"Most ignorant mistake in Didley Squot's Napoleon?" Topic

So many to choose from.

- Casting a 49-year old man to play a 26-year-old man but a 35-year-old woman to play a 32-year-old woman
- Depicting Napoleon as an incel
- Forgetting the 1796-7 Italian campaign
- Directing Vanessa Kirby to "imagine you're in Basic Instinct, love…a bit wider…a bit wider…"
- Not noticing the battle of the Nile
- Forgetting the Jaffa massacre
- Forgetting the Marengo campaign
- Depicting Josephine as just a hoe
- The Tarpaulins of Austerlitz
- Failing to have "My Heart Will Go On" playing in the background during the scenes where the liner full of enemy soldiers hits the iceberg in the pond
- 20 to 30 tricolor flags everywhere, to show you a/ this is HQ and b/ that Didley's watched a whole Kurosawa movie
- Not noticing Trafalgar
- Napoleon rogering Josephine fully-clothed under the dining table in front of the servants
- Napoleon rogering Josephine fully-clothed generally
- Not noticing the abolition of the Holy Roman Empire
- Depicting Napoleon as a simp
- Forgetting the Jena campaign
- Forgetting the Eylau campaign
- Forgetting the Friedland campaign
- Depicting Napoleon as a cuck
- Marie Walewska? Who she?
- All the battles fought among the French tents
- Forgetting Spain 1807-1814
- Forgetting Austria 1809
- Re-staging the entire "Clyde gets laid" scene out of Every Which Way But Loose, with Napoleon as a less likeable and articulate Clyde, including the bit where he bangs the door shut after himself
- The Continental System? What that?
- Invading Russia with 50 men during the snows of summer
- Failing to mention typhus
- The Disney Cossacks on foot with portable mortars, but no horses
- Forgetting the entire retreat from Moscow
- Forgetting the campaign of 1813
- Forgetting the campaign of 1814
- Not knowing the names of any of the marshals
- Having Napoleon come back to France in 1815 because Josephine
- Napoleon not knowing she was dead
- Napoleon predicting the site of the battle of Waterloo
- Treating the Airfix Waterloo Assault Set as a primary historical source
- Forgetting Ligny and Quatre Bras
- Forgetting the allies in Wellington's army
- The rain on the morning of Waterloo
- Plancenoit? Where that?
- Describing battle events with dialogue to save money, Blake's Seven-stylee, e.g. "Look! The Prussians are here!"
- The Prussians arriving from the wrong direction
- Telescopic sniper sights on Baker rifles
- Wellington's men fighting from trenches
- Massed cavalry charges, by 10 or 15 cavalrymen
- Infantry leaving trenches to form square against cavalry
- Maximus Decimus Napoleonus fighting personal single combats with individual enemy rank and file soldiers, instead of directing the army
- Failing to say "Roma victor" after winning
- Failing to show Napoleon's post-Waterloo career in the arena against Tigrus the Gaul
- Wellington meeting Napoleon
- Wellington neglecting to roger any of Napoleon's exes
- Napoleon dying movingly by falling sideways off his chair with his hat still on

Or add your own, there are so many.

On the plus side. It's a 3 hour movie, it's not going to cover everything. At the meeting with Wellington we learnt what his life on St Helena would be like. Many of the uniforms were good. Waterloo had rain, cavalry, squares.
For me the best scene was Napoleon arriving on Elba. I suddenly realised that he was back in a smaller version of Corsica.

But the worst problem? It doesn't even attempt to tell a coherent story or to develop character. For the the mistake is imagining you can cover the whole of Napoleon's career in one film. An example: Waterloo is the climax of the film, and takes a large part of it. But it's largely seen from Wellington's point of view and inaccurately when it comes to Napoleon. A very bizarre series of directorial choices.

Three 3 hour movies would have been better.

- "Treating the Airfix Waterloo Assault Set as a primary historical source."

LOL!

Depicting Napoleon as an incel

For an involuntary celebrate person he sure has a lot of sex in that film… which you do acknowledge further on in the list

I thought it was pretty unforgivable for the Sniper to take the shot after Wellington told him not to….surprised Ridley didn't show us his flogging after the battle…

So how was the popcorn, or whatever people in the U.K. eat at the theatre?

I thought an artillery officer requested permission to take a 6 pounder shot at Napoleon as he rode to rally his French troops near the beginning of the battle.

Boney clutching his ears before his guns fire, despite being way off in the rear.

