"Zulu" is a sentimental favorite and has been since I was a child. Of course I'd love to see a good remake.
What I find fascinating is that everyone assumes "modern" movie makers would change the story to pander to the tastes of today's audiences, thereby corrupting history. This is , of course, EXACTLY what Cy Endfield and Stanley Baker did. They were not above pandering to their audience, or allowing history to override a good yarn.
Now, I'm not going to nitpick over facing colors and unstained helmets, but let me point out that…
Chard and Bromhead had beards like quickset hedges, but that wasn't considered sexy in 1964, so we get Baker and Caine as clean shaven as a Bangkok tranny.
The entire nonsense of Rev. Witt's daughter was to introduce, inexplicably, an element of sexual tension to the story. Reverend Witt himself is a useful artifice for raising and dismissing several moral points that may have crossed the minds of moviegoers ca.1964 but certainly weren't on the minds of defenders of Rorke's Drift.
Colour-Sergeant Bourne is written as a stock film character, the British Sergeant-Major/Police Constable, full of long-service and middle-aged wisdom. Frank Bourne was really 24 years old and had been Colour-Sergeant less than a year. Likewise, Surgeon Reynolds, who in reality was about the same age as Chard and Bromhead, is made 20 years older to conform to type, the cantakerous old sawbones.
Most alarmingly, Dalton is portrayed as a fey storekeeper. One notices most British films of the 60's and 70's seem to have a poncey supporting character, so perhaps it was expected.
Reverend Smith is completely omitted, presumably because two reverends would have been confusing, especially with one preaching peace and desertion and the other handing out ammo and cheering on the defenders.
The 24th wasn't a Welsh regiment but rather the usual Victorian rag bag of English, Irish, Welsh and Scots. Of course by pretending they're Welsh, we can have that lovely "Men of Harlech" moment, which didn't actually happen. Neither did the Zulus "salute" the brave defenders, and once the impi had 
ed off said defenders spent some time with bullet and bayonet dispatching wounded Zulus and making sure the dead ones were really dead.
So, while I'm perfectly willing to decry how current filmmakers are willing to contort history for marketing and storyline purposes, let's at least acknowledge "It Was Ever Thus," and quit pretending they made better history films "once upon a time." If you don't beleive me. rent "Birth of a Nation" and "Intolerance".
