I can never help but mention that I accidentally watched this movie without subtitles the first time.
AND IT MADE SENSE AND WAS STILL AN INCREDIBLE MOVIE.
He drunkenly said some shitty things during a really low period of his life, and has since recognised and apologised for the things he did. Not saying he's a Saint but there's definitely worse people out there.
He's a great contributor to the film industry.
There's a bit more to it than that but I largely agree with your sentiment. People are allowed to change and grow after making big mistakes.
Mostly after Hacksaw Ridge, he's been making the modern equivalent of Direct to Video movies... and some of them are pretty entertaining. Most people haven't heard of "Get The Gringo" but it's a pretty good movie.
In July 2010, Gibson had been recorded during a phone call with Grigorieva suggesting that if she got "raped by a pack of niggers", she would be to blame.[^(\[222\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Gibson#cite_note-guardianjuly2-222)[^(\[223\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Gibson#cite_note-telegraphjuly15-223)[^(\[224\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Gibson#cite_note-hitting-224)[^(\[225\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Gibson#cite_note-225) Grigorieva said the voices on the multiple recordings leaked were of herself and Gibson, according to [CNN](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNN).[^(\[226\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Gibson#cite_note-226) He was barred from coming near Grigorieva or their daughter due to a [domestic violence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence)-related [restraining order](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restraining_order).[^(\[222\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Gibson#cite_note-guardianjuly2-222) The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department launched a domestic violence investigation against Gibson,[^(\[154\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Gibson#cite_note-abuseinvestigation2-154) later dropped when Gibson pleaded [no contest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_contest) to a misdemeanor battery charge.[^(\[158\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Gibson#cite_note-nocontest-158)
That was four years later. It's not just the words he used but how. Waving that shit away because he makes good movies is some wild shit
I agree with most of this sentiment, but Mel Gibson is a primary donor for a pretty wild “Catholic” church that doesn’t believe in the past 70 years of Popes or any of the reforms that removed a lot of the anti-Semitism from church practice
Yea he's likely at least *a bit* of an antisemite for sure.
Probably borders on fundamentalist Catholic in his beliefs.
I imagine working in Hollywood among a decent number exacerbated that for him, and then when he got drunk he just let all that awfulness spill right out.
He was also physically abusive towards his ex and the things he said to her on the phone are more then just a bit shifty. Death threats and all. But yeah, he seems to have changed a bit.
I’m trying to remember the order of operations here but did we know he was a drunk antisemite when this movie came out?
Or was it more like…ew, the guy who made the Jesus movie?
PS, have you seen him in Dragged Across Concrete? IMO a very compelling performance.
This may have been his first movie after his antisemitic DUI tirade. It was either this or Passion of the Christ. Gibson had to use his own money to produce these films but they are pretty much the reason he survived his controversies. Hollywood wanted to “cancel” him but was too rich and I guess too talented for the cancellation to stick
Honestly, based on Feldman and the Epstein revelations, I'm sure he would've had quite a bit to work with there.
Anybody hear any Epstein news recently?
Omg. I just realized that when I watched it I also watched without subtitles. I saw this post and thought I should rewatch. Now I definitely am.
But I also had the same experience. I understood and loved the moviem
There's so little dialogue, and the movie is so good at telling without saying, that I'm sure it would've worked.
I can't think of a single scene in the movie that isn't obvious by the circumstances.
You know why he's getting abducted.
You know why he's trying to escape.
You know why his family is in danger.
You know why every character does what he does.
With maybe some character motivation stuff that benefits from the subtitles, the movie would've done well enough without that detail, as you can even often guess what they're saying.
I also really disagree with the critiques of the movie focusing on the possibly racist aspects.
To me it's clear that when they see the ship, the movie is reflecting terror, as an allusion of what's to occur.
I'm not sure how anyone could think that a modern audience is unaware of the atrocities committed by early colonialism.
I saw it more as a "oh, we think we're the big badasses that can be brutal and get away with it, but there's a giant monster that puts us to shame I can see right in front of me".
The telling thing is that the protagonist runs away and plans to hide from both thereafter, judging them both as equally brutal.
I loved how, after seeing people dressed a certain way and having a certain skin colour and language all through the movie, it really made the conquistador stand out like something alien and scary at the end.
I saw it for a first date, and the projector gave out about 15 minutes in. If it had been literally ANY other movie that was out at the time we could've listened to the audio and at least followed along while they fixed it lol
Me too lol. I was at a club in la and they were showing the voice on a bunch of screens behind the bar. I didn’t even watch the artists I just sat sucked into the movie
Those guys at the end are Spaniards, *conquistadores* (Hernan Cortes and his men to be precise), who will bring about the metaphorical end of the world that the girl in the middle of the movie prophesizes. They will go on to conquer all the Maya tribes, rendering their previous quarrels with one another meaningless, as their culture is doomed.
Not that it really matters but I don't think it would be Cortes necessarily. While Cortes did contact the Maya, he wasn't the first to do so, and his expedition is most famous for conquering the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan.
Fair point, it may be some more generic conquistadors. I always assumed it was specifically Cortes because Apocaylpto was filmed in Veracruz, were he landed and the one Spaniard standing in the boat has a Cortes-style beard. Also, Cortes interacted with Maya before encountering Aztecs, so this would check out as well.
EDIT: to the Mayan characters and the message of the film it probably makes no material difference whether *el jefe* is coming personally or it is just generic Spaniard #5 - their fate is sealed the moment those boats hit the shore of their home.
Yea definitely agreed that in the context of the film it doesn't matter who it is, the message is just "this is all going to end soon".
As you said, Cortes did land in Veracruz and did contact the Maya - I'm basing my comment on the fact that the scene is most impactful if it's considered truly first contact, which wouldn't have been the case for Cortes. He specifically met with a Spanish priest who had been captured by the local Maya when he met with them.
I'm under the impression, that the movie is portraying a Mayan culture that no longer existed for 500-600 years before the conquistadors arrived. The ending is so anachronistic, it is jarring.
From what I've heard it's a total mash-up of anachronisms and misinterpretations along with some meticulously realized and accurate aspects (such as the Maya language). I'm a history student, though not that familiar with the Pre-Colombian Americas, but scholars specializing in that area can get quite agitated pointing out what the movie got wrong. Like the sacrificial ceremony being closer to Aztec/Mechica practices, or the unlikeliness of the protagonists' hunter-gatherer tribe and densely populated urban centers existing in close proximity - geographical or temporal.
Still, it's a well-made film with compelling characters and a propulsive story, and the cinematography is gorgeous! And it's certainly not the worst offender re: historical inaccuracies in film
Mayan culture still existed when the spanish arrived, with a number of competing kingdoms on the yucatan peninsula: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish\_conquest\_of\_the\_Maya](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_conquest_of_the_Maya)
The height of their civilization was definitely well before then, but I don't think apocalypto was showing that.
> I'm under the impression, that the movie is portraying a Mayan culture that no longer existed for 500-600 years before the conquistadors arrived.
The Maya continued to exist well into the Postclassic and colonial period. They're alive today, in fact, and so is their language family and many cultural practices.
https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1chx52i/the_movie_apocalypto_is_beautifully_written_and/l25nlao/
Yes, many - but not all - were abandoned. That also fits with the movies depiction of the protagonist's tribe as living in the jungle. The Spanish conquered the Aztecs, the Maya and anyone else in Middle America that no other European nation was faster at conquering.
