"You will not take me down!" Gets taken down. "I will not be silenced!" Gets shut up with six words. "Medic!" Gets his ass kicked. And no medic. All of that in ten seconds.
Vasily is more of a tragedy case than an incompetent nepotism case >His mother committed suicide when he was 11 >He was an alcoholic by 13 >He would spend the rest of his childhood locked in a house with only a security guard and maid >He wanted to go to artillery school like his brother but his father refused and instead put him in pilots school >despite being an air-force pilot his father never let him actually go on mission >When he faked his name to go on mission and was found out he was given a desk job in Moscow for the rest of the war under guard >Despite what the show says he was really into hockey, hence why his father gave him the team >The team of nobodies shown won three championships and was actually good when he was forced to leave due to his dads death >Khrushchev would have him arrested for 'anti-soviet propaganda' and spend 11 years in prison >he would die two years out of prison due to chronic alcoholism His life is more sad than it is goofy as in the movie
@@chambers0071 True, but it would be a shitty form of entertainment if the movie was depressing as fuck. Not to mention stirring sympathies towards arguably some of the worst people in human history.
@@RedsHitpostMedia I mean authoritarian dynasties have been struggling with this kind of problem for all of human history. Ultimately it comes down to if there are no consequences for failure and you don't have to struggle to survive and thrive it ultimately detaches you from the concept of achievement itself. You look at all the truly great and visionary monarchs and dictators in history and hardly any of them come from a peaceful, well educated and groomed, or privileged background. Almost all of them had to deal with hardship in some form or another.
@@gladiater56 I'm not sure that really tracks. Alexander was raised in a ruthless environment by a warlord, but he was also the prince of an undisputed monarch and lived in luxury that few could even conceive of. Ceasar's family was impoverished...relative to other Roman senatorial families, but he still had a standard of comfort almost unheard of by any other peoples in the world at the time. Victoria, the most successful conqueror of the most successful empire in history, was born into rule. Truly self-made imperial conquerors like Temujin are rare, and even the great Mongol empire didn't see it's territorial apex until Kublai, and Kublai was a grandson of Temujin who never experienced a world where his family didn't have complete control. Cyrus was self made and accomplished incredible things, but Achaemanid Persia's golden age came under Darius, a figure hand-picked by nobility. Seems to me you have a much greater statistical likelihood of reaching the top if you start close to the top.
I'm not an English person, so I don't really get what he's saying there. Is he really just calling for a medic because he knows Zhukov's gonna fuck him up?
I think being Uday Hussin bodyguard was way worst than this guy. I mean played for comedic effects but still I’m pretty sure Vasily wasn’t raping little girls…but I’m more of a “see and believe” rather than what others say.
I dunno, there are probably a lot of perks. Good pay, good dinners, you're relatively safe from purges. That, and Vasili strikes me as the sort of person who probably doesn't have a lot of real friends, but who is generous with the people who are obliged to spend time with him.
Ironcally Vasily was actually a decent solder, being decorated for bravery and all the evidence suggests that it wasnt just nepotism. Anytime he ws actually in charge of people, though...
@@Albatross159 They gave him the medal because he WAS Stalin's son. He was actually pretty shit. He even caused a massive air scramble during the height of the Moscow siege just for his own entertainment that he accidentally murdered his officer in the pursuit of some "F.U.N" and wasted precious Red Air Force's resource, resources that was vital and needed in defending the motherland against the incurring Germans. So in early 1943, Vasily was given the rank of air marshal and he was supposed to be one of the highest authority in the region of Moskva where he'll direct all air combat and traffic roles in the region. However, one day, he decided it was a good idea to take a bomber out for fun and try a low bombing attempt in a frozen lake. He ordered a bomber to take him for the activity but it was terribly wrong where the bomb detonated way too early, killed the pilot and scramble some fighters into the air as the airbases thought that German bombers had infiltrated the airspace somehow without warning and bombed Moscow itself. It was such a biiig clusterfuck that he was removed from that command soon after that fiasco.
“Soviet planes do not crash and Stalin’s son does not fuck up!” That line is even funnier when you realize that Vasily basically fucked up every job that his dad gave him
Sort of. He was given jobs above his station (promoting him to general in the Soviet air force when he didn't have the skills to be a general), but as a pilot he performed well.
@@podemosurss8316True, and he probably got promoted so high so there was less likelihood of him being captured like Stalin’s other son Yakov. Though ironically Stalin used to think Yakov a disappointment but hearing how he was a defiant captive he gained some respect from him.
Imagine surviving Germany's genocidal invasion, going to officer's school for about a decade, being promoted to lieutenant colonel and then...having to be the NKVD handler for Stalin's son. Disappointment!
@@frondaro yea, and about 10-13 high ranking officials were killed. They thought the guy who decided not to take the plane ride caused it for a bit until they realized how bad they fucked up.
@@frondaro This is in reference to the Pushkin airfield disaster. It happened in the 80s when the commander of the soviet pacific fleet was going home from a meeting in Moscow with his staff. Being high ranking soviet officials they had used the opportunity to go shopping where they bought among other things massive rolls of printing paper for the fleet newspaper. This severely overloaded the plane but the they threatened the pilot with being fired and thus ordered him to take off anyway, due to this excessive weight the plane stalled shortly after takeoff killing all onboard.
