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Yep, apparently, historical movies have seen their day. This film was sabotaged from day one. The left panned it for the same reasons they panned Wayne's-it extols the virtues of men who believed some things are worth dying for. The right (as evidenced in this thread, and in Joseph Farah's ignorant ravings) also panned it (mostly w/o seeing it) because they assumed it would be leftist PC revisionism.

The failure of Master and Commander at the box office is an indicator of where the movie-going public (apparently 14-25 year olds) stands on historical epics. With M & C, we had Russell Crowe, and a best-selling book series as the source for the movie, and largely positive reviews, and M & C still flopped.

Despite what has been said about cuts to The Alamo, the cuts are not that apparent. I could tell certain things were missing, because I know the story backward and forward. But I could not tell the cuts had been made. The movie just felt as if they chose not to cover certain areas.

We Texans do not really need a movie to remind us to Remember the Alamo. Those of you in other states, who only know the story via John Wayne and Disney's Davy Crockett series could learn a lot from this movie. It'a shame the ctitics went gunning for this movie (as they did The Passion). Heck, aside from the The Passion, there has not been a bona fide hit this year.

Eh, Ebert and Roper liked the Alamo.

My criteria for historical inaccuracy in movies is asking myself "Does someone who knows nothing about what actually happened historically, come out of the movie knowing MORE or LESS about what happened."

There are some movies that are so wildly inaccurate a movie goer knows LESS about history when they leave the theater; the film subtracts knowledge.

Some 18 year old who knows nothing about "The Alamo" will leave the movie knowing a lot more about what actually happened than before they went into the theater; same for Master and Commander; people will know more about sailing ship combat when they leave the theater, despite the fairly clear historical inaccuracies in some places both films have.

The Patriot....I don't know. I think it was much worse in terms of inaccuracy (though they attempted to get around it by transparently tweaking the names so they could claim they weren't ACTUALLY making a movie about Marion and Banastre Tarleton.)

The failure of Master and Commander at the box office is an indicator of where the movie-going public (apparently 14-25 year olds) stands on historical epics. With M & C, we had Russell Crowe, and a best-selling book series as the source for the movie, and largely positive reviews, and M & C still flopped.

Master and Commander also extolls the values which makes Western civilization great, but was so outstanding that the critics forgot to condemn it (I suspect it didn't do as well as it should have because of the LotR hype which has a lot of potential viewers saving their tickets for the third installment of that trilogy). In Aubrey, you have a man who is willing to do what it takes to defend Western civilization; in Mauritus, you have a man who personifies what makes Western civilization worth defending.

Master and Commander was a terrific film (IMHO, better than Return of the King) and I will buy the DVD when it is released on Tuesday. I think the problem is that the over-25 crowd has simply gotten out of the habit of going to the movies, except when accompanying their children. They normally wait for the video/DVD, cable or even free network tv. One exception is The Passion, which attracted many viewers who rarely, if ever, go to the theatres.

It's a closed circle: For the most part, the studios create brainless entertainment for the very young, which doesn't interest adults. The adults have lost the habit of attending the movies, so when the studios do create something intelligent, such as Master and Commander, they shrug their shoulders and figure they'll wait until the DVD is released. So the film fails, which further encourages the studios to only cater to the kids.

I like historical epics and nowadays almost all of them are created for TV.