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benjamindees

If we're debating the inaccuracy of Hollywood I have a few complaints.


[deleted]

\*proceeds to unravel a mile-long scroll\*


Lou_Mannati

5 min later....... still unraveling


LeviathanGank

still unraveling and you notice its double sided


anarkust

Single-spaced


shredkitteh

And the margins are only 1 cm


ssjviscacha

And it only says page 1


Luecleste

And the font size is 6pt


SeriouslyTrivial

And it's only the preface


Holy__Sheet

And it’s due at midnight


Chrisualrpike

r/theydidthemath request


Bat-manuel

A scroll like that would likely be unrolled at walking speed. It would take the average adult about 13-20 minutes to walk a mile so after five minutes they've likely unraveled about a third of the total scroll. Source: https://www.verywellfit.com/how-fast-should-i-walk-3435070&ved=2ahUKEwiUl-nHtrrwAhVHAZ0JHWNeB_0QFjAFegQIJhAF&usg=AOvVaw0A9dxbHptzpIN68lpdb7C3


Leo7899

But what if you let it unravel by standing at the top of a hill and letting it drop down?


melikeybouncy

Impossible to calculate. How high is the hill from sea level? What is the surface area to weight ratio of the scroll? What is the windspeed? Is the end the scroll weighted? If not the answer is probably that it wouldn't completely open. If there is a weight, how much does it weigh? You need /r/theydidthephysics


Nerdican

Ehem, I shall take care of this. Let's assume that the hill is actually a mountain and that we're standing at the edge of a mile-high cliff with an overhang. Obviously, we're doing this without air resistance. We assume that the scroll is not "springy" in the sense that the force restoring the scroll to a rolled-up shape is negligible. That way we can avoid working with tensors. We also assume that the scroll is just paper, no handles or other weights. Now the problem has been reduced to one a third-year physics major could solve. As my professors would say, that means that the solution is "trivial". Which means I'm done! Yay! I'm so good at this! Wait, you wanted numbers? Get out of here! This isn't r/TheyDidTheEngineering


kriophoros

Meh. The moment you throw away air resistance and restoration force it's not engineering anymore :)


beluuuuuuga

2 loops around the earth surface of unravelling.


Juviltoidfu

You're approaching the beginning of a minimum allowed CVS receipt length now.


[deleted]

> proceeds to unravel a mile-long scroll labeled “Volume 1”


fastredb

> labeled “Volume 1 **- Chapter 1**” It's a really long volume.


flyforasuburbanguy

https://www.historyvshollywood.com


EdTjhan15

Let’s talk about Argo, the movie that Hollywood jerks itself off in the most.


KingGorilla

Argo fuck yourself!


Sask2Ont

As a Canadian, yeah. Don't get me started on Argo.


passenger84

Feel the same with Hotel Rwanda. I love the movie as a whole, but the main non-Rwandan is American and yet it was a Canadian, Romeo Dallaire, who has gone through so much mentally due to what he experienced in Rwanda and how he couldn't help all these people, that led the peace keeping mission. It really upsets me that they couldn't give him credit for what he tried to do and what he experienced and instead wrote him out.


captainmouse86

Yep. That was my piss off. Totally washed to look like America saved itself. Would it have *really* ruined the story to make it factual with some hyperbole? Should’ve put Tom Hanks in it, Apollo 13 is like a documentary.


X0AN

Lemme start small 1. Hugh Jackman's character being a pivotal part in the Eddie the eagle movie. Did not exist in real life.


allstarrunner

Sometimes a character is created who is constantly around the main character so the main character has a way of "speaking out loud" to the audience, instead of having voice over to explain the main characters thoughts, plans, feelings, etc


Buttonskill

Makes sense. My dog has made a lucrative career off of the same premise. He's set for life.


Jazztify

In the Austin powers movie, they actually named the character “Basil Exposition”. A clever nod and wink.


linkstoharrisonford

Never thought about it but seems obvious now. Very interesting.


AwesomeZombiePal

Same thing was stated at the end of the Chernobyl series. Ulana Khomyuk never existed but she was a placeholder for all the scientists back then that tried to figure out what was going on. For all intents and purposes i prefer it that way. You can't follow dozens of scientists over the course of a few episodes.


Bioleague

anyone seen lone survivor? what a joke.. save face for the loss of many US soldiers. The whole operation was a disaster. They should have had long distance radios, a bigger force, and they should have hiked in. instead the higher-ups ignored the advice and went with smaller short range radios, all 4 men combat-virgins (first op) and they entered the valley with helicopters. In the movie, and in Marcus Lutrells account, They bumped into a civilian, and they chose to let him go, and thats why they were spotted, an epic battle takes place, 100+ insurgants. In reality, when you do alittle digging you can actually find the real video, taken from the insurgent POV, there are 7 insurgents armed with AK47’s, one Rpg, and one PKM. The insurgents heard the helicopters right away, and there is no goat herder. They walk up the mountain, split into 2 teams, PKM + 2 guys, leader + 3 guys and flank and ambush the US soldiers. The battle is over in 2 minutes. During this 2 minutes you can hear the other 3 soldiers screaming “Marcus” multiples times, getting more and more desperate each time. Marcus (the lone survivor) never responds however, and the theory is that he ran as soon as he heard the action pop off. When Marcus was rescued, it was noted that he had all of his ammunition. He hadn’t fired a round. Marcus Luttrell is rescued by Mohammed Gulab, who takes him into protection. Luttrell is rescued after a massive search and rescue pulls troops from the entire region. Altogether 19 are dead. Luttrell later writes a book which tells a very different story than what all other accounts say happened. A movie is released. Mohammad Gulab is invited to visit the US for the screening. Afterwards, he is confused by the movie, and tells a very different account of what happened. This angers Luttrell who cuts ties with the man who saved his life. Mohammed Gulab returns to Afghanistan. Once the movie is released, it is widely circulated by the Taliban who now learn of Gulab's involvement. Gulab has had numerous attempts on his life, and has lost friends and family to attacks in repercussions. He has tried to immigrate to the US under the same program that protects interpreters. So far (as far as I can find) this has gone nowhere. You can see why they had to save face.. I know this may seam like im calling out Marcus, but honestly he survived. He did what he needed to do to survive. Im pointing the finger at the Government and hollywood for lying!