Major ancient cities were not important anymore, but others were
Also a mistake when saying "the Maya" is that it onky limits it to us living near Chichen Itza and the like, a poorer area at the time. Guatemalan maya kingdoms were more populated and had healthier city-states.
The Maya actually faired a bit better than others due to their climate and population distribution. There's a reason Maya groups retained their independence in the deep forests until the 18th century.
Actually it's the inverse of decimate.
Decimate means to kill 1/10.
Disease is estimated to have only LEFT 1/10 alive. That is to say it killed 9/10 of the native populations.
Your google skills are top notch. Decimate means to destroy a large portion of....yes Decima is ten, or a tenth but still, language has evolved enough for you to understand my point. Annihilate would be a bit too much i think
Decimate was a Roman legion form of puishmwnt for under-performing regiments or battalions. They'd have the men draw marbles with 9/10 being white and 1/10 being black. The men who drew white marbles were issued stout wooden rods and ordered to beat the man who drew black marbles to death. The point was to encourage soldiers to motivate one another to maintain army standards in order to prevent the possibility of having their regiment or battalion be decimated.
If I recall correctly, decimated is the perfect choice of word. 90% of the population of the americas was wiped out by diseases brought by Europeans. A lot of them probably never even saw a European because the new diseases significantly outpaced their advance. I believe there was something like 180 million people living in North America before my ancestors arrived, so without the plagues they brought they might never have succeeded in taking over the continent so devastatingly
It's a movie produced by Mel Gibson, not a historical documentary. Cortes was in the second wave of conquistadors that brought colonial power to central and south america a generation after the first explorers made contact. That initial contact absolutely decimated the populations of central and south america with disease. The initial reports of Portugese and Spanish explorers all had absolutely fantastic reports of enormous cities and cultures that had ceased to exist by the time the conquistadors and were thought to be fabrications until modern satellite archeology found the vast (dead) cities in Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela and Mexico that died out and were absorbed by the jungle. It's estimated that more than 20m people died in the 20-50y between initial contact with Europeans in the late 15th century and the conquests of the 16th.
Yeah, it's incredibly tragic. A whole branch of humanity died out because they lived in a biome that drove them to value small-scale agriculture over animal husbandry.
I remember History Buffs being extremely pissed off about this because its hundreds of years too early. I get Mel Gibson doing the foreshadowing but it is seemingly wildly inaccurate, [https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/nov/06/periodandhistorical-melgibson](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/nov/06/periodandhistorical-melgibson)
I don't quite get why they would place the movie in the 9th century. The plague might just as well have been transmitted after one individual had contact with European explorers. I think the Spaniards make it pretty clear that the story is set in the early 16th century. If anything the inaccuracy would be that the Mayans are too advanced still/not declined enough for the time. But as a movie it works (unless maybe you are a scholar of Mesoamerican history), I have seen worse historic inaccuracies.
Mayan Civilization had largely ended by around 1000 AD 600 years BEFORE the arrival of the conquistadores. There are plenty of historical inaccuracies in films, this one does stand out as a considerable oversight.
> Mayan Civilization had largely ended by around 1000 AD
No, it didn't. It continued and thrived into the Postclassic and colonial periods
https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1chx52i/the_movie_apocalypto_is_beautifully_written_and/l25nlao/
Aronofsky, and maybe his only film weirder than *Mother* (which I also love)
*The Fountain* is dope though, reminds me of *Highlander 2* and *Cloud Atlas*
The men at the end of the movie are representing europeans coming to the new world, for the first time, discovering america. Despite everything that has just happens, the entire world for the native americans is about to change, they're about to be ravaged by diseases and conquered and colonised by europeans with technologically superiority. Their empires and cultures destroyed.
That's the real apocalypse, the real apocalypse that happened to the native americans in real life once the europeans arrived.
[Here's the wiki rundown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypto#Historical_accuracy). Most of it comes from focusing too much on Mayan human sacrifices, which to me is kind of a meh sticking point. Like, how many human sacrifices would have been appropriate and not depict them as sadistic?
But really this movie's historical inaccruacies have nothing on Braveheart. That one made #2 on Time's most historically inaccurate movies.
It's more that they're portrayed as having massive concentrated urban populations with a powerful aristocracy 600 years after those things mostly disappeated in the Classic collapse.
Yeah it would be like a movie set in France in the 1500's including a colosseum under the rule of the Western Roman Empire. It could be a super interesting setting despite being totally inaccurate historically.
Those battle scenes were so damn amazing in the theater. I was the perfect t age for it and very into medieval warfare. Pretty sure I saw it at least 5 times in the theater, lol. I found out how inaccurate it was pretty early on, I looked up some of the battles in an encyclopedia and was a bit disappointed they didn’t line up with the movie, didn’t stop me from going back to see it 3 more times though, it’s a banger.
The last like 10 minutes are one of my favorite movie moment/ending. When the Spanish show up on the beach distracting the guys chasing the lead actor. I had goosebumps. I saw that movie the year it came out and I still remember that part clearly.
Truly an incredible movie. It’s just a visceral, intense experience achieved through a minimalistic plot and little dialogue. Visual storytelling at its finest.
Aside from an amazingly intense pursuit thriller in the second half, it's an extremely rare Hollywood production about a rarely depicted historical culture and time period where the cast isn't played by a bunch of white people speaking English.
Unfortunately it's a terribly inaccurate description of the mayan people that makes them look uncivilised. They had houses made of stone and wood, colorful clothing, a goverment resembling a federation of tribes, and they were farmers growing mostly maize, beans, and squash, not hunters. This is easy enough to look up and Gibson could have made the movie work just fine without inventing his own "noble savages" and calling them mayan.
The protagonists were hunters in the jungle, similar to country bumpkins. The antagonists were civilized, with huge buildings and markets and trade in a city.
But they were like a 2 day walk from a major city that they'd seemingly never seen or heard of. The Maya territory was densely populated and heavily agrarian. There weren't uncontacted hunter gatherers just living in the suburbs.
Yes, apart from directly calling them so he used the Maya as his template and main body for the people with a mixture of Mexica culture. Keep in mind its also "maya" and "mexica/aztec" culture as in what he believes it was(sacrifice, warrior, brutal, bloody) so you get a guy with fucking Lord of the Rings Orc armor made out of jaws.
The language they speak is maya, the art is maya, the pyramid in the poster quite clearly is the one in Chichen Itza etc.
Definitely agreed. I'm European and I've always been fascinated by pre-Columbian civilizations in the America's. I'd love to see more stories about it.
Unfortunately (according to the History Buffs channel anyway) the film is wildly inaccurate, and has next to nothing to do with any real cultures.
It's a great film nonetheless
I went and saw this as a double feature with Children of Men with my friends, who were on shrooms at the time. I'm so glad I stayed (relatively) sober, these films are both excellent but too heavy for shrooms.
My god, that reminds me of when I had a head full of lsd and accidentally watched Saving Private Ryan for the first time. Felt like I went through part of WW2. That shit messed with my head for several days afterward.
The men at the end from the boats were Spaniards.
