NationStates Jolt Archive

I saw Mel "I hate the Jews" Gibson's new movie Apocalypto tonight, and it was vulgar garbage.

The point of the movie is that the Mayans were savages with a savage religion and culture and are saved by jesus and the christians.

The final deus ex machina that ends the movie is the glorious arrival of cross-bearing christian Spaniards to save the day for the main character.

I give the movie two starts out of five for the very graphic violence which is its only draw, but do not recommend that anyone sees it.

If you do want to see it, for the pretty realistic depiction of violence and Maya cities, I suggest leaving 3/4 through.

The final deus ex machina that ends the movie is the glorious arrival of cross-bearing christian Spaniards to save the day for the main character.

The review is interesting, but is this really a deus ex machina?

The review is interesting, but is this really a deus ex machina?

The main character is chased through the jungle the second half of the movie by his captors, and manages to trap and kill most of them.

He is finally driven by the last two to the sea, and just before they bash his head in, their eyes get wide and they look up to see boatfuls of conquistadores and friars with big crosses rowing in from three galleons moored just off the beach.

His two would-be killers are transifxed and drop their weapons to approach the Good Christian White Men, and he takes the opportunity to escape and save his family, who are in a flooding hole.

I think Mel should make a Sci-fi pic...it's pretty obvious he slept through History class...

I might add that one of the mayans is named "hooked nose," and in a scene where slaves are being bought and sold, a dropped purse leads all the sinister evil slave dealers to scramble around on the floor to snatch up the pieces of currency.

Food for thought from the man who drives around drunk in california with nothing more pressing on his mind than how much he dislikes jews.

Well thats Mel for ya.
I didn't think Passion of the Christ was all that.
:p

The main character is chased through the jungle the second half of the movie by his captors, and manages to trap and kill most of them.

He is finally driven by the last two to the sea, and just before they bash his head in, their eyes get wide and they look up to see boatfuls of conquistadores and friars with big crosses rowing in from three galleons moored just off the beach.

His two would-be killers are transifxed and drop their weapons to approach the Good Christian White Men, and he takes the opportunity to escape and save his family, who are in a flooding hole.

ahh the "oh look it all just managed to work out" ending. Very deus ex.

After reading several reviews on this movie, I am rather dissapointed. It seemed like it had a great deal of promise, but in the end didn't deliver. I MIGHT get around to seeing it, however, I'm thinking waiting for it to come out on Vid is going to be the best choice. Tis a bit disappoint, because it seems like such a great idea.

However, I think in this light, I'm going to make a historically accurate movie based on the Conquistadors. Done in Spanish, of course, with the native tongue of the region when appropriate. :D

And to think the glowing reviews from the various moviegoers almost had me convinced to go see this movie. I'm glad I shook that off.

Now if you'll excuse me I've got to get back to playing Doom 3. [/irony]

So this film is not Mad Max/Road Warrior part 4?

I might add that one of the mayans is named "hooked nose," .

"Curl nose," actually. (I had to look that one up.. didn't sound right. I saw the movie on Fri. but couldn't remember him/her. Not one of the main characters anyway.)

Anyhow, if you like action/adventure movies, see Apocalypto. It was fun, and the visuals were excellent. The sf/x were a bit over-the-top and the ending leaves some loose ends, but it's a unique movie. If you want a lecture on the history of the indigenous people of mesoamerica, then a book of some kind might be a better idea.

I'd say ***/4.

never even heard of this film but odds are it will have the British coming in half way through to rape and kill all the women before the God fearing Spanish arrive :p

Yes I’m not to keen on the man...

I give the movie two starts out of five for the very graphic violence which is its only draw Funny, that's the very thing that most definitely makes me not want to see it.

I got sick to my stomach in the disgustingly stupid and studidly disgusting Passion of the Christ (which I had to watch in a sociology class) and the violence in this one seems to beat that by many lengths.

