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History-based fiction movies that portray actual people falsely

blu

blu

Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
So I just watched a 2001 fiction movie named "Enigma" about, well, Alan Turing. Only it was not about Alan Turing. It was about an alternative-reality Turing named Thomas Jericho. At first I was confused and thought it was about some colleague of Turing. But it wasn't. The protagonist had an instrumental role for the Enigma decoding and also had worked on the Entscheidungsproblem. So it was Turing, alright, only this one was a fragile-mental-health-due-to-a-broken-heart version who fell apart in front of beautiful women. And the movie had a strong Agatha-Christie mystery element involving German spies. And a Polish connection. And.. Well, it was weird at first, then turned 'why?' shortly after. So how do you feel about fiction movies referring to true historical events and figures, that turn those figures upside-down?

(movie's IMDb, book by Robert Harris, screenwriter Tom Stoppard).
 
N

Ninja Scooter

Member
51QF80TA0BL.jpg


In reality, Rudy was an insufferable little prick. At least that's what Joe Montana says.

Also Tesla in The Prestige
Prestige_poster.jpg
 
M

Mexican Sting

Member
Ninja Scooter said:
51QF80TA0BL.jpg


In reality, Rudy was an insufferable little prick. At least that's what Joe Montana says.
Click to expand...

Dawg, isn't Joe Montana an insufferable prick? Lol.

On topic: The Social Network.

Also, your topic is basically asking "How do you feel about historical fiction?" and my answer is that I love it. MGS3 comes to mind.
 
H

Harry Stewart

Member
United 93 portraying the only non-American passenger as a coward surrender monkey (without any evidence or reports) was fucking vile.
 
ZehDon

ZehDon

Gold Member
Kingdom of Heaven. There's a lot of liberties taken, but the presentation of the Patriarch Heraclius is disgraceful. In the film, he's presented as a cowardly religious zealot. Literally the example of "bad christian religion". In actuality, the man did more than virtually anyone, including the principal character of the film, to save lives during the seige. The biggest insult is probably when the character in the movie says he should take a horse and flee the city, leaving the people to be slaughtered. In real life, he offered himself as a prisoner in exchange for sparing citizens.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarch_Heraclius_of_Jerusalem
 
T

TheCowboyPoet

Member
How about that movie where Andre 3000 plays Jimi Hendrix and they have Jimi beat his girlfriend even though the actual girlfriend says nothing like that ever happened.
 
T

ThoseDeafMutes

Member
Honestly the imitation game did a good enough job of messing with history for the sake of drama, despite the protagonist being Turing. I know screenwriters feel like they need to, but it always shits me off when I notice.
 
TheRedSnifit

TheRedSnifit

Member
I remember there was a controversy over one of the characters in Zulu being portrayed as a lazy drunk, when in reality he was a straight-edge, model soldier who was constantly awarded good conduct pay.
 
U

uncelestial

Member
TheCowboyPoet said:
How about that movie where Andre 3000 plays Jimi Hendrix and they have Jimi beat his girlfriend even though the actual girlfriend says nothing like that ever happened.
Click to expand...
Pissed me off pretty bad. To be honest I was hoping the estate would sue, except I don't think fictionalized works have the concept of libel.
 
S

SalvaPot

Member
large_v1WdKm9qQPBfhoHanBP5XxzIBDU.jpg


From TV Tropes:
completely misrepresents the work, career, family life, delusions, bizarre behavior, and cure of John Nash. Everybody in the movie is more sympathetic than the equivalent person in real life (the real John Nash's wife divorced him), but some critics think that the truth (that Nash recovered from schizophrenia without treatment) is too important to replace with an anodyne about loving families and putting your trust in psychiatrists. Liberties taken with Nash's story range from the egregious - Nash's homosexual relationships were axed - to those covered by Artistic License - Nash's hallucinations were strictly auditory, but that presents obvious problems for film making. As well, the fact that his delusions were of a Jewish conspiracy (rather than communists) were also left out, for obvious reasons.
Click to expand...
 
L

lvl99 Pixel

Member
That Band of Brothers scene where Major Winters doesn't accept the Luger pistol, yet the real person talks about how he still has the gun.
 
J

J_ToSaveTheDay

Member
fb_share.jpg
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I like this movie and the more fictional, Bradley Cooper-played Chris Kyle. It seems the real Chris Kyle is a much more controversial figure, ranging from some of his political beliefs stemming from his religious beliefs and his actual career highlights, though I can't confirm from first-hand experience -- never read his book or saw many of his public interviews/appearances. Most of what i know about his controversies is just hearsay at this time.
 
M

Monochromaticx

Member
The Doors

Oliver stone made jim morrison look like a drunk psyco

Morrison is also depicted locking Courson in a closet and setting it on fire, which never happened.[24] In his book Light My Fire, Manzarek is frank about Morrison's tendency to go into senseless rages,[25] but participants in the film agree Stone took many liberties in fabricating events.
Click to expand...

The surviving Doors members were all to one degree or another unhappy with the final product, and were said to have heavily criticized Stone's portrayal of Morrison as an "out of control sociopath". In a 1991 interview with Gary James, Manzarek criticized Stone for exaggerating Morrison's alcohol consumption in the movie, saying, "Jim with a bottle all the time. It was ridiculous . . . It was not about Jim Morrison. It was about Jimbo Morrison, the drunk.
Click to expand...
 
Laughing Banana

Laughing Banana

Weeping Pickle
300.

