MovieChat Forums > 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992) Discussion > Ridley's forgotten film

Ridley's forgotten film

posted 10 months ago by PrimeMinisterX (8309)
4 replies | jump to latest

I just finished watching this movie for the first time. I very vaguely remember it being released to theaters all those many years ago but did not see it and promptly forgot it even existed. It seems that most of the rest of the world has also forgotten.

Considering who the director is, and the subject matter, you would think that this would be a better remembered film, but I also see that the scores are not great. It has a 33% critics' score on RT and only a 50% audience score, along with a decent-but-not-great 6.4 on IMDB.

At least in my opinion, it's certainly a better film than the RT scores would make you think and I'm surprised by the rather chilly reception that it has gotten. It is at least a well-made and relatively lavish picture, if not necessarily a great one or one of Ridley's best.

It seems that some people have a problem with historical inaccuracies and that Ridley should've presented Columbus as a much more brutal man. I am frankly too ignorant of the facts to assess the film's historical accuracy, but I suppose whether a film should even be rated on its accuracy is debatable in itself. (It is not a documentary, after all.)

I'd give it a 7/10.

What do you think? Why is 1492 not a better remembered entry in Ridley Scott's filmography?

[–] HarlemEagle42 (16225) 6 months ago

6/10. It's a well made movie and it has some entertainment value. But it's unwieldy in terms of plotting. Is Columbus as portrayed here meant to be a dreamer or a schemer? Perhaps if he was played as being more self-aggrandizing and later we see that he's in over his head, it could had been more interesting. He's just kind of too...nice. And while it's not a documentary, we do know from history that Columbus had his darker impulses.

[–] PrimeMinisterX (8309) 6 months ago

Judging from the film itself and not from any facts of history, I would say that he definitely is a dreamer. He has great plans and he seems to have no innate ill will toward the natives. As you seem to take note of, he is in fact rather kind to them.

I won't say it's a great film. But it's good enough that it seems a little strange to me that it's been entirely wiped from the collective film consciousness.

[–] pjl69 (2438) 6 months ago

At a time it was fashionable to critize Depardieu's accent. I guess people just jumped on the bandwagon to hate this film and it got the same treatment than Oliver Stone's Alexander. The 90's was largely a wasted time for Ridley (moviewise), he didn't make many good films during that time (Thelma & Louise and 1492 at the beginning of the decade). White Squal and G.I.Jane weren't very interesting works. But then he made comeback with Gladiator...

[–] PrimeMinisterX (8309) 6 months ago

I have heard that about Depardieu's accent, and I suppose to be fair, he not only is hard to understand at times--I had to turn on the subtitles--but his accent clearly is neither Italian (Columbus's ancestry) nor Spanish (the nation whose crown he sailed under). But still, I don't think that's a good enough reason to dismiss the entire film.

As for Ridley's 90s filmography, I suppose I would agree with you for the most part, but obviously Thelma & Louise was a very popular film, and I personally enjoyed both White Squall and GI Jane even if I would acknowledge that neither were substantial works.