events meaning some of what we see did take place but it is very loose. Ridley Scott did hire historians to help make the movie as he wanted to portray a story that at least looked like it took place in Roman time. However, the story itself suggests that Marcus Aurelius was killed by his son as he wanted the throne. This could not be true as Aurelius had been grooming his son for the title for many years and there was no need to kill him. The son went on to rule for 13 years in Rome. He was later strangled in his home by a wrestling partner.
Braveheart is another incredible movie that seems completely based in fact but actually has a lot of fiction. The characters all wear kilts throughout the movie because they are Scottish but the movie was set in the 1300s and kilts didn’t enter the Scottish world until the 1500s. In the movie, William Wallace is one of the common people but he was actually a wealthy landowner. He was also never known as braveheart, that was a different Scottish hero, Robert the Bruce. Another oddity is that his love interest in the film is Queen Isabella of France. If she had been his love interest in real life it would have been very strange as she would have only been two years old.
Clearly, these films altered things to make the story more entertaining. That makes sense. Sometimes history can be interesting but often over the span of decades. If you look at two weeks in isolation, not a lot happens. However, sometimes movies just change things to make them more interesting. The imitation game shows Alan Turing as anti-social, awkward, Asperger’s suffering, and homosexual. None of that would be an issue except Turing was none of those things. Why the creators felt the need to make these changes is a mystery as it doesn’t seem to add anything to the story of the movie. Sometimes change is for good, sometimes it is just nonsense.
