Why Modern Movies Suck - They're Destroying Our Heroes

There's a treasure trove of historical incidents that could be made into epic movies that haven't even been touched yet.

I agree with that. We are on somewhat different tangents here. Yes, there are many worthy individuals and events that have not yet been filmed. When I said that all the great themes have been revisited, I meant by "themes" the great moral arcs involving friends, family, fractured relationships, faith (or lack thereof), commitment, betrayal, courage, honor, sin and redemption, reconciliation, forgiveness, self-sacrifice, etc. Our behavior is highly patterned. We see the same stories repeated over and over among people of different times and places. One of the reasons we endlessly retell such stories, and hunt for new examples, is because they speak to universal truths.

I've been reading a lot of reviews in recent years. One of the recurring criticisms of conventional dramas is, "yes, it's a good story, but it's nothing we haven't seen before." That doesn't mean that the particular individual or event has been filmed before; it usually means that the character arc is familiar territory, as it should be if we are dealing with reasonably normal people under stress. Filmmakers who try to find a new twist are sometimes tempted into bizarrely convoluted plots or to ever more grotesque extremes of (often dysfunctional) behavior in the search for novelty for its own sake.

P.S. To use your example, the usurpation of Phocas is thematically an oft-told tale. As far as I know, Maurice and Phocas have never been the subject of an American film. But an embattled and desperately stretched empire? A competent, soldierly emperor betrayed by a trusted subordinate? Ambition, treason and murder? The human tragedy of the “game of thrones?” The catastrophic consequences of the treachery? These themes have been revisited many times, as loyal subordinates turned backstabbing traitors are legion.

Heck, isn’t this the theme of MacBeth? And 101 other films? It is a universal theme, and it can be revisited endlessly through the lens of many similar events, both historical and fictional.

When I said that all the great themes have been revisited, I meant by "themes" the great moral arcs involving friends, family, fractured relationships, faith (or lack thereof), commitment, betrayal, courage, honor, sin and redemption, reconciliation, forgiveness, self-sacrifice, etc.

No, I understood exactly what you meant. The way you make those themes fresh is by putting them in different historical contexts. That was my point.

These themes have been revisited many times.

Really? The theme of a villainous, backstabbing semi-pagan wretch rising from nothing in the military to depose a hard-working, pious but parsimonious Christian emperor, and then execute said emperor's large young family before his face before executing him. This has been done before? The theme of a wicked and hideously cruel man ruling an empire, practically losing the empire to foreign invaders, and then facing an internal rebellion from far-flung province has been done before? The wickedly cruel emperor throwing the entire imperial treasury into the sea before being captured and having his genitals cut off by the successful rebels. That has been done before? The now legitimate rebel (Heraclius) launching a desperate crusade to reclaim the lost provinces of the Empire, being successful against all odds, only to lose everything at the very end of his reign. This has been done before?

Sure, bits and pieces of the above may have been done before. But this combination of themes goes far beyond anything that has been attempted of late, save perhaps Lord of the Rings. "Game of Thrones" is a pale, vulgar reflection of the actual history. Something like the above needs a 50-episode series complete with epic musical score to tell the story properly.

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