One reason why M&C did so well on realism is because the movie was stuck in development hell for 8 years. During that time, the crew was doing research. Further, the cast and crew spent 2 months aboard and actual tall ship, living as close to the real thing as possible. A truly underrated masterpiece just for the level of dedication they put into the filming. And to all the folks complaining about the Acheron losing the main, but having it repaired by the end of the movie... Yes, a main mast would require a shipyard for proper repairs, but a good crew could rig a new one strong enough to get a ship back to port, especially with a second ship available to help with repairs. They could have towed the Acheron to a sandbar, patched up her holes and acquired a suitable tree to repair her main well enough to sail for a proper port, using the Surprise as a "mule" to hoist the new main into position. Pulling miracles out of the crack of your ass has been a naval tradition since the first human set foot beyond the shore. Never underestimate what a sailor can do with enough rope and sheer will to live.
Suprise is based on HMS Speedy, which had 53 crew on board. However, military ships usually carry more men than their merchant counterparts. They would provide a prize crew for the captured ships.
Master and Commander was an amazing movie. Should have won an Oscar, but timing was bad (LOTR Return of the King). Pirates of the Caribbean was a fun movie too.
@That Shield Dude Exactly; americans have no sense of self criticism as we have all noticed. Their sense of humour is also american centric and generally degrades to putdowns and slapstick.
@Chris Hydeit does not work as one. It's just looks badly spelt and negates the impact of the argument as others have commented. But nevermiind being coherent eh
I love what he says. "You could buy your rank in the army, but you couldn't buy your rank at sea. You had to know what you were doing. You had to be an expert."
@Leo Arc Seafaring was the name of the game in this time period, you could have inept generals, an inept admiral could spell disaster for an empire which is why the navy required experts, and knowledge.
@Eduardo González that's true, the admiralty and British Govt made sure the laws would mess you up for mutiny, usually death. For officers, massive scrutiny for letting it happen, and a court marshall which will likely see the stripping of rank and will likely be barred from commanding another vessel. The Royal Navy was extremely expensive to maintain and at peace time a massive amount of sailors, ships and commanders were without work.
He doesn’t mean it 100% literally. Still can “buy” your rank but you needed to be an expert too and more chance for promotion if you were talented. In the army back then it was just who your family was etc.
@Leo Arc Yes, you had to pass an examination for lieutenant, then you rose by seniority until you were made post and that was only done on merit. After that, it's anyone's guess. The Delancey Books (C. Northcote Parkinson) are much better on that aspect of Naval life although the Jack Aubrey books are much better for the characters, language, manners and slightly overblown action sequences..
I'm very pleased to see A LOT of love for Master and Commander in these comments. It's easily one of the best films of the century thus far. It's about as close to flawless as any film can get; I wouldn't change a frame. Technically Master and Commander could have been made by another director. But Peter Weir was really the only person equipped to make it into a masterpiece. As a director his style, sensibilities, and overall disposition fit the material perfectly.
@AlexSDU today's military knows that most serving personnel won't be reading books reliably. Academy training is a whole 'nother thing. It's why all of the SAPR training is in Vids now. It also eliminates ambiguity on how to present oneself. Crowe does an outstanding job in his leadership, from his posture, to his appearance, to how he treats his sailors. I was a CO up until last month, and the AOLC we all take recommends these films. We also watch Schwartzkopf's "Famous press conference" and some random vids with Powell in them. In M&C, One of the most demonstrative characters is that drippy mid that eventually jumps overboard. He breaks all of the leadership doctrine we are taught, despite being a generally fair officer. In the end, he was totally ineffective.
Are you sure he didn't meant the book the movie was based on. I knew that USMC officer cadets are advised to read Robert E. Heinlein's book Starship Troopers about leadership. Same goes with West Point Military School.
The battle scenes on *Waterloo* involved some 17000 soldiers and cavalrymen of the Soviet Red Army. There was a joke about the film's director being in command of the 7th largest army in the world. An amazing piece of filmmaking.
@RFish Somebody can contradict me but guessing 1970 the Soviets were close enough to 1945 glory of defeating Hitler made "Waterloo" seem ideologically sound. Don't fuck with Russia or this is what happens. Lot of 1945 Red Army soldiers still alive, wanted to glory in their historical importance?
@RFish Not allowed, and not volunteered. They were all active Red Army units... even the 2000 cavalrymen. I assume theSovs got some compensation from the studios, though.
Master and Commander - cinematic masterpiece. It’s such a generally forgotten film because it came out the same year as both the 1st Pirates of the Caribbean, and the final Lord of the Rings, which both massively overshadowed it, which is a real shame (and I’m as big a LOTR fan as they come), because when it comes to the acting, cinematography, storytelling and the general historical accuracy of M&C, my god I’ve seen it probably a dozen times and each time I notice something new about it, and I somehow find myself even more in awe at how stupendous it is. Probably the most underrated film of all time.
