h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

And before you say the examples aren't war films. The forum subject is "This goes for other American films too, sadly enough"

I haven't seen the Patriot, and I will not, but it apparently makes Braveheart look 100% factual! There are lies, damn lies, and Mel Gibson films!

The character he played had a name change halfway through production, because they discovered the real guy was a slaveowning murderer. It goes without saying that the British forces didn't have concentration camps (invented during the Boer war over 100 years later), and the burning of people in a church was an incident from WWII stolen wholesale. If Mel Gibson believes these things happened, he is one sick

Jeremy Irons. I read a review in a newspaper at the time, in which the reviewer referred to the well known "Hollywood convention" whereby the bad guy/woman always has an English accent (even in an animated!).

Well, I were gobsmacked! Thirty something, and I'd never noticed, not consciously. But a friend of mine had, and mentioned that back in 1986.

Off topic - have you seen "Good vs Evil"? (TV3, Fridays at 23.00hrs) That's where the place has the name 'Hellywood'. It's hysterically funny.

Does anyone here even go to the movies to have some fun and watch fictional stories or do you guys think that everything shown should be totally real 100% historically accurate...cus quite frankly real life is not all that exciting and fun unless you are actually involved...

Didn't you know all British people are inherently evil?

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You're missing to point. No one is rubbishing every single movie.

"Didn't you know all British people are inherently evil? "

We are? Hey, cool!

Well I guess it's better then being seen as the source of all the worlds problems weather political, social, or economic.

I understand you are not bashing every movie, so I am not missing the point. What I am talking about is do you take the wrong stance before watching a movie. If a movie comes out that's based on anything, you should realize it's not going to on the mark. This is true for movies based on books. Lets look at a previous movie that we agree on being good I think. Starship Troopers was based on a book written I think in the fifties. The movie is very very different from the book. Heck the names of some of the characters stayed the same and the alien's stayed the same but pretty much everything else was different. Did I like the book? Very much so. Did I expect the movie to be everything the book was? No. Did I like the movie anyway? Very much so. We won't talk about battlefield earth though Ok so if you can walk into a movie without any preconceived notions on how it should be you might like it even if it is not like what it is based on. So again have you ever thought about watching one of the movies and looking past everything so you can be entertained (which is the purpose of the movies, no matter what anyone tells you). I think you have a better time but that's my view....after watching the movie and having a good time then pick it apart but picking it apart doesn't have to come at the expense of liking or not liking a movie. Heck if you guys want you can make a few moives where American's are the enemy's (oh no shocking ) and if they are done right I bet I will like them .

Oh and if you guys have never seen this show you might want to check it out it's on the history channel (not sure if you guys get it or not) and it's called History vs. Hollywood. I know they have done braveheart and a few US WWII movies like the great escape. Good stuff and you get to learn things.


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I think you're getting the wrong idea about what's ticking people off. I love hollywood movies. My wife and I have a collection of 78 (we've been collecting here and there for about 3 years)

I also mentioned "Three Kings" set in the US Iraq war. As for books vs movies *hides under desk* I liked battlefield earth (I had to ignore some logistics) It seems the people who hate that movie are the people who loved the book.

Read back on what is ticking people off. It's more the portrayals of non-americans than the movies.

I've read american saying 'it doesn't bother me' or 'I wasn't looking at the inaccuracies' - well of course americans would say that, they're not the "bad guys"

xcellent points, apparition! Personally,I find I can't just watch a movie and be entertained, if I am busy getting upset about inaccuracies, or portrayals of any particular race/nation/religion - even gender or sexual orientation!

Mayhap it's a personal weakness, but that's me.

This is nothing new is it?

When Custer got whipped they called it the Last Stand and made heroes out of a bunch of thugs bent on another Washita massacre.

In fact if you look at American history really close, you'll find Blackhawk Down and Custer's Last Stand repeated over and over because these guys just don't get that there might be other people in the world who don't want Americans around for some unfathomable reason. And that's what burns their chaps everytime because if they respect such things they don't get rich do they?

Braveheart's major problem is that Wallace was fathering a child who was born years after his execution but for some unfathomable reason we got to have Wallace genes in the Plantagenet line or something but at least it doesn't glorify mercenary thugs trying to globalize... which is a nice 20th century euphemism for colonize... the rest of the world. And of course they sent Blackhawk Down out to all the posts and bases and whatever because it's part of the indoctrination the boys need so they'll keep slaughtering people on orders... and be good nazis right?

If there's anything the rest of us can get out of it though it's that Americans have conquered practically everything they've ever wanted except for Indochina and when they've been whipped they've always spun it around so it looked like they were martyrs or something. So instead of buying the terrorist bilge they're putting out right now people should be focusing on who the real terrorists are in this world and if they can't be stopped at least avoid collaborating in their crusades.