It could have been worse. Imagine if Oliver Stone made Napoleon. 3 hours of mommy issues AND Napoleon has an Irish accent.

No, I'm still not over Alexander (2004)

Napoleon certainly forgot many things, then again he was 49!

"Treating the Airfix Waterloo Assault Set as a primary historical source" -- hilarious!

Nice summary Cuirassier. I tried once to list all the errors and gave up in frustration. Whenever someone mentions the film my wife takes my hand and says 'Just let it go.'

Our only hope is Spielberg.

Ha! Invading Russia with 50 men during the snows of summer

The costuming for the principals was generally superb, but still I have to ask where was the Ridley Scott who directed The Duelists?

Let us not forget the appearance of the chap who was meant to be Ney. It never dawned on that was who he was.

Are you okay 4th Cuirassier? Sounds like you need to go lay down in a dark room for a few days my friend. It's only a typical Hollywood "fictional" movie. Try and rest up and relax. It probably won't surprise you but I can't wait to get my copy of the extended Directors cut to watch it for many years to come!

I kinda wondered whether I had gone into Screen 4 by mistake where they were showing Carry On Napoleon. I thought Terry Scott was doing a reasonable job as Napoleon

but the lack of the other Carry On stalwarts – Sid James as Massena, Charles Hawtrey as Bernadotte, Barbara Windsor as Josephine, Benny Hill as Murat – was letting it down.

I had to check my ticket to be sure I was watching the right sex comedy.

Don't lose your head…

The little brown bag behind the seat to barf up the stale popcorn. Typical Hollywood film historical research…or lack of.

At present, the film has grossed $172 USD million worldwide and it still hasnt hit the Apple TV and on demand market. Hard to imagine that the director didnt make the movie to suit the tastes of 100 or so wargamers but, although not a super success, he seems to know a little about marketing.

Hard to imagine that the director didnt make the movie to suit the tastes of 100 or so wargamers

I think he got most of them – they just didn't like it….

"Treating the Airfix Waterloo Assault Set as a primary historical source" -- hilarious!

At least the Airfix Waterloo set had Le Haye Saint in it…that's a point to Airfix on accuracy

At present, the film has grossed $172 USD USD million worldwide and it still hasnt hit the Apple TV and on demand market.

That is actually a huge loss for the studio then because the movie would need to gross roughly $600,000,000 USD to break even considering how film income is distributed.

Apparently 'Barbie' and 'Oppenheimer' each made about a billion. Given these films are more or less the opposite of one another, you can probably figure that the total global box office potential is about $2 USD billion. That is, if you had flawless examplars of either genre on release, almost nobody would see both, but almost all the relevant target audience will go see the one aimed at it. Historically the maximum take for any film has been about a billion (you have to adjust the older ones for ticket price inflation).

So the absolute most you can expect your film to take is about a billion, and that's if it nails it so completely that everybody goes.

Whoever makes the stupid comic book movies apparently completed but then cancelled the release of a whole Batgirl movie. They spent $90 USD million which they wrote off because hyping and pushing it, if they did release it, would lose them even more. They might spend another $200 USD million on promotion, and it then takes $140 USD million at the box office instead of $120 USD million.

I don't know what the production cost of Carry On Napoleon was, but it looks expensive, and the advertising spend must also have been huge. In London at least there were billboards for it everywhere, in the most expensive places, for weeks in advance. As Marcus B says, this means it will have to take a lot of money gross to come close to breaking even. If you spent beyond a certain amount, it must eventually become mathematically impossible.

Scott not the only one making mistakes, Benny Hill in Carry On films ? I think not.

The trenchs, definitely the trenches. No one asked him to make a movie for 100 wargamers. But basic factual information would have been nice. Really, how hard can it be to depict actually events and combat of the period.

Boney clutching his ears before his guns fire, despite being way off in the rear.

Especially since he was an artillery officer!

I'm reminded of the story about his sister Elise being saluted with guns when she arrived to take over Tuscany. One of her traveling companions worried that the noise might frighten her, to which she replied "I'm a Bonaparte, we're used to the sound of cannons," or something like that."

Flashman, the Ridley Scott who filmed The Duelists died years ago. This is not uncommon in the film industry--or in the book trade, come to that. I like to think of Heinlein having died not long after writing The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, for instance. Remember the good stuff, and just let the rest go.

But for the sake of politesse, please change the title when the poll runs.