@Anand Morris It's my comfort film to be honest, I love to watch it on week ends while eating, nobody wants to watch it with me because of the constant commentary haha
This is the only film I can remember my dad ever coming to the cinema to see with us as children. He hated cinemas but he loved the books this movie was based on.
It also didn’t take into account that they wanted a specific treasure. They were seeking just any gold, any other action wouldn’t have achieved the goal.
@MarvinCZ The ship itself is also magical in nature - it was sunk to the bottom of the ocean but then raised by Davey Jones as payment for Jack Sparrow's soul after 10 years. The fact the ship can sail (at speed!) with tattered sails demonstrates its otherworldly nature.
Yeah the ship would've been blown to smithereens and undead or not, they still couldn't multiply to man the cannons and attack on foot at the same time.
They may be undead but is their ship indestructible? If they tried to attack a major fortified port with their comparatively small pirate ship like this, it would be reduced to driftwood within minutes.
Master & Commander is one of my favorite films. Being something of a scientist myself I love the depiction of the naturalist and Paul Bettany is nailing it, as is Russel Crowe and everyone else. Amazing cinematography, editing, soundtrack... could gush on forever! Hope they make another movie yet, plenty of stories left in that series.
Yeah man! I am a biology nerd (studied it for 3 years, sadly without finishing) and I literally got a fuzzy, warm feeling when I watched naturalist making his discoveries! Warms my heart to the day. :) At the same time I am also a military nerd and was just amazed about the fidelity of everything naval in this movie. The duality of man - there you got it... ;)
Thanks to Patrick O' Brian and his wonderful books from which the scenes in the film Master and Commander were developed from. What a shame they never made another film. So much factual material in O'Brian's book to work from.
What was particularly good about the Aubrey books was the language used. And by the end of the series, Jack Aubrey is revealed as a considerable astronomer and mathematician as well as a more than competent violinist playing his own Stradivarius. And there was us thinking that he was an intellectual dullard with too much testosterone all this time
After 15 years in the British Army trundling over land in tanks, I went to sea for my next career. Thankfully, the ship's library was full of Patrick O'Brian; and so began my education! Fantastic books, and painstakingly researched.
Aubrey elevated the cannon in order to shoot at the enemy's masts. Then they aimed at the hull. The young boy commanding his crew in the battle was marvelous, and his story very compelling. I agree one of the greatest closeup battle scenes ever
20:24 so glad you mention the soundtrack to Last of the Mohicans. I think it is so underrated and one of the all time greats. I actually had an entrance for myself and the groomsmen at my wedding to Promentory as it has been a favorite of mine since I was a kid and watched that movie for the first time. Shout out to Master and Commander for being such a great movie also.
Someone once asked me what movie I thought was the best I’ve ever seen and I had to say Master and Commander, far side of the world. I think it’s one of the finest film that’s ever been made- for period accuracy, script, casting, individual performances, the sets… Just everything... that movie should have won an Oscar but as I understand Lord of the rings kind of prevented it. It is a brilliant film. I’d say at this point in time probably one of the top 50 greatest films ever made.
Most rewatches are guilty pleasures for me, but this one has a long list of prerequisites I have to fulfill before I permit myself the joy of watching it again.
Master an Commander is one of those gems of cinematography that will still be awe-inspiring in 50 years. It's wonderfully written, the cast is superb and the attention to detail makes my history nerd's heart sing every time I watch it. The emotions it causes are unique, it's dramatic and tragic and uplifting and carries itself with an air of dignity and duty no other movie manages to achieve. I'll never grow tired of it.
@Coyote Annabis Turning the tide of a battle against the odds is possible; but rare (we all love sport stories of winning against favourites, but those things rarely happen in reality and statistically favourites prevail). But turning the tide of war by a single ship is a really far-fetched idea... In the American Revolution both sides had plenty occasions to change the course of war; even if those reinforcements had arrived, it would have been just one little unit more... Especially in wars between big states losing a single ship rarely makes a decisive difference... Had in the battle of Midway the Japanese lost one aircraft carrier less, would they have won the war on the Pacific? Let's be serious 🙂
Even a single ship turning the tide of battle isn't that far off. The USS Constitution (Old Ironsides) basically won the American revolution by keeping the Royal Navy off balance. Forcing them to chase her instead of sending reinforcements to aid the land war. One good ship, with the proper tactics absolutely can bring down a giant.
Agreed. I must've seen this movie 15 times and each time, I feel like I notice something I didn't see before...something that's worth noticing. It's such an enriching film.