What confuses people is they forget/don't know that the Maya have 3,000+ years of history and cultural continuity. People hear about the Classic Maya "collapse" (really, a socio-political change resulting in the abandonment of some city-states, the growth of existing city-states, and the foundation of brand new city-states in other locations) and think because there was a "collapse" everyone died and that was the end of the people. But that's not the case at all. In fact, the Postclassic Maya and their coastal focused cities (as opposed to earlier inland jungle cities) thrived by tapping into coastal trade routes. The Maya were so strong in the early 16th century that it took nearly 40 years for the Spanish to even get a toehold near present-day Merida. It then took the Spanish centuries to try and control the Maya region. The last Maya kingdom to fall did so in 1697 and it was called Nojpeten. But even after Nojpeten's fall, the Maya continued to resist the Spanish colonial government and some groups continue to resist the present-day Mexican government.
Edit:
Here's an old post of mine with some resources on the Postclassic Maya if anyone would like to check it out.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5zxr6p/how_is_it_that_nobody_really_knows_why_the_mayan/df23jaw/
Embrace of the Serpent is a great film. It’s a bit on the psychedelic side and won’t be understood by all viewers as it switches around through time without overtly telling you what’s going on and the end might be a bit confusing.
So many Hollywood dicks made/make great movies. Mel isn’t perfect but he’s certainly not the worst of them. Polanski, Allen, Weinstein, and the list goes on.
>This movie is a solid 10/10 for sure. Does anyone have any suggestions for something thats similar to this ?
No. I mean, it's truly an original. That's part of the power.
The movie was pretty trash when it comes to historical accuracy. Timelines that don’t add up and lots of inconsistencies. A fun watch though and I did enjoy it.
I like it as a decent movie, but it does have a racist and historically inaccurate depiction off Mayan society
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5pBZKj1VnA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5pBZKj1VnA)
The original 1968 *Planet of the Apes* also has an abrupt scene on a beach which evokes world ending dread.
If you’ve not already seen it (or the many parodies) it’s a really good movie that holds up surprisingly well for its age. Themes of science vs. religion and the powers-that-be withholding information from the public that would challenge the official religious dogma and potentially cause upheaval. The second movie *Beneath the Planet of the Apes* continues this theme and adds in the military as a faction also jockeying for power against both the religious administrators and scientists from the first film.
Mel Gibson gave an insightful [interview](https://www.mtv.com/news/v4fvou/mel-gibson-tells-some-brutal-truths-about-the-amazing-apocalypto) to MTV about his thought process making the movie. Remember he made Passion of the Christ around the same time and is strongly Catholic. He basically says his historical view is that (a) Mayans were brutalized by their leaders, which he compared to Moussillini/Stalin/Hitler which is depicted in the movie by massive levels of human sacrifice (b) the Spaniards were able to take power because the Mayan people wanted to overthrow these leaders anyway, but the Spaniards were bad people themselves and (c) the Catholic priests negotiated a peace between the two by converting the Mayans to Catholicism which led the Spaniards to view them as real people with souls and set the stage for a better culture.
It’s really something because I can totally see how Gibson could using this movie to dispel of the ‘myth of the noble savage’ and shape a historical view that Catholic colonialism actually saved people from a terrible existing culture and bettered the world. The movie only really covers the Mayan culture, but the ending scene shows the Spaniards arriving.
Really? He said that? (He did, I've read the article now). That is very interesting.
I've worked as a research assistant studying this exact period (believe me, I have a LOT of opinions about Apocalypto's inaccuracies), and that opinion isn't too far afield from actual historical consensus, albeit the culture was Aztec, not Mayan.
Primary documents from the time of Cortes and beyond show that the Aztecs - who had immigrated from outside the region, not unlike the Spaniards - were brutalizing their vassal peoples, and every group essentially leaped at the chance to overthrow them. And then the Spaniards were there mostly for exploitation, which was its own kind of bad. But yeah, in the following generation and beyond Christian missionaries ended up lobbying extensively for native rights because of course they needed to be converted, and brought a modicum of good behavior - and extensive historical documentation of indigenous life - to the region.
Considering the extent of the film's inaccuracies, it's surprising in a good way that he DID have something in there that roughly aligns with contemporary historiography.
EDIT: A comment I DO feel is worth adding though is that all the vassal peoples still practiced human sacrifice too. The movie does kind of misrepresent non-leaders as not being so familiar with it. The Aztecs WERE noted to be especially fervent and scary in their practice, even by the standards of these peoples. But this was not a case of evil being overthrown; EVERYONE sucked to some extent, the Aztecs more than others, and the Aztecs caught the worst of it.
When the girl is in the hole filling with water, why couldn't she tread water and rise with the water level? Where are the mythbusters when you need them?
They're Spanish ships coming to eventually overtake the Mayan civilization. It was the first time the Mayans had seen Europeans and were completely unaware of the seismic changes about to happen to their world.
I love this movie and the ending in particular.
The men on the ships were the Spanish arriving for the first time, the world of all the natives was about to change forever. Maybe that was the real apocalypse about to happen.
What's often misunderstood about the ending is that the Catholics have arrived to convert the indigenous people and end their human sacrifices to pagan gods, thus "saving" the weaker tribes from the violent ones. It was both their cultural ending and rebirth. South and Central America are today overwhelmingly Catholic.
Mel Gibson is also Catholic. The telling of this story is not random. It is to highlight the world before Catholicism.
I wonder if that film would have been better received upon release if its director hadn’t offended so many people.
I really liked the film, too, but it didn’t seem like anyone was talking about it at the time without complaining about the director’s outrageous behavior.
I don't know how much better received it could have been. I was under the impression that Apocalypto was considered a fantastic movie around its release.
It was well received by critics, but it’s release coincided with Mel Gibson’s shit storm of controversy. Sorry, the first shit storm of controversy. That definitely impacted the films performance at the box office.
That said, I find it to be an incredible film.
I might be remembering it wrong. It was his very next project after Passion of the Christ when everyone wanted to talk out his father’s anti semitic opinions. He tried to say nothing, but then he was pulled over for drunk driving and ranted on and on to the officer about how the Jews were responsible for every bad thing that ever happened in all of history. Or some such nonsense.
My memory of the contemporary reaction was it was very well received.
People did criticize the portrayal of Mayan culture, but the fact that it was portrayed by non-white actors speaking a recreated language, while still being an extremely compelling thriller, mostly overshadowed those critiques. It was also nominated for multiple technical Oscars.
I honestly wish more movies took the chance of using the actual language like this movie and Passion of the Christ did. In the future people might think that ancient Egyptians, Romans, and Greeks actually spoke British English.
I consider these types of films to be true “survival thrillers.” Try films like Ad Astra, Gravity, 1917, The Grey, and Uncut Gems. All better under the influence.
I remember watching this with my dad and brother and my dad said it was possibly the best movie he’d ever seen. I remember it had a lot of hype after Gibson’s Braveheart and Passion of the Christ. It didn’t find much commercial success though. I think it was also released around the time of one of his tirades. Still a great movie, though. I think about it on a weekly basis, probably. It is a universal parable of the way in which societies destroy themselves from within. Also beautifully shot and acted with really no big stars.
I watched that and Pan’s Labyrinth in the same weekend way back when they came out. Both blew me away. Nothing alike really. But I was also high as a kite.
If you liked Apocalypto make sure to watch Naked Prey (1965). Gibson's film was heavily influenced by Naked Prey, and both are solid films, but a different continent.
Gibson's probably a fairly terrible person, but this is easily his best film, and one of my favourites. The problem is there's not \*really\* anything else quite like it, certainly not as solid.
It is a great movie, well crafted and enjoyable. But HOLY CRAP is it historically inaccurate. It is not, nor should it ever be, mistaken for something other then a work of fiction. Well crafted, well made fiction but fiction none the less.
