Braveheart Surgery

The movie cover everyone has seen

Ah Braveheart, Mel Gibson's 1995 historical epic, a film which re-opened the door for that long forgotten genre.  Wait... did I just call Braveheart a historical epic?  It would be better catalogued as a fantasy, since it has about as much realism in it as Lord of the Rings.  Yes readers, today's blog is going to detail all the things Mel got wrong about the life and times of William Wallace.    

Now before I begin let me preface this entire article by saying this: Braveheart is an enjoyable movie, I own it on DVD, It has great production values and is a movie of immense quality, much better than most of the dribble out there now.  The acting for the most part is good, as is the story, I would rate this movie as a 4 out of 5.  That said, this movie has a huge amount of historical inaccuracies, and not little things like the Alamo chapel being to close.  I understand that facts must be sacrificed for the story and I am all for that.  However the "truth" as presented by this film is borderline Oliver Stone "JFK" territory (that is a whole other article in itself).  So I'm not going to nitpick over him wearing a kilt (Kilts did not become common garments of highland soldiers until the 1600's, Braveheart taking place in the 1300's), no I'm going to focus on the real important changes to history that really get under my skin.

Robert the Bruce, the primary victim of Braveheart

Robert the Bruce, yeah the guy who betrays poor Mel when he loses at the Battle of Falkirk, never betrayed William Wallace!  Whaaat??!!  It is true that during the war the Bruce did change sides, however he was not present at Falkirk, nor did ever betray Wallace directly.  Without going into detail over the Scottish wars for Independence, I'll try to make it clear.  Though both Wallace and the Bruce fought for Scotland, each man supported a different man for the Scottish crown (himself in the case of the Bruce).  Suffice it to say, since Wallace and the Bruce were never true allies, Robert never could have betrayed Wallace (and not in a manner so melodramatic, ughhh).   

 Princess Isabella was 10 during the events of the film.

The caption basically sums up my problem with this character.  She wasn't married to Prince Edward (who was bisexual not gay, he had five children) at the time, since she was a child.  I know in Hollywood you gotta sex things up, but I think I would have preferred a made up character in this case.  I mean just because two historical figures are from roughly the same time period doesn't mean they ever met or had an affair.  This would be like a movie about George Washington where he sleeps with Sacagawea.  It's insulting and plain wrong.  Sorry but William Wallace was not Isabella's baby daddy, he didn't "win" in the end over Edward the First (who by the way, died after Wallace's execution). 

Yeah Wallace didn't invent the use of pikes, it was an ancient Highland tradition, to say nothing of Classical Warfare.

So this is the last one, a fact I'm sure the movie is thankful for since I could go on.  So the big battle in the movie where Mel's guys win is known to antiquity as the Battle of Sterling Bridge.  Yes that is correct I said Bridge.  But is there a bridge in the movie? Nope.  I could talk about tactics and how the real battle unfolded, but I'll spare you.  I just wanted to see a bridge at the Battle of Sterling Bridge.