An excellent analysis, Lilithcookie - although I detect (do I?) indications that you are an American yourself!

It's strange growing up outside the US and getting ever American movie and TV show going (as we did, and still do). I think I knew about Custer before I knew about Michael Joseph Savage (one of our Prime Monsters..)

American? Well I don't think so because I don't recognize the American government because it doesn't resemble what they taught us about in school ok?

Get this! And I know it's going to be a stretch but... Americans lie! No lie! And they have for over 300 years.

So there's been Black Hawk Downs since before Plymouth Rock got its 15 minutes of fame, and most of them just as phony as the Rock.

It's just that some of us were kind of naive about that sort of thing ok? And maybe there's still a lot of people who are kind of naive or Rid Scott wouldn't have bothered or at least wouldn't have got enough investors to take the risk and be part of the problem. And I'm sorry to say the risk paid off so there's still a problem.

Lilith - um actually is that how you would like to be referred to....not sure if that's your name or if you are taking from mythology and/or folk lore for that....and I don't know about calling someone cookie...

I am pretty sure most of the rest of this will be off the subject of the original thread so feel free to skip but... to follow on with above postings...oh and good luck my train of thought gets derailed to easy it seems these days (one too many knee's in the face over the weekend)

I am not sure where you went to school but the American Government is just like what they taught me in school....but maybe my teachers were just trying to prepare us for the failings of the real world instead of just theory. If you do live in the US don't just let your self off by saying that you don't recognize the gov't because it's not like you want it. That sounds childish to me for some reason and that of course is just my opinion. If it's not like how you want it then try to change it, heck you might fail, but if you don't try then what's the point in you pouting about it.

Do you really think that the "spinning" of a story by a gov't or people for the purpose of having a hero and an enemy is something that has only been going on for the last 300 years and is only done by America....I think it is clear that history should not be taught by Hollywood and that movies that come out of America are going to be *byaist* (for the love of mike I can't figure out the spelling on this I am sure it won't be my only misspelling but it's so obvious dang) I think everyone has heard the term "history is written by the winners" in this modern day it's not just the guy's who win the battle who are considered the winners it's the guys with the money and a camera...(Whether this be a news man out in the filed making his money by showing that an attack or bombing was successful in or that another person is reporting that it was a massacre of innocent civilians or it's the director looking at a story and trying to make something that sells. War/real life doesn't transition into story telling well...heck it doesn't transition into written history well)...I am sorry if this disappoints you but you can look at any war, any battle throughout history and the political social issues starting or facilitating it and find fault on both sides...there has been no perfect war-there will never be a perfect war and often times the biggest baddest men on the block are the ones to make the most barbaric mistakes (as you pointed out Custer's last stand..but this goes for anytime a nation has done a little expansion with all the bloody fighting, killing and flag waving...and with that bringing civilization to the savages or barbaric natives of where ever there might be some thing that that bigger nation wants-when in fact those natives were quite happy most of the time before hand and not so happy afterwards ) War is a big messy political tool....it can be very effective...but it is very messy even under the best possible conditions...personally I would love it if it became unnecessary for it to be used but because it seems to be the order of the day and all those before this one.....and after a war/battle/police conflict/revolution/whatever it gets put down in the history books as the bards/entertainers/storytellers/grandpa that was there just telling it like it is...are going to change the story and make it just that a story for entertainment of there audiences...do you really think that some French story teller was going to tell people in a pub right after they got back from watching someone guillotined, during the French revolution, about how many people got wrongfully executed in the bloodlust associated with that or heck how about movies made about the Zulu warriors and British Army or whatnot...heck movies have been made showing both sides as the hero's and as the villains....so don't just take the easy way out and say hey it's all those guys fault becuase they are such bad people and all that and the world wasn't messed up before they started doing that stuff and the rest of the world would be peachy keen if only those guys would go away or shutup...

as far as American's lieing...I will agree with that but I will also ask you to concider the fact that we are not the only one's...not to say it's right for us to lie because other's do...just to make sure you are not missing the forest because of all the trees or however that saying goes...oh by the way in I use American's right there to say the American Gov't and American Socity in a very genral term...because I happen to know too many very honest people to say all American's lie...