I love the movie. But of course it makes concessions to "golden plot rules" too. For instance, a single French ship almost able to win Napoleonic Wars single-handedly? 😜 I almost expected Darth Vader to appear at her helm at that moment. But on the whole, this is a movie definitely to be appreciated, especially in the times of generic pulp and political correctness frenzy...
Master and Commander is one of the most underrated movies of all time. Absolutely incredible film, the acting, the cinematography, attention to detail, script, score, pacing--it's truly one of the best movies ever made, I wish more people would watch it!
There's a video that explains the methodology behind Master and Commander to the point that, from the start, the crew were given shirts of varying colors and were required to sew their names on the shirts and each shirt was for the rank of someone in the movie. From that day forward, until shooting was completed, the men regarded their counterparts by name and rank and showed proper respect as if this was the military of the time. It was amazing how things came together as the shooting started. The gun crews also trained on real guns. They fired real cannon. This wasn't simulated fire or fake weapons. They really had to be able to shoot the weapons in the same timing as those of old. Just so many details in the movie that really let you see how a true ship crew operated.
Thomas Cochrane wasn't just a great captain, he was an absolute maniac who's list of activities seem hard to credit even in the golden age of sail! I started reading the Patrick O'Brien novels before reading about Cochrane, and was stunned to learn that in many ways Jack Aubrey is a very toned down echo of the real man.
@Oghren Right on, It's first in my watch later list! Just to clarify to an earlier post: maniac may have been a poor choice on my part, he wasn't a loon, you're absolutely right. But, he displays audacity and bravura on what must be called an Alexandrian or Caesarean scale.
Haha. When you take into the whole point of PoTC 1… that the black pearls crew & ship were basically invincible until the end of the movie.. it takes perfect sense… if you cannot be defeated under any circumstances, why not attack a fortified place? :) But in reality? The British would’ve blown any single ship to bits.
One thing Master and Commander does that I have never seen in any other movie, is having sound move slower than light, at the start of the movie the French frigate is seen in the distance and you see the flashes of the cannon and then after a delay you hear the sound. It's also the only movie I've seen that has actors of the right age and diversity (as the navy at the time was actually very diverse), it's the only time I've heard mention the standard practice of loading more than one cannon ball in the gun at a time, having the cannons fly backwards when fired and using the correct terminology throughout the movie.
It's probably really difficult to realistically film cannon recoiling without actually firing live shots, which would of course be absurdly dangerous in most filming locations, especially on land. For most of the history of military film-making, I'd guess directors just fired blanks and accepted that the cannon wouldn't jump much without some expensive, carefully hidden mechanism to artificially move them. With relatively slow-burning black powder, this would probably also make the cannon sound completely different to the way they would firing actual projectiles, but it's been standard practice to use stock sound effects for gunfire of all calibres in films since forever anyway.
@AC hello I've noticed that 21 people have liked your comment when it's actually misformation would you edit it, so we have a historically accurate picture
@Ben Rose just watched it and I don't think they do although the distances are quite short so I'm not saying Last of the Mochicans got it wrong, just didn't have an opportunity.
As an avid reader of Patrick O'Brian's books I was prepared to dismiss the film as less worthy of my attention, but its accurate depiction of life aboard a Georgian frigate is breathtaking. I'm fortunate to live in retirement close to the Costa Blanca - or, as I prefer to call it, the Costa de Cochrane - and 'Master and Commander' does both the man who took the El Gamo and his fictional counterpart proud.
Master and Commander is one of the best films ever made. I watched it last year and fell in love in the first 10 minutes. Only happened to me a couple of times and I watched thousands of films.
@100nitrog You don't need to be able to follow the naval terminology to appreciate the relationship between Jack and Stephen; you can let that part wash over your brain without total comprehension. Don't let yourself get bogged down; Stephen never figured it out and we don't need to either.
@Grimm Ronin love the Sharpe series as well. Cornwell is a great writer. And much more accessible than OBrien who can be not only technical but also read like a Jane Austin novel.
Master and Commander is not forgotten but gratefully remembered as a brilliant film with a brilliant story line, it shows how all sailors were cannon fodder regardless of the ships but made the most of the commanders skill
This is literally THE BEST professional ranking movies video on BRvid that I've ever seen. A man genuinely knowing what he's talking about and that is actually really into the movie moment but not letting his own excitement get in the way of his ranking score. And movies that are actually good and not completely false and garbage. Hope to see more
@TBHinPhilly who invites a historian to give a historical perspective and accuracy rating on movies and then throws a fantasy pirates high seas caper into the mix? You’re blaming the historian for doing his best at analyzing the scenes he’s asked to analyze for accuracy? The man is just doing what he was asked to do. He also said right away that he understands that Pirates is a bit of fun. You want to blame someone, blame the producer who set up the content.