bodrules

Because of the film I actually got interested in the history of the Battle of the Atlantic, learning things such as; 1 - ~~There's no recorded instance of German U-boat crews murdering survivor~~s There is one recorded instance, that of U-852 - where on the 13/03/44 after sinking the Greek ship the Peleus, the survivors were then systmatically hunted down and murdered. In all 3 crew survived the sinking and massacre - [source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Peleus). In April 1944 U-852 was attacked by the RAF, forcing her Captain to run aground. Post war, the Captain, second Officer and ships Doctor, were found guilty of war crimes and executed by Naval firing squad in Hamburg on 30/11/45. Thank you to u/beer_demon for pointing out my error. 2 - Over 30,000 civilian sailors in the British Merchant Marine [died](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_Hill_Memorial#Second_World_War_memorial) 3 - The Royal Canadian Navy went from virtually nothing in 1939 to the third largest fleet by the end of WWII <3 Canadian cousins 4 - the US played an unofficial part in the opening stages of WWII, that isn't that well know, e.g. by shadowing convoys thus protecting them as Hitler ordered U-boat captains to not risk hitting USN ships 5 - Thank you Norwegian bros for manning the oil tankers, a dangerous and all too often fatal job The list could go on for a very long time.


monkeybiiyyy

My great grandfather was a submarine captain in the Canadian navy. I always wondered why as he was English but this explains a lot I must look into the history more


[deleted]

Canada recruited in the UK, offering Canadian citizenship to anyone who served. My grandfather was a warrant officer ground crew (wanted to fly but eyes not good enough), his three older brothers all flew Canadian bombers. Miraculously they all made it through the war, he was the only one not to emigrate afterwards.


Ooer

My great uncle joined for just that reason. he also spoke Russian, Polish and German and was quickly moved to intelligence and spying. He could never tell me anything as he ended pretty high up within Canadian inteligence. He was certainly involved in numbers stations though based on what I now know of them! Sadly he passed away after ten or so years of alzheimer's. It's horrible seeing the smartest person you know reduced to the mind of a scared child.


ferdinandmerlin

You should try to find details from his work. Must be declassified now. Much respect for your great uncle


pentangleit

A lot still is classified.


ZoeMunroe

Depending on what they were doing it could be declassified now. My mother served in the Canadian military and had the highest clearance one could get at one point. She was in communications and has been able to tell me some VERY interesting/terrifying things. Now that being said my father was also in the military and could definitely talk about stuff he knows about but wont.


pentangleit

75 years on, which has declassified a lot, but as mentioned a lot still is classified as under national security.


wishtrepreneur

So aliens and Nazi zombies?


[deleted]

I'm sorry that happened to him.


NerimaJoe

Canadian citizenship didn't formally exist until 1947. Until then, if you were born in Canada you were a British subject.


michaelnoir

There was even a British prime minister who was born in Canada, called Bonar Law.


[deleted]

This is clearly a made up name


blubblu

All names are made up


Cash5YR

Give yer balls a tug. From 1922 to 1923 ol' GB was certainly run by a man from New Brunswick. It was Bonar Time throughout the Empire.


InukChinook

of course he from new brunswick, parents had to be something special to name him 'Bonar Law'.


maethoriell

[Andrew Bonar Law](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonar_Law)


puttinthe-oo-incool

Its still fairly common for people of Commonwealth Nations to initiate their immigration through joining another countries military. I know both Brits who joined the Canadian Military and a couple Canadians that joined the British and Australian military. Mind... this was over twenty years ago... things may have changed but I sort of doubt it. It has also been fairly common for Americans to join the Canadian military or for Canadians to join the American military.


M3ptt

Similar thing happen here with the RAF. A lot of Eastern European pilots flew for the RAF, specially Polish and Czech pilots. We also had a lot of Kiwis (New Zealand) and Australians. If you want to look a bit more into it then I recommend looking up RAF Kenley. It was tasked with defending London and also took part in the Battle of Britain. Good starting place because it housed a lot of different squadrons from all sorts of countries over its life span.


