Historically inaccurate. Volcanically inaccurate. The accents were idiotic--English accents for ROMANS. Horrible ending. (Was that really a spoiler?)
I'm disappointed that they didn't bring in Pliny the Younger and Tacitus into the film even for a moment for the historical significance. Overall it was a disappointing movie, which attempted to trade special effects for a lame plot.
Did you know that Pliny the Younger and Tacitus mention Jesus in their writings?
shareWhat does that have to do with anything?
Prof. Farnsworth: Oh. A lesson in not changing history from Mr. I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!
Yeah, I knew that. It's through my Biblical scholarship and studies of ancient history that I recognized how idiotic the movie really was.
shareDid you know that Pliny the Younger and Tacitus mention Jesus in their writings?
Josephus is the one that is said to be forged. But even with the supposed forged stuff taken out, Jesus is still mentioned.
What you're saying is that any ancient writings outside the Bible that mentions Jesus is forged.
I think it's safe to say you have yet to see The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, then.
shareRight? Sure, you can totally outrun pyroclastic flows on a horse.
shareAnd cities randomly change in size. How was he chasing Kiefer through the streets for 10 minutes but manages to ride to the complete opposite end of the city in less than 3 minutes?
Prof. Farnsworth: Oh. A lesson in not changing history from Mr. I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!
TWISTER showed us you can outrun an EF-5 tornado on foot.
shareIt's bad enough pyroclastic flows were in Pompeii to begin with! Stupid film
shareIt's bad enough pyroclastic flows were in Pompeii to begin with! Stupid film
I agree that this movie sucks, but the only good thing was the ending because everyone dies
I just hate how they took a very cool and interesting premise and *beep* all over itself by taking every cliched route.
It's standard for historical films to use British accents. It adds a foreign sound to the characters for the primarily North American audience, and really, can you tell me what a Roman accent sounded like? Nobody alive knows what a Roman accent would have sounded like, because it's been dead for 1500 years.
shareTrue that. Latin is a dead language and nobody knows what the accent was like, exactly. Or accents... there were different regional dialects and accents even amongst native Latin speakers, just like there are different regional accents in modern languages like English.
Personally I find it pointless to try to ape accents in that way anyway. If the actors are supposed to be speaking for example Russian, it only draws attention to the fact they're not if they speak English with a heavy accent like a Russian immigrant.
I disagree. I find it much stranger if we're in Moscow and they're all speaking in American accents. If they're going to be speaking English, they should do so with a regional accent.
shareActually, you might be surprised to learn that we do actually know some of the accents of ancient peoples. The Roman and Greek Empires provide a considerable amount of information pertaining to language and accents through which we can obtain the correct pronunciation of their ancient languages. They've discovered this from writings in which other languages and accents are discussed.
For instance, we know many of the differences in the languages of the Bible during Biblical times. In the Bible itself, we read in one passage where enemy soldiers were discovered by the way they pronounced certain phrases.
So we actually DO know what the ancient Roman accents were like (well, I don't personally, but there are linguists who do), and I guarantee they weren't British accents. :)