Saw Apocalypto last night.
I don't care if X hairstyle or Y architectural detail is anachronistic, small liberties with historical accuracy are tolerable because they work in the service of conveying the theme of a civilization facing it's demise that Gibson was obviously going for.
It's a good movie.
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>small liberties with historical accuracy are tolerable because they work in the service of conveying the theme of a civilization
That's perfectly fine
Apocalypto is historically accurate, moron. 100%
The only people complaining about inaccuracies in small details don't actually give a shit about the tragedy of an entire civilization being murdered being portrayed in the movie and more than likely just has an axe to grind against Mel Gibson himself.
>It's a good movie.
I agree, and I am pleased that you have this opinion. As a result, I will consider postponing by a few days the moment when you and your entire family will have their hearts cut out with an obsidian knife.
give me some narcocorrido recs, cartelbro
But Apocalypto's main historical inaccuracy isn't hairstyles or architecture, it's the fact that there exists a tribe of hunter-gatherers that is somehow entirely detached culturally, religiously and socially from the civilization which existed in the region.
Would you say that a movie with italian-speaking cro-magnons in 17th century Italy is accurate? Of course not, and guess what, that's exactly what apocalypto does, but for Mesoamerica.
Mayans practicesd raids for sacrifices though
And what does that have to do with anything I said?
Who do you think they raided?
No one. Victims of human sacrifice were not obtained during special raids done specifically for sacrifices, they were captured as part of larger wars.
The wars themselves were fought against felllow Maya and other Mesoamerican polities, which also lived in towns, built pyramids and practiced human sacrifice. There were no hunter-gatherers such as the ones shown in Apocalypto anywhere near the Maya, which I assume is what you are implying. To both their west and east, there were only other pyramid-building human sacrificing cultures. Besides, Apocalypto's hunter-gatherer tribe are themselves meant to be Maya, which just makes it even more inaccurate.
>But Apocalypto's main historical inaccuracy isn't hairstyles or architecture, it's the fact that there exists a tribe of hunter-gatherers that is somehow entirely detached culturally, religiously and socially from the civilization which existed in the region.
There exists tribes like that in the Amazon today and the Mayans were probably alot less intrusive than modern day south americans. That they occationally made contact is probably likely, but then again the Mayans probably had no interest in groups of 200-300 people living in straw huts in the middle of the jungle like anthropologist today.
The Yucatan Peninsula isn't the Amazon Rainforest, not even close. Most of It isn't jungle, the parts that were weren't anywhere near as big and nowhere near as thick as the Amazon. And finally It was home to a 3000 year old civilization, which contrary to your uneducated view on them, was very interconnected and closely tied together by continent-spamming trade routes and a merchantile culture. There were no hunter-gatherer tribes anywhere near the Maya in the 16th century.
to add, one of the more major cultures further south/east to the Maya in Honduras and El Salvador and such were the Lenca, which weren't as urbanized or stratified as the Maya, but still had towns and such, and some Maya cities actually had joint Maya-Lenca dyansties. The Pipil were a Nahuatl speaking group, related to "Aztec" city-states in Central Mexico, that were als in El Salvador and even some further down Central American countries, and they also0 had small cities and towns, then various other Central American groups ranged from being tribes to chiefdoms with towns, agriculture and trade was still common throughout
You have it backwards you fricking moron. The hairstyles and weaponry were the only actually accurate parts. Everything else was completely all over the place. The Mayans had long declined by the time the Spanish showed up like they did at the end.
Why do people who clearly know nothing about Mesoamerican history aside from pop-his drivel insist on defending this movie's supposed historical autheticity with such ferocity? Is is It just Mel Gibson fanboyism?
It doesn't need to be historically accurate to be good y'know.
The film was popular in Mexico.
It's because the monkey latinxes on this board are literally descended from the savages depicted in this film and they think it's cool.
they certainly don't look mayan
I agree the movie does a good job executing on it's theme/atmosphere
But that intended vision is still completely misrepresentative of actual Maya society, culture, etc, even putting aside all of the specific details like the exact hairstyles or architectural motifs: In fact, some specific nitpicks people give aren't even correct (EX: The big city's architecture IS closer to Postclassic Maya architecture then Classic architecture, albeit Early Postclassic Puuc style, so still not 16th century)
The main problem is that it gets more big picture, fundamental details wrong, not just aesthetically (Where yes, it gets small details wrong; and in many cases costumes aren't even loosely close, see the Apocalypto guy vs the Maya general on the right in pic related; AND like most media depictions of Meso stuff, goes out of it's way to make things look as dirty, primitive, and poorly made as possible, spreading/reflecting the misconception Mesoamerica was just a bunch of primitive tribes rather then urban societies with high art/culture), but in terms of themes and messages and like, entire social order/organization
Like, the village at the start of the film doesn't seem to have any farms and explicitly doesn't even know there's such a thing as big cities. This is extremely fricking stupid, because agriculture had been a thing in Mesoamerica for 10,000+ to 5000+ years depending on the crop, and there's thousands of Maya villages, towns, and cities around all linked via trade and diplomacy: The premise there is as dumb as a town in Medevial Italy not having farms or having never heard of the Church
On the flip side, the big city is presented as comically dystopian, where you have miles of grey wastelands with slaves toiling away in stucco workshops, a scale of sacrifice that's a stretch even for the Mexica, you have ball courts being used as human shooting ranges, the elites are all laughing and getting high hedonistically, etc. It's like a cartoon depiction of hell
1/?
cont:
Neither the small village or the big cities are presented as actual functional human societies: On one hand you have a laughably ignorant and out of touch group of noble savages, and on the other you have a over the top sadistic hellscape where everything is either being tortured and abused, or are evil people at the top getting off on it.
Even if Apocalypto got all of the specific visual or cultural details right, in terms of clothing, architecture, how cities are laid out, etc, it'd still be a terrible depiction of Maya society or culture at a fundamental level: It's going out of it's way to show fundamentally broken and dystopian communities, and while yes, that's sort of the whole idea (I'd bet there's an intentional like garden of eden, ignorance-is-bliss, living free of sin in nature vs sinful urban stuff with elites and shit), it doesn't make it not a complete mischaracterization of what Maya society was like, even during stuff like the Classic Collapse.
Maybe you could argue that it's fine for it to completely misrepresent Maya society in service of the allegory and themes it's trying to show (I'm sure there are thrillers and dramas set in Rome or whatever that fundamentally misrepresent Roman society too to tell a specific story), but most people know jack shit about Mesoamerica, and ALREADY picture Mesoamerican culture as being a bunch of savage tribes or evil dystopias, so Apocalypto just ends up perpetuating those misconceptions. I doubt many people nessacarily think Apocalypto is a real story or whatever, but people do just sort of assume they were something close to what the movie shows, and the Movie has absolutely influenced similar depictions since.
Conversely, Onyx Equinox is a good example of a dark thriller take on Mesoamerica that both gets the small autistic details right, and on a broader level, presents them with functional societies, an actual sense of humanity, etc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt796delNjM
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Good posts. Are you mesoanon by any chance? Haven't seen him it's been a while.
Yes
Literally the whole fricking movie is innacurate in some way, it doesn't just take "small liberties"