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Hollywood has never let the truth get in the way of a good story! Join us as we count down our picks for the historical films that most brazenly relied on discredited myths and misconceptions to drive their storytelling. From prehistoric timeline disasters to glorified outlaws and whitewashed conquerors, these movies chose drama over facts every single time!
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00:05Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for historical
00:10films that most brazenly relied on discredited myths and misconceptions to drive storytelling.
00:16That's excluding dramatic liberties not based on pre-existing myths,
00:20as well as films based on pre-existing properties that first took this approach.
00:35Number 10. White Hat Wyatt – Tombstone
00:38The 1881 shootout at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, sparked one of America's first pop-culture
00:45debates. Wyatt Earp's lawmen and the Cochise County Cowboys would become archetypes in Hollywood
00:53westerns. But despite biographical pretenses, Tombstone upholds many myths.
00:58If we're gonna have a future in this town, it's gotta have some law and order.
01:02Please, Verge, don't do this to me.
01:04Cochise County and its crime syndicate were not yet established when Earp arrived. He and his
01:09brothers were also already in law enforcement, not for moral reasons, but because of failed
01:14business ventures. Advanced fact-checking in the 90s held nothing for reluctant hero
01:19characterization as a through-line to that fateful showdown.
01:22Oh my god.
01:24Tombstone even exaggerates that with Hollywood's spectacle. But with 94's Wyatt Earp punctuating
01:30three hours of slow burn with one minute of chaos, the media's imagination feels truer to
01:36the historic significance.
01:37What do you want?
01:40Just to live a normal life.
01:44There's no normal life, Wyatt. There's just life. Get on with it.
01:49Number 9. Idealized Kingdom – The Woman King
01:53Though praised as powerful and empowering historical fiction,
01:57Gina Prince Bythewood's The Woman King is mostly just fiction.
02:01We live out our lives in these palace walls.
02:06We take no husband, we will bear no children.
02:11There's no evidence of the Kingdom of Dahomey seriously discussing getting out of the slave trade
02:16in the 1820s, much less abolishing slavery.
02:19On a night you swear loyalty to your sisters you speak in secret with a slaver.
02:24He's not a slaver. His mother was a homie.
02:27We defend him.
02:28Their advanced economy greatly relied on military abducting neighbors and selling them to Europeans.
02:34The all-female Agoji regiment were important enforcers in this practice.
02:39Only under pressure from the British did King Gezzo officially abolish slavery three decades later,
02:44while turning a blind eye to illegal trading. Critics argue that The Woman King's version of
02:49Dahomey politics represents modern narratives that soften African nations' part in European atrocities.
02:56It also sets up the action-packed consequences of undermining a terrible institution.
03:02My king, it is a great honor. Or perhaps it is too soon.
03:07Number 8. Rivalry Gets Off Track – Rush
03:10The rivalry between British racer James Hunt and the Austrian Nicky Lauda
03:14is one of the most legendary in the history of Formula One.
03:18Terrible. We should cancel the race.
03:21Why? You made a mistake? Went into the corner too fast. It's his fault.
03:26Is that right?
03:27It's obvious. Look at the tire marks.
03:30The tension of their races in Ron Howard's Rush lingered afterward, to drive their respective character
03:35arcs. Contrary to the hype even in the 1970s, the relationship wasn't that tense.
03:41It's to my advantage to race it today. Because I'm quicker than all of you.
03:49Fine. Then let's race.
03:51Hunt and Lauda were always good friends, who roomed together in London early in their careers.
03:56While Lauda was recovering from his near-fatal crash in 76, he found joy in Hunt winning the season.
04:02Hunt crosses the line!
04:04The Speed Demons were quick to dispute popular presentations of their competition
04:09as anything other than friendly. Rush at least honors their mutual respect,
04:14though they're slower to bond than they were in real life.
04:17I'll see you on race day, champ.
04:20You will, champ?
04:22Number 7. Reluctant Genocide – 1492 Conquest of Paradise
04:27The ghastly truth about Christopher Columbus' settlement in America is now common knowledge,
04:33but during the 500th anniversary, Ridley Scott's 1492 Conquest of Paradise was considered reckless
04:40in its approach to the myth.
04:41By all the powers vested in me, I claim this island and name it San Salvador.
04:51Christopher Columbus is presented as friendly with the native people of the New World,
04:56which he envisions as a multicultural utopia. This puts him in conflict with nobleman Adrian
05:02de Moxica, who aims to conquer the land for European Christians.
05:05You say this is an Indian vice. You only don't see the pleasure that would make this a sin.
05:14The Indians have no such word, Moxica.
05:17In fact, Columbus actually spearheaded a campaign of enslavement and genocide.
05:22It was really his incompetence which led to Moxica's ill-fated rebellion.
05:36The way 1492 presents these men says much about class and the perils of benevolent ideals,
05:43and much more about the bad taste in promoting idealized history lessons.
05:48Look out there.
05:53What do you see?
05:54Number 6. Underdog and Martyr.
05:57Braveheart.
05:58Mel Gibson and company aren't entirely to blame for the liberties of Braveheart.
06:02There's a difference between us.
06:04You think the people of this country exist to provide you with position.
06:09I think your position exists to provide those people with freedom.
06:14And I go to make sure that they have it.
06:16William Wallace's pseudo-biopic is inspired by an epic poem
06:20that Blind Harry wrote as Scottish nationalist propaganda in the 15th century.
06:25His liberties include presenting the noble knight as a peasant,
06:29who joins the first Scottish rebellion after his wife's murder.
06:32They killed her to get to me.
06:35She also couldn't have fallen victim to prima nocte,
06:38since English lords never had the legal right to sleep with their subjects' brides.
