History Buffs: Timeline 

For everyone saying that I'm mispronouncing Gaelic. I was referring to Scottish Gaelic in the review and not Irish Gaelic the way you're thinking. If you don't believe me, watch this video at 0:20 and you will hear this Scottish woman pronounce it in the exact way I did. Again its at 0:20 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-CUSGeUYpRiw.html

"you speak strangely" "Gday mate, we're from down under"

"Hot or not, its bubonic plague." Thats a quote im going to keep in mind.

I just had the realization...if the wormhole is set to a fixed point, how did they arrive after the professor? Shouldn't they have arrived at exactly the same time and place as the professor?

Oh man this review was pure gold! I recently watched this train wreck of a movie and was very tempted to do a review myself, I mean NIGHT ARROWS?!?!?!?!?!?!? WHAT???? But you've done it perfectly and addressed most of the problems I had with it. Love your work Nick!

Seriously the best thing on RU-vid right now is watching Nick go from zero-to-pissed-of in 20 minutes and learning something on the way.

I might point out that Scotland was sided with France, against England, during the Hundred Years War. So the guy saying that he's Scottish, to and English lord, would basically be admitting that he's the enemy.

The real tragedy of this movie is that the book is actually very well researched, as you'd expect from Crichton. This is World War Z levels of shitting on the source material.

What's sad is that the book the movie is based on gets the History mostly correct. In the book, the characters do speak Occitan and old English. The present day characters have a chip installed in their ear that translates the language for them. The book is actually really good, especially for the historical content. As for the movie...I stopped watching about 20 minutes in. Too much nonsense.

A few other tidbits: - bare-headed characters: in the XIV-XVth centuries, people very rarely went about without covering their head. Most people wore at least a cap made of linen or other cloth, cut to fit tightly around the head. Above that, all manners of hats or hoods could be worn, and were worn permanently while in public (even in the public baths, as shown in a lot of illustrations). In some cities, edicts forbid some categories of citizens from wearing headgear, or forced a specific type of headgear. This was often the case for prostitutes and Jews (many royal edicts have segregated them). A bareheaded woman would most probably be a prostitute, a noblewoman like lady Catherine would NEVER let her hair hang down in public. - dull colored garb: most movies have people, whatever their social level, wear dull colored garb. This is wrong. Dyeing was a flourishing industry and craft in those days. Everyone could not afford the fancy dyes that gave bright reds or vibrant blues, but a hoard of tinctorial plants was available from almost everyone's backyard or nearby fields and woods, and these were very frequently used, except for underwear. And if it is true that washing one's clothes was not a weekly chore, the infrequent laundering was also an opportunity to refresh the colors of one's garb.

The most agonizing thing about this is that the awesome novel this movie is based on, DID ALL OF THESE POINTS RIGHT! The novel was awesome! If you haven´t yet, read it!

Hahahaha! I can imagine, for someone's resume: I directed a movie so bad, the author of the novel decided he won't allow any more adaptations of his other books

I read the book a long time ago, but I remember that the issue of language was a major thing in the plot. The son of the professor was the only one that couldn't speak back (only understand with his earphones) and got separated from the group, so he had to manage alone without a way to communicate properly.

6:55 "Well Jenny you failed" Makes me laugh every time

fun fact: as a Swedish speaker, i understand more old English than the average Brit today.

"Well Jenny you failed" was my favourite

You missed the reference to Macbeth, a play that wasn't even written until 1606 ( The part where Lord Oliver says "You've come to kill us all in our beds" after the guy says they are Scottish)

Night arrows??? Seriously??? great review.

As a kid, I liked Timeline. As an adult pursuing a Masters in History, I think this movie is about as faithful to history and as sensible to reality as A Kid in King Arthur's Court.

With a guy like paul walker, i am surprised they didn't have a fast and furious style chase with horses

I study medieval history very closely and this is so annoying that paid professionals can't even get the simple things right!

Some of the things in the book that the movie really missed on mentioning or explaining or just caged out right: 1. The ITC corporation stated that time travel was impossible and instead the machine they built proved quatom foam theory and multiverse theory was real. Long explination shorted, they could go to another universe and depending on how close that universe was close to ours it could potentially affect our timeline. (Ie Marek choosing to stay in the other universe, and they found his grave in theirs) 2. Before the start of the archeologists journey, previous ITC teams traveling to the past were allowed to carry modern day weapons. And the marine who brought the grenade also brought a Beretta 9mm with him as well. 3. The character Marek was from the Netherlands and told everyone he was Dutch in the 1300s 4. Pro. Johnston and Chris were not related. Chris' parents died in a car crash his freshman year and Johnston essentially "adopted" him. The professor took him in and they have a father/son relationship

"Well Jenny you failed" bahahaha loved it man!

