Its my understanding that Mel Gibson plays a true historical person in Braveheart, but Maximus in Gladiator is a fictitious character. Correct me if I'm wrong.
I was referring to what really happened to Commodus and Lucilla..
In reality Commodus had his sister banished to the Island of Capri and later killed.
Also Commodus had a wife. In the film he isn't married and he has the hots for his sister.
I don't mind them changing facts for entertainment, but Braveheart dI'd the same and people give it crap for it.
- Scotsmen of that era didn't wear clothing of that nature, especially kilts
- Woad wasn't a thing back then (the blue warpaint stuff)
- The Battle of Stirling Bridge... where's the fucking bridge?
- Prima Nochta never happened for real
For fuck's sake, how anyone can continue to defend that shitty movie is beyond me.
Interesting question! After giving it some thought, I think it's due to this:
Braveheart is closer to present day and Scottish people still exist today and English-Scottish relations are still a sensitive topic today, while Gladiator is further in the past, there aren't Romans anymore who would get offended and gladiator fights are a thing of the past.
Yeah the film, for all its anachronisms and fictionalized portrayals, ended up boosting Scottish national identity, an identity which may quite possibly lead to Scotland's independence over the next few decades.
Compare that to The Patriot, also starring Mel Gibson. British publications criticized it as demonizing the Redcoats, but it wasn't like American audiences were going to demand changes in US foreign policy towards Britain after seeing it, so it doesn't have the sort of "notoriety" Braveheart does.
Frankly the British must hate Johnny Tremain then. Frankly from what you said about how they feel about Patriot, they must hate that we refused to be part of their country those hundreds of years ago.
Both are historical fictions, but if I had to guess I would say that Gladiator never claimed to be historically accurate and was always meant to be a work of fiction. Braveheart literally starts with the narrator saying that this was the true story of William Wallace. I think Braveheart claims to be a biography, yet Gladiator was quite clear from the beginning that it was historical fiction.