A historian breaks down the traditional historical past movie The Last Legion. The Last Legion is a 2007 conflict epic movie about younger Romulus Augustulus making an attempt to flee the town and embark on a voyage to Britain whereas the Roman Empire falls aside. Romulus Augustulus is performed by a younger Thomas Brodie-Sangster, who’s surrounded by a number one solid that features Colin Firth, Ben Kingsley, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Kevin McKidd, Peter Mullan, and Josh Hannah. The movie was directed by Doug Lefler with a screenplay written by Jez and Tom Butterworth.
In an interview with History Hit, historian Tristan Hughes picks aside The Last Legion. Hughes started by explaining that The Last Legion is a movie that “was never really seen in the high echelons of ancient history films.” The historian went on to notice that The Last Legion is fairly dire and incorporates lots of inaccuracies. One such inaccuracy was the truth that the movie set Rome because the capital metropolis of the Ancient Roman Empire when Romulus Augustulus grew to become emperor, when actually, Ravenna would have been the capital. Check out the complete quote from Hughes under:
“This movie was by no means actually seen within the excessive echelons of historic historical past movies. And with good motive. There are lots of issues with this movie. And it is definitely not one in all my favorites. I believe it is fairly dire. But we’ll attempt to discover some, I need to attempt to discover some good factors there.
It’s a extremely fascinating time in historical past, the context. It’s the autumn of the Western Roman Empire, it is 476AD, so that is actual late antiquity. And Odoacer disposing the final Roman Emperor within the West — and supposedly, there was really one other Emperor at the moment — however it’s the fall of the Western Roman Empire. And it’s actually, actually fascinating that there’s a movie devoted to it. It is only a disgrace that a lot of the remainder of this movie is utter rubbish.
Romulus Augustus wasn’t actually ready to be emperor. His dad type of took over as a chief commander, after which put in his younger son as emperor like a 12 months earlier than he’s then deposed. This is like 475 AD, all of it occurs actually actually rapidly. Yeah, it’s fairly fascinating. He then will get the title Augustulus added to his title, initially his title is simply Romulus. And Augustus is added when he turns into emperor. The different factor to see right here is we’re seeing this sort of celebrations of the brand new emperor, individuals loving him and so forth and so forth. This would not have occurred in Rome. Rome wasn’t the capital of the Roman Empire anymore within the West, it was Ravenna, additional north, and we have no sources describing the accession, the coronation of Romulus Augustulus as the brand new emperor. He was very younger, as proven right here. But it might have been nearly definitely nothing like it’s being proven in the meanwhile. And, the factor I can by no means get round is why they are saying that it’s in Rome that this occurs.
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What Hughes Analysis Says About The Last Legion
The Last Legion Was Not Historically Accurate
This evaluation went past simply the capital metropolis fake pas when revealing what was improper with The Last Legion. According to the historian, your complete coronation of the younger emperor was unrealistic. In the film, there are “celebrations of the new emperor,” which laud the budding reign of Romulus Augustulus. Hughes argued, nonetheless, that there aren’t “any sources describing the accession” of this emperor, indicating to him that this ritual “would have been almost certainly nothing like what [was] being shown” in The Last Legion.
Hughes’ evaluation of The Last Legion displays poorly on the general accuracy of the movie. Even when making an attempt to take a look at The Last Legion in a beneficiant gentle, the historian nonetheless referred to The Last Legion as “utter garbage,” referring to it as “dire.” Elements comparable to the truth that the capital metropolis isn’t even appropriate recommend that the analysis crew behind The Last Legion paid little or no thoughts to prioritizing any kind of accuracy for the epic historic movie.
The Last Legion
additionally suffered amongst movie critics, getting a 15% upon the time of its launch.
The Last Legion Is Overshadowed By Other Historical Movies
The Last Legion Will Be Under More Scrutiny Soon
It is especially fascinating to see evaluation of movies like The Last Legion at this present second, as one other main Roman Empire-based movie is about to be launched. This movie is Gladiator II, Ridley Scott’s follow-up to his hit 2000 movie Gladiator. Gladiator is held up as one of many fashionable classics for historic epic movies, and searching on the large scale of its manufacturing, it is smart. As Gladiator II hits theaters this 12 months, movies like The Last Legion can be below even additional scrutiny, as they might function examples of historic fiction gone improper throughout the time of a serious launch.
Source: Historical Hit / YouTube
