Lack of basic military history in fiction.

[Darth Ultron]

Actually, you will find that to the vast majority of viewers - everyone that is unaware of how spaceships really work - banking is necessary for them to both follow the action and retain suspension of disbelief. Nothing breaks suspension more than a ship behaving in an unexpected and to them unexplainable manner.

This is way too true. People in general like for flying things to zoom around and go 'woosh' and bank and climb and all that....even in space. Not to mention fights that happen at a distance of a couple yards.

Actually no, big ships (the Yamato in particular) are shown to tilt in order to ascend/descend. It's weird that the characters in universe keep making ships with their guns all on the top, space battles are more three dimensional than average. They don't do it as much as they move forwards/backwards, but it does happen. Anyway, ascend/descend is meaningless in space, we've got no reference

Also, now people are pointing out the gun thing I'm going to start getting annoyed at it.

Well, at least Star Trek gets this right. The Starships have phasers that can shoot all around. This is even better once you get to the Next Generation and the Galaxy class has phaser banks on the top/bottom/sides of the ship. And we only get to see it like once ever, but Galaxy class ships do have like 12 phaser banks so the ship can shoot in any direction.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I mean, as somebody who was in the military, yes, it grinds my gears that so many movies have cringe-inducing military tactics and use of weapons, but quite frankly its not particularly worse than the egregious errors Hollywood makes about other professions because they're too lazy to do actual research.

Medicine, forensic science, law, space travel, genetics, physics, martial arts, video games, religion, all of these areas frequently have utterly LUDICROUS errors in them that a basic google search or a five-minute conversation with somebody in the community could have fixed (not even an expert just an average joe who is involved in the subject).

Hollywood is just utterly terrible at doing research about ANYTHING.

There are three basic things a Hollywood writer must spend its time working on:
1. Characters
2. Plot
3. Pacing

Every minute not spent improving one or more of those during the course of making a film is a minute that has been wasted unless all three of those are as good as they can get. Spending "five-minute conversation" with a SME in any way connected to the subject of the film is a waste of time, if it comes at the detriment of the writer's effort on the basic three.

Lets take the most infamous "historical" film: Braveheart. I'd be hard-pressed to point out a historical detail they got right. But the characters are great, the plot is quite interesting and above all, the pacing is spot-on. If the film makers had spent more time getting the Battle of Stirling Bridge right, they would have had to take time from doing all of the above. The end result, almost certainly, would have been a worse film, not a better one.

The bottom line is that time is a finite resource. Time NOT spent on improving story, characterisation or pacing will not make the film any better.

Grey Wolf

[gomipile]

This is narrow definition of 'succeed'.

/shrug

They got more money and years out of FOX than Firefly did, by a large margin.

[Lethologica]

Actually no, big ships (the Yamato in particular) are shown to tilt in order to ascend/descend. It's weird that the characters in universe keep making ships with their guns all on the top, space battles are more three dimensional than average. They don't do it as much as they move forwards/backwards, but it does happen. Anyway, ascend/descend is meaningless in space, we've got no reference

Also, now people are pointing out the gun thing I'm going to start getting annoyed at it.

I'm dubious about the necessity of omnidirectional fire for verisimilitude. Lots of other kinds of fighters would benefit from having weapons pointing every which way, but don't do so because they benefit from concentrating fire/shields in certain orientations, or because they're maneuverable enough that firing backwards is not a huge advantage over turning and firing, or because it's more cost-effective to build two units with oriented fire than one unit with omnidirectional fire, etc. Space removes some of the reasons not to have omnidirectional fire, but not all of them.

There are degrees, of course.

[Porthos]

/shrug

They got more money and years out of FOX than Firefly did, by a large margin.

Ehhh, syndication from a fledging pseudo-network that imploded. Different rules applied there than a show on a Top Four major network. A better comparison would be Andromeda, I think.

More to the point, when B5 did go to a 'real' network (TNT - Season 5), it had even worse ratings than when it was syndicated, if marginally. And I think it's fair to say its successor series Crusade imploded.

For what it tried to do (get a bloc of syndicated programs across different markets), it did well enough. But PTEN never did what WB wanted, mostly because the era of first-run syndication was already dying a slow death.

Again, B5 has a very strong legacy when looked at in the proper context. But I stand by my comment that it was niche then and even more niche now.