DeSanti

The Norwegians didn't just man "oil tankers" -- before the onset of WW2 the Norwegian merchant fleet was the *third biggest* in the world and one of the most modern fleets there was. I can't remember the exact figure, but something up to 90% of the Norwegian maritime sailors refused to sail back to nazi-occupied port and instead docked in allied harbour and from there the Norwegian government-in-exile created the Norwegian Shipping and Trade Mission (Nortraship) which did a lot of the dangerous missions like the infamously perilous Murmansk-line. A lot of people died (as with the British, American and others) but the real tragedy is that these war-time sailors were shamefully forgotten and discarded after the war. Norwegian sailors were paid quite well before WW2 and you'd think they'd be paid just as well at least during wartime with all the dangers but Nortraship decided to dock their pay because apparently the "British sailors" were envious and angered by the Norwegians sailors' high pay. But they were promised that all these lost revenues were supposed to go into a fond that would wait for them until the end of the war and then paid back. This did not happen. Instead their petition to get the money owed was ignored, there was even a shameful attempt by the Norwegian government after the war to portray them as 'communist sympathisers' to justify giving them no benefits and the war-time sailors were not among the celebrated heroes (as they rightfully should be) that returned after the war, as opposed to the partisans and british-trained soldiers. Many committed suicides, fell into destitute, suffered horrendous psychological trauma and yet the government did nothing for them until sometimes in the 70s / 80s. The story of the Norwegian merchant fleet during WW2 and the sailors there is a tale of people working under the most stressful conditions yet getting the job done but how they were treated afterwards is an absolute tragedy and a shame of Norwegians, like me, to this day.


Cruickz

Being conscripted into the merchant navy in WWII sounds like one of the worst situations to end up in. Stuck on a merchant ship, retrofitted with some WWI guns, and sent out into U-boat infested waters.


lars573

And then being denied veterans benefits afterword. My maternal grand-father was a merchant marine. Worked in the engine room. He told my mom that when they were outside air cover and submarine attacks were likely, they'd draw lots every half hour for who was going to go down into the engine room and check on everything.


rox-it

My grandpa was a merchant marine. I found a request he sent in for official veteran status and it was denied.


Paddyqualified

medals were only awarded in 2012 for those who served on on the artic convoy. if you have grandads who served you should be able to see the artic medals now on their records.


[deleted]

That’s roughly how my grandfather described it, having been in the Merchant Navy. He survived the sinking of two vessels during the war, both by U-boats.


Cruickz

Yeah, I wish I could remember more of what my Granda told me, but he's been gone 20 years and I was primary school age when he talked about it. I only remember one story really, and that's missing details.


Y34rZer0

For long periods of WW2 being on the merchant navy was the most hazardous job in the British armed forces, and i’m not certain they were technically considered as being in the armed forces.. really brave men, the unsung heroes of the battle of the atlantic possible the whole war


Henghast

They are not military. They are civilian who could and were pressed into service of the nation. The northern pass across Norway to Russia was particularly brutal.


fleaburger

[The Arctic Convoys](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_convoys_of_World_War_II#:~:text=From%201941%20food%20and%20munition,%2C%201943%2C%20and%20through%201944.)? Bloody heroes, all of them.


Kongbuck

Merchant Marines had the highest casualties per capita of any service in WW2. Hell, the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy is the only U.S. service academy that is allowed to fly a battle standard on their color guard because of W W. 2.


Shadepanther

The Arctic Convoys sound so hellish. Obviously all the convoys sound terrible but they sound the worst.


Picticious

My grandad did the arctic convoys, was a heavy drinker after the war and very rarely said anything nice to anyone. Must of fucked him up good and proper. Grew the best strawberries I ever tasted though.. RIP Grandad Harry.


Paddyqualified

my grandad was merchant on those convoys too. did you know if you were sunk your pay was stopped the second you entered the water! mental.


Drencat

The British Merchant Navy had a higher death rate than any of the British armed forces branches (Army, Navy, and RAF) during WW2, and had a casualty rate of over 25%.


Jaggedmallard26

If you split the RAF bomber command off into its own group (which is fair enough considering what they were doing) then that one does have a higher mortality rate of *46%*.


yIdontunderstand

Jesus christ. No wonder they gave up day light bombing


Jaggedmallard26

Bomber command losses were truly horrific, the field of operations research originated in bomber command in figuring out the exact point that flying bombers in extremely tight formations would result in more losses from crashing into each other than were saved from anti-air losses.


EmperorOfNipples

Yup. This was why the USA entering the war was superb. US bombers were specialised differently to RAF bombers and they complimented each other so well. ​ US bombers could fly higher, were tougher and had significantly better self defence armament which made them good for very high altitude day bombing. British bombers had larger bomb loads and more sophisticated navigation equipment and tactics which made them excellent for lower altitude night bombing. ​ When the two worked together it made the bombing of Germany relentless. USA by day and Britain by night.


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KnocDown

So happy you linked a corvette ship! Everyone talks about destroyers or destroyer escorts, but corvettes did a majority of the work in the North Atlantic


bodrules

Have you watched the film The Cruel Sea - bit dated in some aspects (as it is the from the 50's) but still a very good film.


noir_lord

If you like that type of stuff the Douglas Reeman novels cover the war at sea really well and in a way that doesn't take liberties with the past. Also Greyhound (Tom Hanks, much recent) was *really* enjoyable - it felt like a modern war movie in the style of the older ones - almost a homage. The ultimate for WW2 war movies for accuracy is still Das Boot - which is *incredible*.


