Apocalypto

[I think not]

I watched this movie last night. All I have to say is WOW!

An ending that made me say WOW again.

Set in the Mayan civilization, when a man's idyllic presence is brutally disrupted by a violent invading force, he is taken on a perilous journey to a world ruled by fear and oppression where a harrowing end awaits him. Through a twist of fate and spurred by the power of his love for his woman and his family he will make a desperate break to return home and to ultimately save his way of life.

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809249345/details

 

[eh1eh]

I heard the Mayans are ticked off with Mel as well as the Jews. They are portrayed as savages and they don't like that. Nice to here a good review as I have been looking forward to this since I saw the trailer on the internet last summer.

 

[Nuggler]

Gotta see this one:

Jeezuzzz H. Gimme a break!!! Mayans are PO'd..........:laughing7::laughing7::laughing7:

Gotta be kiddin. Didn't know there were any Mayans left:evil3:

We were all friggin savages once. Me great great................'s.........probably slaughtered with a dirk and broadsword. He and she probably got slaughterd in return.

Makes ya wanna go out and kick a cat.:grommit:

Ha ha ha



Why would the Mayans be P.O.'d at the Jews??:headbang:

 

[eh1eh]

Quote: Gotta be kiddin. Didn't know there were any Mayans left:evil3:

That's what I thought. But I guess the Spanish didn't get em all!:tongue8:

 

[look3467]

I saw this movie the other night as well. My thoughts however are of a different type.

I hoped to see more of the Myna culture, but instead, I saw what the world of mankind really is.
Apart from a loving God, mankind is left to its own devices as portrayed by that movie.

If it were not by divine providence, that that individual, his pregnant wife and child be spared alive during the whole ordeal, the new-comers pictured by their ships, would start the whole scenario all over again.

It is the continuation of mankind on this earth that some are spared.

The American Indians suffered a similar loss, but many survived.

If this movie painted any picture for us to see, it is to show that mankind is a savage creature and knowing that we can be tamed only by a belief in a loving God.

And belief in God is not pictured as like those men in ships portrayed, with their banners and crosses, and religions, but with the actions of what those men did.

If: their actions showed murder and violence, than belief in their God’s attributes were tainted by their own interpretations.

Peace>>>AJ

 

[Gonzo]

I dont understand why people wouldn't go to see this movie just because they dont like Mel Gibson. Sure, he's an idiot, but so what? He makes good movies (except for Passion and The Patriot). I guess his reputation hasn't hurt him that much since this movie is number one. Kramer made racist remarks, but I still love watching Seinfeld shows. You cant expect all entertainers to be perfect. Some of my favourite musicians are drug users and probably, if I met them, a-holes. I still like their music.

 

[Zzarchov]

big deal he's a bigot at heart. Thats how he was raised.

But he doesn't practice nor preach it, and seems to encourage that style of mindset being pushed into the sands of time where it belongs. What more can you ask of him?

Behaviour like that is learned as a child, alls he can really do is use self of will to not act on it and make sure his own children don't learn it.

 

[Retired_Can_Soldier]

One time when I got drunk I said something really offensive to a Military Cop and I woke up in the crowbar motel. A young soldier with a throbbing head and a couple of hard knocks I thought only of how my Sergeant Major would have been disappointed with my obviously lousy conduct.

After being yelled at, assigned many extra weekend duties, and feeling like a heal for letting him down I expected to be blackballed and looked over for future promotion. Instead I worked twice as hard and was not only promoted, but recommended for a Leadership position by the very same Sgt. Major.

His philosophy. "When you stub your #@$ suck back reload and carry on."

For gosh sake, Mel got drunk and ran off at the mouth, he didn't murder anyone. Drunk folks say stupid things from time to time. Think of the occasional drunk idiot who drops the C bomb when snapping at his wife. That's far more dangerous than calling someone sugar T's or blaming the Jews for everything.

Cheers
M

 

[ol' dawg]

Scuuuuuuuuuuuuuz me!