Nope. He was analyzing Pirates of the Carribbean as a serious battle -- and not recognizing that the pirates were undead -- so could afford to "loose men" because they didn't. Clearly he never watched either The Patriot or Pirates in full. That makes the analysis trashy.
26:00 I think the problem there was that the extras were actually panicing and trying to run away when they were not supposed to. That was a problem several times during filming.
Love these insights and commentaries from Mr Snow. We need more of this sort of thing. So many 'historical' films are consumed by audiences as accurate depictions when they are very far from it. History is not a science (although it has scientific elements) and it's not an art (although it has interpretive elements) but the continual over-romanticising of historical figures in film can be very tiresome. Edit: 'Master and Commander' reminded me that the world's first recorded clinical trials occurred on board a ship, being conducted by James Lind who then wrote his treatise on Scurvy.
Wow! Never knew of the movie ‘Waterloo’…. the scale of the battle in the picture is insane! No CGI… the amount of men, horses, equipment in those shots, with all the smoke and explosions, is so impressive!
One thing I always find odd in many war films of all periods, the ease of digging trenches/graves, especially in woodland with tree roots everywhere. My dog died some years ago and to dig a grave 4 x 2 by 3 feet deep took me the best part of 4 hours of exhausting work and that was as well fed, well-rested, fit and healthy 35-year-old. Were folks just stronger back then?
They were certainly more used to physical labour than we are today. One of the exercises British army officers have to undergo during initial training is trench digging for five days. Three days to dig the trench system for a Company-sized position up to Stage 3 (six feet deep with overhead protection), one day of patrolling in CBRN kit (think gas masks etc), one day to fill it all back in. The first time you sleep is on the fourth day; over the course of the exercise you get around 5 hours sleep, total. The intention is to physically teach the limits of the body and rate of degradation when combining manual labour with total sleep deprivation. It's one of the hardest things I've done, but sleep deprevation doesn't translate onto film. You will just come across as slow and prone to the most basic mistakes.
I’ve always loved history so much, I went out of my way in college to take as many history classes as I could, even though I majored in marketing lol. They were considered electives after my freshman year.
When it comes to the first fight scene the one issue I have with it is that engagements would typically begin at 200 or 300 meters if you're having a fire fight at 50 yards at best you'll get one shot off before a bayonet change
Master and commander is such a fantastic film and pretty much as a accurate as you can get for naval warfare the time. Waterloo is a marvel of cinema. So many amazing shots full of absolute chaos that I’ve never seen in a film since. I find it amazing the director managed to coordinate all this chaos. Really amazing stuff.
If you guys want more Master and Commander, read the books by Patrick O'Brian: they're the best historical fiction out there, written in a beautiful, warm, wry style totally authentic to the early 19th century, like Jane Austen for military geeks.
This was a truly enjoyable video. Thank you for doing this. I'm no historian, but my take on all of those films pretty much agreed with what you said. It is a great shame that there are so few really good historical films. Too many are overpopulated with Hollywood stars and very little accuracy. The four WW2 films made in Hollywood I do like are Tora, Tora, Tora, Midway, They Were Expendable, and In Harm's Way.
As a young boy growing up in southern Ontario many years ago, it was James Fenimore Cooper and his "Last of the Mohicans" that captured my imagination. As I got older and found out that this novel was not only based in history but written during that very era, my interests turned to learning as much as I could about the history of this part of the world. Truly fascinating stuff.
The thing that's so frustrating about the film, beautifully made though it is, is that Cooper was a definite Anglophile, whereas the screenwriter and/or director clearly had an altogether different opinion about the British and didn't hold back from showing it, altering basically all of the British characterisations to make them entirely worse people than as originally written, not to mention including a lot of fiery revolutionary rhetoric about 20 years and a generation earlier than one would really expect to hear it, and that just isn't in the book at all, IIRC.
@Martin Wilson I think it’s hard to say that the book was written in the same era given it was 70 years later. Era suggests commonality of experience and life time. Cooper was born in 1789, more than thirty years after the war he wrote about and he wrote about it in a different century.
The Patriot 00:23 The Pirates of the Caribbean and The Curse of the Black Pearl 05:48 The Revenant 08:42 Master and Commander 11:39 Last of the Mohicans 17:47 Waterloo 24:19
Master and Commander is one of those movies that proves you can do historical accuracy justice and make a very entertaining movie. Because often people say, it's just a movie! It doesn't have to be accurate or it wouldn't be fun if it was a documentary. But this shows, yes yes you can.
