Ridley Scott's Napoleon (Nov 2023)

[Gusington]

Jokepoleon?

[GDS_Starfury]

to improve accuracy there will be a directors cut.
heres a still from that version:

[Destraex]

...

QQ for you USA peeps out there: The revolution basically happened first in the USA, then in France to overthrow the nobility and get power back in the hands of the people right? So did France do it any differently or did it just copy the US after helping it win the American Revolutionary War? Would you say any of the American Generals stack up as monsters in the way Napoleon is portrayed?

This is a pretty deep question.  I would begin by saying that the American Revolution had several characteristics that were absent in the French Revolution.  One of its core principles was  "all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights...."

The French writer Condorcet, while awaiting execution during the Terror, further noted that the French revolution was attempting to remake French society, while the American revolution merely wanted to exchange one group of English rulers for another slightly less English American version.  He wrote:
"It was more complete, more entire than that of America, and of consequence was attended with greater convulsions in the interior of the nation, because the Americans, satisfied with the code of civil and criminal legislation which they had derived from England, having no corrupt system of finance to reform, no feodal tyrannies, no hereditary distinctions, no privileges of rich and powerful corporations, no system of religious intolerance to destroy, had only to direct their attention to the establishment of new powers to be substituted in the place of those hitherto exercised over them by the British government. In these innovations there was nothing that extended to the mass of the people, nothing that altered the subsisting relations formed between individuals: whereas the French revolution, for reasons exactly the reverse, had to embrace the whole economy of society, to change every social relation, to penetrate to the smallest link of the political chain, even to those individuals, who, living in peace upon their property, or by their industry, were equally unconnected with public commotions, whether by their opinions and their occupations, or by the interests of fortune, of ambition, or of glory."

As Joseph Laconte later wrote "Intoxicated by visions of a truly egalitarian society, the revolutionaries in Paris took a wrecking ball to the institutions and traditions that had shaped France for centuries. Virtually nothing, including the religion that guided the lives of most of their fellow citizens, was sacrosanct. "We must smother the internal and external enemies of the Republic," warned Maximilien Robespierre, "or perish with them." Their list of enemies—past and present—was endless."

Laconte also notes one other critical difference: The American revolution was founded on the idea of natural rights as moored by the Old and New Testaments, while the French revolution, inspired by the thinking of Rousseau and Voltaire, believing in the inate goodness of humans, emphasized human reason and sheer will, untethered from Judeo-Christian thought.  As scores of socialist revolutions have subsequently proven, this substitution of human values for Judeo-Christian ones inevitably leads to death and destruction.

Holy moly. That is explanation is perfect thanks. I do see how the French revolution was significantly different to the American one. It was not just a change pf government but an actual revolution of every aspect of society. That os probably why you never really see anybody saying that the US did it first. Because they were simply different beasts.

[Skoop]

I feel the American one was superior, as we didn't cut our noses off to spite our face like the French did.  We didn't want to burn everything down, we just wanted to control our own destiny, and split from king George.

[JasonPratt]

The pretty great historical war/strategy channel "Invicta" has scored an interview with the historical consultant on Nappy'23. 

In this interview we discuss the making of Ridley Scott's Napoleon with the film's historical advisor, Dr. Lorris Chevalier. While there is certainly much to criticize when it comes to the movie's depiction of history, we will moreso be focused on the behind the scenes process for how history becomes adapted to cinema. Below are our conversation timestamps:

00:00:00 Intro
00:02:03 Being a Historical Advisor
00:15:29 Creating the Napoleon Movie
00:28:58 A Typical Day
00:40:24 Napoleon
00:59:11 The Marshals
01:04:30 Josephine
01:11:59 Battle of the Pyramids
01:16:40 Austerlitz
01:25:23 Russia
01:27:29 Missing Battles
01:30:25 Waterloo
01:34:31 Sniper
01:44:51 Depiction of Combat
01:56:04 St. Helena

[Destraex]

That advisor says to me to that Ridley wanted a yes man.