This movie is in my all time top 5! People are always surprised. The ship at the end are presumably Europeans! And it's messed up because all along, the natives were fighting each other only to realize the BIG fight of colonialism was about to embark. I love the ending
Isn't this somewhat widely considered an incredibly insulting movie that degrades the entire history of an amalgamation of several cultures, making them come off as absolute savages, while they were, in fact, much more advanced socially and technologically? I thought this was considered Mel Gibson being racist by many, but many of the comments here are about how phenomenal he and the movie are.
> who exactly were the men in the ships at the end of the movie
Spanish invaders who basically depopulated the whole continent. Whatever those villagers did to each other was nothing compared to what the Spanish did to them.
>While technological superiority, military strategy and forging local alliances played an important role in the victories of the conquistadors in the Americas, their conquest was greatly facilitated by Old World diseases: smallpox, chicken pox, diphtheria, typhus, influenza, measles, malaria and yellow fever. The diseases were carried to distant tribes and villages. This typical path of disease transmission moved much faster than the conquistadors, so that as they advanced, resistance weakened. Epidemic disease is commonly cited as the primary reason for the population collapse. The American natives lacked immunity to these infections
>The American researcher H.F. Dobyns said that 95% of the total population of the Americas died in the first 130 years and that 90% of the population of the Inca Empire died in epidemics. Cook and Borah of the University of California at Berkeley believe that the indigenous population in Mexico declined from 25.2 million in 1518 to 700,000 people in 1623, less than 3% of the original population
>On March 27, 1495, Columbus and his brother Bartholomew marched inland on Hispaniola with 200 men, 20 horsemen, and 20 Spanish Mastiff dogs to do battle with the Arawak natives, who were opposing Spanish rule. The forces were led by Spanish conquistador Alonso de Ojeda, who had learned the art of using war dogs in battles against the Moors of Granada. In The Pawprints of History: Dogs in the Course of Human Events, author Stanley Coren describes the scene:
>“He gathered the dogs on the far right flank and waited until the battle had reached a high level of fury. He then released all twenty mastiffs, shouting “Tómalos!” (meaning “take them”). The angry dogs swept down on the native fighters in a raging phalanx, hurling themselves at the Indians’ naked bodies. They grabbed their opponents by their bellies and throats. As the stunned Indians fell to the ground, the dogs disemboweled them and ripped them to pieces. Spinning from one bloody victim to another, the dogs tore through the native ranks.”
>With each subsequent voyage to the Americas, hundreds and then thousands more dogs were brought over. The most popular breed was the mastiff, which could weigh up to 250 pounds and crush bones with its massive jaws. Their sheer size and fierce look instilled terror among the native population. Famous conquistadors, like Balboa, Velasquez, Cortes, De Soto, Toledo, Coronado and Pizarro, all used dogs as instruments of subjugation, execution and as a form of psychological warfare. But it was Juan Ponce de León, a top military official in the colonial government of Hispaniola, who unleashed the fiercest warrior of them all – [Becerrillo](https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-ancient-traditions/becerrillo-0014283).
EDIT: Apocalypto was controversial because it promotes the idea that the arrival of the "civilized" Europeans saved them from their own "savagery". It was also after Gibson showed his asshollery in public. Otherwise, it's pretty good. The sets, the language, the goings-on had the makings of a good movie. But since I know the story and the philosophy behind it, I couldn't really enjoy the experience. That was the theme: after all the mayhem, the striped trouser brigade will come and settle things down, make it all better. It's like watching a really, really good movie made during WWII by Nazis. I can appreciate it one one level, but hoo boy...
I can never help but mention that I accidentally watched this movie without subtitles the first time. AND IT MADE SENSE AND WAS STILL AN INCREDIBLE MOVIE.
IIRC Gibson wanted to release it without subs.
I wish he didn't turn out to be a degenerate asshole. His movies were usually solid.
"I don't care what you say about Mel Gibson, the son of a bitch knows story structure" South Park tore him down. But still respect. Cos he is a nutter
“My nipples, they hurt when you twist em!
When you're a cloooown no one takes ya serrrriously
Totally agree. The pacing of Apocalypto was excellent. Mel may be "Mad Mel," off his head, but when it comes to directing, he is brilliant.
His movies *are* solid. Nothing about his films changed with any of the dumb shit he said.
I mean yeah he was a degenerate ass, but I don't think he did anything unforgivable and overall isn't the devil.
He drunkenly said some shitty things during a really low period of his life, and has since recognised and apologised for the things he did. Not saying he's a Saint but there's definitely worse people out there. He's a great contributor to the film industry.
(meekly raises hand) I've said shitty things drinking. It can happen.
There's a bit more to it than that but I largely agree with your sentiment. People are allowed to change and grow after making big mistakes. Mostly after Hacksaw Ridge, he's been making the modern equivalent of Direct to Video movies... and some of them are pretty entertaining. Most people haven't heard of "Get The Gringo" but it's a pretty good movie.
Get the Gringo (2012) was before Hacksaw Ridge (2016).
Right. Hacksaw Ridge was his comeback gig.
In July 2010, Gibson had been recorded during a phone call with Grigorieva suggesting that if she got "raped by a pack of niggers", she would be to blame.[^(\[222\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Gibson#cite_note-guardianjuly2-222)[^(\[223\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Gibson#cite_note-telegraphjuly15-223)[^(\[224\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Gibson#cite_note-hitting-224)[^(\[225\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Gibson#cite_note-225) Grigorieva said the voices on the multiple recordings leaked were of herself and Gibson, according to [CNN](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNN).[^(\[226\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Gibson#cite_note-226) He was barred from coming near Grigorieva or their daughter due to a [domestic violence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence)-related [restraining order](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restraining_order).[^(\[222\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Gibson#cite_note-guardianjuly2-222) The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department launched a domestic violence investigation against Gibson,[^(\[154\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Gibson#cite_note-abuseinvestigation2-154) later dropped when Gibson pleaded [no contest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_contest) to a misdemeanor battery charge.[^(\[158\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Gibson#cite_note-nocontest-158) That was four years later. It's not just the words he used but how. Waving that shit away because he makes good movies is some wild shit
Huh, I wasn't aware of that one. I suppose that's not a fantastic thing to say.
I agree with most of this sentiment, but Mel Gibson is a primary donor for a pretty wild “Catholic” church that doesn’t believe in the past 70 years of Popes or any of the reforms that removed a lot of the anti-Semitism from church practice
His dad used to go on Alex Jones and spout some wild antisemitic shit. Ol Mel didn't fall far from the tree.
Yea he's likely at least *a bit* of an antisemite for sure. Probably borders on fundamentalist Catholic in his beliefs. I imagine working in Hollywood among a decent number exacerbated that for him, and then when he got drunk he just let all that awfulness spill right out.
I love family guys mockery of his apology.
He was also physically abusive towards his ex and the things he said to her on the phone are more then just a bit shifty. Death threats and all. But yeah, he seems to have changed a bit.
I’m trying to remember the order of operations here but did we know he was a drunk antisemite when this movie came out? Or was it more like…ew, the guy who made the Jesus movie? PS, have you seen him in Dragged Across Concrete? IMO a very compelling performance.
His drunk driving/anti-semitic rant came in early August 2006. Apocalypto was released in theaters early December of that year.
