... I'm speechless ... lol . . .
and here I thought I THOUGHT and analyzed things ...
but obviously there IS a difference in my over-thinking-,over-analyzing movies, and someone who can actually watch a movie from an academic-historical perspective, which I failed to achieve as a younger person. I did read a lot as a kid, but not much regarding pre-WW1 history.
What knowledge I gained of historical events post WW1 came from my father (a WW2 vet) before he died.
The greater point is exactly your own:
Each generation influenced and moved by movies which misrepresent history - and this mind-set is compounded by the intensely realistic affects (like CGI, etc) combined with bits of historical facts which, in essence, change history in the minds of people who have not studied these things deeply, and whose faint academic memories seem to coaberate.... And for each successive generation, historical facts are something now deeply imbedded in forgotten books, internet archives, and graves.
A perfect example of this is the movie
Forest Gump.
I can't tell you how many young people I had to try to convince that this movie was fiction. I'm sure you know exactly what I mean. But, to them, it seemed a movie 'based on a true story'.
And as you concisely pointed out, tinkering with the facts is the worst kind of weaseling, bc generally has no idea which parts are spot-on or which or contrived. Fewer and fewer young people are going to take the time to dig up historcal truth. Meanwhile, layers of erroneous interpretations are piling on.
At any rate, I enjoyed our exchange! And I learned something!
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