Gladiator 2

[Stout]

getting to see historical fiction that is rooted in actual events is why Gladiator is one of my all time favorites.
yeah they took artistic license...but holy cow the actors were outstanding. I despised Phoenix for years after that movie...had to wait to watch him play Johnny Cash until about four years after the movie came out...because whenever I looked at him all I saw was Commodus

It very much wasn't historical fiction. It was alternate history. Big difference. And I still love it.

 

[Stout]

Last Duel was such a fantastic movie.

Gladiator didn't age well with me in how they butchered the real story of Marcus Aurelius (one of the single greatest men who ever lived) and his son Commodus. Typical Hollywood, destroy a good, real life story just to sell tickets.

It really was. The brutal history of it, that the act itself isn't in question...wow.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

That's simply not how movies work. There are a lot of things to take into consideration when trying to put a story that is rooted in history on the big screen. At the end of the day, it has to be cinematic while telling an engaging story. And it has to fit in 2-3 hours. You will never see anything that is going to be exact. In that case, it becomes a re-enactment, and real life is frequently not as straight forward as a 2 hour film can portray.

If you are holding out for a truly historically-accurate big budget multiplex epic, you will wait forever, because that will never happen.

Right. That’s what docudramas are for. And these days they’re really really good. Movies are for entertainment.