Now globalize vs. colonize might be an interesting topic in another thread...personaly I don't see them as the same thing and wouldn't mind discusing it but I think that may get way off track...not like I am not already of track

and on something else that was said ... I will have to say this....if sending a movie over to a base like BHD keeps morale up with the boys and gals over there or out somewhere and that higher moral keeps them alive to come back home when the gov't is done using them than by god I say let them have it...cus in the end if it comes down to my people or yours or anyone else's I am not ashamed to say and I know some will find this repugnet and unenlightened but mine are way more important to me....just like I am sure that theirs (who ever they might be) are more important to them


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An interesting view, Lilithcookie - quite a brave stand, to not recognise the government!

Back in the '60s, we'd watch TV and my father (who'd come from the UK, via South Africa, the USA and Australia, he was a sort of English working class Jack Kerouac) would growl in response to some egregiously offensive thing - "Yankee Propaganda!" or in the odd rare case "Bl**dy Yankee propaganda!"

I sometimes do that myself. It's true a person does become their parents!

"Now globalize vs. colonize might be an interesting topic in another thread...personaly I don't see them as the same thing and wouldn't mind discusing it but I think that may get way off track...not like I am not already of track "

Interesting view, Tacsatduck - I've read yr explanation about yr name, but wow, it's still hard to say...

Maybe globalisation and colonisation are (or can be) the same thing? I've often spoken about 'American cultural hegemony'... the MacDonaldisation of our world. There's no need to conquer with troops, when it can be done with $$$...

That's where movies come in, and TV - cultural hegemony! That's one reason so many NZers speak American. They do, but like globalisation, that's a topic for another thread.

"There's no need to conquer with troops, when it can be done with $$$"

The Romans conquered Judea with troops. Judea did what Rome ordered.

The Americans have conquered Israel with $$$. Israel tells America it will do what it likes and just try and stop it.

Not *quite* the same

Zagreb, I suggest that's a special case, because of the immense difficulty anyone has, in criticising Israel. Heck, *I* feel guilty, criticising them fir Jenin...

Cos, the Holocaust happened, eh?

-umm tacsatduck hard to say....hmmm I always thought it was pretty easy.... hopefully this might help... pronounce it just like this almost as three words Tack - like a thumb tack- Sat- like I sat in a chair- and Duck- well like duck the bird

Criticisning the actions of Israel should not be effected by the Holocaust-----Personaly that is a crazy little hornets nest down there...Both sides have great points...both have done wrong in past and present...the only thing really hampering suport for the PLO is the Teroist acts associated and perpitrated by it so vividly caught by the media....We could always follow, I think it was him, George Carlin's idea....get all the leaders into big arena...arm them with socks full of really stinky s**t then let them fight it out with them until one of em gives up



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Wow!!! Guess I stirred my own hornets nest here which is ok I guess. I'm just having a little problem keeping everybody straight, including the War and Peace type novelist who likes Americans just because... and it was a very exhaustive and thorough just because too.

So let's start with that huh?

After we dismiss the puerile excuse that everybody else does it or did it or whatever, because if everybody did it, there'd be a bunch of pilgrims corpses without progeny fertilizing the corn and squash on Martha's Vineyard ok? Or there'd be an Aztec diplomatic mission in Paris dictating what NATO does next year.

So what we really had was this group of people who came over from Europe seeking 'freedom'. Nothing wrong with that is there? Well, yeah, there is something seriously wrong. Because the continent was already populated or did you forget? Well yeah, people forgot ok? Or maybe more accurately just didn't care.

Because it was more convenient to consider it a vast wilderness ripe for the taking full of beasts and savages, some of who maybe had souls and then maybe not, need to check with the Pope on that one. Heaven and the Pope forbid that they consider these savages maybe had a civilization in its own right.

So then we have these exserfs and other assorted riffraff from the great democratic nationstates of Europe doing their own holocaust that would make any nazi proud. But you hardly ever hear about it expressed that way because the people weren't jewish, unless you accept some of the 16th to 19th century notions that they were the 10 Lost Tribes of Israel, not that it would matter now anyways but you could say so if you wanted for all the good it would do. It might make some exassyrian feel guilty I'm sure.

So maybe you can come up with a single incident in this holocaust that isn't rife with lying, cheating, murdering, stealing, biological warfare, forced starvation, incarceration in concentration camps or whatever. Maybe you can find one example that conforms to the proud or peculiar 'traditions' of Americans concerning right, integrity, honor, justice for all, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, blah blah blah? Just one would be fine ya know? But take your time... we understand... we truly do...

Like what did 'pursuit of happiness' really mean in the historical context of the Declaration of Independence?

Well it meant you could be a smuggler like John Hancock pursuing the happiness of never having to pay your taxes and getting rich while your compatriots were scraping the bottom of their barrels.

Or the happiness of stealing Shawnee land like Daniel Boone et al.