While the inaccuracies of Waterloo: Dusty fields rather than mud, Scots Greys charging into no French infantry, the ubiquitous artillery shells exploding with little recoil, all annoy purists, this is the closest we will get to seeing a real Napoleonic battle with real men rather than computer magic. 5,000 real horsemen charge the squares which Peter Jackson used as inspiration in Lord of the Rings. Some squares do break in the film because the real Soviet soldiers were told the horses would not cross certain marks but the troops were spooked anyway …and of course had unloaded rifles. Soviet cash and equipment made the enterprise not just feasible but financially attractive because the risk was thrown on to the Russians and not Dino de Laurentis. Plummer was made for the part ( said Steiger ). It was going to be Peter O’Toole, and Plummer researched actual sayings of Wellington to rewrite the dialogue. The Director didn’t mind because he didn’t like the script much anyway.
Love the Waterloo movie. They had something like 15,000 Soviet troops as extras, dressed up and drilled for it. Gotta give credit where it's due that's a hell of a commitment to cinema.
Just incredible scenes in the movie. No computer images, just awesome. I did read somewhere they had some problems filming the cavalry scenes because the Russian troops kept running. If you watch the charge of the Scots Grays, I could understand lol. That would have been terrifying to be I. Front of
Apparently those who formed the squares in the movie, and were charged by the 'French' cavalry actually broke & ran in terror & the scenes had to be redone a number of times until they would hold their nerve instead of running. Shows the real bravery of the Napoleonic soldier to stand being charged at by heavy cavalry who would make the ground shake as if an earthquake was hitting.
@MrMonotone as a matter of fact, the principle of the conscription service in the Soviet Union was that you were not supposed to serve where you lived. Sort of, mixing people. But in a sense, you are right, they could have been of any nation, not necessarily Russian.
The Russian director Sergei Bonderchuk (who helped on this film) had done "War & Peace"" just a few years earlier and the battle scenes from Austerlitz & Borodino are absolutely astonishing. Basically used many of the same techniques but if anything on a grander scale for Waterloo.
I love these videos. The knowledge and passion for history (or anything, really) is always fascinating. Great job! HOWEVER! The argument that The Black Pearl would've chosen a weaker target in a more historicaly accurate setting is a bit flawed in one way, though. First of all, the ship and the crew are immortal. Not much to loose. Secondly; they are not there to sack Port Royal or plunder and steal. They are there for a very specific medallion, which they know are there.
The guy isn’t giving notes on the plot, just the historical accuracy. Like the bit about the cannonballs hitting inside the courtyard being BS as he didn’t see mortars or the exploding cannonballs. Then any decent historian is going to mention that a single frigate attacking the most heavily fortified place in the Caribbean would be an expensive way to commit suicide. His ending for that portion said it all. It is entertaining but not very accurate from a historical perspective.
Dan, you really made me enjoy history. I really love to hear how the battles were fought and the strategy behind it. That's more fascinating to me than the political part. I wish I had you as my history teacher for college. :) I am a big fan of George Washington as a commander. I had to do several presentations of him in Elementary School and College. Thanks for clarifying history for me. Makes everything more enjoyable.
Anyway, this was very entertaining to watch and surprisingly, it even made me laugh. I like how this guy is clearly pointing out the flaws but also recognising the things that the movie makers have done right.
I appreciate how he’s not just talking a giant crap on people’s favorite movies like most reviewers do, but walking through and acknowledging the good and flaws in context
@GarlicButter 1st of all, I'm not talking about mortar rounds into a cannon, you made that statement. Secondly, there were exploding rounds for standard cannons. You can sit here and defend him and say he would know this, but at the end of the day, he didn't bring it up and he made a statement that technically wasn't correct, all I did was point out that there was in fact types of rounds that exploded from cannons from the Revolutionary War era. You think historians are the only ones that know this type of information? You also act like if one is a "historian", they can never be incorrect. If he knew about them, then he should have brought them up and not make a blanket statement, saying this didn't happen back then, because that is not correct.
@Nick Dial Considering he's a historian, he probably knows what kind of weapons they were using, how those weapons worked, and has read MANY first hand accounts of the battles. It's safe to assume he knows what he's talking about. Also, loading mortar rounds into a standard cannon would NOT end well for anyone in a pretty large vicinity of the cannon.
@Handle On A Fridge The part I'm referring to, he didn't talk about shells or mortars, he just simply said cannonballs didn't explode like the movie's portray, that's all he said. I was referring to that part, in which case isn't exactly correct. He talked about mortars discussing the scene of blast and mohicans, I'm referring to the Patriot. In the Patriot, he made the statement that cannibals didn't explode, but that's factually false. There were no mortars obviously in that scene. If they had loaded exploding shells into their cannons on the battlefield, they would have exploded. We as the viewer don't know what the British were loading, the movie also depicts some of the balls bouncing off the ground, so that right there simulates that they're not depicting all the cannon balls exploding.
completely underrated. and one of the best on this list. I suppose that the remark "there was no bad side on the western frontier" did not go down well today.
