Hacker News Reader

Comment by jgrahamc | Hacker News Reader

The Imitation Game was inaccurate and horrible every way you look at it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Imitation_Game#Historical_...

What I find so strange about The Imitation Game that all of this is pretty well-known; anyone who has skimmed the Wikipedia article of Turing and the overview article on breaking Enigma knows that the movie is pretty much complete horseshit. Most of the alterations in the movie removed things that would have made the movie more interesting instead of the utterly bland story they made up.

Given the movie was a major box office hit and critically acclaimed, I suspect the producers knew what they were doing.

Just don't expect historical accuracy from a Hollywood movie. Cleopatra didn't look like Elizabeth Taylor either.

Cleopatra most likely looked like a horribly inbred Greek, seeing as her family tree has a literal circle in it.

I'm struggling to think of any movies that are really historically accurate - the point is to tell a good story to get people to watch it to make a profit.

Edit: I'm Scottish so Braveheart is the obvious example - entertaining movie but wildly inaccurate and even manages to get who/what the term "braveheart" refers to wrong.

Master and Commander (the Russell Crowe film)? While it's a fictional story, I've heard it said that it captures the period extremely well.

Gettysburg and its prequel (Gods and Generals). The dialogue and character motivations may or may not be accurate, but the battles it depicts are pretty accurate.

When I visited Bletchley Park a few years ago, I got into a conversation with one of the docents about the film and it was clear that they had a very low opinion of it there. Turing deserved a better film.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com