The War On Truth – The Worst Ever Factual Inaccuracies In Movies

Nothing annoys me more than nitpicking, pedantic, twats who watch movies with the aim of pointing out ‘problems’ with the realism of films whose sole aim is entertainment.

That’s a lie, actually there are loads of things that annoy me more: Big Brother, David Cameron’s face, The Killer-Kaiser-Razor-Chiefs, Israel and Palestine not getting on, Sarah Palin, I could go on.

My point is, that in the grand scheme of things if a character in 1950 is talking on a phone that wasn’t invented until 1951, it’s not gonna cause me to demand my money back.

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Yet, every now and again some films come along with such contempt for the events that created them that there is nothing to do but scream at the screen, “For fucks sake, I may be dumb but that is really taking the piss!”.

This week’s ‘Ice Age: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs’ includes said Dinos running around with man and woolly mammoths. Of course it’s just a kids film but its enough to put Darwin and Dawkins back a few years in their education that “God didn’t put those dinosaur bones here to test us”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMB5L0VoszI

So without further ado, below are the worst offenders in the war on truth.

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Braveheart (1995)
There are a million and one cases of poetic license in Mel Gibson’s English-baiting epic but the biscuit is well and truly taken when the director infers that William Wallace knocks up Edward II’s wife. Considering she was about three years old at the time this film is set, this seems highly unlikely.

U-571 (2000)
Over and over again the USAians will use their much larger budgets and bigger film studios to re-write us lowly Brits out of the history books (see Saving Private Ryan). Never was it more offensive than when the British mission to steal the Enigma machine was cast completely with Yanks, including Matthew McConaughey and Jon Bon Jovi. It might not have been as much of a piss take if it wasn’t for the fact that when the soldiers in question were risking their lives on the real U-110, America hadn’t even entered the war yet.

10,000 BC (2008)
A movie so bad that I watched it in a double bill with ‘Disaster Movie’ and was unsure which was worse. From the domestication of horses (and sabre-toothed tigers?!) to the lovely shiny teeth of the protagonists (apparently Colgate is older than you’d think), ‘10,000 BC’ tops many lists of least historically accurate film of all time. Most peoples main beef; Woolly Mammoths building the pyramids…

Gladiator(2000)
Poor Commodus. In reality a reasonable leader, well-respected, ruled for over a decade and was murdered in a bathtub. In movie-land a whiny, patricidal villain whose main aim in life was to boff his sister. Actually the boffing of one’s own sister was all the rage in Rome, so that last bit may have been true.

Star Wars (1977)
So begins the text: “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away”. There is no record of this galaxy existing and no proof of when these events happened. I’m starting to think Mr. Lucas made it all up. And while we’re here did the unsinkable Titanic really sink?…two seconds, I’ll just check wikipedia…Oh. It did. Well played Mr. Cameron.

What do you think? Is suspension of disbelief essential for movies? Or do goofs like the ones above ruin all enjoyment? Any more to add?

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