This is how the New York Times review (http://movies2.nytimes.com/2006/12/08/movies/08apoc.html?8mu) of the movie starts out:

“I’m going to peel off his skin and make him watch me wear it.” This grisly threat is delivered by one of the main bad guys in Mel Gibson’s “Apocalypto.” The promised flaying never takes place, but viewers who share this director’s apparently limitless appetite for gore will not be disappointed, since not much else in the way of bodily torment has been left to the imagination. There are plenty of disembowelings, impalings, clubbings and beheadings. Hearts are torn, still beating, from slashed-open chests. A man’s face is chewed off by a jaguar. Another’s neck is pierced by darts tipped with frog venom. Most disturbing, perhaps, is the sight of hundreds of corpses haphazardly layered in an open pit: a provocative and ill-advised excursion into Holocaust imagery on this director’s part.
Violence has become the central axiom in Mr. Gibson’s practice as a filmmaker, his major theme and also his chief aesthetic interest. The brutality in “Apocalypto” is so relentless and extreme that it sometimes moves beyond horror into a kind of grotesque comedy[...]"

So, yeah. Not really.

Funny, that's the very thing that most definitely makes me not want to see it.

The skin-peeling quote occurs toward the end of the movie, not at the beginning.. the guy saying it wants revenge on the main character for killing his son, which was pretty neat. In any event, the violence in this movie isn't half as bad as the flogging scene from the Jesus movie.. that one just went on and on. This one's about on par with Braveheart. The violence is cartoony and fun, in my opinion. :p

Well, if you think that the mayan society wasn't brutal, you are a bit....disoriented. The movie sadly reflexes some aspects that were ideed present in the mayan society, although in some parts he mixed the mayans with the aztecs.

In any case, he should had showed the better parts of their culture, and not the worst.

Conquistadores (and not conquistadors) were as brutal as them, ensuring a lot of suffering to a lot of people.

Perhaps the most pacific people in the american continent were the incans, but for the rest, they were as good as the egyptians, or the mesopotamians, with everything that implies.

And I am from Latin America, before someone starts shouting racist, or xenophobic, or anything.

I saw Mel "I hate the Jews" Gibson's new movie Apocalypto tonight, and it was vulgar garbage.

The point of the movie is that the Mayans were savages with a savage religion and culture and are saved by jesus and the christians.

The final deus ex machina that ends the movie is the glorious arrival of cross-bearing christian Spaniards to save the day for the main character.

I give the movie two starts out of five for the very graphic violence which is its only draw, but do not recommend that anyone sees it.

If you do want to see it, for the pretty realistic depiction of violence and Maya cities, I suggest leaving 3/4 through.


Well...."savage" is a matter of opinion in ways. As far as I'm aware they tended to sacrifice/torture royalty though, and not the ordinary pleb as oppossed to the more egalitarian "you're heart is as good as the next mans" Aztecs....I've also read that the end of the movie can be interpreted as the doom of the mayans coming as much as they were the doom of others....but I'd have to see it to give stronger comment.

so i should stick to reading conquistadors by Michael Wood

so i should stick to reading conquistadors by Michael Wood

That book is actually called that way? Or is it "Conquistadores"?

I think Mel should make a Sci-fi pic...it's pretty obvious he slept through History class...

Well when your dad is a holocaust denier it's safe to guess History class is not really emphasized.

The main character is chased through the jungle the second half of the movie by his captors, and manages to trap and kill most of them.

He is finally driven by the last two to the sea, and just before they bash his head in, their eyes get wide and they look up to see boatfuls of conquistadores and friars with big crosses rowing in from three galleons moored just off the beach.