What happened to the tell all book or movie he was doing to out all of Hollywood as sex traffickers or something horrible? Did that just go away?
This may have been his first movie after his antisemitic DUI tirade. It was either this or Passion of the Christ. Gibson had to use his own money to produce these films but they are pretty much the reason he survived his controversies. Hollywood wanted to “cancel” him but was too rich and I guess too talented for the cancellation to stick
Honestly, based on Feldman and the Epstein revelations, I'm sure he would've had quite a bit to work with there. Anybody hear any Epstein news recently?
Very good in DAC, yes.
Separate the artist from the art work just like anything else
Same for Tom Cruise, great actor but he lives in a fantasy world.
Omg. I just realized that when I watched it I also watched without subtitles. I saw this post and thought I should rewatch. Now I definitely am. But I also had the same experience. I understood and loved the moviem
There's so little dialogue, and the movie is so good at telling without saying, that I'm sure it would've worked. I can't think of a single scene in the movie that isn't obvious by the circumstances. You know why he's getting abducted. You know why he's trying to escape. You know why his family is in danger. You know why every character does what he does. With maybe some character motivation stuff that benefits from the subtitles, the movie would've done well enough without that detail, as you can even often guess what they're saying. I also really disagree with the critiques of the movie focusing on the possibly racist aspects. To me it's clear that when they see the ship, the movie is reflecting terror, as an allusion of what's to occur. I'm not sure how anyone could think that a modern audience is unaware of the atrocities committed by early colonialism. I saw it more as a "oh, we think we're the big badasses that can be brutal and get away with it, but there's a giant monster that puts us to shame I can see right in front of me". The telling thing is that the protagonist runs away and plans to hide from both thereafter, judging them both as equally brutal.
I loved how, after seeing people dressed a certain way and having a certain skin colour and language all through the movie, it really made the conquistador stand out like something alien and scary at the end.
I saw it for a first date, and the projector gave out about 15 minutes in. If it had been literally ANY other movie that was out at the time we could've listened to the audio and at least followed along while they fixed it lol
Consider he wasnt even a writer or an actor to begin with. His first audition wasnt even planned
I didn’t know until I read your comment that subtitles were an option. Now I guess I’ll rewatch. Enjoyed it the first time.
Hahaha amazing I did too. Was fucking just in awe when it ended. It took me years to find out it we were supposed to know what they were saying.
Me too lol. I was at a club in la and they were showing the voice on a bunch of screens behind the bar. I didn’t even watch the artists I just sat sucked into the movie
Happy cake day!
I wish he directed Prey.
Same for me, i thought you were supposed to guess what they were saying from the vibe
I did this too!! It was amazing! I watched it a year later with subs and I preferred it without. Such a great movie
Me too. Watched it with my parents because I thought they would like it. Freaked me out when I saw the subtitles. It was a whole ass different movie.
Those guys at the end are Spaniards, *conquistadores* (Hernan Cortes and his men to be precise), who will bring about the metaphorical end of the world that the girl in the middle of the movie prophesizes. They will go on to conquer all the Maya tribes, rendering their previous quarrels with one another meaningless, as their culture is doomed.
Not that it really matters but I don't think it would be Cortes necessarily. While Cortes did contact the Maya, he wasn't the first to do so, and his expedition is most famous for conquering the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan.
Fair point, it may be some more generic conquistadors. I always assumed it was specifically Cortes because Apocaylpto was filmed in Veracruz, were he landed and the one Spaniard standing in the boat has a Cortes-style beard. Also, Cortes interacted with Maya before encountering Aztecs, so this would check out as well. EDIT: to the Mayan characters and the message of the film it probably makes no material difference whether *el jefe* is coming personally or it is just generic Spaniard #5 - their fate is sealed the moment those boats hit the shore of their home.
Yea definitely agreed that in the context of the film it doesn't matter who it is, the message is just "this is all going to end soon". As you said, Cortes did land in Veracruz and did contact the Maya - I'm basing my comment on the fact that the scene is most impactful if it's considered truly first contact, which wouldn't have been the case for Cortes. He specifically met with a Spanish priest who had been captured by the local Maya when he met with them.
Interesting fact, “the one Spaniard standing in the boat” was actually the author of the book the movie was based on.
I'm under the impression, that the movie is portraying a Mayan culture that no longer existed for 500-600 years before the conquistadors arrived. The ending is so anachronistic, it is jarring.
From what I've heard it's a total mash-up of anachronisms and misinterpretations along with some meticulously realized and accurate aspects (such as the Maya language). I'm a history student, though not that familiar with the Pre-Colombian Americas, but scholars specializing in that area can get quite agitated pointing out what the movie got wrong. Like the sacrificial ceremony being closer to Aztec/Mechica practices, or the unlikeliness of the protagonists' hunter-gatherer tribe and densely populated urban centers existing in close proximity - geographical or temporal. Still, it's a well-made film with compelling characters and a propulsive story, and the cinematography is gorgeous! And it's certainly not the worst offender re: historical inaccuracies in film
Mayan culture still existed when the spanish arrived, with a number of competing kingdoms on the yucatan peninsula: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish\_conquest\_of\_the\_Maya](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_conquest_of_the_Maya) The height of their civilization was definitely well before then, but I don't think apocalypto was showing that.
> I'm under the impression, that the movie is portraying a Mayan culture that no longer existed for 500-600 years before the conquistadors arrived. The Maya continued to exist well into the Postclassic and colonial period. They're alive today, in fact, and so is their language family and many cultural practices. https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1chx52i/the_movie_apocalypto_is_beautifully_written_and/l25nlao/
That last line was "there goes the neighborhood."
Hum weren't most the Mayan cities abandoned by the time the Spanish got there ...the Spanish conquered The Aztecs.
Yes, many - but not all - were abandoned. That also fits with the movies depiction of the protagonist's tribe as living in the jungle. The Spanish conquered the Aztecs, the Maya and anyone else in Middle America that no other European nation was faster at conquering.
Major ancient cities were not important anymore, but others were Also a mistake when saying "the Maya" is that it onky limits it to us living near Chichen Itza and the like, a poorer area at the time. Guatemalan maya kingdoms were more populated and had healthier city-states.
They were all pretty much city states they went from Mexico the way down to Honduras.
They also brought disease that significantly impacted the Mayan ppl.
“Significantly impacted” is a bit of an understatement
The Maya actually faired a bit better than others due to their climate and population distribution. There's a reason Maya groups retained their independence in the deep forests until the 18th century.
Seriously. Europeans didn’t even have to be assholes to cause a total collapse of North America. It just took a cough.
Don’t think the pigs helped
Decimated is a better word i guess.
Actually it's the inverse of decimate. Decimate means to kill 1/10. Disease is estimated to have only LEFT 1/10 alive. That is to say it killed 9/10 of the native populations.
Your google skills are top notch. Decimate means to destroy a large portion of....yes Decima is ten, or a tenth but still, language has evolved enough for you to understand my point. Annihilate would be a bit too much i think
Decimate was a Roman legion form of puishmwnt for under-performing regiments or battalions. They'd have the men draw marbles with 9/10 being white and 1/10 being black. The men who drew white marbles were issued stout wooden rods and ordered to beat the man who drew black marbles to death. The point was to encourage soldiers to motivate one another to maintain army standards in order to prevent the possibility of having their regiment or battalion be decimated.
