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+--- Thread: HBO\'s "Rome" to present more realistic look at the (/showthread.php?tid=2040)
Re: HBO\'s "Rome" to present more realistic look at the - Virilis - 08-04-2006
Daniel, I share your feelings completely. The most frustrating thing is that it wouldn`t have been ONE PENNY MORE EXPENSIVE to make authentic montefortino`s. In fact it would have been even cheaper considering the more simple form of the original helmet. Sometimes I think that they do it on purpose :x ...
Anyway, I got over "King Arthur The Movie" so surely I can get over this!
Re: HBO\'s "Rome" to present more realistic look at the - Narukami - 08-04-2006
Quite right Virilius.
In fact, I'm not sure cost was the major factor here. I know that it is on all film production however...
This time I think they opted for their current helmet because "they" thought it looked more authentic, and therefore more 'Roman' that the more historically accurate Montefortino style.
If your frame of historical reference is from Roman Hollywood then rectangular Shields and 1st century helmets are more iconic and just "seem right" to the production designer despite what the books or the experts might say.
Oh well -- it is a sword and sandal soap opera, we can expect more, we can hope for better, but I fear we must be content with less.
At least for the time being...
:wink:
Narukami
Re: HBO\'s "Rome" to present more realistic look at the - Jeroen Pelgrom - 08-07-2006
perhaps their historical reference was Asterix?
Re: HBO\'s "Rome" to present more realistic look at the - Cornelius Quintus - 08-09-2006
Quote:This is the best:
Quote:"A must for any collector of Roman arms and armor"
Ave Jyrki,
Windless Feeblecraft or who ever might be the backstage designer is bloody right!
It's a M.U.S.T. for any serious re-enactor!
A Mean Ugly Self-Torture :wink:
out on DVD season I - Caius Fabius - 08-15-2006
[amazon]B000FJH4X2[/amazon]
$62.99 instead of $99.00 retail
and RAT gets a small commission and you get free shipping.
Re: HBO\'s "Rome" to present more realistic look at the - Comerus Gallus - 08-20-2006
Guys I know that I'm very late on this topic, but last night I had finished to watch the hole episode....
I would give this actor, 10+plus for the best deadly acting performance of Caesar, I like him as well, even other see him weak for the role.
Ciara Caesar
Re: HBO\'s "Rome" to present more realistic look at the - RUBICON - 11-01-2006
Wow.. ive just read the past few pages and the outrage that HBO ROME wasnt authentic in its depiction of the soldiers and the correct attire? It's a movie not a documentary. I know the uniforms and helmets were wrong, but do you stop there. he horses used look like modern day thoroughbreds and warmbloods....back then they were weedy little horses not 16HH ones. The horse's harnesses are all wrong, wow even the bits look modern day! If we're going to talk authenticity lets not stop there? I'd put a dollar on the fact that those actors weren't even italian. the average height of a Roman was 5ft, not the size of the main trooper standing out like a sore thumb in the second line! Wasnt it Caesar in his Gallic Wars accounts, that he mentions that the "germans laughed at our small size and how could such small men move such large siege towers"
I know we love our roman history, but writing to the movie consultant about how incredibly inaccurate it was, is probably adding to the poor man's stress too! He probably knows all too well its wrong!
I'm in that industry, unfortunately, what looks good, what makes the producer tingle in his bed at night, which outfit he thinks will look better and work easier (ie leather probably weighed a lot less than metal segmentata specially if actors and extras were going to stand around all day and I would imagine, & safety precautions so some poor actor doesnt keel over dead of exhaustion while on shoot, in my guess, is going to bear more than what is accurately and historically correct.
It is frustrating, but hey I enjoyed that series from start to finish. For once, even if I may say so, like Gladiator, if anyone didnt feel like they were there facing 100,000 strong barbarian horde in the first 15 minutes of both movies, I'd say thats bad luck, because I think though historcally inaccurate how good was it to see the Roman army in its all its might bear down on the enemy?
How good to see movies without the fake Hollywood polystyrene columned forums, the embarrasingly bad armour?
I salute a good roman movie!
Re: HBO\'s "Rome" to present more realistic look at the - Dan Howard - 11-01-2006
Quote:How good to see movies without the fake Hollywood polystyrene columned forums, the embarrasingly bad armour?Gladiator didn't have "embarrassingly bad armour"?