For the Revenant, that looks about right to me from what I know of Minnesota history.... If a chief gave you his word of protection you would be safe in there land... Lots of fur trapping and trading there all over Minnesota... Fort Snelling was build in 1825-40ish the 3 native nations all went to it to trade..
My 3x great grandfather, Johan Petri 1786-1831, fought with Napoleon at Waterloo. Served 8 years, army of Napoleon I, participated in 1812 Russian campaign, witnessed burning of Moscow and survived the winter retreat. The French Empire's eventual defeat resulted in his loss of military pension. In 1831 several families from the southern part of the Pfalz in Germany left from Havre, France for NYC. They were led by Jacob Petri. He died aboard the ship South Carolina during the voyage from Europe to the USA when he, his wife and eight children traveled to a new life in the U.S.
A guy named Johan Petri, in the french army? Johan is the Scandinavian version of Jean in french, and Petri as a surname is only common in Finland. So he must've been finnish?
@Newsieboys bruh why do you keep bringing the republic in the debate. The republic isn't the revolution, it's a result of the revolution as much as the constitutionnal monarchy and the empire. I was talking about the fact that napoleon didn't betray the revolution. He actually saved it
Master and Commander worked so hard to make a really believable experience of life and battle on a ship of that era. The depictions of so many moving parts, whether mechanical or people, would have been so hard to make work in camera, but they were intent on getting it and the film is so much better for it.
To this day Master and Commander stays my most favourite movie of all time! Such a masterpiece. And to this day I am heartbroken they never got to shoot a second one although all the cast was onboard for it!
Appreciated the review of "The Patriot" and the reminder about how long it takes to reload. I find this to be the most under-appreciated aspect of revolutionary war depictions. Thanks for appreciating our Yankee guerilla tactics! Our saving grace. Let's hear it for the American long rifle.
This is so interesting, thank you. I’d love to see other historians/presenters doing this - especially Mary Beard, omg that would be gold...but which movie? Hmmmmm. It’s just lovely seeing a familiar presenter in this way, speaking more or less “off the cuff”. Speaking passionately about their subject and, my favourite bit is when they find big “issues” with the way historical details are presented. Absolutely nerding out on the details and I love it. I’ve been asking and talking about exploding cannon balls since I was a kid. When I heard him mention the cannon balls, I actually said “YES, finally”....however, I was sitting on the bus at the time, ha ha...so not awkward at all, jot at all. P.s I went to a friend’s house and they said, hey watch this! They then started playing that scene from the Reverent, it was just too intense for me, way to real and confronting. To this day I haven’t been able to (or wanted) to see that particular scene again.
It's really nice to see scenes in some movies that accurately show cannon recoiling when they are fired. Sadly, some directors apparently never heard of Newton's Third Law of Motion. Also, The Patriot appears to depict Mel Gibson and his sons using long rifles, which would be probable for militia of that era. The long rifle was not only more accurate than the British muskets, but also greatly outranged them. I greatly enjoyed your comments and opinions on these great movie scenes and look forward to more in the future.
old ironsides is a beauty of a ship i am so glad its mentioned here! my uncle used to work on making sure the USS constitution (old ironsides is her nickname) was still sturdy and in tiptop shape. so hearing about the ship's many battles made my day.
What I love about the film Waterloo is that this was before large-scale CGI so all you see there are genuine people (soldiers from the Soviet Red Army I believe). Favourite film definitely Master and Commander!
@Idiomatick its easier to make convincing cgi if everything on screen is cgi, its when you mix real and cgi it becomes real hard to make it perfectly convincing, but we sure are getting real close with several movies out today where cgi and real actors blend together very well. the one thing we still really struggle with is when cgi characters physically interract with real environments and real actors physically interracting with cgi characters and objects.
@Brett D I like showing people scenes from modern movies and asking what is CG if they can tell. And they guess one thing when the answer is literally everything in the scene including the humans being 3d renders with AI techniques improving composition.
I agree on both counts. Master and Commander = masterpiece. And battle scenes depicted with real people instead of CGI will ALWAYS be the gold standard. The human mind can tell the difference between the two. That's what impressed me about Dunkirk. Sure, Nolan could have used CGI instead of thousands of extras. But there's infinitely more power in actually seeing that many people.