You really don't think this movie is meant to be taken literally do you? It's a story, based partly on facts but primarily on fiction. It's entertainment, not history.

Yes, Mayans continue to exist. When I spent several weeks in Guatemala studying Spanish (in 1982) I saw lots of them. They are hard-working, peaceful people, very family oriented. And yes, since someone will bring my attention to the strife and rebellion in Guatemala, there are Mayan rebels.

 

[Mr.Roboto]

About the mayans being portraid as savages, I think you have to see the big picture here.

The movie takes place when the Empire was at the brink of falling. It shows that the mayan empire was destroyed within itself, when the poeple, especially in the city's went mad for reasons portraid in the film. I'm willing to bet that the mayan empire was built in a civilized way for it to be as grand as it was.

If you look at the Romans, the people that built the empire, and those who contributed to its fall, where probably very different from one another. One very civilized, diciplined and the other currupt, savage in a way.

Just my thinking!

 

[#juan]

These people did have a violent side. From the reviews, the movie is very violent... I intend to see it. though.

Evidence May Back Human Sacrifice Claims

[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]By Mark Stevenson
Associated Press
[/FONT][FONT=arial,helvetica]posted: 23 January 2005
06:40 pm ET[/FONT]

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- It has long been a matter of contention: Was the Aztec and Mayan practice of human sacrifice as widespread and horrifying as the history books say? Or did the Spanish conquerors overstate it to make the Indians look primitive? In recent years archaeologists have been uncovering mounting physical evidence that corroborates the Spanish accounts in substance, if not number.
Using high-tech forensic tools, archaeologists are proving that pre-Hispanic sacrifices often involved children and a broad array of intentionally brutal killing methods.
For decades, many researchers believed Spanish accounts from the 16th and 17th centuries were biased to denigrate Indian cultures, others argued that sacrifices were largely confined to captured warriors, while still others conceded the Aztecs were bloody, but believed the Maya were less so.
"We now have the physical evidence to corroborate the written and pictorial record,'' said archaeologist Leonardo Lopez Lujan. He said, "some 'pro-Indian' currents had always denied this had happened. They said the texts must be lying.''
The Spaniards probably did exaggerate the sheer numbers of victims to justify a supposedly righteous war against idolatry, said David Carrasco, a Harvard Divinity School expert on Meso-American religion.
But there is no longer as much doubt about the nature of the killings. Indian pictorial texts known as "codices,'' as well as Spanish accounts from the time, quote Indians as describing multiple forms of human sacrifice.
Victims had their hearts cut out or were decapitated, shot full of arrows, clawed, sliced to death, stoned, crushed, skinned, buried alive or tossed from the tops of temples.
Children were said to be frequent victims, in part because they were considered pure and unspoiled.
"Many people said, 'We can't trust these codices because the Spaniards were describing all these horrible things,' which in the long run we are confirming,'' said Carmen Pijoan, a forensic anthropologist who found some of the first direct evidence of cannibalism in a pre-Aztec culture over a decade ago: bones with butcher-like cut marks.
In December, at an excavation in an Aztec-era community in Ecatepec, just north of Mexico City, archaeologist Nadia Velez Saldana described finding evidence of human sacrifice associated with the god of death.
"The sacrifice involved burning or partially burning victims,'' Velez Saldana said. "We found a burial pit with the skeletal remains of four children who were partially burned, and the remains of four other children that were completely carbonized.''
While the remains don't show whether the victims were burned alive, there are depictions of people -- apparently alive -- being held down as they were burned.
The dig turned up other clues to support descriptions of sacrifices in the Magliabecchi codex, a pictorial account painted between 1600 and 1650 that includes human body parts stuffed into cooking dishes, and people sitting around eating, as the god of death looks on.
"We have found cooking dishes just like that,'' said archaeologist Luis Manuel Gamboa. "And, next to some full skeletons, we found some incomplete, segmented human bones.'' However, researchers don't know whether those remains were cannibalized.
In 2002, government archaeologist Juan Alberto Roman Berrelleza announced the results of forensic testing on the bones of 42 children, mostly boys around age 6, sacrificed at Mexico City's Templo Mayor, the Aztec's main religious site, during a drought.
All shared one feature: serious cavities, abscesses or bone infections painful enough to make them cry.
"It was considered a good omen if they cried a lot at the time of sacrifice,'' which was probably done by slitting their throats, Roman Berrelleza said.
The Maya, whose culture peaked farther east about 400 years before the Aztecs founded Mexico City in 1325, had a similar taste for sacrifice, Harvard University anthropologist David Stuart wrote in a 2003 article.
In the late 19th and early 20th century, "The first researchers tried to make a distinction between the 'peaceful' Maya and the 'brutal' cultures of central Mexico,'' Stuart wrote. "They even tried to say human sacrifice was rare among the Maya.''
But in carvings and mural paintings, he said, "we have now found more and greater similarities between the Aztecs and Mayas,'' including a Maya ceremony in which a grotesquely costumed priest is shown pulling the entrails from a bound and apparently living sacrificial victim.
Some Spanish-era texts have yet to be corroborated with physical remains. They describe Aztec priests sacrificing children and adults by sealing them in caves or drowning them. But the assumption now is that the texts appear trustworthy, said Lopez Lujan, who also works at the Templo Mayor site.
For Lopez Lujan, confirmation has come in the form of advanced chemical tests on the stucco floors of Aztec temples, which were found to have been soaked with iron, albumen and genetic material consistent with human blood.
"It's now a question of quantity,'' said Lopez Lujan, who thinks the Spaniards -- and Indian picture-book scribes working under their control -- exaggerated the number of sacrifice victims, claiming in one case that 80,400 people were sacrificed at a temple inauguration in 1487.
"We're not finding anywhere near that ... even if we added some zeros,'' Lopez Lujan said.
Researchers have largely discarded the old theory that sacrifice and cannibalism were motivated by a protein shortage in the Aztec diet, though some still believe it may have been a method of population control.
Pre-Hispanic cultures believed the world would end if the sacrifices were not performed. Sacrificial victims, meanwhile, were often treated as gods themselves before being killed.
"It is really very difficult for us to conceive,'' Pijoan said of the sacrifices. "It was almost an honor for them.''