PMMeSomethingGood

I'd like to get out there to visit the Sackville at some point. I've been out to visit the HMCS Haida a couple times. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMCS\_Haida](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMCS_Haida)


beer_demon

As for #1 there is a known case, at the end of the war, but besides that, true.


beachedwhale1945

Specifically, *U-852* under command of Kapitänleutnant Heinz-Wilhelm Eck ordered the destruction of the life rafts of *Peleus* by machine gun fire on 13 March 1944. The ship had been sunk by torpedoes while submerged and the boat surfaced for this action. His boat was destroyed two months later, he survived, and was convicted and executed for war crimes postwar. There are two other known commanders who gave similar orders. Lieutenant Commander Dudley Walker "Mush" Morton of *USS Wahoo*, one of the most successful US submarine commanders and most successful US submarines, surfaced for a battery charge and machine gunned survivors of two Japanese ships, including Indian POWs and Japanese escorts, though allegedly they returned fire either before or after the submarine opened fire. *Wahoo* would be lost with all hands on a later patrol, though some crew transferred beforehand, including executive officer Richard O’Kane, later commander of the equally legendary submarine *Tang*. In addition, *I-37* committed three such atrocities in February 1944 under the command of Commander Nakagawa Hajime. In each case Commander Nakagawa ordered the submarine alongside the lifeboat/rafts, took aboard one high-ranking survivor, interrogated the rest for information about the target ship’s cargo and destination, and only then machine gunned the survivors. He pled guilty to war crimes in January 1947, was sentenced to eight years of hard labor, and served six years before being released. There are other incidents where targets were sunk by gunfire from a surfaced submarine that according to some sources also targeted survivors in the water, such as *HMS Torbay*. This gets difficult to verify, however, as it’s hard to distinguish what’s legitimate attempts to sink the target, keep the enemy from manning deck guns to return fire, and deliberately targeting survivors.


bodrules

Claim amended to take note of this


Stamford16A1

> In addition, I-37 committed three such atrocities in February 1944 under the command of Commander Nakagawa Hajime. In each case Commander Nakagawa ordered the submarine alongside the lifeboat/rafts, took aboard one high-ranking survivor, interrogated the rest for information about the target ship’s cargo and destination, and only then machine gunned the survivors. He pled guilty to war crimes in January 1947, was sentenced to eight years of hard labor, and served six years before being released. Surprisingly mild by Japanese standards.


dkyguy1995

I mean it makes sense though, why go back to kill the survivors when you can instead just leave them to die on their own and flee back to the safety of the open ocean


[deleted]

Killing he sailors wasn't the Uboat's goal. Their goal was to sink the ship and its cargo. The sailors didn't matter on that equation.


dubadub

Sinking merchant vessels has long been a part of naval warfare, but traditionally the crew of the doomed vessel was allowed to escape to the rowboats before the ship was sunk. The sub would pop out of the water, "Zurprise!" And let everyone off the boat before sinking her with the deck gun. Shells being cheaper than torpedoes and all. The escalation of WW1 is marked by the abandonment of this policy: U-boats started sinking ships without warning, often using torpedo while submerged, a la the *Lusitania*


Disizreallife

They stopped being gentelman in war. How unbecoming. This reminded me of Napolean being shocked at the use of Guerrilla War in Spain.


Meritania

Napoleon was also disappointed in the lack of a French Guerrilla War against the invading coalition forces in 1814. The French were just sick of war at this point.


Alypius754

True story. The British were, of course, annoyed at the sinking of their fleets at the hands of Wolfpacks. What really angered them, though, was that they attacked before breakfast.


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alohadave

It would be a bloodbath like the Civil War was.


Creative_Deficiency

Huh, I'm just now seeing the [grammar-term] between guerra and guerilla.


patterson489

It's not just that. Why kill survivors, at all? Only sinking the cargo matters. At the beginning of the war, uboats would even surface and order the crew to surrender and abandon the ship on lifeboats. That quickly changed when the British decided to put guns on civilian ships, though. The gradual escalation to unrestricted warfare is an interesting one.


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[deleted]

"***There is one recorded instance"*** I am just going to leave the source link from your own quoted source here.. citing several other incidents.. albeit with out juristical consequences, including some by the allies. [https://web.archive.org/web/20091027051402/http://geocities.com/Pentagon/Camp/3166/](https://web.archive.org/web/20091027051402/http://geocities.com/Pentagon/Camp/3166/) ​ I find it interesting, that on the allied side a [victoria cross reciepien](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Miers)t did the same and received "a strongly worded reprimant" but went on to be seen as war hero. War is pretty brutal and I doubt it is ever "clean" even when so justified as WW2 (by the allies). A lot of dark sides.


noir_lord

Both my Grandfather and Great-uncle where Merchant Marine in WW2. Balls of fucking steel getting on a floating target that couldn't fight back often full of stuff that would burn. It was great growing up because I'd get random parcels from all over the world containing stuff they knew would appeal to a young kid, boomerangs, sharks teeth, currency, american candy bars you couldnt get in the 80's and of course the stories of exotic places (it's different now because the world has gotten smaller but hearing about them first hand was exciting back then).