[Sapphire Guard]

It might take five minutes to Google how something is done wrong. Doing it correctly, however, takes a good deal more effort. I mean, Gravity marketed itself on being as realistic as possible, but it had to abandon realistic physics on the scale of how far away satellites are from each other, because doing it realistically would be too complicated and hard to understand.

[Anonymouswizard]

I'm dubious about the necessity of omnidirectional fire for verisimilitude. Lots of other kinds of fighters would benefit from having weapons pointing every which way, but don't do so because they benefit from concentrating fire/shields in certain orientations, or because they're maneuverable enough that firing backwards is not a huge advantage over turning and firing, or because it's more cost-effective to build two units with oriented fire than one unit with omnidirectional fire, etc. Space removes some of the reasons not to have omnidirectional fire, but not all of them.

There are degrees, of course.

Sure, the problem is the Yamato can quickly defend if attacked from every angle except back (which makes a bit of sense, as most of that is engines) and down. For the Yamato it makes a bit of sense, but for later ships they keep the massive design flaw that caused the Yamato problems.

It might take five minutes to Google how something is done wrong. Doing it correctly, however, takes a good deal more effort. I mean, Gravity marketed itself on being as realistic as possible, but it had to abandon realistic physics on the scale of how far away satellites are from each other, because doing it realistically would be too complicated and hard to understand.

What's so hard to understand about 'probably can't see them'.

I didn't like that film, but I at least respected it's attempts to remain accurate, I'm okay for the writers to fudge distances. I hated Interstellar, and I'm going to stop there.

[Killer Angel]

And doctors can use paddles on a flatline. And astronauts can tilt their ships while performing a turn. And Generals can tell their troops to break formation when they make contact with the enemy and engage them in one-on-one combat.

Given that this topic was initiated by someone complaining about ahistorical battle tactics, I fail to see why you think your argument that "it is physically possible" makes it any kind of rebuttal.

GW

there's a difference between "it fired 6 shots, probaly they should have been only 5", and "those soldiers talked so much about fighting side by side as a single man, and the first time they enter melee, they start fighting all by themselves breaking formation".

There are different levels of "mistakes", and not all of them break the suspension of disbelief.

It's not that hard to show a battle that at least seems realistic. And it's cool because of it.


Some people cannot stand unrealistic storytelling just "because it's cool, verisimilitude be damned"
Some people will say "COOL! I don't care about realism if the rest of the story is interesting"

[Grey_Wolf_c]

It's not that hard to show a battle that at least seems realistic. And it's cool because of it.

I don't find that a realistic depiction of late Roman Republic tactics. Or gallic tactics, for that matter. It's cool, but it's not historical.

GW

[Lord Raziere]

I don't find that a realistic depiction of late Roman Republic tactics. Or gallic tactics, for that matter. It's cool, but it's not historical.

GW

.....even thats not realistic? dude, thats more realistic than a vast majority of the things I've seen in fiction, its so focused on the realistic consequences and what they'd actually do, that hardly anything cool happened in it all, if thats not realistic, what is? I'm honestly confused.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

.....even thats not realistic? dude, thats more realistic than a vast majority of the things I've seen in fiction, its so focused on the realistic consequences and what they'd actually do, that hardly anything cool happened in it all, if thats not realistic, what is? I'm honestly confused.

Remember, my position here is that historical realism is not required to enjoy a film. And that the more you know of a topic, the more such situations you will notice. But that you shouldn't let lack of historical accuracy get in the way of enjoying a film, because (like Anonymouswizard showcased earlier) if you do, then I have only got bad news for you: the more you learn, the less you will be able to enjoy stories.

As for what is unrealistic: no spears. The Roman army in the Late Republic was built around the spear as the primary melee weapon (like, pretty much, every other army* in history until the invention of the bayonet, which in turn combined the gun and the spear). But spears have never been photogenic so they don't get all that much love.

And honestly, I can't imagine that the Gauls were that stupid in their tactics, although I have a lot less education on that front. But if they really simply charged at enemies without carrying shields of their own, then I can't imagine why Julius Caesar took more than a couple of weeks to conquer all of Gaul (when he in fact took a few years, and involved a lot of playing one tribe against another, because Rome couldn't take all of Gaul at once).

ETA2: Yep, a quick search suggests that Gauls would have had helmets (of course), shields and chainmail at the very least. And they almost certainly used spears as well.