Yes, it's a silly action movie, but the narratives it builds is incredibly rich with racist undertones, and even if we remove all the silly LOTR stuff it's still an incredibly biased view of the real story.
 
C

Cocaloch

Member
Laughing Banana said:
300.

Yes, it's a silly action movie, but the narratives it builds is incredibly rich with racist undertones, and even if we remove all the silly LOTR stuff it's still an incredibly biased view of the real story.
Click to expand...

Our records of the real story is also incredibly biased though. Herodotus isn't really a model historian.
 
C

CloudWolf

Member
It's just one of those things that happen when people tell stories/myths about real existing people. This goes further than just film.

Take for instance Spartacus. Yes, he led a slave uprising, but there's zero evidence he did it for anything more than personal reasons (he just wanted to get the fuck out of Italy). People like Marx and Kubrick took his story and twisted the motivations around creating the Spartacus we now know: the freedom fighter that fought Roman oppression and wanted to end slavery.
 
B

Black_Sun

Member
J_ToSaveTheDay said:
I like this movie and the more fictional, Bradley Cooper-played Chris Kyle. It seems the real Chris Kyle is a much more controversial figure, ranging from some of his political beliefs stemming from his religious beliefs and his actual career highlights, though I can't confirm from first-hand experience -- never read his book or saw many of his public interviews/appearances. Most of what i know about his controversies is just hearsay at this time.
Click to expand...

The real Chris Kyle as an asshole. This movie was jingoistic crap though.
 
T

t0va

Member
Amistad. The extreme disappointment I felt when I found out what profession he decided to take up after his trial.
 
G

GAMEPROFF

Banned
The Stauffenberg movie with Tom Cruise made it appear that Stauffenberg was 100% one of the good guys, but in reality he approved with a lot of things of the racist ideology of the nazis.

Its one of these topics, that trigger me pretty easily.

But to be fair, the general history treats him very good, so its not only the fault of the movie.
 
Laughing Banana

Laughing Banana

Weeping Pickle
Cocaloch said:
Our records of the real story is also incredibly biased though. Herodotus isn't really a model historian.
Click to expand...

Well, true.

Though the incredibly racist undertones of the movie bothered me so much that often I think that anyone who likes that movie has a racist bone in their body.

Also,

ARGO, from Ben Affleck. Goddamn the real heroes of the story getting sidelined in favor of disgusting AMERICAFUCKYEAH sentiments. What's worse it even got so many awards for its troubles.
 
M

Metal B

Member
Laughing Banana said:
300.

Yes, it's a silly action movie, but the narratives it builds is incredibly rich with racist undertones, and even if we remove all the silly LOTR stuff it's still an incredibly biased view of the real story.
Click to expand...
I don't know, if the comic has the same angle, but in the movie the story is told from a clear biased person to motivate others to go to war. So it's clearly propaganda in the context of the movie at least.

Ninja Scooter said:
Also Tesla in The Prestige
Prestige_poster.jpg
Click to expand...
Wait? So Tesla didn't create a cloning machine?!
 
M

megachao24

Unconfirmed Member
Balto.

The star was actually Togo, but Balto was the one to complete the run.

Not to mention that Balto was an actual husky bred at a kennel, not some outcast wolfdog hybrid the animated movie portrayed him as.
 
G

G-Fex

Member
aVya08y.jpg
Click to expand...
Based on a book by a Well known Fraud. A lot of it is inaccurate.

Titanic- one of the guys who pulls out a gun and threatens the others was actually in reality a hero helping others.

I heard Braveheart is gravely inaccurate as the guy was a completely different person.


Don't forget Hoffa which has a completely bogus ending.
 
I

IdreamofHIME

Member
blu said:
So I just watched a 2001 fiction movie named "Enigma" about, well, Alan Turing. Only it was not about Alan Turing. It was about an alternative-reality Turing named Thomas Jericho. At first I was confused and thought it was about some colleague of Turing. But it wasn't. The protagonist had an instrumental role for the Enigma decoding and also had worked on the Entscheidungsproblem. So it was Turing, alright, only this one was a fragile-mental-health-due-to-a-broken-heart version who fell apart in front of beautiful women. And the movie had a strong Agatha-Christie mystery element involving German spies. And a Polish connection. And.. Well, it was weird at first, then turned 'why?' shortly after. So how do you feel about fiction movies referring to true historical events and figures, that turn those figures upside-down?

(movie's IMDb, book by Robert Harris, screenwriter Tom Stoppard).
Click to expand...

Speaking of the Enigma machina, did you know it was recovered by brave Americans and not the British? God bless America! And God bless Jon Bon Jovi!

29lBfud.jpg
 
K

Keasar

Member
Patch-Adams.jpg

"Based" being VERY generous.

The real Patch Adams had a medical license, didn't steal from the hospital, had a male (not female) best friend who was murdered and was a lot more than just a hospital clown.
 
F

FyreWulff

Member
American Sniper

aka a modern state propaganda film

edit: yes i actually watched it. in a theater. it's a crap movie.

edit: main character was of course able to fix everything through sheer will, kept spouting off pentagon approved phrasing instead of what soldiers would actually say, for some reason they added a scene where he shoots a kid even though by all accounts he never claimed to, the antagonist sniper was poorly written, he of course John Cena'd into every MOS on the battlefield, was able to overcome PTSD by basically going "nah, I don't have PTSD", and of course everyone around him is broken,but not him.
 
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