Histories you think deserve more Hollywood attention

[Squilookle]

I always thought that with all of the movies focusing on the Second World War that we need more movies about the First World War. I find it more interesting as there is a less cleaycut good versus evil narrative in that war and I would love to see an examination of how the treaty system in place before the war lead to the larger nations being drawn into the war.

I feel this as well. We need far more WW1 movies. That said, I think we need way more WW2 movies too, because there's just SO MUCH of that war that still hasn't been given the modern cinematic treatment. Take for example, the raid on Alexandria harbour in Egypt by Italian frogmen, sent to plant explosives on two British Battleships while riding what basically amounted to a pilotable torpedo. The way two of them were captured and held imprisoned in the bowels of the very ship they had just booby trapped, and how the saga ended with the leader of the raid clinging to the same chunk of floating debris as the British Battleship Captain? You can't make up this stuff it's so incredible:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raid_on_Alexandria_(1941)

I'd like to see more WWI films but with some actual historicity to them as opposed to sensationalist crap like "Fly Boys". "The Blue Max" is probably the best WWI film I've seen, but it would be great to see something more modern as well.

I'll second that earlier vote for Beneath Hill 60. After seeing that woeful Passchendaele film, it restored my faith in film's ability to do a good WW1 story in this day and age.

 

[davidmc1158_v1legacy]

Generally, Hollywood should leave history well alone, it's almost always done badly. Get someone else to do it, IMHO.

Maybe the Zulu or Boer Wars? Given the changes in attitudes over the years, we might (emphasis on the might ) get an interesting movie out of it.

Have you seen Breaker Morant? Set in the Boer Wars, but more about the trial of 3 Australian soldiers than the war itself, but very good.

I'd not heard about Breaker Morant, so thank you for the tip. I'll have to look into that one.

As an aside, I agree historical movies rarely make the cut. However, I can heartily recommend both Lincoln and Glory as fairly accurate Civil War movies. Perhaps they are the exceptions that prove the rule?

 

[Chris Mosher]

I'll second that earlier vote for Beneath Hill 60. After seeing that woeful Passchendaele film, it restored my faith in film's ability to do a good WW1 story in this day and age.

Okay, Passchendale. I will admit here that I am Canadian and I love a lot of stuff Paul Gross has done. Seeing a movie about my country's involvement in either world war is a rarity so I was really stoked to see this film. I saw it at a local film festival with Gross in attendance and I was really psyched to see this and I really enjoyed the first half part of the film but the fucking ending left me dumbfounded. It's almost drop into self parody but I don't think the movie is self aware enough for that. It was a really big disappointment for me.

Speaking of Ww1 films have you seen The Wipers Times? It's about the publishers of the satirical newspaper during the First World War.it very TV movie but. I found it to be an interesting way of coming at telling a war story.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Seeing a movie about my country's involvement in either world war is a rarity so I was really stoked to see this film.

I know the feeling. Especially films dealing with my country not actually made here. Was pleasantly surprised by a Polish movie about Tobruk (based on a book about the Americna Civil War, but with an updated setting like they did for Apocalypse Now), suddenly the Polish characters go to a bar and start drinking with Australians.

 

[Xeros]

Unit 731. I've only ever seen this tackled in shockumentaries as atrocious as the events portrayed.

 

[eberhart]

Seeing a movie about my country's involvement in either world war is a rarity so I was really stoked to see this film.

I know the feeling. Especially films dealing with my country not actually made here. Was pleasantly surprised by a Polish movie about Tobruk (based on a book about the Americna Civil War, but with an updated setting like they did for Apocalypse Now), suddenly the Polish characters go to a bar and start drinking with Australians.

Truth be told, Poles not drinking with Australians in Tobruk of all places, would probably make the entire movie ahistorical on its own

 

[Dango]

Mine.

Come on Hollywood, the world needs to know my story.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

Maybe the Zulu or Boer Wars? Given the changes in attitudes over the years, we might (emphasis on the might ) get an interesting movie out of it.

That would be very interesting.

A shame that Hollywood is run by senile white scrotums.

The Anglo Zanzibar war, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Zanzibar_War, the movie would last about two times longer than the actual war.

I bet you could make a pretty good absurdist stageplay a la Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.

Like, two soldiers who are casually talking with one another and then suddenly war is declared and ended in real time.

OT: Eastern Roman Empire and African History(that isn't just Egypt).

Those would both be very interesting.

 

[cleric of the order]

Carthage.

A non-Biblical story about Ancient Egypt.

Hitties V 3rd olden age no hold bars

A non-Biblical story about Ancient Egypt.

Awesome idea.

Also, anything about Celtic mythology. But less Clash of The Titans, more Game of Thrones.

There are some great flawed-character-driven stories there, and some truly epic battles.

Holy fuck I really want the ulster cycle movie now.

European history between 1600 and 1800.

I would actually love to see the glencoe massacre or the jacobite rebellions

 

[Ravinoff]

WWII Poland. Because damn, Poland gets shafted when it comes to recognizing their accomplishments against the Nazis. There have been one or two movies based on it, but nothing that really captures how insanely badass some of what the Home Army and the other military elements did. There's the battle of Wizna, where between 350 and 700 men of the Polish Army held a fortified bunker complex against the entire goddamn Wehrmacht (a slight exaggeration, it was about 40,000 German soldiers). No. 303 (Polish) Squadron, an RAF unit (one of sixteen) composed entirely of Polish pilots in exile cut the Luftwaffe to shreds in the Battle of Britain, scoring the most air-to-air victories of the campaign.