Do a review on Hacksaw Ridge seeing how you " love" Mel Gibson's historical movies.

I appreciate the time you spent going over diseases from different times and the dangers they represent. I am working on my own time travel series, and I will make sure to incorporate that. Many thanks!

7:00 "...they always dismounted first before firing." One of my pet peeves is the use of the verb To Fire when talking about bows and arrows. The idea of "Firing" a missile only arose after the adoption of gunpowder - for fairly obvious reasons. In 1357 one "Shot" or "Loosed" arrows.

that thing about the red and blue uniform while being inaccurate I can also understand why a professor would do that, it would make it much easier for the students to follow the troop formation and general layout of the battle

Do Gangs of New York

The french did use longbows though not in the same quantity as the English. Hovewer from a visual standpoint its a bad idea in the movie, as Nick says its arguably the most iconic "english" weapon in the war (possibly ever).

That grenade is an M7290. That's a stun grenade. It makes a big flash and blinds you. It has minimal explosive capacity and certainly wouldn't damage that room beyond a scorch mark. You're correct that lord Oliver would speak French, but he'd likely speak English too. That said, his primary language was probably the former. One prominent 1400 century nobleman is quoted is saying that a man who can't speak French can't be respected. On the kiss: HOLY SHIT WOULD THE SOCIETY NOT BE DOWN WITH THAT. A public kiss between a married couple was cause to gasp, let alone an unmarried lady kissing a commoner in public. Whore! Harlot! Upstart! Arrogant peasant! Hang the man and semd her to a nunnery! The trebuchets: there is no fucking reason the trebuchet payload should be on fire. You're not trying to burn down the inside (you wouldn't want to anyway, you want the castle for yourself). You're trying to destroy a section of the wall. And furthermore, setting fire to the payload is dangerous to yourself. That trebuchet is WOOD. Same with those fire arrows.

OK, as a Cold War historian, I know enough European history to see many of the same flaws you did. However, after warching this pile of trash movie, I realized that there might have been an easy way for these timetravelers to get to their objective: put on the symbol and demeanor of pilgrims. Wearing, for example, the scallop shell of pilgrims heading to San Juan Compostella, the whole group would be considered inviolate and could gain sanctuary in any monastery.

Fuck it do Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure...play it off proper deadpan like it's a normal review of a film that outrages you with its inaccuracies. Would be funny :)

Regardless of how inaccurate that movie is - there are two lines of text saving it for me: Paraphrasing, obviously: Father: "You never liked archeology. You even didn't even like easter egg hunt as a child." Son (annoyed): "Yes Dad - because you buried the eggs."

Jenny beaven: "we base everything... on a historical truth... but adapted for film" randall wallace: "i didn't want to capture the historical brave heart, but a spirit or a feeling" translation: we have no fucking idea what all this is but it looks good enough.

We all miss Stargate SG-1. We all do.

Starts talking about the fire arrows LINDY BEIGE INTENSIFIES

Michael Crichton: I should make time travel and the dark ages as realistic as possible. Movie's director: The what now?

I am still going to ask you do "the great escape"

@7:29 "Why did that guy only bring a grenade?" Because it was the Holy Hand Grenade! Long live Monty Python! Did History Buffs ever look at that movie?

Me again, I noticed you never did an episode on Last of the Mohicans. My suggestion is that. Do one on Last of The Mohicans.

The original book has some glaring errors too: for instance in the book they're not actually traveling to the past but to an alternate dimension that is similar to ours. That's fine, but then how can a message from the professor from medieval France in the alternate dimension end up in modern times in this dimension? Still, the book was far superior to this stupid film.

"my work usually entails... a historical truth, but adapted for film." in english: make it look pretty and medievaly, but not accurate.

Disappointing about the costumes. It's not like she's a terrible designer, she did Sense and Sensibility, Defiance, Alexander, Sherlock Holmes, The King's Speech and Mad Max: Fury Road (not a historical film, but it looked friggin' awesome).

WELL JENNY YOU FAILED

I absolutely love Nick's reaction at 10:56 Priceless!

Could you do a video on Flags of our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima? These two movies are about the Battle of Iwo Jima. Flags of our Fathers coming from the standpoint of the flag raisers on Iwo Jima. And Letters of Iwo Jima coming from the standpoint of a Japanese soldier. In my opinion, these two movies are great depictions of the Battle of Iwo Jima on both sides of the battle.

Yeah, language changes so fast, even when watching old documentaires about hindenburg crash or old ww2 footage, the narrator speaks in a total different way.