I LOVE Master & Commander, such an underrated film yet so good in every aspect of it: the story, the details, the characters, the cast performance and chemistry and it's lovely soundtrack. To me M&C is a classic already and the reason I love (well done) naval movies and TV shows. Then again it just was unlucky enough to be released alongside LOTR, which is like to compete for "history's best selling books" with The Bible.
Always love the classic war movies. They may lack in accuracy or authenticity, but the sheer volume of extras make it look real. And rely less on CGI too. I'm not saying CGI are bad, but rely too much it would make it less realistic.
Yes, great movie - the only inaccuracy that I spotted was an interior scene where the deck height was way too much. But totally forgivable given the joke about the weevils and the lovely bit of Boccherini
"French gave a great flourish...British give a simple nod..." What would modern Americans give? Probably the 'one-finger salute'. And Master and Commander is a criminally underrated film.
I don't know why my fellow Americans are so reluctant to admit that the regular Continental Army, (and the French) won that war. It is extremely impressive that a colonial revolutionary faction was able to raise a regular, uniformed army.
It's because the movie it's actually incredibly boring. Most people consider it a horribly slow long bore. Even as an avid reader of naval warfare of the period I can't sit through it again.
Master and Commander is truly one of the best movies ever made; the acting, cinematography, attention to detail, boy sailors fighting with and against men, script, score, pacing, so many moving parts whether mechanical or people, cinematography, editing, soundtrack 10/10 ✌👍👏
As so many others have stated already, Master and Commander: the Far Side of the World was completely underrated and an absolute gem of a movie that deserved Oscar recognition. Then again, as a Naval servicemember at the time it was released and a lifelong age of sail aficionado my opinion on the matter may be somewhat biased...
10:53 The lack of centralization of North American tribes, especially the nomadic tribes farther west, made diplomacy with natives hard. The head chief of the whole tribe could sit down and talk with some fur trappers, but native villages would either not know or not care about the ongoing talks. With no one to stop them, they went ahead and acted alone. Killing people who thought they were negotiating with them. This would then lead to immense distrust in the entire tribe, and settlers, or military, would go about getting revenge on the entire tribe, not just the warriors from the one village. This soured relations even worse. We just could not understand that the native peoples of the north never invented feudalism and chivalry. The concept of full loyalty to those above you. ...Or a reliable courier system.
It's important to remember with Pirates of the Caribbean that yeah, a normal pirate ship wouldn't attack a big port city like that, but this is a pirate ship full of undead crew who were after a specific item that a person in that city had
@Matt S Not quite. Dougie MacLean composed the Gael two years before the film and it is a very, very different version to the one in the film which has been given the full orchestral Hollywood treatment. As he would put it himself it's a "Scottish Fiddle Tune". There is a magnificent rocked up version of it by the Band of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards on their "Parallel Tracks" album. Here's a link if you want to check it out, but be patient it takes a while to get going! brvid.net/video/video-ag-xloBB1zY.html
@Mike o' Glen Promentory is at the very end. Beautiful scenery, excellent wordless acting, tragic scene accompanied by the most gorgeous music. The music when they’re fleeing the Huron attack to the waterfall is my second favorite, just epic.
All of these movies are at the very least fun and/or entertaining. Master and Commander and Last of the Mohicans are two of my all time favorites of the genre. I am ashamed to say I've never seen Waterloo. I've only recently started studying the time period, due to real time history and epic history's excellent series. I'll have to look for it, definitely looks good, Great video narrator did an excellent job.
It's interesting that the second clip from The Patriot chosen was Mel Gibson's character and his two sons rescuing his son from the British who planned to hang him, instead of the end battle.
Waterloo 1970 was a brilliant film, truly epic in scale, I love the Ney's charge scene! Looking forward to Ridley Scott's Napoleon movie next year, hopefully he can give us big battles
Master and commander made Russel Crow my favorite actor- and turned me on to the book series which is a wonderful read. Unfortunate that a second movie was never made because this is a masterpiece
As soon as I saw Captain Jack Aubrey I knew this would be good. What a wildly underrated masterpiece Master and Commander is. Also I love that Dan calls Thomas Cochrane a dashing naval hero when in reality he was an absolute mad lad.
@Francisca Ugalde Sorry but your wrong. Chilie have a statue built for him and celebrate their independence every year in memory of him..They were under Spanish controle and effectively slaves for over two hundred years. And he didnt just help he led a small army of Chilean rebels.. He trained them to be seamen, and had a small detachment of marines who helped take the spanish forts..This is not Anglo saxon arrogance,, we dont even learn about it unless you take history at university..In Chilie it's in their curriculum.Why the hate toward Anglo saxons?? Sorry if I have offended you in anyway. Belvoir had nothing to do with Chile or any of the southern areas. He was more Peru, Equadore, Bolivia and the central areas of South America. But yes he was an awesome dude also. Good day to you sir,, I hope you can find peace and get rid of any anger you have for another race.
