this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2025
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A Comm for Historymemes

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 17 hours ago

I never gave it a single thought. But now I have been cursed with this knowledge and will fly into a fury every time I hear it now.

But thanks anyway.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Given the fact that any language used in such a movie is going to be wildly unlike the language spoken in the time and place of the movie, I think that's a mild anachronism

[–] [email protected] 14 points 23 hours ago

Old English / Norman French etc would be practically incomprehensible to anybody.

There was an interesting TV show called Barbarians a few years ago where all the Romans spoke Latin but with Italian accents but they had the Germanic barbarians speaking modern German. Not sure if that would please anybody.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Correct term was probably "loose!"

[–] [email protected] 5 points 18 hours ago

The slang term was "Fart in their general direction!"

[–] [email protected] 12 points 23 hours ago

Nobody was holding a ~90lb war bow at full draw waiting to hear "Loose". Not possible.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Well, this is going to bug me for the rest of my life.

Thanks.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 day ago (6 children)

If you were commanding a mass of archers "Spaff!" was the correct command.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 minutes ago

I don't like this.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The best part was when they said "ITS SPAFFFIN' TIME" and spaffed all over those guys.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 21 hours ago

"So I started spaffing"

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 day ago (3 children)

"Ready your bows!"

"Nock!"

"Mark!"

"Draw!"

"Loose!"

[–] [email protected] 6 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

"Nock! Nock!"

"Who's there?"

"Mark!"

"Mark who?"

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah they would just spaff all over the enemy, multiple times.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 19 hours ago

wow I'm glad that changed

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

Spaffing Brits were the most underhanded of the lot.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago

They also aren't speaking Gaelic.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 day ago (10 children)

Something I dislike in movies is when a movie is set in a non-English-speaking country, but all the characters are speaking English. I would rather have the characters speak the proper language for the country, with English subtitles. But I guess the movie execs have calculated that subtitles will make the movie less profitable.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 day ago (9 children)

Even worse in my opinion is when they use a generic British accent as a stand-in for literally any time and place in history. Ancient Rome? British accent. Ancient Greece? Also British accent. Ancient Persia? British accent again! Ancient Egypt? You guessed it! British accent! Even when the actors aren't even British, the accent is. It makes no sense. It's lazy and arrogant.

If I had a billion dollars, I'd make the most painstakingly realistic movie about Samurai in feudal Japan, and have all Japanese actors using a SoCal Chicano accent. Or maybe a hyper realistic Viking epic with a full Nordic cast, but they all talk like surfer bros.

The audience needs to be forced to see how insulting that shit is.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

a hyper realistic Viking epic with a full Nordic cast, but they all talk like surfer bros

Jarl! My dude! We totally viking'd the shit out of that Irish monastery! It was fucking rad!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

"Duuuuude… King Ælla’s a total boner. We gotta roll up on Northumbria and fully hack these posers to bits, brah. Then maybe, y’know, hit the mead hall and get wasted with some totally rad shield maidens."

I swear to Odin, I would make this movie and only release a few short trailers with no dialog in them. Just brilliant cinematic shots of action, scenery, all the super authentic costumes and customs, and get some historians to endorse it (I know a few who would love the joke and the chaos). Then BAM, hit the audience with the most ridiculous shit ever.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Yeah! You gotta lull them into suspension of disbelief.

I'd invest some money into this. Someone has to be brave enough to write the script.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

I would partner with a historian friend of mine to write it. I'm good with dialog, and he could keep it authentic. Write a rough draft like a normal script, then go back and fine tune all the dialog to surfer bro without changing anything else.

All the Nordic women would speak in Valley Girl.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 20 hours ago

I would pay to see both of those.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I don't mind this. I also don't mind watching a movie in a non-English language so long as there are subtitles (Pan's Labyrinth was awesome).

What I dislike are movies/series that decide to include a conversation in a different language without providing subtitles.

I hate this. Spending the next 5-10 minutes searching the internet to find a complete script of a show just so I have a complete understanding of what's going on is annoying, not fun.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago (2 children)

It doesn't fit a lot of movies, but some movies start in the foreign language and then switch to English

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 day ago

I liked the solution used in Inglorious Bastards, all the Germans and the French spoke English because all the Americans were so bad at speaking German and French.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

They're made for an American audience, who are generally afraid of non-English languages

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

Using modern english phrases to convey meaning to modern audiences is usually fine to me, as long as they don't reference modern history or events. but what really pisses me off is movies like "The Great Gatsby" that take place during the 1920s and have JayZ and Lana del ray playing at a rich person's party

[–] [email protected] 4 points 17 hours ago

RoMeO aNd JuLiEt WaSn'T sEt iN CaLiFoRnIa

u rn

[–] [email protected] 6 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah, We Will Rock you wouldn't have even been written during A Knights Tale, so unrealistic.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 18 hours ago

They owned it though in Knight's Tale...

[–] [email protected] 128 points 1 day ago (22 children)
[–] Nemean_lion 58 points 1 day ago (1 children)

They weren't calling your mom

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

Leithio i philinn!

[–] [email protected] 228 points 1 day ago (27 children)

Props to the movies that shout the "Loose!" command

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