His two would-be killers are transifxed and drop their weapons to approach the Good Christian White Men, and he takes the opportunity to escape and save his family, who are in a flooding hole.

sure its a deus ex machina but WE know what happens next.

they all die in the struggle against the spanish and the diseases they bring.

so while he is saved for today, in a year his whole family is dead anyway.

werent the mayans gone by as a big time civilization before 1492? their ancestors still live in souther mexico and guatemala but werent they done with the big cities and the pyramid building before the spanish showed up?

i wasnt planning on seeing this movie anyway. i have no stomach for extreme violence in movies.

Well, if you think that the mayan society wasn't brutal, you are a bit....disoriented. The movie sadly reflexes some aspects that were ideed present in the mayan society, although in some parts he mixed the mayans with the aztecs.

In any case, he should had showed the better parts of their culture, and not the worst.

Conquistadores (and not conquistadors) were as brutal as them, ensuring a lot of suffering to a lot of people.

Perhaps the most pacific people in the american continent were the incans, but for the rest, they were as good as the egyptians, or the mesopotamians, with everything that implies.

And I am from Latin America, before someone starts shouting racist, or xenophobic, or anything.


Yeah you are right, but shit man it's a film, who really cares what they get right, or wrong for that matter.

Yeah you are right, but shit man it's a film, who really cares what they get right, or wrong for that matter.

Uh, I do. I have these little things called "standards of quality" I like to apply to my film, music, games, and friends - they usually entail that said films, music, etc will get their facts straight or suffer being considered less than correct and deemed somewhat stupid. If they're stereotypical, bland, hyped, empty, or purposely attempting to target an audience of idiots, I automatically disregard them as fluff bullshit that shouldn't make any amount of money in any decent economy.

Case and point: The new American Pie movie, and basically most anything targeted towards today's stereotypical teens.

So when someone suggests that just because something is a movie, it doesn't have to be factually correct and shouldn't suffer a bad review or incur monetary losses because of it, I tend to look down on said person and consider their standards to be much lower than mine, and in effect, so is the person compared to me.

Wasn't the point of the movie about an Ending and a New Beginning?

Wouldn't that be properly signified by the arrival of the Conquistadores who signaled the end of the Mayans via bloodshed and disease?

sure its a deus ex machina but WE know what happens next.

they all died in the struggle against the spanish and the diseases they bring.

so while he is saved for today, in a year his whole family is dead anyway.

Weren't the mayans gone by as a big time civilization before 1492? their ancestors still live in souther mexico and guatemala but weren't they done with the big cities and the pyramid building before the spanish showed up?

i wasnt planning on seeing this movie anyway. i have no stomach for extreme violence in movies.

Yes, the mayan society was already destroyed by the time the spanish arrived. Mostly because the surrounding civilizations destroyed them too. Thus, most of them were already dying or dead by 1492, when the spanish arrived to the Caribbean (not yet to the mainland).

Blame on the more savage tribes living next to them...

Regarding the aztecs, they defined themselves as military bullies who thought being capable of subduing anything by force and massacring their neighbours at will. Sadly, they found someone more able to the same to them, so it was more like poetic justice than anything else.

The incans, on the other hands...

Uh, I do. I have these little things called "standards of quality" I like to apply to my film, music, games, and friends - they usually entail that said films, music, etc will get their facts straight or suffer being considered less than correct and deemed somewhat stupid. If they're stereotypical, bland, hyped, empty, or purposely attempting to target an audience of idiots, I automatically disregard them as fluff bullshit that shouldn't make any amount of money in any decent economy.

Case and point: The new American Pie movie, and basically most anything targeted towards today's stereotypical teens.

So when someone suggests that just because something is a movie, it doesn't have to be factually correct and shouldn't suffer a bad review or incur monetary losses because of it, I tend to look down on said person and consider their standards to be much lower than mine, and in effect, so is the person compared to me.Movies tend to be works of FICTION. thus they can be sparse on facts as long as they entertain. anyone who gives a bad review because of factual errors to a FICTIONAL MOVIE really isn't getting "the point"

now if the movie is billed as a Documentary (which Apocolypto wasn't) then they should be held to a higher standard of facts over fiction and have reviews baised on the truthfulness of their facts.