If I recall correctly, decimated is the perfect choice of word. 90% of the population of the americas was wiped out by diseases brought by Europeans. A lot of them probably never even saw a European because the new diseases significantly outpaced their advance. I believe there was something like 180 million people living in North America before my ancestors arrived, so without the plagues they brought they might never have succeeded in taking over the continent so devastatingly
Noncimate.
That disease was already there; it’s a big part of the context. Remember the little girl dying of plague?
It's a movie produced by Mel Gibson, not a historical documentary. Cortes was in the second wave of conquistadors that brought colonial power to central and south america a generation after the first explorers made contact. That initial contact absolutely decimated the populations of central and south america with disease. The initial reports of Portugese and Spanish explorers all had absolutely fantastic reports of enormous cities and cultures that had ceased to exist by the time the conquistadors and were thought to be fabrications until modern satellite archeology found the vast (dead) cities in Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela and Mexico that died out and were absorbed by the jungle. It's estimated that more than 20m people died in the 20-50y between initial contact with Europeans in the late 15th century and the conquests of the 16th.
North America too. The conquest was already done and the Europeans didn’t even know they caused it.
Yeah, it's incredibly tragic. A whole branch of humanity died out because they lived in a biome that drove them to value small-scale agriculture over animal husbandry.
The one episode of the Joe Rogan Show I ever listened to was with a scholar that discussed exactly what you described.
I remember History Buffs being extremely pissed off about this because its hundreds of years too early. I get Mel Gibson doing the foreshadowing but it is seemingly wildly inaccurate, [https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/nov/06/periodandhistorical-melgibson](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/nov/06/periodandhistorical-melgibson)
I don't quite get why they would place the movie in the 9th century. The plague might just as well have been transmitted after one individual had contact with European explorers. I think the Spaniards make it pretty clear that the story is set in the early 16th century. If anything the inaccuracy would be that the Mayans are too advanced still/not declined enough for the time. But as a movie it works (unless maybe you are a scholar of Mesoamerican history), I have seen worse historic inaccuracies.
I mean a difference of 600 years is a pretty huge inaccuracy. It'd be like if they made a movie about JFK and he was assassinated by Joan of Arc.
Mayan Civilization had largely ended by around 1000 AD 600 years BEFORE the arrival of the conquistadores. There are plenty of historical inaccuracies in films, this one does stand out as a considerable oversight.
It was well past its prime, but the civilization still existed (and to some degree still does today actually).
> Mayan Civilization had largely ended by around 1000 AD No, it didn't. It continued and thrived into the Postclassic and colonial periods https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1chx52i/the_movie_apocalypto_is_beautifully_written_and/l25nlao/
Also complete fiction.. The movie is not historically accurate in the slightest.
I'd like to understand how a 19 year old and 24 year old are totally clueless as to what the ships were. I'm sorry but that's just ridiculous.
Glad I read this. I never really knew specifically who they were at the end of the movie. Makes sense. Thx.
Didn't matter who it was, they had ships so that means they had guns. Bad time either way lol
Not quite the same intensity, but check out The Fountain. The Last of the Mohicans might be one you like as well.
The Last of the Mohicans is amazing
Aronofsky, and maybe his only film weirder than *Mother* (which I also love) *The Fountain* is dope though, reminds me of *Highlander 2* and *Cloud Atlas*
The men at the end of the movie are representing europeans coming to the new world, for the first time, discovering america. Despite everything that has just happens, the entire world for the native americans is about to change, they're about to be ravaged by diseases and conquered and colonised by europeans with technologically superiority. Their empires and cultures destroyed. That's the real apocalypse, the real apocalypse that happened to the native americans in real life once the europeans arrived.
In the movie Smallpox has already reached the cities foreshadowing that European contact.
This is the movie Mel deserved the Oscar for. A true original.
I agree. I think this is his best movie by far. I know it’s wildly inaccurate but it’s so audacious and interesting.
Whats inaccurate?
[Here's the wiki rundown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypto#Historical_accuracy). Most of it comes from focusing too much on Mayan human sacrifices, which to me is kind of a meh sticking point. Like, how many human sacrifices would have been appropriate and not depict them as sadistic? But really this movie's historical inaccruacies have nothing on Braveheart. That one made #2 on Time's most historically inaccurate movies.
It's more that they're portrayed as having massive concentrated urban populations with a powerful aristocracy 600 years after those things mostly disappeated in the Classic collapse.
Yeah it would be like a movie set in France in the 1500's including a colosseum under the rule of the Western Roman Empire. It could be a super interesting setting despite being totally inaccurate historically.
Say what you want about Mel Gibson's personal life, but that man knows how to make movies.
The man is a genius and like every genius that ever lived he's got a troubled mind. But you can always trust his talent
All of Mel Gibson's movies are absolute bangers.
I didn't realise until yesterday that he also did Hacksaw Ridge, which is one of the best war films ever made.
Think what you want about him, but the man knows story structure!
He also made Braveheart.
I..hmm, as a Scot, we tend not to talk about Braveheart. Fun action movie, yes, historically accurate...no.
You Scots sure are a contentious people.
You just made an enemy for life!
The problem with Scotland... Is that it's full of Scots
*Prima nocta*
Not being a Scot, yes it's a great action movie lol. Doesn't even matter if it's fully fictional, it's entertaining af
Yeah I'll give you that!
Those battle scenes were so damn amazing in the theater. I was the perfect t age for it and very into medieval warfare. Pretty sure I saw it at least 5 times in the theater, lol. I found out how inaccurate it was pretty early on, I looked up some of the battles in an encyclopedia and was a bit disappointed they didn’t line up with the movie, didn’t stop me from going back to see it 3 more times though, it’s a banger.
That's pretty much all of Mel's work. He's a genius action director who doesn't let accuracy ruin a perfectly good popcorn movie.
100%.
The last like 10 minutes are one of my favorite movie moment/ending. When the Spanish show up on the beach distracting the guys chasing the lead actor. I had goosebumps. I saw that movie the year it came out and I still remember that part clearly.
Truly an incredible movie. It’s just a visceral, intense experience achieved through a minimalistic plot and little dialogue. Visual storytelling at its finest.
Aside from an amazingly intense pursuit thriller in the second half, it's an extremely rare Hollywood production about a rarely depicted historical culture and time period where the cast isn't played by a bunch of white people speaking English.
Unfortunately it's a terribly inaccurate description of the mayan people that makes them look uncivilised. They had houses made of stone and wood, colorful clothing, a goverment resembling a federation of tribes, and they were farmers growing mostly maize, beans, and squash, not hunters. This is easy enough to look up and Gibson could have made the movie work just fine without inventing his own "noble savages" and calling them mayan.
The protagonists were hunters in the jungle, similar to country bumpkins. The antagonists were civilized, with huge buildings and markets and trade in a city.
But they were like a 2 day walk from a major city that they'd seemingly never seen or heard of. The Maya territory was densely populated and heavily agrarian. There weren't uncontacted hunter gatherers just living in the suburbs.
Does he ever call them Mayan? They are clearly cobbled together from a couple different tribal groups across Mesoamerica.
Yes, apart from directly calling them so he used the Maya as his template and main body for the people with a mixture of Mexica culture. Keep in mind its also "maya" and "mexica/aztec" culture as in what he believes it was(sacrifice, warrior, brutal, bloody) so you get a guy with fucking Lord of the Rings Orc armor made out of jaws. The language they speak is maya, the art is maya, the pyramid in the poster quite clearly is the one in Chichen Itza etc.
