Questions tagged [historical-accuracy]
Questions about the precise conformity of events or characters portrayed in films or TV shows to real figures/events.
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Did Napoleon really personally charge into battles?
In the new movie, Napoleon, directed by Ridley Scott; we see Napoleon personally leading his men into battle during the siege of Toulon (as a captain), the battle of Borodino (as the Emperor), the ...
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Did Native American fighters really manage to sneak up to European trappers by climbing / jumping trees?
In the movie, The Revenant, Hugh and his group of trappers were ambushed by Native Americans after a fruitful pelt hunt.
There was at least one Native American fighter who had climbed onto a tree and ...
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Is it true that average people treated Bonnie and Clyde as if they were heroes?
In the movie The Highwaymen, Bonnie and Clyde were surrounded by bystanders in a city and people were waving at them as if they were movie stars.
Is this historically accurate?
The narrative is that ...
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How acurate are depictions of reservation life in the Disney+ series Reservation Dogs?
With the obvious exception of scenes depicting the paranormal and the deliberately outlandish, does the Disney+\FX series Reservation Dogs show an accurate depiction of life on a Native reservation in ...
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Is it common to see diversity of backgrounds shown in locations where You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah takes place?
It seemed the people who went to the religous school came from diverse backgrounds. Is this common? Like is it representative of the percentages that would normally occur?
For reference, as Sarah ...
user101799
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Did the father in Missing (1982) feel he was to blame somewhat in real life?
At the end of the movie, the American officials state that they are just protecting business interests, and that he was a businessman himself. Did the father in real life feel he was at least ...
user101629
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Why do the cast of Excalibur (1981) have full plated armor when that didn't exist back then?
Why do the cast of Excalibur (1981) have full plated armor when that didn't exist back then?
Is this due to stereotypes about King Arthur and knights in shining armor? This was supposed to take place ...
user101579
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Were the dancing scenes in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies period accurate?
The 2016 feature film Pride and Prejudice and Zombies contains a number of scenes depicting dancing, most notable the ball at the Bingley's manor house where the Parson dances claps hands with his ...
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What was the last work to feature the World Trade Center as actual footage instead of CGI or stock footage?
I was watching the 1998 Godzilla with my youngest when he remarked, "hey, it's WTC!" as the towers appeared in the background.
This got me wondering, what was the last work produced that ...
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In Vietnam, did U.S. combat aviators ever wear camouflage flight suits?
In Flight of the Intruder (1991), LCDR Virgil Cole (Willem Dafoe) wears a tigerstripe† flight suit. Though I have seen lots of photographs of U.S. aviators during the Vietnam War, I had never seen a ...
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Was Freemasonry such a big problem in 1980s UK policing?
One of the themes of The Gold is that the police of 1983 have many members in influential Masonic lodges, and that this played a role in protecting some criminals and also corrupt police. The main ...
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Why are there Hawaiians in First Cow?
First Cow is set in the Oregon frontier in 1820. In one part of the movie, one of the main characters, Cookie, passes out from a head injury and is rescued by a man and woman speaking a non-English ...
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Inter-enemy/opponent/stranger chitchat in True Grit -- is this found in other westerns?
NOTE although I have said this in comments already: The Coen brothers are not responsible for this dialog: it is in the original book and movie.
To me an extremely striking feature of the movie True ...
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Is the portrayal of people of color in Enola Holmes movies historically accurate?
In the recent Enola Holmes movies, some characters are played by people-of-color actors who appear to have social standings similar to those of white people. Does this portrayal of non-white people in ...
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How accurately does the 2009 movie "City of Life and Death" depict the actual Japanese victory march of Nanking in 1937?
From the 2009 film City of Life and Death, footage of the Japanese victory march of Nanking in 1937 can be found here on YouTube.
I was just wondering, how accurately does the movie depict the actual ...
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What's the relation of FDR and Wilson to War on Terror/terrorism?
In House of Cards, Frank Underwood brings up FDR and Wilson when saying that he wants to declare war on ICO (fictional terrorist group possibly related to ISIS). What's the relation please? I mean, ...
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Did Sean Parker tell Mark Zuckerberg to drop the "The"?