Grey Wolf

ETA:
* Heck, for all that I made fun of Braveheart above, at least they got that part a bit right. Once. Except for the bit with the horses charging into them.

[Brother Oni]

As for what is unrealistic: no spears. The Roman army in the Late Republic was built around the spear as the primary melee weapon (like, pretty much, every other army* in history until the invention of the bayonet, which in turn combined the gun and the spear). But spears have never been photogenic so they don't get all that much love.

I was under the impression that Late Republic legionaries still used the gladius and pilum. While the pilum could be used as a spear, it was typically thrown at the enemy before ranks were closed.

Edit: Some googling indicates that only the Triarii still carried spears (hastae) by the time of the Late Republic. The Triarii were the elite heavy infantry used in decisive situations so by by the time they got involved in the battle, things were really coming down to the wire. I guess the video linked were showing Hastati fighting rather than the Triarii depicted on Trajan's column.

One realistic, or at least logical element, is how the legionaries worked in teams - the soldier at the front concentrated on killing the enemy in front, while the soldier stopped him from wandering out of position by physically keeping hold of him.
This tactic still persists today - there's a video of South Korean riot police practicing their drills against an OPFOR: link.

The other true element are the names - we know Pullo went out of formation during that battle, because the event and soldier was specifically mentioned in Julius Caesar's writings.

As for spears not being photogenic, it depends on the film and the culture. The Jet Li film Hero, has plenty of spears, while the large majority of the major characters in any Three Kingdoms era drama will have a polearm of some sort.

And honestly, I can't imagine that the Gauls were that stupid in their tactics, although I have a lot less education on that front. But if they really simply charged at enemies without carrying shields of their own, then I can't imagine why Julius Caesar took more than a couple of weeks to conquer all of Gaul (when he in fact took a few years, and involved a lot of playing one tribe against another, because Rome couldn't take all of Gaul at once).

ETA2: Yep, a quick search suggests that Gauls would have had helmets (of course), shields and chainmail at the very least. And they almost certainly used spears as well.

You're making the assumption that these particular Gauls were A) rich enough to have mail and helmets (some of them do have shields), B) are part of a disciplined army which fights in formation, and C) are actually trained fighters and not farmers/villagers conscripted to fight the invading Romans.

Surprisingly, the last two points are emphasised in the film 300 of all places: "I brought more soldiers than you did".

[Vinyadan]

Personally, I'm interested into Roman-era depictions of spears being used in melee, if someone has them.

EDIT: Well, here's one, from the trophaeum Traiani. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/8f/89...2ae9b4ffa9.jpg

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Personally, I'm interested into Roman-era depictions of spears being used in melee, if someone has them.

Trajan's column is the logical place to start. I'd imagine that Triumph arcs will also provide good bass-relief of combat, but none of those roll of the tip of my tongue.

E.g.



ETA: Link to the National Geographic interactive site from which that image is sourced

GW

[pendell]

I would suggest that it is better to use Hollywood to spark interest in real-life military and historical things; but it can't be trusted to accurately report real-life events in any discipline save their own.

For instance, you see a movie where soldiers with swords charge into a mass willy-nilly rather than doing the dull, practical thing that actually works. If I see a move like 300 (say), then if I really want to know the real history then the movie should be a jumping off point to Thucydides, Herodotus, real experts and youtube videos who can put together the most fascinating presentations on the real history and the real weapons used.

So Hollywood is an appetizer to perk your interest. It is not the main course, and I suspect never will be.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[darkrose50]

Why cannot anyone in a zombie movie discover some sort of protective covering that is resistant to human teeth?

What about shield and spears in a phalanx?

What about basic hunting rifles? One cannot throw a stone in America without hitting a hunting rifle, or a store that sells hunting rifles.

What about traps? These zombies in most movies are rather quite dumb.

[darkrose50]

"Hey, it's a zombie in a pit, that cannot possibly hurt any of us. Clearly, what we should do is lower one of our number down to him via rope. Unarmed. This is a good idea" - The Walking Dead.

Perhaps a zombie RPG should have a "save versus stupidity" mechanic where if you fail, then you do something stupid. To be fair this could be a fear check.

[Gnoman]

The original Dawn of the Dead made it pretty clear that fighting the zombies wasn't all that hard (early on, they show a redneck group that was casually dispatching any zombie that got close to their barbecue, and the handful of main characters killed every zombie in the mall off-screen with ease), with the implication that it went so bad due more to suddenness than anything else (the only people to get bitten on-screen were either caught by surprise or their own stupidity).

