"A new lace wars period movie" Topic

Today I stumbled across the "The Sovereign's Servant", a new Russian movie set during the Swedish/Russian War of 1709.

Here is a trailer of the movie (partly in English) … boy, this looks good!:

link

Brilliant a movie about the Great Northern War with an evil man in black running around the dark woods!
Thanks a lot for the link!
Cyrille

I have it and it is pretty good – nice battle scenes.

Unfortunately I only have it in Russian so if anyone out there knows where I can get English subtitles from then please let me know (hwiccee@hotmail.com)

From IMDB:

us.imdb.com/title/tt0476695

Wish it would get translated or subtitled into English. Looks pretty kewl…but I don't speak Russian, French, or Polish…..

I can manage in French, where do I get the movie?

I can't get that movie to play, I get sound but no picture. Found these on Youtube though;
link
link

Looks pretty impressive!

French guy killed a wrong person on a duel. French king panishes him by sending him to Russia as a spy to report on the progress of the war between Sweedes and Russians. Looks very good.

Wow, very impressive looking film. It looks like they really paid attention to the historical details in the battle scenes. What a shame if it doesn't have sub titles.

Very nice, Roly. Very Serge Eistenstein, that.

Not wishing to offend anyone, but the really sad thing is that it hasn't been deemed very important that learning a second (or third, or fourth) language be part of a proper education, for the last couple of generations.

When you think that if reflecting history, the protagonists in the film, as well as most of the important characters, would be fluent in at least four or five languages, it's not clear that we've become more civilized in the past three centuries--even though we may not have as many fleas.

Moreover: damn and blast! I can do the GNW in 15mm, but these scenes are going to get me looking for 28mm!!!

Allen

I agree with you Allen. I don't do the GNW, but I am very tempted to build Swedes and Russians in 28mm. Not like I need another wargame period, but this era has a lot of appeal to us horse and musket types.

On the language issue, I doubt that the common man spoke more than one language in the 18th Century. The upper classes often spoke several languages. Frederick the Great preferred to use French over German and could probably read Greek and Latin as well.

I took about 8 years of French in grade school, but the lack of opportunities to use the language on a regular basis kept me from becoming fluent in it. That is one advantage that the Europeans have over Americans: their proximity to other countries gives them more opportunities to use the second or third language and develop fluency.

I work for a Dutch based company and all the people from the homeland speak perfect English – rather embarrassing that we Americans can not speak in their tongue.

Something about the clips makes me think of the RSM style of figure. Pity they don't do WSS/GNW. Might have to settle for Old Glory.

Allen

As I seem to be the only one who has seen it here is a quick run through of the battle – Poltava.

The battle opens with the Swedes emerging out of a wood & forming up for an assault. Meanwhile the hero and his Russian mate are in one of the small redoubts that featured in the battle – the place the Swedes are going to assault. There then follows a bloody battle for the redoubt & the hero (plus mate) escapes back to the main Russian army.

Both sides now form up for the main event with 100's, maybe 1000's, of soldiers on each side. I am not sure if these are all real or computer generated, it is so difficult to tell nowadays. But which ever it is it looks great. Peter the Great then gives a stiring speech.

I should mention that I was quite impressed that they got/made the actors who played Peter the Great & Charles XII look quite a lot like the originals.

In any case then the Swedes move to attack and stop close to the Russian line. There is kind of a pause while both sides realise what is to come. I liked this, it seemed an appropiate way to emphasis the the drama of the sutuation & the humanity of the soldiers. Then the Swedes prepare to fire with the Russians just standing there, so close to each other but unable to do anything. BANG the Swedes fire and then it is there turn to stand & wait for death, BANG the Russians fire & then both sides charge.

You now have a confused melee with the Russians sending their cavalry in and the Swedes commiting their reserve. The fighting goes backwards and forwards with the issue in doubt but the Russians being pushed back. The just when it seems that the Swedes have won in comes Peter the Great. The Russians rally and surge forward to victory.

It is a pretty good movie battle with a lot of nice action. As is often the case with films it does mess around with the history a little, but compared to some Hollywood films it is quite close to reality.