FWIW any leather armour that is thick enough to offer any sort of protection is heavier than metal armour. Why do you think that metal was the preferred material for making armour?
I also enjoyed HBO's Rome series, though only after I successfully suspended disbelief
Re: HBO\'s "Rome" to present more realistic look at the - Tarbicus - 11-01-2006
Quote:the average height of a Roman was 5ft,Probably 5'6" (a 5% reduction in stature seems applicable).
Re: HBO\'s "Rome" to present more realistic look at the - RUBICON - 11-01-2006
Thanks....I better go back and re- read the books!
Maybe the guy I quoted, his tape measure wasnt long enough....hehehehe..
Anyway...thought the armour in Gladiator looked GREAT not embarrasing!
Try not to think too much about it Dan, surely when the two main characters survived the first battle, the centurion almost having his head removed by a swinging sword; the legionaire rushing forward into the enemy; surviving the public flogging, imprisonment and certainly the death sentence: getting a second chance to find the legion's lost eagle, surving a shipwreck, stumbling upon Pompeys fortune and then getting another chance after Caesar found out he stole it; the bar fight; the street gang brawl; the assasins part time job, the gladiator fight, not to mention dieing from the clap after he slept with every woman from every village he passed through....when did you start to disbelieve?
D D
Re: HBO\'s "Rome" to present more realistic look at the - Tarbicus - 11-01-2006
A useful link.
[url:jmsf0hu7]http://www.paleopatologia.it/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=38[/url]
There is a lot of debate about height, but all of the excavation results and reports I've seen on Roman skeletal height indicates an average 5'6" on average. It can vary by locality, and even period.
Re: HBO\'s "Rome" to present more realistic look at the - SOCL - 11-01-2006
I own the series and watched it some time back (I apologize for coming late to the review party). Despite some of the errors, this is probably the best effort out of any production company to make something accurate, but not so much that the accuracy begins to interfere with the entertainment. For instance, I have heard complaints concerning the expressions (i.e. language) and the way they used their hands and such in communicating in the series, but then, it wouldn't make much sense to have the actors speaking in Latin and saying Latin expressions. At that point, only the few of us who understand that aspect of history will enjoy it, while everyone else will stare at the scree and say "What the hell?" I think that as long as the majority of people are more interested in entertainment rather than accuracy, we'll have Gladiators, Alexanders, and ROMEs. Nonetheless, accuracy has been getting better. Just think of when Spartacus came out, then take another stop at Gladiator and now ROME. It is more accurate.
In any event, the producers, writer, and director did any amazing job with presenting one of the most well known stories, namely the collapse of the Republic and the tragedy of Caesar. They did such an amazing job, in my opinion, that despite the fact I and most everyone knew Caesar would be stabbed to death by Senate conspirators, I will still left stun. When you're telling a story that already exists, it's not what you tell, but how you tell it. I believe that the way the story of ROME was told was simply marvelous.
Oh, and would it likely be unacceptable to wear the helmet from the series at a re-enactment? Despite the fact it was present on Trajan's column? Or is this still a point of controversy? :?
Re: HBO\'s "Rome" to present more realistic look at the - Tarbicus - 11-01-2006
Quote:Despite the fact it was present on Trajan's column? Or is this still a point of controversy? ConfusedYou mean helmets from 200 years or so later? :wink:
Re: HBO\'s "Rome" to present more realistic look at the - SOCL - 11-01-2006
Quote::oops: Sure...that's what I meant. :oops:Quote:Despite the fact it was present on Trajan's column? Or is this still a point of controversy? ConfusedYou mean helmets from 200 years or so later? :wink:
But wait, suppose you were re-enacting 200 years after the standard (i.e. 1st Century CE), this it would be all well and good? :? Forgive my ignorance of most everything Roman military-wise after Hadrian, but we're talking Newstead armour and all? Or am I somewhere on Mars and don't realize it?
helmet - Graham Sumner - 11-01-2006
Saul wrote:
Quote:Oh, and would it likely be unacceptable to wear the helmet from the series at a re-enactment? Despite the fact it was present on Trajan's column? Or is this still a point of controversy?
Hello Saul. Not really. The helmet may look like some of those on Trajan's Column but it is in fact copied from a helmet discovered in Syria. It was silvered but there is doubt over whether it is in fact a Victorian period forgery. Montefortino or Coolus type helmets of which there are many variations would be much better examples for the series to have used and for you to copy if you are interested in that period.
Graham.