Naval History Forums

Yes, and I'm sure Russian movies feature the western allies in a big way, and British movies emphasize US participation. It's only Hollywood which targets their native population for emphasis.

Bgile, Hve to agree with you on this one!

Karl Heidenreich wrote:RF:

After all in the Battle of Britain the United States wasn't even in the war......

Wrong! According to movies like Pearl Harbor the war started on December 7th and was won by Doolitle.

Those of us in reality know what the truth is and who started both WW1 and WW2. Actually Karl you are playing on a double negative, for if WW2 really did start on Pearl Harbor day then indeed the USA couldn't have been in the war in 1940.

Unofficially some Americans were involved in the Battle of Britain - the pilots in the Eagle Squadron. No Hollywood film about these, and how they won the Battle of Britain for the Brits?

RF:

I was refering to the Dec. 7 date in an ironic way. And I do believe that in the Hollywood "block buster" Pearl Harbor we had Ben Affleck as a volunteer going to Britain, where in no time he became "group leader" and he was shooting down all the Luftwaffe for the Brits.

But this is hardly the point. The point is the quality of some movie regarding the Confederacy and my opinion that it's not likley it will be fairly treated or with a good screenplay. Anyway is not going to happen.

Regards,

A good civil war movie about Mobile Bay would be nice..........or perhaps the short life of the CSS Arkansas.

Depending on the angle taken.

Last week I bought the complete TV series "The TUDORS". A Showtime presentation is an obvious british production from screenplay to editing. I cannot but admire the totality of this series because the producers, even being british, potrayed a very balanced narrative.
Henry the VIII was the father of modern England of the Anglican Faith. So, at least for a British he must be an important figure that will be subjected to some distortion (from the British point of view to present a more intelectual and moral figure). However the screenplay portray the guy as he was. That kind of thing that we can expect from England is what is so difficult to expect from Hollywood.

Karl Heidenreich wrote:
Henry the VIII was the father of modern England of the Anglican Faith.

NO.

Henry VIII right up to his death remained a Catholic by conviction. He set up the Church of England to place himself above the Pope regarding doctrinal matters in England, principally over his right to divorce Katherine of Aragon. The basic doctrine of the Church of England, despite the efforts of Thomas Cromwell, remained Catholic, save in two respects; Henry was the head of the Church and not the Pope, and mass could be said in English instead of Latin.

After the creation of the Church of England more Protestant ''heretics'' were publicly burned on the personal order of Henry VIII than were later burned in the reign of Mary I.

Only with the death of Henry VIII in January 1547 and the acession of the boy King Edward VI were the brakes on religous reform finally removed, and under the Seymour brothers the Church of England turned from Catholic to Protestant. Mary I tried to take it back; Elizabeth I allowed the Church of England to gradually evolve into the Anglican faith during the first fifteen years of her reign.

RF,

But it was Henry VIII the one that started the whole thing in England, no Henry VIII then no Royal sponsored Reformist movement. However my comment went in the way of how the image of Henry was handled.

Regsrds,

The Reformist movement started before Henry wanted his divorce with Katherine of Aragon, and Henry rigorously supressed it, to the point that the Pope gave Henry the title of ''Defender of the Faith.'' That title incidentally remains with the British Monarch to this day and remains on some of our coinage - that is defender of the Cathlic faith even though most people think it means defender of protestantism!!!!!

Only when Henry wanted his divorce and came into contact with the Boelyn family was protestatism given a boost - but only to challenge the Pope's authority. Once married to Ann Boelyn the clashes over catholic doctrine and religous reform between Henry and Ann and Sir Thomas Boelyn (backed by Thomas Cromwell) began and both Ann and Cromwell were eventually beheaded.
Henry wanted to be master of his own Church (in the view of Sir Thomas Moore Henry wanted to be God) with his own Catholic doctrine. Religous reformers were seen as a challenge to Henry's authority - he was not a true religous reformer - in the same way that the Pope represented a challenge. So anybody - whether Catholic or Protestant - who did not unconditionally accept Henry VIII as head of the Church of England and sole arbiter of Church doctrine was put to death. The Catholics went to the block for treason, the protestants were burned as heretics.

Hi Karl.

The actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers who played Henry VIII is actually Irish.
I bet one or two of his family/friends teased him about playing an English Monarch (some Irish people despise the English)

Superb series. Another one I saw lately, which I regard as excelent (and is American, by the way) is The Pacific, specially Okinawa action.

Gary wrote:Hi Karl.

The actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers who played Henry VIII is actually Irish.
I bet one or two of his family/friends teased him about playing an English Monarch (some Irish people despise the English)

And Henry VII, Elizabeth 1 and Oliver Cromwell in particular.

This series only covered part of Henry VIII'S reign, up to Anne of Cleves and the execution of Thomas Cromwell. We didn't get Henry's last two wives, the two Katherine's and the ''Pepperpot conspiracy'' that brought Catherine Howard to a sticky end. Mr Meyers would have to put some weight on if he did....

A Hornblower movie would be great.
Age of sail drama's are always entertaining.
I believe they axed the TV series because of its high production costs

We already have them don't we?

lwd wrote:I'd like to see historically well done movies on several of the ancient battles/campaigns. In particular: The Retreat of the 10,000, Salamis, Marathon, Thermopoly (might be hard with the comic book version out), Philip of Macedons life and campaigns as well as those of his son, Hanibul's campaigns, etc. Some would best be done as either mini series or multiple movies. Lepanto would also be nice. Many more ...

The problem with most of these suggestions everyone is making is that women won't want to watch them. No movie made in the USA will work without the damned women wanting to see them--that's why Pearl Harbor was such a shockingly bad vomitfest. Even the fairly good scenes of model/computer graphics battleships getting blown to hell weren't nearly enough compensation, especially since it was so obviously off in historical detail to anyone who knows what went down that Sunday morning.

Getting back to lwd's suggestions, though. The Anabasis would make a great movie! And if they filmed it the right way, the women would like it, too. Michael Curtis Ford wrote a pretty good fictional adaptation, The Ten Thousand that would work as a movie. It has a pretty cool female character who plays a central role. I have always thought it was the greatest adventure story of all time (the Anabasis, not Ford's book which was decent but nothing really spectacular in a literary sense--his later books got worse and worse, too).

Salamis might well work also, as it has the coolest woman in Classical history, Artemisia of Halicarnassus, who commanded a contingent of ships for Xerxes. When she saw where things were going, and that her ships were next to go, she rammed a Persian ship, so Greeks thought she was with them and left her alone. Xerxes then said "My women have become men, and my men have become women.' Or something like that. Also, the guy she rammed was supposedly another Ionian Greek Persian ally, a real jerk who had been f***ing with her somehow.

As for me, the best possible war movie would be Jutland. Not one, not two, not three...but FIVE major warships blowing up in enormous explosions. Plus a few that got the hell blown out of them and had to struggle home against all odds. Plus a headstrong admiral running around half out of control, almost sending the 5th Battle Squadron to possible doom, steering in circles and later denying it, etc. The Warspite circling right into the entire High Seas Fleet. Midnight surprise clashes galore, destroyers colliding with dreadnoughts, etc. etc....

But no women. So it will never work.