Comment on We printed lots of copies.
wjrii@lemmy.world 1 day agoWhat about the papers where he expounded upon how he wanted to return to a fully-functioning Republic, but not for the benefit of the senatorial class? Release the Maximus files!!!
PugJesus@piefed.social 23 hours ago
lmao, that always bugged the shit out of me once I got into Rome for realsies.
Marcus Aurelius was honestly more monarchial (in a consensus-oriented, enlightened absolutist sense) than previous Emperors, in line with his Gr*ekoid leanings, and co-ruled with Commodus for several years to prepare him for succession.
Not to mention that the Romans didn’t think the Republic had fallen to begin with. HE’S JUST THE FIRST CITIZEN
wjrii@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
And yet, somehow it’s a more sophisticated ahistorical argument than whatever the fuck they were getting at in the sequel.
PugJesus@piefed.social 21 hours ago
God, even as a Romaboo, I didn’t dare watch it. I did catch a few bits and pieces of horror, though, like:
Geta is the more competent and warlike of the two brothers (???????????)
Macrinus, an Emperor with Berber heritage who was born into a wealthy family, is portrayed as Black and a former slave, but both sons of Septimius Severus, who also had Berber heritage, are portrayed as lily-white???
Rome is making naval landings to conquer a peaceful North Africa in the 2nd century AD?
“Good Roman generals thought Rome should expand just a little bit more through war and then stop” when Roman expansion was often based on making vassals and allies, and only later annexing their land; and the ideology of the imperial era was explicitly that of an Imperium Sine Fine - an Empire without end - for the good of all the peoples under its aegis, and to impose peace?
Even Pedro Pascal couldn’t tempt me into watching it. I guess it doesn’t help that gladiators are the least interesting part of Rome for me, tbf. But if I thought it was good, I could have conditionally adored it just like the first Gladiator.
wjrii@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
That’s all correct, and the new movie also has the Colosseum flooded deeply enough that there are large sharks eating combatants in the naumachia. Then there’s the infamous cafe and newspaper scene, and of course, the one gladiator riding a rhinoceros with full tack as a war horse.
All of which could be somewhat forgiven if it was a decent movie, but it’s also predictable and overly derivative of the first one, utterly anticlimactic, and Paul Mescal joins Sam Worthington in being a “star” who has all the action-movie charisma of a floppy skin tag. I’ll withhold overall judgment until I see Hamnet.