I get the humour, but the level of rudeness is unpleasant in the headlines.

It's highly unlikely I will have seen this movie by the time the poll runs; but I would certainly go see Carry On Napoleon!

Waterloo from Wellington's point of view in a film made by an Englishman? Not a surprise there, or that much of the rest of Napoleons life is missing. I don't think movies suit the complexity and broad range of interests that make up so much of his life. His world is packed with massive European battles, military innovations, politics and diplomacy, new ideas in governance and organization. And a colorful cast of commanders. His greatest achievements and failures came before Waterloo. Too hard to capture so much in a movie.

How about Bonie leading a cavalry charge at Waterloo? The movie was a farce.

IIRC, Carry On Cleo, with Amanda Barrie as Cleopatra, was made to cash in on/parody the Burton-Taylor Cleopatra and the resulting public interest in Egyptian history.

I think this would be an excellent opportunity to resurrect the Carry On genre, but with modern comedy actors in the roles that would have been taken by Sid James, Hattie Jacques, Kenneth Williams, Barbara Windsor et al.

Gillray and Rowlandson cartoons depicting 'Little Boney' could be brought to life by Toby Stephens, Rowan Atkinson or Warwick Davis as Napoleon, Dawn French as his mother, Lenny Henry as General Dumas, Julian Clary as Marshal Murat, sporting ever more extravagant, camp uniforms, Phoebe Waller Bridge as Josephine, Peter Kay as Louis XVI and/or XVIII and Nicola Coughlan from Derry Girls as Marie Louise.

BTW, in the comic monologue, Sam's Medal, performed by Stanley Holloway [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtrOgPZ-sK0], the central character, about to be awarded a medal for saving his sergeant major's life ('a most unusual deed') at Waterloo describes the latter as coming 'towards our trenches, very drunk, waving a jar of rum'. Perhaps that was the director's inspiration for the Waterloo scenes?

>>>>>>

- Describing battle events with dialogue to save money, Blake's Seven-stylee, e.g. "Look! The Prussians are here!"

>>>>>

I'll hear nothing bad about Blake's-7.

Don't compare this Naps dross with the Sci-Fi masterpiece.

ROFLMAO!

-- Napoleon throwing a temper tantrum in abandoned Moscow, screaming "Come out little boy!"

-- Napoleon and Josephine having a food fight at a dinner engagement, where she chides him about not everything being about destiny and he declares, "Destiny brought me this pork chop!" or something like that

-- The British fleet docked right under the walls of the seaside fortress at Toulon while Boney's cannons shoot fireballs at their ships.

-- Napoleon's coup and he runs away from the angry Directory members, trips down the stairs and yells at his troops, "They're trying to kill me!!"

Soooo much to mock, so little time.

"(…) at Waterloo describes the latter as coming 'towards our trenches, very drunk, waving a jar of rum'. Perhaps that[*] was the director's inspiration for the Waterloo scenes?"

* That must have been some pretty good rum… ;-)

Also missing:
- The historical scene from Time Bandits when Nap replaced all of his Generals…

> I think this would be an excellent opportunity to resurrect the Carry On genre, but with modern comedy actors

Rowan Atkinson / Blackadder has already done this somewhat -
YouTube link

What 4th Cuirassier and others have said and below:

Napoleon did not charge into any battle with his cavalry.
Napoleon was notoriously bad at riding horses.
Napoleon was wounded by a British bayonet during the Siege of Toulon.
Historians also believe his horse survived the Battle of Toulon
There was no giant frozen lake at the Battle of Austerlitz. There were several small ponds & few drownings
Napoleon & Arthur Wellesley, The Duke Of Wellington, never met.
Napoleon's Army never attacked the Egyptian Pyramids.
Napoleon did not slap Josephine during their divorce.
Napoleon was not at Marie Antoinette's public execution.
Marie Antoinette's hair was cut short.
Napoleon was six years younger than Josephine.
Napoleon's Mother likely didn't stage a bedding incident.
Josephine was terrified of being divorced from Napoleon,
She would never have suggested divorce as she did in Ridley Scott's film.
Napoleon did not come from nothing nor did he conquer everything,
Napoleon was born into minor nobility on the island of Corsica, meaning that he had more opportunities than most to make connections and establish a name for himself. He did not conquer everything, including Russia and Great Britain.
The short Battle of Borodino scene looked as if was stock footage taken on an off day.
The entire Battle of Waterloo was inaccurate.