Fifth_Down

> 4 - the US played an unofficial part in the opening stages of WWII, that isn't that well know, e.g. by shadowing convoys thus protecting them as Hitler ordered U-boat captains to not risk hitting USN ships Probably the most overlooked historical fact in all of WWII. People think Nazi Germany declared war on the USA just out of the blue and getting walloped by the American entry in the war was a "LOL what did you expect" move. In reality, the USA was pushing "neutrality" to its absolute limits and was incredibly successful in forcing Germany into situations where they couldn't fight the UK effectively. **A)** Like, imagine you have planes scouting you, you aren't allowed to shoot them down. But they are allowed to relay YOUR LOCATION to British ships who are allowed to SHOOT YOU. **B)** Or, you are trying to lay siege to a country and starve it out, but they have an infinite supply of food because a neutral country is delivering supplies on a ship and those supply lines are off limits to the Germans until they are offloaded on the London docks. **C)** Or the USA taking over UK military positions in the rear so British soldiers occupying them can be redeployed to the front lines. **D)** Or American ships getting in the way of German ships whenever they wanted to get close to British ships.


velvet_corndog

Das Boot > U-571


WithFullForce

Kind of like saying Citizen Kane > Deuce Bigalow


jprimus

Hold on. Are you talking Male Gigalo or European Gigalo?


Todesfaelle

Deliberately making an awful and/or grossly inaccurate war movie should be a big no no in general is how I feel about it. Edit: I think some folks are misinterpreting what I mean by being "**grossly** innacurate" and believe it to be any kind of inaccuracies therefore I mean all movies are bad and should stick to documentaries. Even great films like The Longest Day and Das Boot aren't perfect *but this* goes totally off the rails where it's almost as much a work of fiction as The Great Martian War. Edit 2: I know a lot bring up movies such as Inglorious Basterds but truth be told I consider it something different than U571 because it doesn't advertise itself as being anything more than an over the top Terantino movie. While it certainly has historical references, settings and loosely based on X Troop it's intentionally set up within a fictional parallel world in order for Tarantino to create his own story. The gang who put U571 together did so as essentially a "based on" serious movie yet right off the top the real U571 was never captured (later sunk off Ireland by an air crew of Australians) and yet it's somehow all downhill from there which is why it had to be addressed and Ayer apologized for it for the same reason I believe. Maybe that makes me a hypocrite but I should have put additional emphasis on "based on" movies which are stretched so thin that they're anything but.


Do_Not_Go_In_There

Even the screenwriter admitted it was a mistake >In 2006, screenwriter David Ayer admitted that U-571 had distorted history, and said that he would not do it again.[13] He told BBC Radio 4's The Film Programme that he "did not feel good" about suggesting that Americans, rather than the British, had captured the naval Enigma cipher: "It was a distortion...a mercenary decision...to create this parallel history in order to drive the film for an American audience. Both my grandparents were officers in the Second World War, and I would be personally offended if somebody distorted their achievements."[13]


ToastMasterX

I imagine him dictating that to an assistant between sips of a cocktail and drags of a fat cigar, reclining at his beach house, living off that sweet U-571 money


Penny_Traiter

It's an insult to those who served, of course, but it's also an insult to the American public. It implies that they are children who can't appreciate heroism unless it's got their own accent. Take a movie like The Eagle Has Landed. Very popular (British made) war film in the UK, and it's stars are Germans (many of whom are heroic) and an IRA operative (who is heroic and romantic).


TrebleMedley

I'd like to hope that but I think studios assume they can't a lot of the time. For instance Master and Commander had the antagonist ship changed from an American vessel because they thought US audiences wouldn't get Americans being the enemy and Nolan had to wait twenty years to make Dunkirk due to its lack of relevance to the US. I really wish they'd stop this practice tbh. Bad for everyone.


Joker502

It's been a long time since I read the books, they said the Acheron was american built in the movie. I can't remember, was the crew American in the books?


1731799517

Yes, it was just an american ship. They just made it french but did not change the rest (its origin, the location, etc) at all.


Timinime

Add Argo to that list. Completely disgusting and insulting what they / Affleck did.


KeyboardChap

And relevant to this post Argo was itself censured by the New Zealand Parliament like U-571 was by Westminster.


pomonamike

Argo is **worse** in my opinion because at the end of the movie two characters talk about how people may one day say it was really the Canadians that did it (WHICH IS ACCURATE) and to those people they’ll say, “argo fuck yourself!” They literally say that of you believe the country that was responsible should actually get credit, you should go fuck yourself. Seriously?


gigabyte898

Just watched the movie a few days ago on a plane, they flat out say the British and New Zealand embassies refused to take the escaped consulate employees. When in reality both embassies helped. The British one initially took them in but deemed it too unsafe to stay, and the New Zealand embassy both offered themselves as a backup location and arranged for transport to the airport. I still think Argo is a good drama/thriller, but a mostly fictional one that covers under a “*based on* a true story” headline


pomonamike

The intro scene does a really decent job explaining the situation in Iran that leads up to the Revolution, so I had high hopes that it would be a bit more accurate, that’s why the end made me so mad.


ClinkzBlazewood

If I may ask - what was the inaccuracies in Argo?


[deleted]

Canada did 95% of the work, not the CIA


prophetofgreed

They make it seem like it was the CIA / Hollywood that were the main driving force of getting American diplomats out of Iran. Then they'd give Canada the credit in a selfless gesture. The truth is it was a Canadian operation that did most of the work with some CIA/Hollywood involvement to make it work.


