MovieChat Forums > Apocalypto (2006) Discussion > History Buffs spells out how INACCURATE ...

History Buffs spells out how INACCURATE this movie is!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5pBZKj1VnA

Why are you here if you haven't seen the movie yet?

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Awesome channel!

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Who cares if its not historically accurate, it's a fun movie. These history buffs take all the fun out of movies like this.

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Who cares if its not historically accurate
Everybody who is interested in history? Most of the public won't research and will only get their information from movies like this. If you look at youtube comment sections of the sacrifice scene it's full of people claiming they were glad the Mayas were genocide because they are evil. Why do they think this? Because of movies like this! As a film maker you have a RESPONSIBILITY.
Especially when there are only like 5 Maya movies in existence!

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Look, if those people weren't making silly comments about Apocalypto they would be making silly comments about something else. You can't spend your life worrying about other peoples education or lack of.

If you have a boyfriend/girlfriend, sit them down and open up to them a little because you might be a little sexually repressed. Tell them you want them to paint their bum red and dress up as a baboon or whatever, let your freak flag fly, you wont regret it. With respect, you got to learn to relax, that's all I'm saying. Teaching people about the Mayans isn't your responsibility and it certainly isn't Mel Gibson's. I guess his first responsibility would be to the people that gave him the money to make the film. Keeping a film historically accurate is cccllllleeeeaaaarrrrrllllyyyyyy waaayyyyy down on the list of responsibility of most if not all film makers and who are you to say otherwise?

Mel Gibson made one of the best films of recent years, FACT, that's not an opinion, it's FACT. Or if you are in Northern Ireland INFACT. (that's a little joke that I hope at least one person will get). Relax, have fun and enjoy this amazing FILM.

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Look, if those people weren't making silly comments about Apocalypto they would be making silly comments about something else.

And if the silly movie didn't misrepresent them, then it could educate them.
Teaching people about the Mayans isn't your responsibility and it certainly isn't Mel Gibson's.

It certainly is and it certainly is!!
I guess his first responsibility would be to the people that gave him the money to make the film. Keeping a film historically accurate is cccllllleeeeaaaarrrrrllllyyyyyy waaayyyyy down on the list of responsibility of most if not all film makers and who are you to say otherwise?
Historically respectful movies are ALWAYS better! Real life is just richer and more interesting!
Mel Gibson made one of the best films of recent years, FACT, that's not an opinion, it's FACT. Or if you are in Northern Ireland INFACT. (that's a little joke that I hope at least one person will get). Relax, have fun and enjoy this amazing FILM.
it's GOOD, but would have been better if made authentic.
If you'd studied the history you know it's far more interesting culturally than Gibson's depiction. The city is only in the movie for 5 minutes at all

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I think you are being unreasonable.

They can't make every film historically accurate due to many factors such as time constraints, pacing and keeping the film interesting to as many people as possible.

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Complete BS
This is not about asking for MORE. This is about them doing things WRONG.
Inexcusable things. NOT having the sacrifice scene like that would NOT have cost MORE. How stupid to suggest.

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Calm down. If this movie inspires just one person to go and research ancient Mesoamerica, then all of the historical inaccuracies will have been forgivable. You people (and by that I mean blacks) need to stop treating fictional films as if they’re documentaries. The filmmaker has only one responsibility to his (because women can’t make movies) paying audience, and that is to entertain. End of story.

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[deleted]

Ok, I don't expect movies to be 100% accurate potrayals of their time period and I wouldn't consider myself a "history buff".
But when something is considered to be factual by the entire scientific community and there's no evidence to the contrary, there's absolutely no excuse for major historical innacuracies. If it's just a fantasy movie, fine. If it's a historical fiction, it would be foolish to expect perfect accuracy, but when a movie claims to be based on real historical events, certain amount of accuracy should be expected. Everything less is just laziness.

Now the question is how much laziness can we excuse? Imagine we're in year 2718. New historical movie set in early 21st century America is comming out. People in the movie fashion clothes and haircuts that were typical 50 years after or before that era? Fine, I guess...it's not that bad of a mistake. But there's also flying cars and flintlock muskets? President of the US is called Abraham Lincoln and he's asian?

Of course, some people will rightly complain, but then someone like you will come and say that we can't know for sure because historians are probably paid to just just make up stuff.

Let me share my thoughts on your claim "Experts are paid to lie. What other purpose would they have?".
I agree that this is true in some cases. But what motive would they have to lie about Mayan society? You see, in most cases straight up lies are not even needed. Facts just need a little twist or biased interpretation. Take for example the recent Cheddar man controversy (there's a word limit so look it up if you don't know). There's an obvious political agenda behind it and the real facts were just a little bit twisted, enough to make a point.

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[deleted]

You must really hate the concept of alternate history.

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You must really hate the concept of real history.

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I only made it a few minutes in. I guess maybe his arguments could've gotten better but I didn't have the patience to find out.

He complained about the sound an animal makes.
That's a nitpick.

He said these people couldn't be Mayans because they don't live in a city.
That would be like, 400 years from now someone making a movie about the U.S. and it depicts someone living in the bayou and a history buff saying, "They can't be from the U.S. As history tells us, all people in the U.S. lived in cities like Manhattan, San Francisco and L.A. No one lived in the middle of the country and they certainly didn't live in trailers or shacks."

I stopped watching after that.

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same

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You know its extra ironic considering that there are people living in the area as tribes to this day. You could go and find a real tribe living there. Altrough the nonagressive ones have taken in some of the technology of the modern era, the "purist" ones are usually ones who will kill outsiders and therefore dont get influenced by them.

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The Mayans performed human sacrifice, including that of young children, even babies. They memorialized the ritual in numerous paintings and carvings found on what are now the ruins of their civilization. There are literally depictions in stone of a priest holding a knife in one hand, while the bloody cut-out heart is in the other hand.This is a fact, and you must deal with it.

Those that wish to deny history in order to completely white wash their favored civilizations, are dangerous people indeed.

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Oblivioid, I think you'll find the AZTECS carried out sacrifices much more than the Mayans ever did.

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to be fair the guy a douche who hates Mel Gibson.. he nitpicks everything Mel does as totally inaccurate yet loved the last samurai.

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Cos the Last Samurai is a great movie. I think the only decent war movie Gibson has directed has been Hacksaw Ridge.

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