***Napoleon*** (Ridley Scott, Joaquin Phoenix)

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LMCane
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In reply to Definitely Not A Cop • 6:48a, 7/12/23
Definitely Not A Cop said:
aTmAg said:
I'm a bit ignorant of Napoleon. I did read about his first claim to fame where his decision to take a peninsula and place cannon there won an important battle with very few casualties. I hope this movie goes into his military genius and less into his relationship with some woman.

Also, I think Napoleon was emperor at age 35. What makes Napoleon's rise do impressive was how young he was. Phoenix is a bit too old to get that point across


I'm ignorant of Napoleon as well, was he a military genius? The two main conflicts I've ever heard about from him are blowing invading Russia, and losing Waterloo.

I always assumed he was more of a Santa Anna type, using his star power as well as being the biggest bully on the block to achieve his empire.
Uh no.

he was in fact a military genius.

the book I posted earlier goes into pretty good details-

Napoleon conquered more of the world than anyone before Hitler.

and the reason he was a bully was because he won like 20 battles in Austria, Italy, Egypt, Israel, Belgium, Russia, Poland.

unfortunately for him and France, he invaded Russia and stayed during winter which annihilated his entire army.
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JABQ04
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7:09a, 7/12/23
AG
Napoleon was good. Wellington was better

It would have been interesting to see how the fighting in Spain and Portugal ended up if it was actually Napoleon there instead of his brother.
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Aggie_Journalist
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9:29a, 7/12/23
AG
I ran into a "fun thought exercise" statistical analysis the data nerds might enjoy that concluded Napoleon was, by far, the greatest general to ever live.

https://towardsdatascience.com/napoleon-was-the-best-general-ever-and-the-math-proves-it-86efed303eeb

The method was to scrape Wikipedia for pages about battles; look at who won, who lost, or was it a draw, and how many men each side had; and then calculate the best general based on those results.

Napoleon was No. 1. Wellington was also highly ranked. The top US-general was Ulysses S Grant. Folks like Rommel, Lee, and Patton turned out very average by comparison.
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Aust Ag
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In reply to Teacher_Ag • 9:38a, 7/12/23
AG
I can't imagine watching Narcos with the cartels speaking English. Love reading the subtitles. Great, great series.
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Joes
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In reply to Aggie_Journalist • 9:41a, 7/12/23
Aggie_Journalist said:
I ran into a "fun thought exercise" statistical analysis the data nerds might enjoy that concluded Napoleon was, by far, the greatest general to ever live.

https://towardsdatascience.com/napoleon-was-the-best-general-ever-and-the-math-proves-it-86efed303eeb

The method was to scrape Wikipedia for pages about battles; look at who won, who lost, or was it a draw, and how many men each side had; and then calculate the best general based on those results.

Napoleon was No. 1. Wellington was also highly ranked. The top US-general was Ulysses S Grant. Folks like Rommel, Lee, and Patton turned out very average by comparison.
Yeah, that's where I got my post on the previous page.
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Joes
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In reply to Aust Ag • 9:42a, 7/12/23
Aust Ag said:
I can't imagine watching Narcos with the cartels speaking English. Love reading the subtitles. Great, great series.
I know people that won't watch Downfall because it's in German with English subtitles. I can't imagine how badly it would be damaged if they all spoke in English.
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aTmAg
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In reply to Aggie_Journalist • 9:46a, 7/12/23
AG
Aggie_Journalist said:
I ran into a "fun thought exercise" statistical analysis the data nerds might enjoy that concluded Napoleon was, by far, the greatest general to ever live.

https://towardsdatascience.com/napoleon-was-the-best-general-ever-and-the-math-proves-it-86efed303eeb

The method was to scrape Wikipedia for pages about battles; look at who won, who lost, or was it a draw, and how many men each side had; and then calculate the best general based on those results.

