A History of Royals discussion

I just watched this total crock of history. It's one thing to make a movie saying Shakespeare didn't write his work, but another to say Robert, Earl of Essex was Elizabeth's son. Where was Lettice Knollys? I won't tell you the other atrocities in case you see it. I'll just say Tudor incest and dialogue saying "Well, you know the Tudors." I know the "fictional" people will say "It's just a movie, just entertainment" but this crap is ridiculous.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1521197/

Rio, thanks for the warning. Elizabeth's son? WTF? I think I'll give this a miss.

Wow, Rio, tell us how you really feel. JUST KIDDING.

I have to admit, I tend to forgive A LOT in my historical fiction, but even I can only let it go so far. One of my criteria is whether the author/director puts up a disclaimer saying that they have played fast and loose with the facts to tell a story. I have read a few books like that and really enjoyed them, but nobody was trying to say they were serious. And even then, some people are not bothered by that and just love being entertained with new and wild theories. It is what makes us all so much fun to get to know. We all come from different perspectives.

I actually might have to watch this just to see how bad it really is. Sometimes that is as much fun as watching it for the entertainment or anything else. Thanks for the heads up!

Sorry Lyn, I'm not one who is good at holding back ;) It was a bit over the top. I knew going in, but I wanted to see it anyway. A few people told me the main story was about Elizabeth and Dudley. Well, Dudley wasn't even mentioned. Elizabeth's lovers mixed up again. The focus of the movie is Cecil wants James to succeed, Elizabeth wants her bastard son Essex. The Earl of Oxford (Cecil's son in law) was Shakespeare and wrote the plays to turn the people against Cecil. Thats not a spoiler. That's how it starts. The spoilers get even crazier. I think knowing the truth, you will watch it, like me and be like "What?" Let me rewind that, did they just say her son?"

Don't be sorry. I was just giving you a bad time. I love having people give their opinions. It is both interesting AND keeps me from wasting time on things that really are not worth it. This one sounds so bad, though, I thought it might be worth a laugh. You know, it is so bad that it is funny. But then again, it might just make me want to throw something at the TV!

Watching parts of Shakespeare's plays was cool. They did use plays, like the press plays us today to twist our minds.

Rio (Lynne) wrote: "Sorry Lyn, I'm not one who is good at holding back ;) It was a bit over the top. I knew going in, but I wanted to see it anyway. A few people told me the main story was about Elizabeth and Dudley. ..."

There was this book, which I did not waste money on, that argue that Shakespeare was really the bastard son of Elizabeth and Seymour, harkening back to the rumors when she was in his household.

Of course Oxford died long before all the plays were written.

BTW, during James I rule of England, there was a man who claimed to be the bastard son of Elizabeth and Dudley.

I don't know, I liked the movie and thought the premise was interesting, if not completely false, but interesting none the less. I think I'm just a lot more forgiving errors in movies than in books. The thing that disappoints me the most about the movies like this is how many people take movie 'history' as gospel of facts rather than with the grain of salt they should. The most obvious errors to me were that they had people dieing within a few days of each other that actually died years apart.
But for what it was I thought it was a good movie overall and worth checking out if you can overlook a few quite obvious inaccuracies.

For me though, I don't really think one guy could have possibly written that many good plays and poems all by himself, and naturally would be a little more open to the concept than others.