As depicted at about the 1 hour 11 minute mark of The Social Network (2010), Sean Parker — co-founder of Napster, and an early investor in and later the first President of Facebook — tells Mark ...
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What culture is Xerxes' attire in 300 actually based on?
It's well known that 300 took a number of creative liberties in its visual depictions of characters, and especially that Xerxes looked pretty much nothing like the historical Xerxes. However, movie ...
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Why would U boats even try to torpedo a Fletcher-class destroyer?
Some US Navy veteran — I cannot remember the name — chided Greyhound 2020, because it's unrealistic that U boats would even attempt to torpedo a US Navy WWII destroyer.
But Retired US Navy Admiral ...
user94179
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How realistic were the events in "Conspiracy"?
The 2001 film "Conspiracy" is about the so-called "Final Solution" to the problem of getting rid of Jews as efficiently, cheap, and fast as possible in Nazi Germany. Many hotshots ...
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Japanese Americans serving during WW2
In the original "Karate Kid", during the scene when Mr. Miyagi is drunk and talking about his wife, he mentions that she was in an internment camp when she died. It seems strange that the ...
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Deliberate miscalibration of shells in Schindler's List -- did this happen in real life?
Schindler explicitly tells iirc Stern (Ben K's character) that he knows the shells won't work and that he in fact wants this. This strikes me as unlikely for two reasons: one, the immense risk of ...
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Why was Charlie Chan talking about the US in WWII 3 months before Pearl Harbor?
In the final scene in Charlie Chan in Rio, released in September, 1941, Jimmy Chan gets drafted into the US army. He moans about having a war on his hands but brags that with him in the army, "...
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Is the Entertainment Weekly article real?
The titular character in The Great Buck Howard (2008) is based on The Amazing Kreskin. In a pivotal moment in the story, Buck Howard passes out after discovering he had been mocked in the pages of ...
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What is Wakko wearing in the "about the 90s" part of the "Catch Up Song" in the 2020 Animaniacs reboot?
In the first episode of the 2020 Animaniacs reboot, the Warner siblings sing a song about what happened between 1996 (when the last episode took place) and 2017 (when the reboot was being written). At ...
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Does mutiny and ship ownership make any sense for pirates in Pirates of the Caribbean?
Jack Sparrow complains of the mutiny against him and the taking of his ship, but who enforces him being captain or ownership of the ship, if not the crew itself? So why would he talk in such terms?
I'...
user83507
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In 1917, would a British Army Colonel truly have told a Lance Corporal to "fuck off"?
At 2:07 of this clip from the 2019 movie 1917, Colonel MacKenzie (of the Second Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment), whose "decorations indicate he's a veteran of the Boer War as well", ...
user13434
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Why did King Henry V have Cambridge and Grey’s heads cut off?
In Netflix movie The King (2019), what mistakes have Cambridge and Grey made to have King Henry V have their heads cut off? Wikipedia article on this movie didn't give me clear explanation on this.
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Why was Shakuntala Devi's husband not gay in the film?
The film Shakuntala Devi is based on the real-life personality, and in real life it was all over the news that her husband was gay after she mentioned it during the release of her book The World of ...
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Which Inca deities are shown in "Dora and the Lost City of Gold"?
In the movie Dora and the Lost City of Gold, when the kids enter the temple a giant monkey-like deity (made of gold) is shown. Which Inca deity is it?
Here is an image of the poster:
Two deities are ...
user83056
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If Japan won WWII, why would they write from right to left and in kyujitai form?
Can someone please expound the following comment based on the screenshot below? I don't speak Japanese, so please forgive my benightedness. How does Japan's imaginary winning World War II affect ...
user13434
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How historically accurate is Outlander?
Caveat: OBVIOUSLY I'm NOT asking if the idea of a time-travelling 20th century Lady is accurate ;)
How historically accurate is the TV show Outlander?
I'm thinking specifically of its depiction of ...
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Is Jimmi Lee Jackson's Eulogy accurate as presented in Selma?
I'm trying to determine how historically accurate the speech from the movie Selma (2014) given by Martin Luther King, Jr. at Jimmi Lee Jackson's funeral is, but I can't find a transcript of the actual ...