As much I want this the topics covered are so unimaginably dark and horrifying that its hard to imagine how they would cover it and turn into a comedy without it being so depressing. Even in this movie the crimes of Beria and deaths of millions in the gulags are kind of skimped over (and understandably so)
To be fair, as some historians (even anti-communists), it is hard to believe either Roosevelt or Churchill would accept a proposal like the one the Germans made to free Stalin's son. Also, in a time when so much sacrifice was being asked (demanded, actually) from the Soviet people by its leaders, with som many dying or being wounded or captured (let us, by the way, not forget how harsh Soviet official policies on surrender were), it was unthinkable to acdept a deal for Stalin's son.
@@thiagodeandrade7081 didn’t Roosevelt’s son get shot down and killed, then the Germans gave him a funeral in full honors like he would have received if he was back in the states because they respected that a presidents son for still going off and fighting?
@@Har1ByWorld Maybe, but most things he did could either be justified as necessary for the cause (like crushing dissent even inside the party, purging the State and repressing nacionalisms and religions), for something bigger than he was or be denied or whitewashed (like the true extent of the GULAG, Beria's rapist behaviour and the phony character of the Soviet elections and intra-party democracy). Making a deal for his son while other people's sons were left to die or even were represessed by the Soviet State for surrendering would be a morale blow right when the Soviets were ready to become the liberators of half of Europe and get a much welcome polishing of their reputation. He was in a stronger position than, say, Churchill or Roosevel, who were contained by democratic norms and oppositions, but still maybe he decided not to risk. From a statesman/objective point of view, it was even the right call even if a hard one. The issue is how hard it was for him. Maybe he really did not care. Their relationship most of time was less than good to say the least.
To be honest, if you read about Vasily he wasn't actually an obnoxious nepotism case, more like "my dad was quite literally a mass-murdering monster who drove my mother to suicide, my brother was killed in the War and I couldn't decide for myself that is why I turned to bottle" case
In my head canon, Tarasov is an Eastern Front veteran. That's why he's assigned to guard Vasily, because he's dangerous. And that's why he's relatively calm all the time, because he's seen the worst.
"Soviet planes do NOT crash! And Stalin's son does NOT fuck up!" Something about it all made him even more loathsome. God was it satisfying to see him getting punched in the guts and kicked by Zhukov.
The player who falls in the ice is Vsevelod Bobrov, who will be the head coach of the Soviet hockey team for the Summit Series, 20 years later. The officer who is with Vassili Staline is Anatoli Tarasov, the father of Russian ice hockey!
What's both funny and tragic about this scene, it really did happen. Vasily was in charge of the Air Force hockey team, VVS. The team was killed in a plane crash. Said crash occurred in 1950, whereas this scene implies it happened recently. Vasily tried to cover it up by replacing the team with newbies, and hoped his father didn't notice. Apparently Stalin did not notice, or didn't care as nothing came of it.
The fight over the gun is the funniest bit of the whole film for me. Also I love that in cast filled with great comedic actors Rupert Friend who is not know for comedy roles gives the funniest performance.
I clipped 1.18 - 2.00 and posted it on my families facebook describing the horrors of a recent family fight we had in a pub near us. In this darkness of our deep family fued.... everyone was laughing with minutes. Thank you.
Poor guy is just trying not to get yelled at by his brutal dictator father, I can understand that. Loyal even past the end, what more could you ask for from your questionably competent spawn?
NHL coaches: *breaks down film, gives each player specific training programs to work on their game etc* Vasily: “PLAY BETTER RIGHT NOW!” Vasily probably thought Stalin had him arrested for whatever happened to the national team when the police came to talk to him
Zhukov didn't like everything even Stalin, he even feel mocked when Stalin decorated own son as general. Beria knows it and he remove red army's power in capital.
"Vasily Stalin commanded the regiment diligently, listened to us, the more experienced pilots. As a regimental commander, he could fly combat missions as part of any squadron at his discretion, but most often, for some reason, he flew as part of mine. During February-March 1943, we shot down a dozen enemy planes. With the participation of Vasily - three. Moreover, it should be noted that Vasily was the first to attack them, after these attacks the planes lost control, and then we finished them off. According to our flight laws, they could be counted to Vasily as shot down personally, but he considered them shot down in a group. I once told him about it, but he waved his hand and said briefly: "Don't!" - Hero of the Soviet Union Lieutenant General S. F. Dolgushin. Obviously Vasiliy was a contraversial man, but he even more obviously does not deserve a "memory" like in this film. And nor any of us. Lord will judge him and as all.
Goes to show how good of an actor Rupert Friend is that he can play a comedic role like this but also play a more serious role of the Grand Inquisitor in Obi-Wan Kenobi.
I think this is vaguely exaggerated but yeah Vasily Stalin was pretty bad. Although no, he was nowhere near as bad as Uday Hussein. That's what Beria is for.
I think the real Vasily was more of a nervus wreck, which I would be too if Stalin was my dad. He was rude and rebellious, but probably not nearly so pompous.
Vasily was, unlike Svetlana, virtually ignored by his father after his mother killed herself when he was 11. By 13, he was already a habitual drinker. He died in his 40s from chronic alcoholism. He was less of a baffoonish fail son and more someone who desperately needed emotional support from family, but was given positions of power he was unsuited for instead.
Stalin found both his sons to be huge disappointments. Vasily's half brother Yakov was a pow and all thier father said was look at him he couldn't even kill himself right.
One RU-vidr said that he liked it because it shows how diverse the Soviet Union was because not everyone had a British accent like Khrushchev or Beria did Malenkov had an American accent