I love the Book and was so excited ehen they announced the Movie. And then this crap. The Book made many things right. I am still hoping for a Netflix series of the Boom

Finally I have waited so long

I finished reading the book about 2 weeks ago. It's almost impressive how poorly they turned it into a movie. (in a way that is good, as the book has far more interesting scenes that weren't included in the movie. So after watching the movie you can still read the book and run into almost only new things)

I love how "Night Arrows" are just normal ones

"Hot or not: It's the bubonic plague"

Oh God, that pronunciation of Occitan... By the way, the Spanish bit was hilarious. I love the vitriol and hatred in this one.

I've been binge watching you channel came across it just looking at my recommended videos. Keep up the great work on your channel!

How about you try the show Narcos on Netflix. It's a show about Pablo Escobar's rise and fall and how the American DEA eventually caught him and basically tells us about the entirety of the 70s and 80s drug trafficking problems after the Nixon Era. Would be interesting to see if you are interested in such a show as you haven't yet covered this specific part of history and the history of this form of crime except for your goodfellas video. However, this is just a suggestion. Hope you look through this show and review its historical accuracies and inaccuracies. Thanks! Greetings from an Asian! :)

So this movie is "historically accurate" as Bill and Ted time adventure.

“Not only scientifically improbable, it’s historically impossible” that line is POWERFUL!

Concerning longbows: It's true that the English and the Welsh were famous for their longbows and bowmen, but in the middle ages pretty much everyone in Europe used longbows, NOT exclusively the English. Because since Edward III the English yeomen were required by law to train with the bow from a very young age on, the English simply had more and better archers than the rest of Europe, but all the other archers in Europe would use big warbows with a high draw-weight as well.

Kissing noble women in public in the middle ages....HOW DID YOU MISS THAT ONE Nick! :P

Love that Ed Wood references on 9:56 and 12:29

History buffs I'm not sure if you saw my comment on your last video but I'd really like you to do fury I think it gets too much recognition for history it doesn't depict correctly

Please do Downfall!

Great review 👍. When I saw the fire arrows section, I immediately thought about Lindybeige (and wondering how he would rip this apart 😂😂)!

Review Gods and Generals and Gettysburg please

Do downfall

I think if I were dropped through time and awoke in Chaucer's pub, I could speak the language in a couple of weeks. In the bit you played, I pretty much got it all. Let me immerse myself in it? I took 2 semesters of Spanish. Couldn't speak a word. Then I got a gig in Florida and started watching the Spanish-language soap operas and talking to Cubans every day. After about a month, I could converse pretty easily.

Okay, so the big question: is there any Time Travel Movie that got its history RIGHT (assuming they go back more than a few decades)? If not, which one came the closest?

Hey! Space Jam is my favourite basketball documentary! I feel so attacked!

The best thing about the this movie, is Gerard Butle's facial expressions when he realizes he took this job.

There's another time-traveling sci-fi novel called Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. It's about a girl who travels back to early 14th century England, but ends up in 1348, smack down in the middle of the Black Plague, and scientists back in the 21st century are struggling to bring her back. It's really brilliant, moving, sad and interesting read - definitely check it out!

Do The Movie Gettysburg (Fun fact one of my teachers who is a war buff or whatever he was a extra in the movie)

"You speak strangely"... Response: "Does anyone here speak jive?!?"

Time Travel nerd here. The reason why it's not technically time travel is because as the guy says, it's locked at a single time and, important to note, place. Regular time travel infers actually going backward or forward in time. Time progresses or regresses in these instances with an actual "distance" being traversed. Because of the wormhole being locked in a single location, it's more of a doorway. You walk into it and come out the other side thus eliminating the "distance" that the word "travel" would require. Your use of Stargate clip is more accurate than you probably thought since it works in a similar manner. Of course, the movie still gets it wrong because the wormhole being "locked" implies that they would instantly show up at the exact moment the professor gets there and when they bring him back they'd probably notice themselves going to that moment. So the movie accidentally creates a paradox that would have it that the professor would never be able to write a notice of help, leading them to never have the incentive to investigate. It simply wouldn't happen or they'd be stuck in a time loop that borders on being a living hell. For the show to make it actually work, it would mean that there would be no fixed "time". Only the wormhole would be locked and theoretically, a few centuries from now taking the wormhole would lead to today at the time of me writing this. To put it simply. It is time travel, that defies all known theories because they explained it in a shit way.

Do Letters from Iwo Jima next.

No matter what this will always be one of my favorite movies when I was a kid. It’s funny, I was just thinking of it, and your video on it popped up.

Can you do Glory, 1989?

Complaining about thatching, sounds like Lindybeige.

I think the point of clarifying that it wasn't Time Travel is the key distinction that time travel often implies some form of control or choice over the destination/time, and that this was not of a means of travel through time in a broad sense, but travel to that specific time in a fixed capacity.