06:42Stirring touches like Wallace's Pictish war paint and refined bagpipes are popular myths of more
06:49ambiguous origin. As all of this pales in comparison to the myths manifested specifically for Braveheart,
06:55Gibson's epic classic should be taken as poetry more than history.
06:59That they may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!
07:05Number 5. Folk heroes, Bonnie and Clyde
07:09The image of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker as counterculture martyrs predates the counterculture
07:14movement.
07:15We robbed banks.
07:16During the Great Depression, many Americans celebrated the scandal of a couple robbing banks
07:21that were seen as the enemy of the working class. Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde embraced this
07:26Robin Hood fable as an allegory for the political climate of the 1960s. Barrow is even depicted as
07:33sparing bank customers, and Parker as fatigued by their deadly lifestyle.
07:38He beat the blues so bad.
07:41The truth is that the vast majority of their targets were small businesses and ordinary citizens.
07:47Let's take them.
07:48It's also believed that they killed around 13 people without remorse. Penn's film may not romanticize the
07:54violent reality of outlawry, but neither is it real about the criminal's amorality.
07:59Hey, you didn't just perfect.
08:06I did, didn't I?
08:08Number 4. Medieval Geopolitics, Kingdom of Heaven
08:11Historians debate the motivations behind Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven almost as much as those
08:17behind the Third Crusade. Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Be brave and upright that
08:24God may love thee. Speak the truth, always, even if it leads to your death.
08:29The epic's fictional drama is anchored by the depiction of nobleman Balian of Ebelin as an
08:34agnostic blacksmith-turned-reluctant leader. After he arrives in Jerusalem, however,
08:39Enlightenment-era misconceptions drive 12th-century politics.
08:43You've been given a patch of dirt, and it seems you will build a new Jerusalem here.
08:50It is my land.
08:54Who would I be if I did not try to make it better?
08:57Crusaders generally weren't interested in the economic opportunities of colonialism.
09:01Even the wealthiest Christian nobles were driven to poverty by their pious pilgrimage.
09:06And the oppression of native Muslims was based more on policy than violence,
09:10with religious rhetoric on both sides fueling the ultimate clash.
09:14You will destroy it?
09:15Every stone. And every Christian knight you kill will take ten Saracens with him.
09:20Certainly there'd be no humoring of Balian's proposition of secular coexistence.
09:25Kingdom of Heaven builds these fantasies to one controversial end,
09:29an allegory for 21st-century geopolitics.
09:33We defend this city, not to protect these stones, but the people living within these walls.
09:40Number 3. Counter-Myth
09:43Nobody is denying the incredible research and filmmaking that went into Oliver Stone's JFK.
09:49You told me you and God were good friends for a long time.
09:52More than ten years.
09:53And he never hit you before.
09:55No, he never touched me.
10:07It's just that it conveniently overlooks key disputes to Jim Garrison's investigation
10:12into a possible conspiracy surrounding President John F. Kennedy's murder.
10:17Some of his key witnesses were considered unreliable, or changed their stories.
10:21That includes the discredited L. Fletcher Prouty, the basis for the enigmatic Mr. X.
10:27Well, that's a real question, isn't it?
10:28Why?
10:29The how and the who is just scenery for the public.
10:33With Garrison's circumstantial evidence, and alleged witness intimidation,
10:37the jury voted within an hour to acquit alleged conspirator Clay Shaw.
10:41Mr. Shaw, have you ever been a contract agent for the Central Intelligence Agency?
10:51And if I were, Mr. Garrison, do you believe I would be here today talking to somebody like you?
10:59Focusing on one side of the argument admittedly supports the already sprawling JFK's dialogue-driven
11:06tension.
11:06While Stone maintains that he doesn't buy the Warren Commission's report, he describes his
11:11film as more of a, quote, counter-myth.
11:13It's a mystery!
11:14It's a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma!
11:17Number 2.
11:18Destruction from within.
11:20Apocalypto.
11:21Hollywood has a dark history with depicting foreign and ancient cultures.
11:25Mel Gibson's Apocalypto stands out for depicting a dark history with astonishing accuracy in some
11:30places and an irresponsibly inaccurate narrative.
11:40The Mayans' sophisticated cultural advancements are ignored in a dramatization of the civilization's
11:46collapse.
11:47Meanwhile, Jaguar Paw tries to escape.
11:54The most controversial liberty is the ending's revelation that the film takes place in the 16th
11:59century, when Mayan society collapsed by the 10th.
12:02Critics debate whether the devoutly Catholic Gibson was glorifying the arrival of Spanish colonists,
12:08or if Jaguar Paw's rejection foreshadowed the impending genocide.
12:12But there's no mistaking Apocalypto's distorted condemnation of one civilization.
12:17Once again is one of the basic documents.
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12:591. Timeline BS
13:03Titling a film after its timeline does open the door of historical scrutiny. Roland Emmerich's
13:0810,000 BC doesn't seem to care. The prehistoric adventure is initially not too far off in its
13:19zoology and anthropology of Paleolithic Eurasia. Then the episodic storyline culminates in our
13:26heroes happening upon an urbanized Egypt. That too is conflated with Mesopotamian civilization.
13:36Either way, that's a timeline discrepancy by over 7,000 years, which would be a stretch for a
13:42nonsensical B-movie. The problem is that 10,000 BC jarringly changes its big-budget aesthetic
13:49to wrap up the story in spectacular fashion. And maybe its prehistorical fantasy would be
13:56more acceptable if its title and finer period points weren't so misleading.
14:01And so it came to pass that the promise of life was fulfilled.
14:08What are some other historical snafus that somehow made it to the center of a movie? Drop
14:13some truths in the comments below.
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