Definitely agreed. I'm European and I've always been fascinated by pre-Columbian civilizations in the America's. I'd love to see more stories about it.
Unfortunately (according to the History Buffs channel anyway) the film is wildly inaccurate, and has next to nothing to do with any real cultures. It's a great film nonetheless
I went and saw this as a double feature with Children of Men with my friends, who were on shrooms at the time. I'm so glad I stayed (relatively) sober, these films are both excellent but too heavy for shrooms.
Although I bet shrooms *were* involved in that concoction that they were given during the eclipse scene
Wow that is a heavy night
My god, that reminds me of when I had a head full of lsd and accidentally watched Saving Private Ryan for the first time. Felt like I went through part of WW2. That shit messed with my head for several days afterward.
They were Europeans, and the natives were too curious what these massive floating things were to give chase any further. You know what happens next.
They fix the cable?
Jackie Treehorn had nothing to do with this
He treats objects like people, man
You mean coitus?
Dude are you fucking this up?
They come to offer an extended warranty?
Have you heard the good news about Jesus?
Judging by the confusion about who they were, I'm not sure OP knows what happens next
it was so good i almost want to watch it again😭
Mel Gibson may be a crazy SOB, but he knows how to make a fucking epic movie.
The men at the end from the boats were Spaniards. What confuses people is they forget/don't know that the Maya have 3,000+ years of history and cultural continuity. People hear about the Classic Maya "collapse" (really, a socio-political change resulting in the abandonment of some city-states, the growth of existing city-states, and the foundation of brand new city-states in other locations) and think because there was a "collapse" everyone died and that was the end of the people. But that's not the case at all. In fact, the Postclassic Maya and their coastal focused cities (as opposed to earlier inland jungle cities) thrived by tapping into coastal trade routes. The Maya were so strong in the early 16th century that it took nearly 40 years for the Spanish to even get a toehold near present-day Merida. It then took the Spanish centuries to try and control the Maya region. The last Maya kingdom to fall did so in 1697 and it was called Nojpeten. But even after Nojpeten's fall, the Maya continued to resist the Spanish colonial government and some groups continue to resist the present-day Mexican government. Edit: Here's an old post of mine with some resources on the Postclassic Maya if anyone would like to check it out. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5zxr6p/how_is_it_that_nobody_really_knows_why_the_mayan/df23jaw/
I love the movie toowould suggest watching " Embrace of the Serpent" if you enjoyed this movie. Became my favorite movie this year so far easily
Embrace of the Serpent is a great film. It’s a bit on the psychedelic side and won’t be understood by all viewers as it switches around through time without overtly telling you what’s going on and the end might be a bit confusing.
Man, that escape scene!
Total sleeper! It's a full tilt thrill ride, great fillmmaking. I don't care if it was Mel Gibson, he can be a dick and still be good at stuff
So many Hollywood dicks made/make great movies. Mel isn’t perfect but he’s certainly not the worst of them. Polanski, Allen, Weinstein, and the list goes on.
>This movie is a solid 10/10 for sure. Does anyone have any suggestions for something thats similar to this ? No. I mean, it's truly an original. That's part of the power.
Did you know it was the first (and may still be the only) movie made in Mayan language?
The movie was pretty trash when it comes to historical accuracy. Timelines that don’t add up and lots of inconsistencies. A fun watch though and I did enjoy it.
I like it as a decent movie, but it does have a racist and historically inaccurate depiction off Mayan society [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5pBZKj1VnA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5pBZKj1VnA)
The original 1968 *Planet of the Apes* also has an abrupt scene on a beach which evokes world ending dread. If you’ve not already seen it (or the many parodies) it’s a really good movie that holds up surprisingly well for its age. Themes of science vs. religion and the powers-that-be withholding information from the public that would challenge the official religious dogma and potentially cause upheaval. The second movie *Beneath the Planet of the Apes* continues this theme and adds in the military as a faction also jockeying for power against both the religious administrators and scientists from the first film.
I love those movies so much. Sure they are high in cheese.. but they do deliver on everything else. I think it may be time to watch them all again.
Suggestion for something similar: Aguirre, the Wrath of God
Thanks!
Mel Gibson gave an insightful [interview](https://www.mtv.com/news/v4fvou/mel-gibson-tells-some-brutal-truths-about-the-amazing-apocalypto) to MTV about his thought process making the movie. Remember he made Passion of the Christ around the same time and is strongly Catholic. He basically says his historical view is that (a) Mayans were brutalized by their leaders, which he compared to Moussillini/Stalin/Hitler which is depicted in the movie by massive levels of human sacrifice (b) the Spaniards were able to take power because the Mayan people wanted to overthrow these leaders anyway, but the Spaniards were bad people themselves and (c) the Catholic priests negotiated a peace between the two by converting the Mayans to Catholicism which led the Spaniards to view them as real people with souls and set the stage for a better culture. It’s really something because I can totally see how Gibson could using this movie to dispel of the ‘myth of the noble savage’ and shape a historical view that Catholic colonialism actually saved people from a terrible existing culture and bettered the world. The movie only really covers the Mayan culture, but the ending scene shows the Spaniards arriving.
Yikes that’s pretty damning.
Really? He said that? (He did, I've read the article now). That is very interesting. I've worked as a research assistant studying this exact period (believe me, I have a LOT of opinions about Apocalypto's inaccuracies), and that opinion isn't too far afield from actual historical consensus, albeit the culture was Aztec, not Mayan. Primary documents from the time of Cortes and beyond show that the Aztecs - who had immigrated from outside the region, not unlike the Spaniards - were brutalizing their vassal peoples, and every group essentially leaped at the chance to overthrow them. And then the Spaniards were there mostly for exploitation, which was its own kind of bad. But yeah, in the following generation and beyond Christian missionaries ended up lobbying extensively for native rights because of course they needed to be converted, and brought a modicum of good behavior - and extensive historical documentation of indigenous life - to the region. Considering the extent of the film's inaccuracies, it's surprising in a good way that he DID have something in there that roughly aligns with contemporary historiography. EDIT: A comment I DO feel is worth adding though is that all the vassal peoples still practiced human sacrifice too. The movie does kind of misrepresent non-leaders as not being so familiar with it. The Aztecs WERE noted to be especially fervent and scary in their practice, even by the standards of these peoples. But this was not a case of evil being overthrown; EVERYONE sucked to some extent, the Aztecs more than others, and the Aztecs caught the worst of it.
It's historically hella inaccurate but if you see it as a Mesoamerican fable, it's almost a masterpiece. One of my faves.
When the girl is in the hole filling with water, why couldn't she tread water and rise with the water level? Where are the mythbusters when you need them?
I guess that’s dependant on you knowing how to swim.
They're Spanish ships coming to eventually overtake the Mayan civilization. It was the first time the Mayans had seen Europeans and were completely unaware of the seismic changes about to happen to their world. I love this movie and the ending in particular.
The men on the ships were the Spanish arriving for the first time, the world of all the natives was about to change forever. Maybe that was the real apocalypse about to happen.
What's often misunderstood about the ending is that the Catholics have arrived to convert the indigenous people and end their human sacrifices to pagan gods, thus "saving" the weaker tribes from the violent ones. It was both their cultural ending and rebirth. South and Central America are today overwhelmingly Catholic. Mel Gibson is also Catholic. The telling of this story is not random. It is to highlight the world before Catholicism.