In a very real sense, the first zombie works were far more realistic than their follow-ons - especially the follow-ons that tried to be realistic and came up with some of the stupidest notions I've ever seen in print.

[darkrose50]

My favorite stupid move from The Walking Dead was when they had an empty moving truck, but decided to sleep in tents instead . . . and gone and got themselves eaten.

[Tyndmyr]

Why cannot anyone in a zombie movie discover some sort of protective covering that is resistant to human teeth?

What about shield and spears in a phalanx?

What about basic hunting rifles? One cannot throw a stone in America without hitting a hunting rifle, or a store that sells hunting rifles.

What about traps? These zombies in most movies are rather quite dumb.

I wish to see a zombie movie in which the protagonist finds a domicile that cannot be pushed or bitten through. This seems possible. Yknow, houses are actually generally modestly difficult to get into when your weapons are "teeth" and "no intellect".

Then, all that remains is to find a firearm(this is America, right?) and an upper window or the like.

But no, everyone insists on charging in headlong with a baseball bat or something. And these are portrayed as the few who were clever enough to survive, while like, 99% were WORSE, and thus, are now dead. Most zombie movies are difficult to take seriously.

[Killer Angel]

Remember, my position here is that historical realism is not required to enjoy a film.

Which is perfectly fine. It boils to personal tastes, after all.

My position is different.
Sometimes, i don't require realism to enjoy a movie... and this often happens when the film is explicitly made to be over the top. example

But when a film or a work of fiction, pretends to be an example of "gritty realism", I expect that it keeps some level of realism, otherwise my suspension of disbelief shatters.

GOOD: Example of a fight that shows some level of that realism, if not for the fact that armor matters.

BAD: Example of a fight that just let me say "Oh, well, let's go read some book"


I'm not saying that this is the "right" take on the matter, I'm just trying to clarify how i see the issue.

[Vinyadan]

Trajan's column is the logical place to start. I'd imagine that Triumph arcs will also provide good bass-relief of combat, but none of those roll of the tip of my tongue.

Thank you for the image. For some time I had been wondering what weapons the soldiers could have been using, since the actual pieces representing them aren't there any more to see (I guess they were made of bronze and got reused). So I had wondered if the motion could have shown a sword being used to chop from overhead (there are a few such images), but lances make a lot more sense. The soldiers here are auxiliarii, they have a different armour from the legions (and some auxiliarii fight without a top and have beards, and some guess that these represented axuliarii from Germania. The legions are represented to the left of this image, and, while their spears are also lost, the position of their hands make it very likely they were holding on to them or to the pila.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Thank you for the image. For some time I had been wondering what weapons the soldiers could have been using, since the actual pieces representing them aren't there any more to see (I guess they were made of bronze and got reused). So I had wondered if the motion could have shown a sword being used to chop from overhead (there are a few such images), but lances make a lot more sense. The soldiers here are auxiliarii, they have a different armour from the legions (and some auxiliarii fight without a top and have beards, and some guess that these represented axuliarii from Germania. The legions are represented to the left of this image, and, while their spears are also lost, the position of their hands make it very likely they were holding on to them or to the pila.

Be aware that Trajan's column is freaking massive. There should be other depictions of the armies of Trajan. That was simply the first google result for the column with spears I could find. The link I provided should take you through the whole thing.

That said, by Trajan's time, the legions were less than 50% italian - a beard does not necessarily indicate auxiliary forces. Heck, Trojan's successor and adopted nephew, Hadrian, wore a beard himself.

GW

[Traab]

I wish to see a zombie movie in which the protagonist finds a domicile that cannot be pushed or bitten through. This seems possible. Yknow, houses are actually generally modestly difficult to get into when your weapons are "teeth" and "no intellect".

Then, all that remains is to find a firearm(this is America, right?) and an upper window or the like.

But no, everyone insists on charging in headlong with a baseball bat or something. And these are portrayed as the few who were clever enough to survive, while like, 99% were WORSE, and thus, are now dead. Most zombie movies are difficult to take seriously.

