What a load of pop!
And yet. And yet.
When I delved into this display of pop culture, I realized that its historical value is in fact more than half decent. It's actually brilliant. Screenwriter Michael Hirst made terrible historical slips in the two Elizabeth films with Cate Blanchett, but it seems to me now that greater powers prevailed in those cases, and in "The Tudors" he comes into his own. I must admit that I haven't had the chance to watch the entire series, but of what I have seen, this is on a par with David Starkey as far as historical value is concerned. Thanks to Hirst, millions of high school and university students are now familiar with an astounding amount of minor characters from history, such as Robert Aske, Thomas Wyatt and Lord Dacre, just to name a few who would otherwise have been known only to students of English history, A-levels (and perhaps not even then). Great attention to details in the executions of Anne Boleyn and Cromwell as well as the two accidents that crippled Henry and left him monstrously fat - a fate he escapes in this series, however.
And as for Jonathan Rhys Meyers looking like a movie star at a time when Henry was hideously obese, I do believe that this is how this the most disastrous of English kings really always saw himself throughout his scandalous life and six marriages. And quite possibly, his fifth wife Catherine Howard was the Marilyn Monroe-like, heat-seeking little missile she is portrayed as here.
- I thought when it dawned on me that Jonathan Rhys Meyers not only plays Henry VIII in his royal youth, but also beyond the years when he should be aged and bloated beyond recognition and decency. Indeed, all the characters known from English history are portrayed by actors that look like fashion models. How unhistorical it appears. The horror, the horror.
And yet. And yet.
When I delved into this display of pop culture, I realized that its historical value is in fact more than half decent. It's actually brilliant. Screenwriter Michael Hirst made terrible historical slips in the two Elizabeth films with Cate Blanchett, but it seems to me now that greater powers prevailed in those cases, and in "The Tudors" he comes into his own. I must admit that I haven't had the chance to watch the entire series, but of what I have seen, this is on a par with David Starkey as far as historical value is concerned. Thanks to Hirst, millions of high school and university students are now familiar with an astounding amount of minor characters from history, such as Robert Aske, Thomas Wyatt and Lord Dacre, just to name a few who would otherwise have been known only to students of English history, A-levels (and perhaps not even then). Great attention to details in the executions of Anne Boleyn and Cromwell as well as the two accidents that crippled Henry and left him monstrously fat - a fate he escapes in this series, however.
And as for Jonathan Rhys Meyers looking like a movie star at a time when Henry was hideously obese, I do believe that this is how this the most disastrous of English kings really always saw himself throughout his scandalous life and six marriages. And quite possibly, his fifth wife Catherine Howard was the Marilyn Monroe-like, heat-seeking little missile she is portrayed as here.