

Actually I shouldn't have mentioned Braveheart.


There isn't a single thing in that movie that's accurate.
It's about as good as saying you know the story of Billy The Kid because you watched the Bob Steele and Buster Crabbe movies from the 1940s.

Even if it wasn't accurate at all it wasn't a problem in the movie, since none of the inaccuracy hurt the believably or immersion - not many people know anything about 12th Century Scottish history other than that the men wore kilts (and yeah, I know they actually didn't in that time period, and it still didn't bother me). Maybe since you're from the UK it bothers you more than it does us Yanks.

On the other hand, films like 10,000 BC (yeah I keep mentioning this one a lot) are so inaccurate that even Joe Blow could point it out and laugh - especially with a title like "10,000 BC" which implies it's at least trying to be accurate to the era. I haven't read world history since HS, and even I knew that Pyramids and entire civilizations didn't exist then.

If your position is that 'innacuracy' automatically means 'bad', then that pretty much rules out all Sci-Fi as a 'bad genre' - since anyone who's an actual scientist could point out just how inaccurate pretty much any Sci-Fi movie is.

Does that mean One Million Years BC is inaccurate as well?


Dayum.

Who knew that cavewomen had breast implants? This is better than history class, that's for sure.'

So you're saying that Dinosaurs and Humans never fought each other?


And that Dinosaurs didn't look like 20ft tall turtles? Or Iguanas with cardboard spikes stuck on their backs?

Of course they didn't, everyone knows that Jesus rode dinosaurs.

My view of history is totally obscured now. Damn you, Hollywood!


But yeah, thread jacked... I still say it's a long way off before we see a proper historical movie that doesn't have dragons or chop-socky martial arts, or some Titanic style love story added to it.

Well it was HEAVILY influenced by the War of the Roses... Not to mention the Dothraki were basically the Mongol Golden Horde. Only mixed in with a new fantasy surrounding and lots on boobs.

__________________
Fear and Loathing in MoFo... The Gunslinger 45's Top 50 Favorite Films

In the 10 Ring: Gunslinger45's reviews

Is El Cid faithful toward the age it takes place? I was surprised by Anthony Mann not sticking to the good guy vs bad simplicity on Reign of Terror and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Sadly, no.


On this topic, how was The Admiral: Roaring Currents? Was it historically accurate? Seung-Ryong Ryu AND Min-Sik Choi... Must See.

i would like to see leon uris' 'exodus' made again . the earlier film wasn't that great .

Some tactics of the battle were changed for the movie. It looked and felt great. Also admiral Yl Sun-Shin clearly shown as obsessed about protecting Korea, but he is portrayed, as a 21. century humanist.

I really wish I could have seen it in theaters. The trailer looked amazing.