@Mark Morris dude, he did help but saying HE liberated South America is classic anglosaxon arrogance and condescendence toward us. If any one person did it, it was Simon Bolivar, alongside General San Martín.
@Gary Mills Thank you for being the first (for me to read) good fellow to name this great author. This collection is a masterpiece, and the film did it great justice.
Master and Commander is a masterpiece that boggles the mind when compared to similar films. I remember watching Waterloo at the theater as a kid and using it as fuel for my imagination with its scope and effects. The only problem I have with that film today is that they beat Stanley Kubrick to the punch and made him abandon his own project. You can imagine after watching Barry Lyndon how awesome Kubrick's Napoleon film would have been.
Master and Commander is one of my favorit movies of all time, i watch in nearly every year, as it has something about it that really grabs me. Also started reading all the books of the series it is based on, sometime a bit hard due to all the sailor speech but awesome nonetheless
Master and Commander is one of my favorite movies of all time. Not just for the historical accuracy, but for the atmosphere and mystique of a high stakes hunt on the opposite side of the planet from home.
It appears strange to a non-military person just how effective an extremely daring attack can be. One looks at the difference between the Acheron and the Surprise and thinks that Jack's pursuit is folly (as the doctor does). But war isn't just about how many guns each side has. Jack is, at heart, a guerilla...he understands how to defeat the enemy in detail (e.g. the mainmast). He's more effective with a smaller ship than he would be with a large one, because a smaller ship (and crew) is more closely linked to his mind. Another 20 or 30 cannons manned by men he doesn't know and aiming at targets he doesn't call out would not help his particular style of fighting.
I would love to see a review of the battle scenes in "Barry Lyndon" by Stanley Kubrick, also of the battle of Agincourt in "Henry V." by Kenneth Branagh.
I love the set up to this video and what it achieved the only thing that doesn't fit really is the Pirates of the Caribbean, the black pearl was yes a real ship but in their context its a ghost ship with ghost pirates so what they can do / launch an amphibious assault can't be considered realistic or truthful. Other than that loved it
Hey Dan, you mentioned in the review of The Last of the Mohicans of the etiquette involved between opposing forces. IMO, I think it had to do with the evolution of warfare into "formalism". In The Patriot, when Benjamin Martin (MG) made parley with Gen. Cornwalis, Cornwalis made the comment to Martin something like "In war, an officer and a gentleman must restrain his men from excesses..." That probably isn't exact, but it's close enough for the purpose of my argument. IMO, the pattern of warfare in Europe (and consequently the New World) evolved from the Roman model. As you well know, the Roman Legions were BRUTAL to their enemies... and to their own also. Decimation anyone? Then came the Dark Ages with little to no well-educated, disciplined nobles or officers in armies or just levies. The habit of rapine and pillaging during that time was well established military doctrine, for many reasons. Namely, the forces of the victors were allowed to loot and gain wealth and in some cases slaves. Now, back to the era you're reviewing. As civilization became more "civilized", those ruling realized that allowing the physical infrastructure of a defeated land to remain intact was much preferable to one destroyed. The same could be said for the populace. It takes people to grow crops, to perform work, to run a country. Balancing the severity of conquering is a difficult juggling act, at best. (Ukraine anyone?) Enter the "gentleman" officer, restraining, sometimes brutally, his men from doing what comes naturally when allowed to just "let loose". This restraint evolved into the formalism we see above in TLotM. I can imagine that the British forces were ACHING to just "let loose" and go all general melee...and to hell with the consequences. Hence, the politeness between the English and French Generals. They had to set the example and tone for the parley so that their forces also remained restrained. This formalism appears in Japanese history also. During Japan's "civil war" period, the meeting between rival diamyos was rife with slow, deliberate actions, EXTREME politeness (which for the Japanese WAS extreme), and the subtle body and non-verbal language that could theoretically be "ignored". Sometimes not, then all hell WOULD break loose and both would draw their katanas and hack at each other, starting yet another battle. Thanks for reminding me of the basic tennants of the study of history: Names, dates, and places. Subscribed.
Let's not forget Paul Bettany as a magnificent Dr Maturin, playing really great with Crowe. And please, more of Threlfall's Killick. That mumbling curmudgeon provided comic relief without feeling forced. Not to mention that Killick is just as important to the character of Aubrey as is Matutin. "Oh, drink wine on Salutin' Day." *shuffles off and shuts door*
Well Ridley Scott is making a Napoleonic era film, hopefully if that goes well it could drum up support for another Master and Commander film. Or even better a TV show