 

[Zzarchov]

Im not sure what the surprise is here? Its not like every other massive civilization didn't do this.

I don't recall those the roman's captured being killed by rainbows and sunshine in the arena's, I believe it involved alot of torture and maiming simply for the sake of spectacle.

Thats what happens when a group of people get togethor and decide they are better then their neighbours, its a universal human tale (if a tragic one) repeated everywhere humans settle.

 

[tamarin]

I'll see the movie. I've always been fascinated by the history of the great Indian civilizations to the south. When I was in public school the text Breastplate and Buckskin was in the classroom and I loved the stories of Cortez and Pizarro. The great Temple of the Sun and its shocking human sacrifice. Kids today don't get to read history as the great historians used to share it.
The movie is supposed to be violent but from what I've read I can only think the Mayans, as depicted, were probably more child-like than most great civilizations. Children unrestrained in a schoolyard revel in harm. If a fight starts the chants for blood begin. I've seen a few such cases in recent years and the effect is chilling. No innocents there.

 

[Orpheus76]

The trailers look great but I'm having a hard time getting past Gibson being responsible for it.
The last couple of years, my opinion of the man has gone steadily downhill.
Thanks for the first hand review though.

 

[AmberEyes]

I was amazed at how good the movie was. I am blissfully ignorant of this "Mel Gibson" person. In fact, I've only heard the name a few times.. I guess that's what happens when you don't pay attention to celebrities.

I can only recall a bit of Mayan history, as it wasn't thoroughly covered in school. I do not know how accurate the movie is in depicting Mayan culture at the time. What I can say is that despite all the blood and violence, the movie had a good story - and I'm not ashamed to admit I teared up a few times.