Napoleon was No. 1. Wellington was also highly ranked. The top US-general was Ulysses S Grant. Folks like Rommel, Lee, and Patton turned out very average by comparison.
I'm not sure that is a particularly fair comparison. For example, Caesar defeated Pompeii in a civil war with troops of similar training and weaponry. That would look worse in this analysis than Caesar defeating a bunch of poorly equipped Germanic tribes. Yet to me, defeating Pompeii was more impressive.
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Gigem314
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In reply to Teacher_Ag • 9:49a, 7/12/23
AG
Teacher_Ag said:
Totally get that aspect of it, but it's a shame. If American audiences could magically see the existing version and one done in French with a younger actor, I think the overwhelming majority would vote that the latter is better. Imagine Apocalypto with Mexican actors speaking in English. Totally changes the feel of the movie, for the worse.
Agreed on Apocalypto. In same Gibson realm, The Passion of The Christ also works well in Latin, Aramaic, and Hebrew. But depending on the story, that doesn't necessarily mean it applies equally to other movies.

Gladiator wasn't done in all Latin or Greek, and it was a magnificent film that probably wouldn't have resonated like it did with a massive audience in a non-English language. 300 wasn't done in all Greek either.

There's a 'storytelling' aspect to some of these films, and I think Napoleon is being done in a way to tell the story to mostly English speaking audiences much in the same way Gladiator was.
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Brian Earl Spilner
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In reply to LMCane • 9:50a, 7/12/23
AG
Tarantino somehow pulled off the best version of this with the casting of Christoph Waltz.
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Joes
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In reply to aTmAg • 10:00a, 7/12/23
aTmAg said:
Aggie_Journalist said:
I ran into a "fun thought exercise" statistical analysis the data nerds might enjoy that concluded Napoleon was, by far, the greatest general to ever live.

https://towardsdatascience.com/napoleon-was-the-best-general-ever-and-the-math-proves-it-86efed303eeb

The method was to scrape Wikipedia for pages about battles; look at who won, who lost, or was it a draw, and how many men each side had; and then calculate the best general based on those results.

Napoleon was No. 1. Wellington was also highly ranked. The top US-general was Ulysses S Grant. Folks like Rommel, Lee, and Patton turned out very average by comparison.
I'm not sure that is a particularly fair comparison. For example, Caesar defeated Pompeii in a civil war with troops of similar training and weaponry. That would look worse in this analysis than Caesar defeating a bunch of poorly equipped Germanic tribes. Yet to me, defeating Pompeii was more impressive.
Yeah that was done just sort of for fun. There are way too many variables and matters of context to truly measure them against each other meaningfully.
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Teacher_Ag
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In reply to Gigem314 • 10:06a, 7/12/23
AG
In all of the cases you brought up it was a dead or classical language. There are good reasons why movies with much dialogue wouldn't use those, as finding actors who speak them would be a challenge, as would actors trying to learn lines in them and attempt proper accent. It's just not practical. But there isn't any reason that Napoleon couldn't have been shot with French actors speaking in French, other than the obvious already stated above. Again, I get it, just not my preference. A younger actor delivering lines in French would be awesome.
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Gigem314
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In reply to Teacher_Ag • 10:36a, 7/12/23
AG
I get it, but they're also in the business of making money. There's a reason Gladiator did so well, and Scott is going on that same formula.

There's a reason Valkyrie was a more widely distributed film than Downfall. Or why the Einstein mini-series several years back was in English instead of German.
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P.H. Dexippus
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In reply to Aggie_Journalist • 12:32p, 7/12/23
AG
Aggie_Journalist said:
I ran into a "fun thought exercise" statistical analysis the data nerds might enjoy that concluded Napoleon was, by far, the greatest general to ever live.

https://towardsdatascience.com/napoleon-was-the-best-general-ever-and-the-math-proves-it-86efed303eeb

The method was to scrape Wikipedia for pages about battles; look at who won, who lost, or was it a draw, and how many men each side had; and then calculate the best general based on those results.