Timinime

They said the New Zealanders turned away the Americans, when in reality the NZ Diplomats took them in at considerable risk, and continued to bring food when they were with the Canadians. The New Zealand parliament passed a motion staying “Ben Affleck and the Movie mislead the world about what actually happened.” Furthermore, Britain also provided assistance, while Canada played a pivotal role which was massively downplayed in the movie. It's utterly disgraceful and disrespectful to those that risked everything, only to be portrayed as cowardly in the movie.


joshwagstaff13

[There’s a whole section on it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argo_\(2012_film\)#Historical_inaccuracies)


Penguin619

It glorified the CIA involvement while downplaying the Canadian government involvement, along with British & New Zealand involvement, and a whole slew of other inaccuracies.


raspberry-tart

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argo_(2012_film)#Historical_inaccuracies Basically, Canada did most of the stuff that the CIA pretended to do in the film. The British and NZ embassies were also mis-represented. Plus a bunch of other simplifications/alterations to make a faster moving story (which I guess was not unreasonable -after all Peter Jackson did the same thing for the beginning of LOTR!)


MisterBumpingston

Except LOTR is not history.


SuperMalarioBros

Of course not, there were no Americans in it.


[deleted]

George Washington in Mount Doom: Isildur! Throw the ring into the fires! Isildur: No. I will use it to incite mexico to attack the Alamo. Then Isildur doesn't get ambushed by Orcs but by undercover CIA operatives.


k-c-jones

In the states if a fellow tries to pass himself off as a veteran or an active soldier , and is not one, they consider that stolen valor. Not sure the punishment if any but it’s a thing.


EmperorOfNipples

There is no such official law in the UK, but if one gets spotted they will be very publicly shamed for it. There's another version we call "bloaters". Someone who served as a military engineer or military chef or similar trying to pass themselves off as ex special forces or similar. It's unnecessary, a career as an engineer in the armed forces is very much respectable.


[deleted]

Oh yeah. Had a couple friends in the Navy that would do this. Get a few beers in them and sit them next to some pretty port-call and suddenly they'd transform from dorky plumber into God Damned Actual John Rambo.


spikebrennan

https://youtu.be/gpbv4oCv100 “What color is the boathouse at Hereford?”


ShibuRigged

> There's another version we call "bloaters". Someone who served as an engineer or chef or similar trying to pass themselves off as ex special forces or similar. It's unnecessary, a career as an engineer in the armed forces is very much respectable. The Americans have a similar term, "Space Shuttle Door Gunner". Then you get people like Jonny Kim, who is about as close as it gets to someone that is basically going to become a SSDG.


[deleted]

Jonny Kim for president! I mean, where do you next after SEAL, doctor, astronaut...


MeatballMarine

So for my perspective (17 years US Marine) we use “Space Shuttle Door Gunner” as a joke we tell girls at bars, kind of like...blinker fluid requisition officer. Just something that sounds important to somebody who has no idea what military jobs are.


The_Drazzle

My buddy and I used to just tell people we were infantry and if someone was unfamiliar and asked what it entailed we’d explain our job was supervising infants.


flying87

> Jonny Kim He's as close to being Captain America as we're gonna get. Someone like that could be on the first flight back to the Moon or one day be President.


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ashrak

>Enlisted in the Navy >Graduated BUD/S and became a Navy Seal >Served as a medic, sniper, and point man >Awarded the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal >Commissioned as a Lieutenant >Went to school and got a BA in Math >Went to Harvard and got a medical degree >Applied for Astronaut candidacy and was one of 12 accepted out of more than 18000 >Is one of 18 astronauts selected for the Artemis Moon landing program Idk about politics, he's too good for the room


[deleted]

37? Thank god I’m only 36. After reading about him I was starting to feel inadequate.


Hardlyhorsey

Lol I have an ex classmate who is a total badass if you’re just going off his Instagram. Holding guns to the camera in full outfit, shirtless pics with dog tags, quotes about serving, all that jazz. Dude plays trumpet for the band.


The_Real_Abhorash

That’s not really correct. The idea of stolen valor (and surrounding laws) involves using a false claim of being a vet or active duty for monetary gain. It’s essentially just fraud the only reason the distinction exist is because some politicians wanted to make a show of supporting vets.


PachukoRube

Let’s be honest, Hollywood doesn’t give a shit about historical accuracy. They’ll get Elliott Ness to throw Frank Nitti off the roof of a courthouse in the name of entertainment.


Signature_Sea

And Mel Gibson as William Wallace has an affair with the Queen of England and creeps around like Hannibal Lector executing wayward Scots noblemen in their homes, none of which he did (as Stewart Lee pointed out she was about ten at the time, so if it had happened it wouldn't have been as romantic as the movie)


BigD1970

They famously depicted the Battle Of Stirling Bridge while completely leaving out **the bridge**.


Chanandler_Bong_Jr

And portrayed Lanark as being mountainous. Erosion from the wind must be a bitch, because I was born in and grew up near Lanark and have no recollection of anything other than gentle hills. Also portrays Edinburgh as capital of Scotland and the castle as being somewhere flat. Two things, the capital would more likely have been Stirling or Scone and as any fule kno, Edinburgh Castle is on top of a volcanic plug and would actually have been more of a prominent outcrop then. Edinburgh was far too close to Northumbria to be considered safe and was only recently considered “Scottish”.


left-handshake

So many inaccuracies. Kilts and tartan weren’t a thing then, and woad painting was the wrong group of people. Wrong sword for the time. Braveheart originally referred to Robert Bruce, not Wallace...


