SIMPLE RULES FOR HOLLYWOOD WHEN MAKING A "HISTORICAL"/FANTASY MOVIE BASED IN THE UK:
Braveheart, Highlander, Robin Hood (both Costner and Crowe), King Arthur and so on and so on - whenever an American film company makes a movie of such a topic I just sit waiting to point out the faults, here are a few that Hollywood should listen to:
RULE ONE - ETHNICITY
# Hire an actor that is actually from the country he is meant to be from. Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins anyone? Right - there's your first clue, it doesn't get any better when Mel Gibson or worse Christopher Lambert tries to be Scottish and sounds more like Groundskeeper Willie, or Russell Crowe does a non-descript English accent.
# Remember that when you're talking about (for example) North England in the 1100s, there would not be a small town with a population of 25 people all with different English accents, or in the case of Braveheart, Scottish. They would all have the same accent.
# If your film is before the 12th century forget having Irish or Welsh etc in the film - they were still speaking Gaelic, not English.
# There were no non-whites.
# Medieval England didn't have anything Celtic until after the 11th century or "Vikingy" until after the 8th.
RULE TWO - GEOGRAPHY
# In Braveheart they go from Scotland to York via Wonder Woman's invisible plane I think. In the new Robin Hood they go from Nottingham to Dover in the blink of an eye - in King Arthur, Hadrians Wall seems to seperate Cornwall from England and not the northest of England and Scotland.
# In the Dark or Medieval ages people traveled on horseback or foot, there we no paths, or maps, it took a long while to travel. In most of these films people, even entire armies seem to be able to transport between places far away in a matter of hours. William Wallace must have a railcard in Braveheart considering the amount of running about he does.
RULE THREE - HISTORY
# Do I even need to go into this? Stripey Tartan? Haircuts, make-up, washing powder, cars, cellphones.....
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EARS: AGRIMONIA, AMBULANCE, MASTODON
EYES: DOCTOR WHO, TORCHWOOD, GREMLINS
HANDS: KURT VONNEGUT - CAT'S CRADLE
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