Worst historical movie/tv show you watched

[Otto Kretschmer]

This includes both live action and documentsry movies/shows

For me Green Berets from 1960s was cringe worthy literally. For documentsries the Deadliest Warrior was pretty bad.

This one posted by Metatron is a lot of fun

The guy doing the cutting is Lee Ermey who played the drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket.

[spanishspy]

Sarajevo makes the assassination of Franz Ferdinand dull.

I also didn't think particularly highly of Alliance.

[miletus12]

Inchon (1982)

There certainly is an informative, exciting and entertaining film to be made about the battle of Inchon, considered the turning point in the Korean War, but the one titled Inchon isn't it. It is, however, a bloated, ridiculous and desperately confused war picture that lost nearly all of its $46 million budget.

How could so many things go so wrong? The first indication of trouble occurs with the disclaimer before Inchon even starts which warns us that it is a "dramatized story of the effect of war on a group of people" and that "where dramatic license has been deemed necessary, the authors have taken advantage of this license to dramatize the subject." In essence, everything you will see is total bunk. Laughably, at the tail end of the end credits there is also a disclaimer saying that "characters not indentified by name are entirely fictitious" etc. But since all of the characters have names, it's unclear what that means.

We do get the very real Gen. Douglas MacArthur, played with eye-rolling pretentiousness by a poorly made up Laurence Olivier. Seriously, his face is so waxen you'd swear you were looking at a stiff in a casket at a cut-rate funeral parlor. Anyway, MacArthur is the mastermind behind the Inchon invasion, which is all well and good, but we aren't presented with this fact until the film hits the 90 minute mark. Until then? It's all about the rocky marriage of Ben Gazzara and Jacqueline Bisset.

As Inchon opens, the North Korean invasion breaks out while Bisset is out buying furniture, and during the course of the movie she will flee in a car, pick up a load of orphans, come perilously close to dying on a bridge, drop off the tots at a mission and still have time to meet Gazzara at a surprise reconciliatory dinner arranged by soldier Richard Roundtree. Now, Gazzara and Roundtree are just such amazing soldiers. They are everywhere! The film's garbled timeline makes it impossible to determine what happens when or why. When Bisset is trying to cross that bridge, Roundtree appears out of nowhere in order to give her a gun for protection before he himself jumps off the bridge in the attack. Next, when Bisset's car breaks down in some unnamed, out of the way village, Roundtree appears out of nowhere again to fix it, and then he's immediately shown back by Gazzara's side at the military base. When the enemy is ambushed by peasants armed with machine guns, it's Gazzara and Roundtree, undercover in peasant-wear, who made it possible. In fact, in every battle line, Gazzara and Roundtree are there to lead the troops to victory, and in order for the plan to invade the port city of Inchon to succeed, it's up to Gazzara and Roundtree, along with Gazzara's mistress, to light a crucial lighthouse that will lead the American boats through the rocky straits.

These bizarre coincidences pale to the chaos of all the poorly-staged battle scenes which just have shots of people running around higgildy-piggildy, tanks running over grass huts, and explosions. Over and over again. Who's winning? Who's being shot? Where are they? Does it even matter? The whole film is just one big cycle of something getting blown to smithereens, Bisset and the orphans dodging bullets, Gazzara and Roundtree appearing and disappearing at random and Olivier playing to the rafters while intoning about his own greatness as a leader. It's two and half hours of jumbled, badly written junk. The editing is beyond wretched and, in one strange scene, where Olivier addresses a group of generals about his plan, the generals all speak in a strange, disconnected voice, sounding as if all of their dialogue were dubbed by the exact same bored person.

I neglected to mention that the Rev. Sun Myung Moon of the Unification Church financed a huge portion of Inchon, but that is more like trivia than being significant in why the movie fails. On any list of the biggest financial flops, Inchon figures prominently. The reason is very simple. It sucks.

Lawrence Olivier may be a passable Henry V, but he is no Gregory Peck. You also need to read SLAM Marshall to understand why this "celluloid caca" has as much relation to the real Inchon as Schoolhouse Rocks has to a real education.

[American hist]

Personally, the worst movies that label themselves historical but aren't and, in fact, completely;y misrepresent history; I would have to say Amistad being my worst. Mary queen of scots is a horrible movie, but I don't have the same prejudices as Amistad.

I can tolerate props not being accurate, but the portrayal of the historical record, well, that's quite another. I am okay with heavy narratives if the accuracy scale is at least mostly correct.

[michelvan]

I saw in 2010 a really awful Dokumentation on History Channel.

A archaeologist (actor) claim that Maya were good sailors who explore the pacific (they know only the gulf of Mexico)
Sail to deserted island and build there a Sphinx in form of Jaguar (so explain the Actor)
They're trip to mysterious island start in Chile, with extreme climber (why ? no idea) and Camera Team.
They have hurry up because the weather become to worst to visit the uninhabited island (why not visit the island during good weather season ?)
The local fishermen look on them like idiots, as Actor and Climber want ship passage to that Island
Except one, who laughs true entire trip hysterical, because royal payment.
after week there arrive at Island while baffled crew and still laughing Captain drop the idiots a south shore of...

...Robinson Crusoe Island !
here they climb shore up the camera man prevent not to film the asphalt street on top of hill, that let to Capital (843 inhabitants) and the international Airport.
(the reason why the Captain laughs true entire trip )
the Maya Sphinx were two gravel hill, while the Actor claim, it was build by maya as warning for 2012 end of world...