Uh, I do. I have these little things called "standards of quality" I like to apply to my film, music, games, and friends - they usually entail that said films, music, etc will get their facts straight or suffer being considered less than correct and deemed somewhat stupid.
I shall let a writer at a certain website I am unable to link to do my replying for me:
Incorrectly regarded as goofs: While some might object that none of the events portrayed in the film actually occurred, the use of staged sequences edited together to form a fictional story is a fundamental conceit of filmmaking.
Consider yourself the subject of, not only pwnage, but many other most humorous and "current" abuses of the English language that I have neither the time nor inclination to list.

never even heard of this film but odds are it will have the British coming in half way through to rape and kill all the women before the God fearing Spanish arrive :p


Actually the Spaniards managed to do that quite well all by themselves.

Movies tend to be works of FICTION. thus they can be sparse on facts as long as they entertain. anyone who gives a bad review because of factual errors to a FICTIONAL MOVIE really isn't getting "the point"

now if the movie is billed as a Documentary (which Apocolypto wasn't) then they should be held to a higher standard of facts over fiction and have reviews baised on the truthfulness of their facts.

Although most movies tend to be works of fiction, anything set in a historical context should be... well, historical. The minute details don't need to be exact, but if you're going to go to such detail to bring back an ancient culture to the big screen, the least you could do is be honest about the civilisation. Why didn't he just set the movie during the Aztec period?

Although most movies tend to be works of fiction, anything set in a historical context should be... well, historical. The minute details don't need to be exact, but if you're going to go to such detail to bring back an ancient culture to the big screen, the least you could do is be honest about the civilisation. Why didn't he just set the movie during the Aztec period?

so Silverado, Shanghai Noon, Wild Wild west should all be Historically accurate?

He (Mel) never pushed this movie as true or even "baised on true events"

Food for thought on the realism in movies debate:

Great expense was made to have the entire dialogue of the movie in Mayan, which indicates that it does aspire, in a sense that most films dont, to be authentic.

Funny, that's the very thing that most definitely makes me not want to see it.

I got sick to my stomach in the disgustingly stupid and studidly disgusting Passion of the Christ (which I had to watch in a sociology class) and the violence in this one seems to beat that by many lengths.

This is how the New York Times review (http://movies2.nytimes.com/2006/12/08/movies/08apoc.html?8mu) of the movie starts out:



So, yeah. Not really.


I could see an excuse for the holocaust imagery. If he's trying to make the point that the WWII holocaust was not the only case of genocide in history and that there are many other examples of such things that are much less-known-of then there is actually a valid reason for such imagery. If he's just doing it to be a arse, then it's another matter <does not use gun smiley>

Food for thought on the realism in movies debate:

Great expense was made to have the entire dialogue of the movie in Mayan, which indicates that it does aspire, in a sense that most films dont, to be authentic.

Yeah. Authentic, to a point.

For the "as long as it's entertaining" schtick - no. I can't enjoy something if it's solely for the purpose of entertainment. Odd, hm?

For the "as long as it's entertaining" schtick - no. I can't enjoy something if it's solely for the purpose of entertainment. Odd, hm?
Why should it be odd to have a stick up your ass?

Food for thought on the realism in movies debate:

Great expense was made to have the entire dialogue of the movie in Mayan, which indicates that it does aspire, in a sense that most films dont, to be authentic.or to add more to the atmosphere... make it unique.

after all, not many films ment for American release are done in another language with subtitles.

Yeah. Authentic, to a point.

For the "as long as it's entertaining" schtick - no. I can't enjoy something if it's solely for the purpose of entertainment. Odd, hm?

I know people like that. Not so odd.

Conquistadores, whatever, It woulda been much cooler if the Communists would've saved the day in the end, A nice huge Soviet invasion of the Mayan Empire, using time travel that they secreatly invented in the 1960s....much better....