Toured Gettysburg many years ago with a certified guide. Simply amazing. We walked the entire battlefield over several days. I still get emotional remembering that trip.

Check out the American Military Podcast. It's a free podcast where he discusses the different campaigns and battles of the colonists, mentioning a number of small battles that played crucial roles in shifting the tide of the revolution. He will eventually move up into modern times, as each weekly episode progresses through history.

thanks for the tip - ill check it out!

Napoleon
Antietam
Audie Murphy

Quote:

---

1. The Fall of the Byzantine Empire/Siege of Constantinople in 1453.

---

An excellent choice.

Byanztium really needs some major flick to at least put it in the `layman's awareness' of what it was and scale. Constantinople and its palace and the Hippodrome and Hagia Sophia complex would be a grand set, cgi or otherwise. The story could be told in a fairly localized fashion.

If you want a less downbeat, and yet equally epic Byzantine moment, do the siege of 717. It has all the elements --- Europe at stake, a willful new controversial Emperor (Leo III) who proves equal to the task. A stand and hold out against siege of great odds, and the deployment of a `tide turning' new weapon - Greek fire, the destruction of the invasion fleet on the waves under eyes of those manning the walls. Maslamah's army and his court could illustrate the Muslim perspective.

It would be just as topical as 1453, and yet also allow for some showcasing of the real politics just after the first phase of the Muslim conquest. You would see people of character on both sides.

Siege of Vienna in 1683. I get chills thinking about watching a big budget production showing the charge of King Jan III Sobieski at the head of the feared Winged Hussars.

Battle off Samar- would probably be prohibitively expensive but holy crap an adaptation of Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors would be mind blowing.

A Crusade movie that's not historically craptastic like Kingdom of Heaven was.

P.S. - if you haven't, check out the History Buffs channel on YouTube. He reviews films from a historical perspective. His one on Waterloo (1970) is awesome!

I'm with you on Byzantium. Another great flick would be the reign of Justinian. This one has it all: Riots, War, the reconquest of parts of the fallen Roman Empire, a great general in Belisarius, the building of the Hagia Sofia, One of the worst plagues in history, and a great female lead in Theodora.

If I was a director, I'd take some creative license. Justinian marries Theodora, she becomes smitten with Belisarius. Justinian sends him off to war and his certain doom. He responds by conquering and then returns. Justians kills Theodora in a rage, has Belisarius locked up. Plague erupts. Justinian sees this as a sign from God, builds Hagia Sofia to repent.

Apache,

Great script!

I agree that you have to take creative license, and perhaps even melodrama with Hollywood. However, I would propose an amendment. We would want the layman's first exposure to Byzantium to be positive, or at least relateable, and not a Nero moment (which was not accurate anyway for the man, they had some close like Phokas).


Have your love triangle, perhaps work in Belisarius' wife's Antonia's jealousy regarding the Empress and Belisarious, and have Theodora either kill herself at the crisis you describe in a kind of `at an impasse' moment, or worse some other idiot zealot does it because of her machination. Your follow-up then kicks in, Justinian the Hamlet figure owns it, and builds Hagia Sophia to repent.

I've got a new one- Nelson Lee, Texas Ranger

Just finished his autobiography and it is astonishing. He travels the world and joins the rangers early on doing ranger things. Is the right hand man of Jack Hayes. Retires to start a goods company and while moving the goods west was captured by commanches. All but him and 3 others are killed.

He is saved because he bought a silver watch that had an alarm and the Indians thought it was spiritual. He spends three years with the commanches and finally escapes by killing a chief and surviving 70 days in the wilderness.

Amazing.

who?mikejones said:

---

I've got a new one- Nelson Lee, Texas Ranger

Just finished his autobiography and it is astonishing. He travels the world and joins the rangers early on doing ranger things. Is the right hand man of Jack Hayes. Retires to start a goods company and while moving the goods west was captured by commanches. All but him and 3 others are killed.

He is saved because he bought a silver watch that had an alarm and the Indians thought it was spiritual. He spends three years with the commanches and finally escapes by killing a chief and surviving 70 days in the wilderness.

Amazing.

---

That is a great book and would make a great movie!! (You also find out real quick why they used the phrase "a fate worse than death!"

Bookmarking. This thread is all kinds of awesome.

1683 Siege of Vienna, Battle of Lepanto, and Siege of Malta........all would be amazingly epic if done accurately & correctly with big budgets...... *sigh* one can at least dream right?

Dunkirk

First and second BOER Wars.

http://www.commandothefilm.com/

Great potential project about the BOER war

Would like to see them get funded. Classically un politically correct yet the tragic history of one of the greatest people on earth.

I'll suggest the story of the Nazi rocket program from the early years through at least the end of WWII, although including the early days of the US and Soviet space programs would be interesting, too.

I've long thought "Apollo: Race to the Moon" would be great to see on the screen, as it tells the story of the program through the eyes of the managers and engineers, rather than the astronauts.

One last subject that I'd find interesting is the construction of the Panama Canal.

I guess I find the subject of huge engineering projects to be interesting. The problem is that each of them transpired over the course of a decade or more, and you can't begin to adequately cover those subjects in the course of a two or three hour film.

I would like to see some biographical pictures. Probably not a movie but maybe a series like HBO did for John Adams. It would be extremely difficult but I would like a series on Adolf Eichmann or Ulysses S Grant. There are so many conflicting images of both of those men that would make for great viewing experience.

RPAG:

I like the ideas and agree that Grant is portrayed in conflicting ways (he was human after all) but I don't get any conflict on the views of Eichmann, whatcha talkin' about?

I think Adolf Eichmann demonstrates how difficult it is for us to reconcile different aspects of the Holocaust (and, of course, human nature). On one hand, he doesn't seem to mesh very well with what we think the Final Solution was. Though a member of the SS, he was very timid in nature and was not one for violence. He was a failure at everything he tried before the war and even during the war he was no innovater. This is Hannah Arendts Banality of Evil; if the conditions were not what they were he would have been mediocre desk clerk at some post office. He had virtually nothing in common with what we think of as the prototypical SS man.

Of course on the other hand we already know. He coordinated deportations that led to the murder of millions. It is certainly true that the Holocaust would have happened without him but it didn't have to because he was eager to help. On this, some historians have questioned the 'banality of evil' or 'little Eichmann' tropes that are often trotted about. He was extremely eager to impress with his work (for the attention and approval of his supervisors) and boasted at the trial of his deportations as an impressive feat but during his trial he was also quoted as saying, "I leap into my grave laughing knowing I am responsible for 6 million jews".

Finally, I think many would ask themselves the necessary but impossible question of what would I have done? It is remarkable in part because Eichmann was so unremarkable so there doesn't seem to be reason to believe that most of us would act differently if we were put in a similar environment.

Charles "The Hammer" Martel
Jan Sobieski
Otto Skorzeny