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From: Cryptoengineer <petertrei@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Pearls Before Swine: Uncle Is Not Good With Money
Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2025 12:43:09 -0500
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On 1/17/2025 12:01 PM, Paul S Person wrote:
> On Thu, 16 Jan 2025 12:46:59 -0500, Cryptoengineer
> <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> <snippo, topic is the recent /Napoleon/ movie and its historicity>
> 
>> Not his whole life, but I heartily recommend the 1970 "Waterloo"
>> starting Christopher Plummer, Rod Steiger and Orson Wells.
>>
>> I've seen analysis by historians to the effect that this is the
>> most historically accurate version of the battle ever filmed.
> 
> Being by Bondarchuck, I would think so.
> 
>> The battle was filmed in Ukraine. The Soviet Army lent the
>> production 17,000 soldiers, who were trained to drill and
>> 'fight' in period style and uniforms. This was before CGI and
>> Maya, and if you see a soldier, he's real. This led to a
>> minor degree of randomness that underscores the reality of the
>> scene, details such random glints of sunlight off the bayonets
>> of a formation half a mile away.
>>
>> This was by far the largest number of extras ever used in one
>> movie, and was said to be the 'seventh largest army in Europe'.
> 
> Actually, <https://movieweb.com/movies-highest-number-extras/> has it
> at 9th largest. The largest number is 300,000 for /Gandhi/.
> 
> OTOH, the notes on Napolean indicate that it has the highest number of
> /costumed/ extras. Which is odd, because it looks to me like the
> 30,000 extras in /Quo Vadis/ were wearing costumes. They were
> certainly wearing /something/.
> 
> But perhaps by "costume" they mean "military uniforms". This would
> only work if most of the 50,000 extras in /Spartacus/, while part of
> Spartacus' army, were not wearing military uniforms, as they were
> mostly depicting runaway slaves.
> 
> I should note that, in Russian, the "suit" in "business suit" is a
> "kostyum", so it is possible that the Russian "kostyum" is being used
> here for "miltiary uniform". When I was in the Army, the dress uniform
> ("Greens") was said to be the equivalent of a tuxedo (when worn with a
> white shirt and black bow tie) so some flexibility may exist here.
> 
> Or perhaps "costumed" is being used in a technical sense specific to
> films (and perhaps stage plays). Maybe a simple robe that looks like
> the robes warn back in the day worn over street clothes is not a
> "costume".

More likely, its the operation of the Hollywood hype machine, and
not subject to any kind fact-checking or post-hoc justification.

Still, it was a heck of a lot of people. They were actually costumed
and drilled in Napoleonic style, not just a crowd.

pt