Napoleon was No. 1. Wellington was also highly ranked. The top US-general was Ulysses S Grant. Folks like Rommel, Lee, and Patton turned out very average by comparison.

Turrible methodology then. Lee is far the better general than Grant, but he lacked resources. Scott had resounding success. Washington prevailed against the odds. Schwartzcoff dominated the enemy with quick success. Eisenhower is the American general that did the most with the most. Grant just ground up the most men.
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Teacher_Ag
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In reply to Gigem314 • 1:17p, 7/12/23
AG
I wasn't arguing the money angle, which is why I said "I get it" multiple times. Also, Downfall > Valkyrie, and as cool as Valkyrie was, would have been a lot cooler as a German language movie.
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Chipotlemonger
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1:27p, 7/12/23
AG
This whole movie and Napoleon discussion reminded me that I also have a blind spot to this period in history and these countries during that time. Like another poster said, easy to remember the exile, Waterloo, and Russia with Napoleon, but there's way more there to dive into.

What is crazy is how recently Napoleon and the French conquered that much land. What was the last big empire before them in Europe? The Holy Roman Empire?
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Gigem314
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In reply to Teacher_Ag • 1:28p, 7/12/23
AG
Teacher_Ag said:
I wasn't arguing the money angle, which is why I said "I get it" multiple times. Also, Downfall > Valkyrie, and as cool as Valkyrie was, would have been a lot cooler as a German language movie.
But when you have big names attached to a project like Napoleon with Phoenix, Cruise with Valkyrie, or Geoffrey Rush with Einstein, they're going for a wider distribution to bigger audiences...so you get the English versions.
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Apache
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2:00p, 7/12/23
AG
Quote:
What was the last big empire before them in Europe? The Holy Roman Empire?

England was a contemporary & outlasted France.
Spain & Portugal preceded the French, along with the Dutch to a lesser extent.
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Definitely Not A Cop
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In reply to Apache • 2:04p, 7/12/23
AG
Ottoman Empire and Mongolian empire held large swaths of Europe as well, right?
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P.H. Dexippus
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In reply to Apache • 2:24p, 7/12/23
AG
Queen Elizabeth was the last Emperor/ess.
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Aggie_Journalist
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In reply to Definitely Not A Cop • 2:42p, 7/12/23
AG
Ottomans held the balkans in Europe, but quite a bit of North African coastline and middle eastern territory beyond that.

Mongols never really established control in Europe. They basically sent a big scouting expedition that kicked a lot of butt, but every time they seemed to be gearing up to invade, the khan died and a fight for control broke out.

The Hapsburg empire comes to mind as a recent major land empire in Europe. There was a moment when they controlled the Holy Roman Empire *and* Spain, a bunch of other land (south Italy), and Spain's overseas possessions. It was the first empire the sun never set on.

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cbr
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In reply to Joes • 2:47p, 7/12/23
AG
Joes said:
Aust Ag said:
I can't imagine watching Narcos with the cartels speaking English. Love reading the subtitles. Great, great series.
I know people that won't watch Downfall because it's in German with English subtitles. I can't imagine how badly it would be damaged if they all spoke in English.
seems like maybe i've seen some rants with some pretty good subtitles.
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Aggie1205
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2:59p, 7/12/23
AG
The HRE has the word Empire in its name but wasn't really one by most standards.

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wangus12
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9:21a, 10/18/23
AG
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CheeseSndwch
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In reply to wangus12 • 10:39a, 10/18/23
The infantry square forming up at 2:04.
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Carlo4
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In reply to hunter2012 • 11:00a, 10/18/23
AG
I never got the hidden joke of taking Napoleon to a bowling alley until much later in life. He would like a game involving a cannon ball starting his military career in artillery!
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IIIHorn
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In reply to LMCane • 11:10a, 10/18/23
LMCane said:


I think Americans are too lazy / hyper to sit with subtitles for more than a few minutes.



ADHDTV


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11:10p, 11/14/23
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11:10p, 11/14/23
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11:11p, 11/14/23
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