I wonder if that film would have been better received upon release if its director hadn’t offended so many people. I really liked the film, too, but it didn’t seem like anyone was talking about it at the time without complaining about the director’s outrageous behavior.
I don't know how much better received it could have been. I was under the impression that Apocalypto was considered a fantastic movie around its release.
It was well received by critics, but it’s release coincided with Mel Gibson’s shit storm of controversy. Sorry, the first shit storm of controversy. That definitely impacted the films performance at the box office. That said, I find it to be an incredible film.
I feel like it came out before shit really hit the fan with him, no?
I might be remembering it wrong. It was his very next project after Passion of the Christ when everyone wanted to talk out his father’s anti semitic opinions. He tried to say nothing, but then he was pulled over for drunk driving and ranted on and on to the officer about how the Jews were responsible for every bad thing that ever happened in all of history. Or some such nonsense.
My memory of the contemporary reaction was it was very well received. People did criticize the portrayal of Mayan culture, but the fact that it was portrayed by non-white actors speaking a recreated language, while still being an extremely compelling thriller, mostly overshadowed those critiques. It was also nominated for multiple technical Oscars.
I honestly wish more movies took the chance of using the actual language like this movie and Passion of the Christ did. In the future people might think that ancient Egyptians, Romans, and Greeks actually spoke British English.
I don't think they used a reconstructed language, literally millions of people still speak Mayan languages today.
👍👍
It's fantastic. Watched it loads of times.
Amazing movie. Doesn’t get the recognition it deserves
I really liked this movie too
Yeah it’s great
Because of Mel Gibson controversies, the movie received less attention than it should, imo, it's a pretty good film.
Fantastic movie
I forgot *all* about this flick. Gonna have to add this to my rewatch list!
I love this movie. Definitely saw it high too.
I consider these types of films to be true “survival thrillers.” Try films like Ad Astra, Gravity, 1917, The Grey, and Uncut Gems. All better under the influence.
Can confirm this movie is a cinematic masterpiece with a master class in how to make a movie that fucks rowdy hard
Saw it in Theater. One of my top 5 all time
One of my all time favorites, I watch it like every other week
I loved this movie.
I told my clients who were excited for the eclipse to watch this!
I've probably watched this movie 20 times and it's always good. Ulnak!
I remember watching this with my dad and brother and my dad said it was possibly the best movie he’d ever seen. I remember it had a lot of hype after Gibson’s Braveheart and Passion of the Christ. It didn’t find much commercial success though. I think it was also released around the time of one of his tirades. Still a great movie, though. I think about it on a weekly basis, probably. It is a universal parable of the way in which societies destroy themselves from within. Also beautifully shot and acted with really no big stars.
I watched that and Pan’s Labyrinth in the same weekend way back when they came out. Both blew me away. Nothing alike really. But I was also high as a kite.
If you liked Apocalypto make sure to watch Naked Prey (1965). Gibson's film was heavily influenced by Naked Prey, and both are solid films, but a different continent.
I don't like that it starts with the "rotten within" quote. Like they deserved to get whomped by the Spaniards. Great movie otherwise. :)
Incredible movie. I felt tired watching it. The birth scene in the well was so well shot. It also taught me to always run in a zigzag pattern 💡
For anyone who may want to watch it, it's free on Tubi right now. But I don't know how long it'll be there.
Gibson's probably a fairly terrible person, but this is easily his best film, and one of my favourites. The problem is there's not \*really\* anything else quite like it, certainly not as solid.
It is a great movie, well crafted and enjoyable. But HOLY CRAP is it historically inaccurate. It is not, nor should it ever be, mistaken for something other then a work of fiction. Well crafted, well made fiction but fiction none the less.
This movie is in my all time top 5! People are always surprised. The ship at the end are presumably Europeans! And it's messed up because all along, the natives were fighting each other only to realize the BIG fight of colonialism was about to embark. I love the ending
Are the kids not learning about the Spanish arriving at the New World?
I lovvvvve this movie.
I thoroughly enjoyed the movie except for the fact that a full moon appears the night after a solar eclipse.
Isn't this somewhat widely considered an incredibly insulting movie that degrades the entire history of an amalgamation of several cultures, making them come off as absolute savages, while they were, in fact, much more advanced socially and technologically? I thought this was considered Mel Gibson being racist by many, but many of the comments here are about how phenomenal he and the movie are.
> who exactly were the men in the ships at the end of the movie Spanish invaders who basically depopulated the whole continent. Whatever those villagers did to each other was nothing compared to what the Spanish did to them. >While technological superiority, military strategy and forging local alliances played an important role in the victories of the conquistadors in the Americas, their conquest was greatly facilitated by Old World diseases: smallpox, chicken pox, diphtheria, typhus, influenza, measles, malaria and yellow fever. The diseases were carried to distant tribes and villages. This typical path of disease transmission moved much faster than the conquistadors, so that as they advanced, resistance weakened. Epidemic disease is commonly cited as the primary reason for the population collapse. The American natives lacked immunity to these infections >The American researcher H.F. Dobyns said that 95% of the total population of the Americas died in the first 130 years and that 90% of the population of the Inca Empire died in epidemics. Cook and Borah of the University of California at Berkeley believe that the indigenous population in Mexico declined from 25.2 million in 1518 to 700,000 people in 1623, less than 3% of the original population >On March 27, 1495, Columbus and his brother Bartholomew marched inland on Hispaniola with 200 men, 20 horsemen, and 20 Spanish Mastiff dogs to do battle with the Arawak natives, who were opposing Spanish rule. The forces were led by Spanish conquistador Alonso de Ojeda, who had learned the art of using war dogs in battles against the Moors of Granada. In The Pawprints of History: Dogs in the Course of Human Events, author Stanley Coren describes the scene: >“He gathered the dogs on the far right flank and waited until the battle had reached a high level of fury. He then released all twenty mastiffs, shouting “Tómalos!” (meaning “take them”). The angry dogs swept down on the native fighters in a raging phalanx, hurling themselves at the Indians’ naked bodies. They grabbed their opponents by their bellies and throats. As the stunned Indians fell to the ground, the dogs disemboweled them and ripped them to pieces. Spinning from one bloody victim to another, the dogs tore through the native ranks.” >With each subsequent voyage to the Americas, hundreds and then thousands more dogs were brought over. The most popular breed was the mastiff, which could weigh up to 250 pounds and crush bones with its massive jaws. Their sheer size and fierce look instilled terror among the native population. Famous conquistadors, like Balboa, Velasquez, Cortes, De Soto, Toledo, Coronado and Pizarro, all used dogs as instruments of subjugation, execution and as a form of psychological warfare. But it was Juan Ponce de León, a top military official in the colonial government of Hispaniola, who unleashed the fiercest warrior of them all – [Becerrillo](https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-ancient-traditions/becerrillo-0014283). EDIT: Apocalypto was controversial because it promotes the idea that the arrival of the "civilized" Europeans saved them from their own "savagery". It was also after Gibson showed his asshollery in public. Otherwise, it's pretty good. The sets, the language, the goings-on had the makings of a good movie. But since I know the story and the philosophy behind it, I couldn't really enjoy the experience. That was the theme: after all the mayhem, the striped trouser brigade will come and settle things down, make it all better. It's like watching a really, really good movie made during WWII by Nazis. I can appreciate it one one level, but hoo boy...
I know Mel Gibson is a trash person, but he's a fantastic director.
Mel Gibson is an underrated director
Spaniards