Or the happiness of supporting the great state of Georgia in dispossessing the Cherokee even after they'd adopted American forms of government and American ways like Andy Jackson did, in direct disobedience of the Constitution, the Law of the Land. I just bet he was happier than any president's ever been since except maybe George W. Bush.

And that's just for openers since 'the Nation' was officially founded ok?

Or you could ask by what right Americans took possession of the Territory of Louisiana? Did they buy it from the French who stole it from the Spanish who stole it from every tribe in the Mississippi drainage? Well yeah... they did do that didn't they now that you think about it right? On the otherhand...

Well even Americans weren't too sure about that one because they kept offering the double eagle or other worthless yanqui script to anybody who'd listen to their pitches, 15 whole yanqui cents per acre or something like that on average and when the people wouldn't take the money because you don't sell the earth the Americans offered bullets instead. Enter Custer and thugs like him stage west. And hollywood's treated that bilge pretty thoroughly too as it turns out. I wonder why that is?

So there's this joke that goes, 'In the beginning we had the land and you had the Book but in the end, we got the Book and you got the land'. And that's another way Americans were liars, religious in their lying in fact. And God knows about you guys and you're going to have to pay sooner or later, in this world or the next, or at least that what you've telling everybody else. But don't take my word for it. Read your... I'm sorry... OUR Book.

So it isn't too hard for people not to recognize the American government because the American government never recognized the people's governments and still doesn't. They've setup puppet governments of occupation, similar to Vichy France or Anschluss Austria.

And the UN's ok with it too although there's at least one international organization in Latin America that isn't but they've had a chance to experience yanqui dollar diplomacy firsthand so they're not rocking the ship of state right now. The original treaty concerning how you're supposed to treat the indigenous inhabitants of your nation was signed during World War II when Americans needed any friends they could get including the Mafia. So naturally they promised anything to anybody but that's all in the past now right?

So anyways the American government has given these puppet governments authority over 'sovereign nations' recognized by the Constitution but that sovereignty is whatever the American government says it is. Officially they call it 'dependent nation status' which means 'now you see... now you don't'. Watch my hands now...

So if I sue them in state court, they claim the matter belongs in federal court and if I sue them in federal court they claim the matter belongs in state court. Does anybody like get where this is going yet?

Well I do.

So I get to vote in general elections just like any other hyphenated American but so what? My vote will never count because the American two party system doesn't represent me and the bunch of treaties by which they stole the land haven't been honored anyways. I might as well be living in Tibet but I'm not moving there because this is my land, no matter who claimed it for God and Spain or the American Dream. And sorry guys... I'm not budging ok?

So I'm sorry to say Americans aren't 'my people' and neither are their hired thugs, although I'll concede there are plenty of decent ones but they can't do anything to make things right. Because it's either inexpedient or there are 'more important things' like making the world safe for George W Bush and oil tycoons everywhere or they'll lose their rung on the ladder of success or it's all in the past, which is pure bilge because it's still happening, and not just on the American continent but around the world.

So if you really want to know how Americans are conquering the world just checkout how they conquered America. Then it'll all make sense I think. Just consider for a minute how they just got done unilaterally breaking a treaty with the Russians that's like not even 30 years old and it's like... 'lookout Boris, you're next!!!'

And that's the way things are ok? But that doesn't make it right and never will. So you can paint it camoflage and call it Blackhawk Down and claim you never leave your dead on the battlefield too ok?

But there's a bunch of American dead, part of Major Thornburg's command, US 3rd Cavalry I think, moldering in a mass grave along Milk Creek northeast of Meeker, Colorado, USA and they've been there since 1879 and that isn't Arlington National Cemetery, where Thornburg's buried, in case you were confused.

And that's only one example so even this soul stirring claim that's supposed to keep the boys out there diligently killing people and breaking things or their mamas from complaining to their congresspersons is just more bilge for the propaganda machine. I'm deliberately leaving out Indochina here because I'd just as soon not offend any living veterans who can claim it wasn't their fault because they were drafted.

Therefore, as the professor would say, I stand by my original assertion ok?

Oh yeah... you can call me Lil. It's easier to remember and pronounce than something I can't even spell in English the same way twice.

Hope this little tribal diatribe hasn't turned everybody off but if it has, don't worry. I used to being ignored because some people think I'm one of those problems that'll go away if you just ignore it long enough. Oh well...

So if you want to raw raw Blackhawk Down or make excuses, go ahead, but try to be a little more creative ok? On second thought, don't bother. I already know all the excuses not to mention the lies, so don't mention them for gawdsake. I got them memorized already ok? So give me break... unless you got an excuse for not doing that too.

Or a surprise...

Well said. You're needed in the trenches to help keep a balance against forces of people like two bit trigger pumping moron and perium the dauntless.