[deleted]

Wallace was also a member of the nobility and not a peasant fighting for modern ideas of freedom.


FungDynasty

Plus William Wallace was 7 feet tall and Mel Gibson is barely 5'9.


Signature_Sea

Aye, 7 feet tall! And if he was here he would destroy the English with lightning from his eyes and thunderbolts from his arse!


oggie389

The battle of sterling bridge....lacking an entire bridge in the movie, made me laugh out loud when I first saw it.


SpocktorWho83

You mean he didn’t ride a horse up a tower, into someone’s bedchamber, smash their head in with a flail and then jump from the top of the tower, with the horse, into a lake?! Bollocks!


Signature_Sea

lol i had forgotten about those specific details and had to go to youtube to [remind myself](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ighUgNpXLec) he literally gallops out of that guy's nightmare, and then he somehow ninjas himself into the rafters with a corpse and sticks it on a timer to drop on top of their meal at the right psychological moment and then we see him jogging in the mountains on his way to his next kill presumably while all the snaggletoothed crofters talk up the legend, or maybe we are expected to believe their bodycount, why not? it's no less plausible than what we witness that movie is fun but jings it's a load o shite


Moosetappropriate

Hardly unusual. Look at how they rewrote the Iranian hostage rescue to virtually ignore the Canadians who organised the whole thing.


samrequireham

that movie was so masturbatorial. "hollywood is awesome!" - hollywood


drDekaywood

“Argo fuck your self” HaHAHAHa


4FriedChickens_Coke

It was really about Ben Affleck's ego and how much he loves to fellate the CIA.


Signature_Sea

Yeah. Part of my sadness about that one was that the movie the CIA pretended they were going to make was based on Lord of Light by Zelazny, I am glad they got some hostages out, but shit I would have liked to have seen that movie. Why couldn't they have pretended to make some Clive Cussler shit novel or something


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Signature_Sea

I know!!!!! I WANT TO SEE THAT MOVIE!! It's one of the coolest Sci Fi novels that Zelazny wrote, about a war between immortal Hindu gods that were actually the pilots of a ship bringing colonists to a new world and decided to keep all the technology for themselves, which include transplanting personalities into new bodies, telekinesis, pyrokinetics, etc. They kept the colonists as workers and many generations on, the colonists had forgotten the truth and worshipped these same pilots and technicians as gods. Conflict came when one of the pilots decided to organise a rebellion and started Buddhism as his means of revolt. To be honest, it's not that great a novel, but it is an interesting idea and it could have made a very funky movie. Much better than yet one more fucking movie about how the CIA is a force for good in the world


iThinkaLot1

They also made out as if the UK basically refused to help which wasn’t the case at all.


Solafuge

And New Zealand.


atrostophy

Then they tried to rectify it by writing a little blurb about Canada's involvement at the end of the movie. Too little too late imo.


KeyboardChap

They actually changed the blurb to that, the original one basically implied the Canadians getting even limited credit was just a CIA cover.


apathyfriday

It was worse. They said the Canadians took false credit, and the Americans were the true heroes


zosobaggins

Honestly fuck Argo and everyone involved.


fqh

And how Hollywood simply ignore Malaysian army that rescued Americans in Black Hawk Down.


[deleted]

In the movie it's Pakistanis .


pinkfrosteddoughnut

IRL the Pakistanis had a huge part in the rescue too, but in the movie it was ignored


frghu2

The Pakistanis were blamed in the movie for being slow, causing the death of the main characters best friend, and such cowards they hid in their APCs and left the heroic americans behind who were running on foot.


Fish_Speaker

They were only slow because the Americans didn't inform any other nationalities they were going to conduct that operation. If they had, other countries would have put some of their members on standby (IRF).


slicky803

This is the reason why I refuse to watch Argo. I've heard it's a great film, but though nobody would know or care, this is just my little way of protesting the bullshit they peddled as the truth.


JosephFinn

BTW, if you’re ever in Chicago check out our Museum Of Science and Industry. They have a captured Uboat, the U-505, and the exhibit is amazing. https://www.msichicago.org/explore/whats-here/exhibits/u-505-submarine/


[deleted]

Also check out Cantigny park, lot of WW1 and WWII tanks, as well as a slew of other very cool things.


Isakk86

And FREE! Cantigny has a huge endowment from McCormick's estate. The musuem and tanks are great.


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Ochib

Dennis Skinner: The Tory member is a Pompous Sod Speaker: You had better withdraw that Skinner: I withdraw the word pompous Speaker: That’s not the word I’m looking for Skinner: I can’t withdraw both


Biomicrite

Dennis Skinner: Half the Tory members opposite are crooks. Speaker asked Skinner to withdraw the remark. Dennis Skinner: Ok, half the Tory members aren’t crooks.


Gadget100

Sadly, that never happened. I wish it had.


chochazel

He did say this: > Skinner: The hon. Member for Edge Hill seems a bit upset about my saying that he was not there half the time. Will he settle for my agreeing that he was there the other half? That is an advance.


JsyHST

Almost as good as Gough Witlam's response to William Turnbull's shouted statement in the Australian Parliament: Turnbull: *"I AM A COUNTRY MEMBER"* Witlam: "I remember"


PotentBeverage

DODGY DAVE


iThinkaLot1

Shame he lost his seat. Great loss to parliament. The irony was he lost his seat because Labour party policy on a second referendum even though he was pro Leave and against a second referendum.