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Where do Gregor and Konrad meet up with British soldiers in episode 4 of World on Fire? How could they have gotten there alone?
In episode 4 of World on Fire, Gregor and Konrad meet a British army unit in the scene that starts at 32m57s after the two had last been seen escaping (while there was still snow on the ground) a ...
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Sound-proof, anti-Soviet spies room
In the movie "The Coldest Game" (2019), taking place during the Cold War, a special room of the Polish embassy is shown. The room contains a sound-proof glass box, raised from the floor, inside which ...
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Scene in "12 Strong" on women's education in Afghanistan based on what?
In the movie "12 Strong" (2018) there is a scene in which a Taliban imam in Afghanistan publicly executes a woman for educating her children and after he does so, he raises up a book and says that it ...
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Why was the Hollywood sign destroyed?
Why was the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles destroyed in the movie "Argo"? Was the sign also destroyed in real life during 1980?
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Does isolation in Moana reflect a real island?
I know polynesians went through a period where they generally didn't discover new islands. I've heard the movie Moana was meant to reflect the period when they stopped exploring. But this is a lot ...
user75284
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Is the scene where Schindler discusses miscalibrating machines taken from true events?
I realize that the movie has many inaccuracies, but is this bit one of them? Is there any evidence that the Oskar Schindler wanted Germany to lose the war?
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How real is the ending of the movie Ford v Ferrari?
The movie Ford v Ferrari (2019) starring Matt Damon and Christian Bale shows how Ford Motors built a car that beat Ferrari in Le Mans 24 hour race.
In the end of the movie, the three Ford cars cross ...
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Was Prince Bertie actually known to do this?
I'm rewatching the British historical series, Victoria about the life of Queen Victoria.
During the third season we jump ahead in time to a point where Victoria already has sever children, including ...
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How true to reality is the film Queen of the Desert?
Queen of the Desert is a 2015 biographical film about Gertrude Bell, an Englishwoman who spent most of her life in the Middle East and played a part in the establishment of some Arab states in the ...
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Why do cars in movies set in earlier eras always look brand new?
Whenever I watch a movie or TV show set in an earlier era, all the cars look brand new. In fact, better than brand new; the paint is rich and deep, highly polished. They all look as though they ...
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Why does Brigitte Mohnhaupt deliberately destroy the execution myth and how accurate is her closing dialogue?
At the very end of The Baader Meinhof Complex, after the efforts for pressing the RAF leaders free have failed and they thus commited suicide in Stammheim prison, Brigitte Mohnhaupt speaks to the next ...
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Why is Havana covered in 5-digit numbers in Our Man in Havana?
In the 1959 film version of Our Man in Havana, the streets of Havana are littered in signs with 4- and 5-digit numbers on them.
Here's an example:
Notice the "00260", "19072", and "42857" left of ...
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Is HBO's Chernobyl accurate about the sequence of instructions causing reactor stall?
In the series finale of Chernobyl on HBO, Dyatlov orders Akimov and Toptenov to bring the reactor power down to 700 MW, as per the written test instructions, and then leaves the room without giving a ...
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Did the movie Trumbo change the director of Spartacus?
Shortly after Trumbo writes the script for Spartacus, he meets Otto Preminger, who says that he is "the director". It sounds like he is claiming to be the director of Spartacus, and this is why he has ...
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How accurate was the use of the slogan "Wer hat uns verraten? Sozialdemokraten!"?
In Babylon Berlin S01E07 Gereon Rath attends a party at Bruno's appartment which includes many veterans from the Great War, including Major General Seegers. It seems to be a commemoration of the war ...
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Was the character of Nicol based on a real person?
In Welcome to Marwen, Mark Hogancamp meets Nicol. Eventually, he chooses to rename the fictional town of "Marwen" to "Marwencol", named after himself, his rescuer Wendy, and now Nicol.
According to ...
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Did Queen's performance really cause Live Aid to clear $1,000,000 in donations?
In Bohemian Rhapsody, Bob Geldof is shown pleading with viewers to donate money. The phone bank operators are waiting for their phones to ring. Then, Queen gets on stage, the phone banks are busy, and ...
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