The uniforms, flags, equipment, etc, look stunning. As do the parts when the units are in formation. Of course I could nit-pick on some of the details (no pikemen, both sides have standard uniforms & flags, etc). Similarly there was an enormous infantry melee which looked good but is of course incorrect. There is plenty of special effects & 'gore' but it basically a family film so it is not too bad. Overall it looked great and felt like a battle.

Because of this I would forget trying to use 25/28mm figures which are only any good for skirmishes & use a smaller scale. This is a battle & you need lots of figures.

The film also features an number of skirmishes & sword fights. These would be good to do in skirmish scales like 25/28mm or even 40mm, there are some very nice 40mm GNW figures around.

The film also has a reasonable storyline and some romantic bits. Enough that my wife also enjoyed the film. So I would highly recommend it.

"Because of this I would forget trying to use 25/28mm figures which are only any good for skirmishes & use a smaller scale. This is a battle & you need lots of figures."

"…25/28mm figures which are only any good for skirmishes…": does not compute.

And I would especially not say things like that around Alte Fritz:

TMP link

Allen

Europeans will always have an advantage in learning a language. If you are French you already have the basics of learning any of the other Romance languages based on Latin. Plus you have an incentive to learn one of the Germanic languages which are right across the border. When you are exposed to a language from birth, you tend to pick up a few words in it. Most people in the US are only exposed to English unless you live along the border with Mexico.

I dated a woman when I was in military who was fluent in 7 langauages and could get around easily in another 6 or 8. She was great to take on a vacation. Why could she speak so many languages? Her father was Dutch and her mother was from Aruba, and she grew up in Aruba and the US. Dutch is the official language of Aruba, but the natives have their own language based on 5 main others, Dutch, Spanish, English, French and Portuguese, plus some words from the original natives and Africian slaves. I always enjoyed listening to her and her family speaking and trying to figure out how many words from differnt languages where used in a conversation.

She could go any place that they spoke some Romance or Germanic language and be understood. Luckily for me she only swore in English, so I knew when I was in big trouble. The funny thing that got me in trouble, was that I would use a common term and it would get translated in the worst possible way. So much for people speaking the same language understanding each other. Wonder how many wars have been started over a faulty translation.

As to the fact you cant use 28mm figures, that is BS. I have stopped painting anything smaller then 28s now. I just like the heft and the extras I can do with my painting.

Sorry, better example:

TMP link

Allen

Arteis, thanks for posting that! A must see.

However, I'll have to avoid Musketeer Miniatures website like the plague otherwise my so-far-so-good progress on my Napoleonic collection these days will grind to a halt.

28mm only good for skirmishes? Where does that come from? I remember playing fast-moving ACW and SYW games using thousands of 25/28mm figures and the spectacle (and the fun we had) was amazing.

Because of this I would forget trying to use 25/28mm figures which are only any good for skirmishes & use a smaller scale. This is a battle & you need lots of figures.

I beg to differ. I can see that there is much work to do.

Hwiccee: I believe that you are a member of the OSW yahoo group. Take a look at my photo album there for pictures of our big battalion game last September.

Yes I have seen the pictures, it looks like a good game. What was it about 30 battalions a side?

Unfortunately I am not a millionaire with a warehouse to play in. Poltava features 75 to 80 Russian battalions & even the game in the photos is hardly an ordinary game. So instead I will just have to use smaller figures and play battles like you have pictured & Polatva every week and on an ordinary table.

I'll have to avoid Musketeer Miniatures website like the plague

I have a few of these (the Musketeer Minis)and they are excellent figures; however, they are so slow to be released that I may wind up doing the GNW in 40mm as Sash and Sabre are promising a GNW 40mm line.

I found the DVD of this film today (note: I live in China, so…) got home, found to my delight that it has English subtitles, started playing it, and…complete gibberish! The English subtitles make no sense whatsoever! :(

Bummer! Looks good, though!

Saw the battle scene on Youtube. Where did the Swedes get their shining new uniform? Looked as if they had just left Saxony last week. Or Lewenhaupt's supplies had reached them after all.

GNW is another of those wars which 15 years ago no-one seemed to have heard of and now new figure ranges are popping up all over the place.

I am going to do some GNW alongside WoSS. By using the Polemos rules and Baccus miniatures, I can get a bit of figure crossover.

I wish that Musketeer Miniatures would get off the Dark Ages Saxon kick for awhile and expand the start of their GNW range. That would be the ticket.