Best and Worst ancient (BC) themed movies...

[Kyriakos]

Just a thread about movies which are deemed as very good, or on the other end as crap, and are all about the BC era (eg Greece, Rome, etc).

Ok, here are my first suggestions:

Best

300 (only the original one, of course, the new one is utter garbage ). While 300 contains a large amount of crap/invented dialogue, strange names for some of the Spartans (eg Stelios? Not really ancient ), and some deadwood scenes (Queen Gorgo being abused), it also has excellently stylised battles/gore, an epic feel, AND Baphomet playing a sitar-like instrument

Runner-up: Gladiator (edit: was notified that it is from the 2nd century AD- Marcus Aurelius etc). I still think it is a very cool movie on the general period

Worst

300: Rise of an Empire. Not much to say here. The first 5 min of 300: Rise of an Empire alone is the least historically accurate ancient-themed film of all times. Pleonasm and cheap imitation finish off this horrible movie.

Runner-up is the 'Release the Kraken!' one


Link to video.

 

[Arakhor]

The original Clash of the Titans was a classic. Besides, you don't expect films about Greek mythology to be historically accurate.

 

[Kyriakos]

^Debatable (on the purely mythological themed ones, eg Hercules and so on) but again you have the set texts of the myths themselves, so having battles with green zombies in the new Hercules film again is not really faithful to the text of the myth either

 

[Borachio]

Simultaneously the best and worst ancient themed movie:

Link to video.

Over clocking the motor, or something.

 

[Quackers]

I never really enjoyed Gladiator bar a few scenes.
It was too long and overwrought.

Anyone else agree with me?

 

[Kyriakos]

^Are you not entertained?

 

[classical_hero]

#00 the graphic novel version is epic, since it pisses off so many people. That is why I like it. I know it is not an accurate portrayal and thus I can enjoy it for what it is mindless fun and that is why it is so great.

 

[Kennigit]

Best BC: The Matrix

Worst AD: Matrix Revolutions

 

[Harv]

Just a thread about movies which are deemed as very good, or on the other end as crap, and are all about the BC era (eg Greece, Rome, the Norse etc).

Ok, here are my first suggestions:

Best

Best and worst will depend on what you want to see in a movie. Do you care about historical accuracy or special effects?

The Flintstones! What other movie shows humans and dinosaurs existing at the same time?

 

[Borachio]

Link to video.

 

[classical_hero]

This is the highlight of that movie.

 

[warpus]

The Ten Commandments was good, even if historically inaccurate.

Year one with Michael Cera was pretty bad, and that movie with caveman women running around in bikinis (or some such thing) was good. I have no idea what movie that was, but it's from the 70s or something and it's allll about the ladies.

edit: I think I might be talking about the stuff posted above.

The movie with the kraken was pretty horrible, I found it incredibly boring.

 

[Perfection]

Link to video.

 

[classical_hero]

I'm his friend, Jesus.

 

[Quackers]

^Are you not entertained?

I am Maximus Decimus Quackerus.

Commander of UKIP in the South, General of the UKIP Internet division and loyal servant to the TRUE Prime Minister, Nigel Farage. Father too 10,137 murdered posts and 88 threads. I will have my vengeance in this forum or the next!

 

[Wolfbeckett]

I never cared for Gladiator either. I feel like I could just watch the fight scenes as a montage and skip the rest, the rest of the story was not particularly original or entertaining and the historical inaccuracies drive me up the wall.

 

[Kyriakos]

There is another film worth mentioning. I haven't seen it - just this trailer - but the premise is that there exists just one Cyclops, in the Roman Empire, and it decides to declare war on the Empire. Maybe it even wins


Link to video.

It might even be quite cool, in a weird kind of way.

"The rise of Cyclops... is the fall of the Roman Empire"

 

[Phrossack]

Most sword-and-sandal movies from the 50's were dreck. More recently, we've had 10,000 BC, which I guess could be entertaining to some (who doesn't love terror birds?), but is only marginally more historically accurate than Star Wars. The more recent Clash of the Titans wasn't very good, and 300 was trash.

I can't think of many good ones, but I haven't seen many. Alexander did extremely well in historically accurate costuming and equipment but was widely panned. Troy tried to squeeze all the stories of the Trojan War into a few hours with all of the things that would seem weird to modern audiences, like gods and their actions, carved out and the holes plastered over. I can see why they might have done that, and I kinda liked it, but it was also unpopular, and doesn't stick well in my memory. At least it spared Sean Bean. Really, the genre seems plagued by cliches of mindless action movies filled with half-naked, half-leather-clad people with somewhat English accents killing monsters and people.

 

[Arakhor]

I did say the classic version of Clash of the Titans, starring Harry Hamlin, Laurence Oliver etc., and featuring the work of Ray Harryhausen.

 

[The_J]

Life of Brian .
Asterix and Cleopatra .
Caveman .

Yeah, yeah, I know, .

Just looked up a list on wikipedia, there don't seem to be *that* many films in that period of time.
Only really mentionable one is probably Troy (and if you want to go a bit more trashy: Scorpion King), but else....


Oh, and for sure utter crap: Meet the spartans. What a waste of time.