"But for the sake of politesse, please change the title when the poll runs."

I agree with MiniMo. As a card-carrying Squat, I don't care to be associated with the producer of this movie.

I could live with changing 'ignorant' to 'egregious' although the former seems to me to be a wholly fair characterisation.

However, I must insist on 'Didley Squot'. Getting 'Ridley Scott' into the language as rhyming slang for 'diddly squat' will ensure the man's immortality in a way his dodgy fillums never will.

'I told you an hour ago to tidy your bedroom and you appear to have done Ridley about it.'

'This commentator clearly knows Ridley about tennis.'

'My car is worth Ridley in the condition it's in.'

etc

Dudley Squat gets my vote for clever :~)

Cheers,
John

At present, the film has grossed $172 USD USD million worldwide and it still hasnt hit the Apple TV and on demand market. Hard to imagine that the director didnt make the movie to suit the tastes of 100 or so wargamers but, although not a super success, he seems to know a little about marketing.

That is actually a huge loss for the studio then because the movie would need to gross roughly $600,000,000 USD USD to break even considering how film income is distributed.

I wasnt suggesting it was a financial success but instead referring to the fact that it is still $172 USDM more revenue than if Scott had tailored the move for wargamers. Also, we have yet to see how much revenue it garners in streaming.

Interestingly, he also directed "The Last Duel" which is was well done and historically faithful but did a lot worse than Napoleon.

What about Kenneth Conner as Boney?

I thought that the movie referenced by "4th Cuirassier" was the movie we were talking about?

Benny Hill as Murat leading the charge at Eylau made the movie!

as per the title of the post, the answer might yet be mine, for spending good money for three of us to see it.

They did largely get the carriages right mind you. Notice the wine glasses, esp the stems, just right for those two decades. Some details on the uniforms eg red collars on the grenadiers in the Directory punch up, become blue for the Imperial Guard grenadiers. Nice.

OK split trails for the British cannon and not an ally on the ridge to be seen but……..

"it is still $172 USD USDM more revenue than if Scott had tailored the move for wargamers."

Unwarranted speculation, Au Pas. Of course, a lot depends on what exactly would constitute such tailoring. (I think immediately of tighter focus and getting one battle right instead of multiple battles wrong.) But plenty of reasonably accurate movies about wars, battles or famous commanders have done well at the box office. I see nothing about Napoleon or the Napoleonic Wars which dooms such an effort--except that now Scott's tanked this one, people will be wary of funding the next.

Naming the movie 'Napoleon'! Wrong, wrong, wrong! The title should've been 'Girl Boss Joesephine and Her Simp Napoleon'! That would've been truth in advertising.

Benny Hill as Murat? Now, that would be a movie I'd gladly see and not complain about!

So do we win? do we get a poll?

Name me a film that really did stick to facts, commonsense, and avoided having Zeroes that twist and turn like X Wings.

I would suggest Tora Tora Tora, but which flopped as too boringly accurate for the average audience. Underrated much.

SPR. Incredible opening sequence. Insane ending holding this daft bridge. Pointless

Fury. Some great scenes early on. The lunch table sequence lost me completely. But the gun battle at the end? Too many insanities to list, as to how that was fought.

Dunkirk. The land element. The French are holding a perimeter one block from the beach. One German bomber, one or two German fighters. Ships with radar that the navy would have killed for.

The rumour is that many a Hollywood studio is doing a "The Producers" thing and sending out flops to cover their tax burden as a loss. This film I suspect is way out of that category and I would watch it again, esp extended. There is something about watching a sheer horror, that keeps you amused.

I will now forgive and apologise to Sergei Bondarchuk for 1970 and ask that he be raised from the lowest levels of Dante's Inferno. His place is now lying vacant and thoroughly deserved by the next occupant

A Bridge Too Far was not bad provided you concede some pragmatic points. Anthony Hopkins does not look exactly like John Frost; he is just portraying him. In the same vein, a 76mm post-war Sherman is portraying a Firefly, and a Leopard tank is portraying a Tiger. Nothing closer is available in the case of Frost, Firefly or Tiger. That I can live with.

The initial XXX Corps breakthrough was quite well done and accurate although it featured those level bombing ground attacks seen in every other movie rather than showing us the aircraft standing on their noses to attack.

But overall it still holds up quite well. You can't fathom what's happening but it didn't look wrong.

What is right might be shorter list