[American hist]

When I was a child who grew up with the history channel once they aired ancient aliens not only was I confuse that I at least knew that aliens did not come to this planet during ancient times. It made me stupid when my grandfather quite easily debunked them when I was 11 or 12 years old I do not have an explanation. I felt honestly that the history channel was lying to me the source I knew I could trust . If we count checkmate Lincoln-knight as a documentary then it is easily the worst documentary unless there is a historian commenting. I remember watching a documentary about St. Vincent and the Grenadines and it was a bad documentary but of course that’s all they could afford is having a few school teachers and principals.

[michelvan]

While Ancient Aliens is hilarious trip down rabbit hole

is History Channel "Finding Hitler" complete utterly stupid, i guess from same bunch that make fake Maya Sphinx.

A bunch of people rabbiting about how Hitler has escape Berlin in 1945, how he fake his dead.
Presented heap pile of questionable evidence all over the world and connect them to Hitler escape.
Most of stuff is fake, wrong or out of context or worst made up for the TV show and is contradictory.
biggest issue with Hitler surviving WW2 in South America, he would have do something, but the show could not presented anything on that...

The Curse of Oak Island
Since NINE Years they digging on island, still found nothing, just presented heap pile of questionable evidence...

[simon darkshade]

Insofar as films go, I almost walked out of Darkest Hour two or three times before falling asleep. Awful dross with numerous errors, pointless melodrama, invented dialogue and convolutions and one of my pet peeves, modern informality in historical settings.

I tend to make allowances for old movies in the pre CGI era with some of their stock footage and workarounds, but when it happens in multi million dollar pictures such as Pearl Harbor, it is simple laziness. PH is a poor piece of tripe, but no one really expected quality or fidelity.

[American hist]

Well Rember I was a child who didn't know any better however I at least knew aliens didn't come to earth. My grandpa was watching with us one time and the tv show here is proof that extrestial life forms have visited planet earth see how the aliens made these people smart! Look at the hand-crafted crystal objects my grandpa reply's well "smart people” (as he was talking about the native Americans) Then they show a fish that looks like a rocket "that's a abstract fish you Idiot!”

In documentary's I don't think it is that good of a idea to let the documentary to be dominant by armatures which I feel PBS documentaries do to often. I think armatures can contribute to subjects, but it should always be preferred to use professionally trained historians and scientist to lead the way in documentaries. Armatures including historical acters and park rangers do a good job and certainly shouldn't be left out of public educating films. Shelby Foot still contributed well though he is a armature historian and sometimes we need people to tell history in a more enternaning manner rather then it sounds as these are dull academics acting like these history charters are froma textbook rather to have the audience feel they are right there in history, or the people knew them personally which is what Shellby foot does

[michelvan]

Another Stinker is Planet Animal "Fake Trilogy" by Discovery

the first two are the truth about Mermaids, there homo sapient aquatics
confirmed by "employees" of NOAA and US Navy in that fake documentary
Already in second episode they had make introduction "this work of fiction, there all Actors"

The Third is classical found footage in 1970s Mondo cannibal style.
were three explores in Indonesia Jungle finding man eating Homo florensis (total face palm)
Only survivor is sentence to life by Indonesia authorities suspected he murdering the two others.

now so far the story goes in Internet, people organised in social media about the case seeing the Docu.
and send petition to liberate that poor man to the Indonesia authorities.
who found no one with that name in there prisons and request more information form US state department.
issue was Discovery put label "this work of fiction" in last 5 second of the credits...

I have no idea if Discovery still porduce that shit, Like History chanel or that came to there senses...

[American hist]

My other grandpa who in his retirement loved to watch archeological related tv shows particularly about native American Indian civilizations he is Hispanic by the way. He watched ancient aliens religiously with my older brother Charles and I was surprised as he didn't strike me to me the one who believed that crap,well he didn't. Ancient aliens often like to point out ancient technology now lost has to be linked to aliens! My grandpa would just shrug it off when they said it had to be aliens or it could be!

The grandpa who i first mention wouldn't be surprised if aliens were proven to exist, but I Rember commenting to my older brother he thought ancient aliens was stupid though. He replies back That is because a majority of what they say is stupid.

I Rember they pointed out a image that looked like a light bulb which according to the show one of the contributors' torches went out when they where visting a pyramid and there wasn't enough OXiGENE for lighting as he pulled out his lighter it didn't work.

[American hist]

The patriot film is nowhere near historically accurate in fact receiving a f on accuracy, but it is entertaining. I wonder if someone could argue that the patriot could still be entertaining and educational provided someone sees it as fiction. I guess we don't rate birth of a nation to be a historical film rather it's a a piece of racist propaganda. However, the battle scene where excellent for its time period including the outfits which many of them where authtic unforms including usage of smoke bombs for battle smoke. IT is at least true that that the union army along with slave soldiers did raid southern territory, but thats all I will defend,from that film and that film contains outdated lost cause narratives,lies,viewpoints. If a film or work got at least 50% right it could get someone interested in diving more into the historical record or even for someone to learn a thing or 2 about a particular subject.

Glory is a film I recommend watching, but I don't think it's as good of a film as some people say it is and the free states of johns even worse. there are films and tv shows that are set in a historical time but are fiction to the highest degree and may get 20% accurate depending on if fiction could be considered accurate when they are not even trying to be. Simple history is so much better in comparison then the infographic show.

The eagel of the ninth isnt that good of a movie,but the book was better then the film