Historical epics are rare. Long gone are the days when large-scale biblical stories were adapted to the big screen or tales of sweeping battles from centuries, if not millennia, ago brought audiences swarming to the cinemas. While they often don’t see a release in the summer tentpole season or the coveted holidays/Oscar-buzzing season they once did, they do still exist. And the master of bringing historical epics to life is Ridley Scott.
From Gladiator to Napoleon and The Last Duel to Kingdom of Heaven, Scott brings his storytelling expertise to theaters, creating films that deserve their big screen, big sound environment. His latest is Gladiator II, the highly-anticipated sequel which takes place 16 years after the Academy-Award Winning Gladiator (released in 2000).
While historical epics might be hard to produce, you should still pursue these films if it’s what you want to write – special effects, just from Gladiator to Gladiator II, have made creating the impossible more practical, even more cost-effective. And if you’re looking for some ways to think about how to craft the story, here are some lessons you can take away from the sword and sandals epic Gladiator II.
The idea of an epic goes way back to do the days of Homer with his poetic stories of The Odyssey and The Iliad. These are heroic journeys about legendary people doing extraordinary things. Most often they turn the lens on a battle or figure from the distant past, although that’s not always the case (The Longest Day, an historical epic World War II film about the D-Day landings, was released 18 years after that event).
Epics are meant to be grand in scale, action-packed and have historical context.
From Odysseus (The Odyssey) to William Wallace (Braveheart) to Lucius (Gladiator II), the leaders of these stories are often extremely smart and competent, even if they lack strength. Being intelligent is always more compelling than brute force, which is often used by the antagonist. Rare is the intriguing story that involves someone who is tough winning on strength alone.
The leader must lead their team to victory, or at least inspire their followers to do greatness.
In Gladiator, Maximus (Russell Crowe) uses his intelligence as a general and skills in fighting to survive the brutal games he’s forced into. In Braveheart, William Wallace (Mel Gibson) inspires an oppressed people to stand up and fight.
A team of heroes find themselves in the midst of an epic battle in which they risk their lives to save the people they’ve sworn to protect. We all remember that climactic scene in Avengers: Age of Ultron, right?
Watching the battle and fight scenes in Gladiator II is reminiscent of the action scenes audiences have become accustomed to in today’s biggest blockbusters that include car chases and fight scenes on city streets involving comic book superheroes. While historical battles have some context into what happened, it’s nearly impossible to recreate it in a screenplay or film for accuracy. Embellishing isn’t wrong as long as it fits in the context of the story.
The spirit of the scene is what’s important as the filmmaker, stunt crew and other key figures in creating a shootable scene will likely have to change it up from what the screenwriter wrote. Overall, you want to keep descriptions short and tight; no one will read paragraphs of a battle sequence, and reading battle scenes can be confusing, and you don’t want to lose a reader to the story because of it.
Another big component to many historic epics is how a band of rebels succeeded in a just cause against their government or oppressors. Both Gladiator and Gladiator II feature characters who want to rise up and rebel. In Gladiator, Maximus gains fame by defying the emperor and attempting to bring his loyal army to overthrow him. Gladiator II features a similar scenario involving a character’s plot to overthrow twin emperors who they believe are running Rome into the ground.
Rebellion is such a major motivation for a character that it is seen in countless movies in any variety of ways including historical epics like Braveheart, science fiction like Star Wars and Saturday detention in high school like The Breakfast Club.
Okay, accuracy does matter but not as much as you think, especially the further back in time the story takes place. The internet will point out all the inaccuracies anyway, so keep the story in the context of the epic and don’t worry about the minutia. Quentin Tarantino completely made up how Hitler died in Inglorious Basterds and you probably didn’t know that kilts weren’t common until 300 years after Braveheart took place – and most of the battles and timelines are wildly inaccurate.
One epic battle in Gladiator II involves the Colosseum filled with water and sharks swimming around waiting for a naval battle recreation to go awry. The logistics seem impossible even today and Ridley Scott agrees. But in a USA Today interview, he responds to the inaccuracies of the movie saying, “Well, the short answer to that is, were you there?”
Another recent example is at the beginning of Scott’s last film, Napoleon, when the title character witnesses the beheading of Marie Antoinette – only Napoleon was never there to see it.
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There are a lot of ways to write a historical epic, but what’s important is the story and knowing why it should be made today. Gladiator II could have been a modern-day movie about MMA fighters who must fight to appease a corporate or government villain, but it’s part of intellectual property and was a continuation of a story with lots of audience interest. Scott also included themes that resonate today and used the power of storytelling to bring up politics, corruption, loyalty and betrayal.
If you’re looking to write a historical epic, it’s likely you’ve watched several for inspiration. But don’t forget to watch newer movies that may not be historical in nature. Comic book and science fiction movies like Star Wars have the feeling of historical epics, and even films like Erin Brockovich, about a competent leader who rebels against the system and inspires hundreds of people and a law firm to fight against an energy company poisoning the water system, are ones that can help inspire you when writing your next script.