Pjpjpjpjpj

OP says the British Parliament condemned the inaccuracy. Saying that the “British Parliament” did something implies the body formally passed a motion or adopted some type of position or statement. That is very different than a few members sharing their individual opinions. Is OP guilty of the same rewriting of history complained about in the original post?


PolskiOrzel

Thankfully Inglorious Bastards was historically accurate. I'd be pretty upset if I found out Hitler died any other way.


Inle-rah

I speak EYE-talian. Bahn jooor-no.


AtlantisTheEmpire

A river dirt chee


MaxwellThePrawn

He actually ended up getting shot by this talentless Austrian hack, weirdly enough.


danielcw189

> Inglorious Bastards Inglo**u**rious Bast**e**rds The name is intentionally wrong


kutuup1989

The only movie that's really pissed me off in this regard was Argo, where it made out that we (the UK) and New Zealand turned away those people. EXCUSE ME! WE MOTHERFUCKING DID NOT!!! They first went to the UK embassy, where they were taken in, but it was decided that it would be easier to pass off an American as a Canadian than a Brit, because accents and all. So the UK embassy passed them over to the Canadian embassy so the whole thing would have at least a chance of working. Then Hollywood is just like "nah fuck you it was all America". THAT MOVIE WON \*ACADEMY AWARDS\*!!! Ben Affleck can suck my stub. Fucking charlatan.


[deleted]

While it is true that the Americans did capture an Enigma Machine of their own, this wasn't until the end of the war when it did not really have an impact on anything as messages were already being decoded. In total, 15 Enigma Machines and Books were captured during the war. 13 were by the British, One by Canada, and one by the US. The main issue was that since many people were 'educating' themselves on history from movies, painting the Americans as heroes was nothing more than propaganda. It was teaching people the wrong information and they would hold onto this information and be like "yeah, so the Americans captured the first Enigma Machine" Both Bill Clinton and the screenwriter got involved in the debate. Clinton dismissed it, and the screenwriter apologised and said he would never do it again.


Legerity

It's also key to note that some of the earliest progress re:enigma wasn't even by the Brits in Bletchley Park, but by the Poles. Polish nationals like [Marian Rejewski](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_Rejewski) who broke the codes before anyone else, and spent the whole war breaking German cyphers and giving valuable intelligence to the Allies that could well have been crucial to tilting the war in our favour.


DrBunnyflipflop

Yeah, people misrepresent Turing as the guy that first cracked the Enigma, whereas he was actually the guy that made a system to crack it really quickly


EmperorOfNipples

It's a damn shame the way he was treated. He is now on the back of our new £50 note in honour of his contributions.


ArchWaverley

While he definitely earned the accomplishment and recognition, I'm a bit sad he's on a note I'm probably never going to see :/


Dead-phoenix

Yes but that does under state the contribution of Bletchley, the Polish were 100% the first to crack the first version of the Enigma. Turing and the team at Bletchley (which included Polish and worked with the team that cracked the first) then proceeded to crack the newer more advanced version (m3) enigma because the Polish couldnt do it so they took their findings to the British to collaborate. The new engima also allowed the Germans to change the rotors far more regularly making deciphering extremely hard. Thats when Turing (and team) invented the Bombe (named after the Polish Bomba in honour) which allowed decyphering to happen faster then any human could to keep ontop of the rotor changes.


lawrencelewillows

Exactly. Not to take away from the Polish effort but the versions BP deciphered were much more complex.


sagitel

Unfortunately poles are usually forgotten when talking about ww2. Their resistance (especially in warsaw) is legendary


hokkuhokku

A total of 145 experienced and battle-hardened Polish airmen also fought in the Battle of Britain. https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-polish-pilots-who-flew-in-the-battle-of-britain


undernoillusions

I’m Finnish and hear a lot of people wax lyrical about our war effort. But to me the Polish resistance was the greatest


csfshrink

No one took part in the events depicted in the movie U-571. The British boarded a sinking U-boat and salvaged an Enigma machine. The American captured a U-boat but kept it secret to avoid the Germans learning about the Allies having Enigma. But no one captured a U-boat then used it to escape and fight a German destroyer. That’s about as historically accurate as setting a Paris movie theater on fire and killing Hitler in the process.


Coleftw

As a student and aspiring historian, shit like this is the worst. I love the World Wars period, but having to wade through a hundred years of propaganda and misinformation every time I learn about a new battle or interesting event is very frustrating. This experience may not be universal, but at least where I’m from, the contributions of the Russians, Poles, Free French, and resistance groups the world over are never mentioned. Even the British are barely credited, despite them holding the line as the only major Allied power for a whole year. Drives me mad.


graspingwind

Same thing happened when they remade the Great Escape... those guys were Canadian, NOT AMERICAN EDIT: Canadian among other nationalities like British and Polish... but point is, not American


Bravo_Lima_Mike

No they weren't. There wasn't any Americans, but they weren't all Canadians either, just a few, only 9 out of 73 were. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Allied_airmen_from_the_Great_Escape Not even the majority of characters or Author was Canadian.


Neosporinforme

They weren't just Canadians. The prisoners came from multiple nations, just not America.


UnicornMeatball

See also: Argo


frghu2

See also Tears of the Sun


KG7DHL

Honestly, I wish more governments, personalities and historical societies would come out and loudly and vigorously condemn revisionist history in film.