Factual error: During every Colosseum fighting scene, the senators are all wearing white togas. They would have only worn them during election time, not to attend the games in.
I worked up this list, and this is the first half sensible point raised. :sleepy:
Factual error: The last gladiator to be killed when Maximus is chained to Honsou holds a trident. This kind of gladiator is called a "retiarius;" they're also the ones who fight using nets. The shoulder armour was always worn on the left shoulder, not the right, because left-handedness was frowned upon in Ancient Rome.
:fero: Just look down to the next entry. The
emperor was a gucking lefty. Who cares?
Factual error: Throughout the movie, Commodus uses his right hand for most things, e.g., writing, or holding his sword. The real Emperor Commodus was left-handed.
FFS - maybe they should have cast a lefty? :groan: Who gives a shit?
Factual error: In the scenes of the colosseum the shade of the arena is wrong. There would be two types of tickets: shade or sun. One half of the colosseum would be shade and the other sun. They still do this in Spain at bullfights. The shade tickets are much more expensive of course. In the movie it looks more like closer to noon than four or five o'clock.
:groan: Oh God no, they got the time of day wrong.
Factual error: When Lucilla and her brother the emperor are entering the city, she is wearing an orange veil. Orange veils were often worn by brides at their weddings during that time. It took me a minute to figure out that she wasn't marrying her own brother, considering the scene resembles a royal marriage procession, and the booing crowd could be people booing an incestuous relationship.
Well done, you've just doubled the number of people on Earth who knew that.
Factual error: Russell Crowe has a BCG vacination mark on his shoulder. However, vacinations weren't invented for centuries after the film was set.
:fero: I don't know who wrote this, but I want them dead. Surely for authenticity, Crowe's vacination marks should have been airbrushed.
Factual error: The thumbs up or down for live and die is a myth. We know there was a hand symbol involved but we are not sure what was actually used. It is more likely that thumbs up would have been used to mean die.
:groan: But we don't actually know? So you thought you'd look smart and explain the unsubstantiated theory to us. Piss off.
Factual error: When Maximus walks through the wheat field it is obvious (to a botanist) that the wheat shown is an octaploid variety which was developed in the 1950's for the green revolution. The type of wheat grown back then can still be found in many areas too, so it's not like they couldn't have used the right stuff...
...and grown a field of it in a convenient location. Gott in Himmel! Someone kill these pedants before I get myself in trouble trying to.
Graham, you owe me fifteen minutes of my life.
Bah, I would probably have wasted them anyway.