And then there's Witold Pilecki [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witold_Pilecki] and the Home Army, who by all normal logic should be legendary. He was voluntarily sent to Auschwitz in order to gather information (which would be used to convince the Allies that the Holocaust was happening), then fucking broke out and returned to the resistance, fighting in the Warsaw Uprising. And of course, because Poland cannot catch a goddamn break, he ended up in a Nazi POW camp, which was liberated by the Soviets, eventually returning to Poland under a false identity shortly before the government-in-exile declared liberating the country was a lost cause thanks to Stalin. His evidence of Soviet mass executions and atrocities made him veeery unpopular with the new invaders, and in 1948 he was executed as a spy and a traitor.

 

[Batou667]

I'd settle for a Victorian-era movie that *isn't* a fantasy-steampunk abomination. The Victorian era had plenty of fascinating stuff in its own right without having to shamelessly fabricate stuff to make it slightly easier for contemporary audiences to relate to.

 

[Major_Tom]

I want a movie about the Yugoslav wars, just to see how much they can fuck it up. There were some that used it as backdrop, but not the main focus, and the result were usually hilarious. I love it when they confuse Crvena Zastava and Ceska Zbrojovka because they they use the same acronym (CZ).

 

[Vault101]

The Stonewall riots

y'know not the non white washed non Emerich version

I'd settle for a Victorian-era movie that *isn't* a fantasy-steampunk abomination. The Victorian era had plenty of fascinating stuff in its own right without having to shamelessly fabricate stuff to make it slightly easier for contemporary audiences to relate to.

I can't recall any FULL steampunk popular movies

maybe periphery stuff like the mummy or the league of extraordinary gentlemen (blegh) but their steampunkishness seems rather down played

 

[Fijiman]

I always thought that with all of the movies focusing on the Second World War that we need more movies about the First World War. I find it more interesting as there is a less cleaycut good versus evil narrative in that war and I would love to see an examination of how the treaty system in place before the war lead to the larger nations being drawn into the war.

I came here to say this really. I feel like there should be a video game based on WW1 aswell. But not a shooter, as a drama story based game. I think it would be amazing. But there should be more films focusing on it.

Also, I'd love to see how hollywood would handle something like the Nanking Massacre. I know there is a film on it, and it is incredibly harrowing to watch, but the amount of people I've met that have never heard of the event just astounds me. And Ancient Egypt. I'd love more of that.

There is a game based on WWI that's not a shooter. It's called Valiant Hearts: The Great War. A fantastic little game that's definitely worth playing.

Anyway, another vote for more WWI Era stuff here. This mostly comes mostly from many of the technologies associated modern warfare were first introduced at this time and because I recently finished reading a biography of Baron Manfred Von Richthofen, aka The Red Baron.

 

[hermes]

For all the movies that talk about how such or such was instrumental in winning World War 2, I was always surprised about how little media attention Operation Fortitude got (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fortitude). It was, no doubt about it, instrumental in enabling the invasion of Normandy in the western front, however, only a handful of novels exist about it.

If you don't know the story, it was the biggest counterespionage operation in history, created to divert the attention of the Nazi war machine away from Normandy by feeding them false information that the "real" offensive was coming from somewhere else (Pas de Calais). Not only it was a logistical nightmare to make the fake attack look real (so much that they didn't sent reinforces to Normandy because they were convinced it was a diversion) and "secret", but for nothing of it to leak to the axis. It took years of execution, and double agents planted in every position of the German espionage system.

 

[Batou667]

I can't recall any FULL steampunk popular movies

maybe periphery stuff like the mummy or the league of extraordinary gentlemen (blegh) but their steampunkishness seems rather down played

I suppose we could quibble about what constitutes "too much" steampunk, but I'm thinking stuff like Sherlock Holmes (2009), the anachronistic Gatling gun sentry turret in Shanghai Knights, the god damn airships in The Three Musketeers (2011). It's just depressing that evidently Hollywood thinks modern audiences are unable to enjoy a film that doesn't feature fully-automatic firearms and/or vehicle scenes, and as a result they get shoe-horned into films that don't need them.

And don't get me wrong, I'd welcome a good steampunk movie. Done well, the setting can be great - I really enjoyed it in Dishonored, for example. But by the same token I like my period dramas played straight now and again.

 

[the_dramatica]

Hmm getting hollywood movies is not the greatest blessing.

Lot of short conflicts are underrated though. Boshin war, Korean war..

Black hawk down made the battle of mogadishu sell, the rest can.

 

[Nickolai77]

I would have been appropriate if they had made a film about the return of Napoleon from exile and the Battle of Waterloo since it's the 200th anniversary of that battle. It could have been a collaborative effort between British and French film studios and told both sides of the story. The battle itself is certainly hollywood grade material and could be displayed quite vividly with modern computer technology, although I'd like to plenty of human extras involved like you see in older hollywood films.

I'd have a penchant for Boadicea's uprising against Roman rule, but I wouldn't trust Hollywood to make it accurately. They'd make Boedicea into some sort of female braveheart and overlook the fact her army slaughtered the civilian population of London and Colchester.

A film about the Irish pirate Grace O'Malley [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_O%27Malley]would be very interesting to do.

 

[Aesir23]

There are so many periods of history I would love to see in movie form. World War I would probably be one of those at the top of the list for me but I think I would also like to see more of Victorian England, Revolution era France (without the singing), anything regarding east Asia, Russia during the Soviet Union. In short "everything".

However, I think at the very top of my list I would love to see more WWII films or films based during the American Revolutionary war that take a more realistic/factual/nuanced approach to the history instead of basically being full of "'Murica" type patriotism/nationalism.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

16th Century Macau. Basically anything to do with colonial Portuguese history. First European power to establish maritime trade connections between the Far East and Europe. Needs more Hollywood love.