I have seen a number of films like that. The dawn of the dead remake for example. They got into that mall and were able to stay there despite what looked like the entire population of a city outside trying to get in. The only reason they had to leave was lack of resources. As for guns, meh, they do the job perfectly well, but ammo is a major problem. This isnt 90s action movie land, guns run out of bullets. As for finding guns, yeah yeah, murica and all that. The problem with that idea is, they dont grow on trees (yet, the nra is working on it) and most guns already have owners. Owners who likely wont want to part with them. And they have the gun to enforce that desire to not part with them. And gun and ammo shops, again arent on every street corner, and much like the local walmart, will likely be raided really quick. Also there is the noise issue. It seems fairly prevalent that loud noises attract zombies. Short of using a chainsaw, you arent going to kill zombies in a more attention grabbing way than with guns.

As for domiciles that cant be pushed through. It can be done, but it takes a lot of reinforcing. Here, https://youtu.be/N5hiGvEW0Gk?t=14m58s is a mythbusters clip. They took 100 "zombies" and had them walk towards a barn door. Smash. They didnt even slow down. They added some reinforcement? Smash. barely hindered them. It took a lot of extra lumber and a lot of long screws and careful placement to reinforce those doors enough to hold out against the zombie horde. Yeah that has some caveats like, they wont be constantly pushing in unison, but it still shows how sheer weight of numbers can wreck your safe house. And considering the damage the reinforcement took, its not certain how much longer a brainless horde that doesnt give up easily would have been held off. And you gotta do that for all the doors and windows on the ground floor. Might as well use it to build a damn treehouse instead.

[Sapphire Guard]

Just throw stones. Toasters, heavy books, whatever. You'll miss a lot, but also won't draw a horde.

[Anonymouswizard]

Perhaps a zombie RPG should have a "save versus stupidity" mechanic where if you fail, then you do something stupid. To be fair this could be a fear check.

I'll admit, I'm a big fan of mechanics that can efficiently cause players to act in genre. The problem with them is trying to work out what in genre is. Let's take Space Opera, are we brave explorers, dedicated military officers, space cops, or something else. Conversely cyberpunk requires different behaviours for the corporates and the lowlifes.

It's not impossible, but you have to define what you're going for. Zombie is one of the cases where it's strangely easy, if you can keep the players from having time to plan they won't be able to make these preparations, at least without planning between sessions.

Then again, acting outside of genre can also be fun. Not even in the 'I want to be the guy who shoots the villain during his monologue' way, but in the 'space cops in a military setting' way.

[Blackhawk748]

The reason people use melee weapons in Zombie movies is because they dont want to attract a horde, cuz a horde will suck. Otherwise i agree. Get a backhoe and dig yourself a moat, then build a wooden fort. Congrats, you're zombie proof.

[Vinyadan]

Be aware that Trajan's column is freaking massive. There should be other depictions of the armies of Trajan. That was simply the first google result for the column with spears I could find. The link I provided should take you through the whole thing.

That said, by Trajan's time, the legions were less than 50% italian - a beard does not necessarily indicate auxiliary forces. Heck, Trojan's successor and adopted nephew, Hadrian, wore a beard himself.

GW

The troops with that equipment are pretty much universally identified as auxiliarii, though. (While I am not clear on the situation of the shirtless, long-bearded, club-bearing troops, which are identified as Germani and are recurrent across the column, but may have been either proper auxiliarii with unusual equipment or allied troops that did not belong to the Roman army).

There actually is one part of the column in which the spears were not made in bronze and just sculpted, and they were preserved: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...Tafel_VIII.jpg

They probably are held by praetorians, in this case. They also seem very long. It's interesting that, much later, part of Massentius' regalia were six-bladed spears.

In this image https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._Tafel_LXX.jpg
there are auxiliarii to the left and legionnaires to the right (with the Dacians suffering everywhere in between). The legionnaires must have been holding spears, otherwise their arms would be off.

So I'll now join the "Roman spear as main legionnaire weapon" group

[Jay R]

Why cannot anyone in a zombie movie discover some sort of protective covering that is resistant to human teeth?

The dead don't walk. They really don't. Once you've accepted zombies, complaining about how unrealistic the movie is seems pointless.

These zombies in most movies are rather quite dumb.

No wonder they want brains.

[Killer Angel]

No wonder they want brains.

Sadly, they usually end eating people that sleep in tents, or that wander alone, or that wait too much while the slow zombies crawl toward them...

That's probably their hidden superpower: zombies irradiate invisible mental waves that force living people (usually smarter than a brainless corpse) to act in a foolish way.