Guess what made the "Top 10 Historically Inaccurate Films" list?

[macwilkin]

I guess that's why they call it entertainment. Doesn't have to be historically accurate to generate box office sales. And if it was historically correct it probably wouldn't be exciting.

Over the years I & many of my compatriots in the living history community have discussed this very subject, knowing full well that there are great stories out there that Hollywood would not have to fudge on to make exciting. For whatever reason they usually add or subtract for their own purposes

Having said that, even if a historically accurate film was made, they'd usually have to condense the time frame to fit the story into a two or three hour time frame

Terry is correct; I generally do not read works of fiction anymore, with a few exceptions, because the majority of non-fiction I read for work and pleasure is more exciting than anything a writer and/or Hollywood could dream up. As a historian, I can say that "historically correct" doesn't always mean "boring".

That being said, I do believe there are happy mediums -- witness the recent movie "The Great Raid", which was, INMHO, a far better WWII movie than "Saving Private Ryan". While I was overwhelmed at the first 20 minutes of "Ryan", the rest of the movie really doesn't do much. "Great Raid" did fictionalize things somewhat, but overall they got the story right.

T.