It never cease to amaze me how, in this kind of movie or show, an archaeologist is THE expert to everything historical. They dig a little bit through rubble and/or earth, find some small thing - and immediately know everything there is to know about it: the timeperiod and culture it's from, where it's made, from which materials it's made and so on... But that's not how it's done! At an excavation like this you'll need a lot of specialists. You'll need someone who can analyse the material (probably a chemist). If there's anything organic you'll need someone to analyse this too. Based on this, you can make a guess about the age of the thing you found. But most of all you'll need a historian (or at least the skillset of a historian) to give your found the much needed context. As much as archaeologists (even the real ones) think, they don't need a historian, without historical context they're just guessing. This sentiment goes both ways. The work of a historian often relies on interpretation of old scripts and you'll never know if the writer lied, was drunk, telling the truth etc. With archaeological evidence you can prove or disprove the old texts. As a historian myself this is what truly angers me about this movie (and others like it). And a few other things you didn't mentioned, like untypical behaviour of people in the past. They don't think like we do. They live within a different framework of belief, manners, gender roles etc. They have a strict code how you have to behave based on your social status, what is appropriate and what is not... This is a thing most history movies ignore in favour of getting the audience to identify themselfs with den historical persons. I think this is wrong and especially movies about time travel miss out on a lot of possible conflicts.

Considering it's subject matter, I'd love to see a video about how realistic Downfall truly is.

“Hot or not, I wouldn’t risk it for the bubonic plague” I don’t know why this makes me laugh.

Definitely a grade A historical film, I mean, realizing that the Holy Roman Empire secretly invaded France under the guise of an English army? Impressive. Knowing that languages can't change overtime? Even more amazing. Timeline is a definitely historically accurate film. (read with extra sarcasm for full effect.)

Hey could you do Gangs of New York? I just watched it for the first time the other day and thoroughly enjoyed it, though I did realize that the New York draft riots were something of a hole in my historical education and I would love to learn more

I'll Just say it: Robert Eggers would absolutely kill it at a Timeline adaptation.

"Night arrows!" That was cringy.. Why didn't they use these so called night arrows to begin with when they worked better?

13:19 Apparently the had staples back in Middle Ages.

Thank you for promoting the novel. I've always loved this book and was super excited to see the movie. But it was a letdown. Crichton was brilliant at looking at little details and it was a shame they couldn't transfer the "science" to the film.

...so science fiction that takes place in historical settings is now fair game? *Rubs hands together* Gooooooooood~

Please do "1066 Battle of Middleearth" and "Day of Siege 11. 09. 1683" the latter would be of particular interest as i spottet a lot of historical inaccuracies and outright lies to promote an anti austrian pro italian propaganda and id love your oppinion on it, maybe im wrong. Also both movies are rather enjoyable and they went through some effort for the costumes and i love how 1066 toys with the old middle english and old norse language even though the old norse actually sounds like modern icelandic not old norse (west or east)

One thing I didn't consider until rewatching this is that the professor just gave them modern day Naplam and passed it off as Greek fire

Do black hawk down

It's not just the draw weight, a medieval English archer wouldn't sit on a horse to shoot a bow because it's not a balanced position. You want to stand firmly planted to the ground to provide a strong Base otherwise the arrow will lack strength and accuracy

I just found your series. Can’t stop watching. Absolutely love it. There have been moments where you’ve kissed me off. And then a second later you do the opposite. I really wish this show was still in production.

Review The Last of the Mohicans.

Occitan is not a dead language; people still speak it, no thanks to the efforts of the French government.

"je suis plein de merde" X') Dude my sides !

Great stuff as always, I love to see another series that you could do, for example Rome would be great. Or perhaps try some mythology movies like Troy.

This review was long overdue. Thank you. I absolutely loved this book however this film was such complete sh*t. Not just all the historical hogwash and overlooked details, the (over)acting itself was on par with that of pornographic film stars. Especially from Paul Walker and Frances O'Connor. Even if it was Walkers best performance. Read Crichton novels, avoid Crichton films. Right on.

“Hot or not, it’s bubonic plague!” Deserves to be made into a t-shirt.

The thing about language was *the biggest thing* that bugged me- though there were many, many, many others... I found a clip a couple of months back, asking the qs. 'How far could you go back in time, & still understand English'? This would be equally valid for most any modern language, like French or Scots; I haven't read the book, so I wasn't sure how it had been addressed, thank you for letting me know the writer wasn't some hack, who didn't think of such a sticking point - obviously, I would hope the dude who wrote *Jurassic Park* would not be. If I was him, I would have been mortified by what was done to my work; seriously, it doesn't kill producers, researchers, scriptwriters, designers & directors to give an extra few minutes to things that make no sense otherwise- I mean, what were they thinking!