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[HBO] Rome
Halfhand
a stalwart bastion of terrible ideasRegistered User regular
a stalwart bastion of terrible ideasRegistered User regular
Rome is a British–Italian historical drama television series created by Bruno Heller, John Milius, and William J. MacDonald. The show's two seasons premiered in 2005 and 2007, and were released on DVD soon afterward. Rome is set in the 1st century BC, during Ancient Rome's transition from Republic to Empire. The series begins with Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul, and the first season concludes with the assassination of Caesar followed by the rise of the first Emperor Augustus.
The plots focus on two soldiers, Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo, who find their lives intertwined with key historical events. Rome was a ratings success for HBO and the BBC. The series received much media attention from the start, and was honored with numerous awards and nominations in its two-season run. Co-creator Heller stated in December 2008 that a Rome movie is in development. The series was filmed in various locations, but most notably in the Cinecittà studios in Italy.
First 3 Minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uocQ8t9K9FAMain Cast
Kevin McKidd as the badass Lucius Vorenus
Ray Stevenson as the unstoppable Titus Pullo
James Purefoy as the indomitable Marc Antony
Ciaran Hinds as the ultimate Julius Caesar
Ray Stevenson as the unstoppable Titus Pullo
James Purefoy as the indomitable Marc Antony
Ciaran Hinds as the ultimate Julius Caesar
I, myself, have just finished watching both seasons. One of the best TV shows ever, without a doubt. The production value is immense, the action incredible, and the characters flat out awesome. It skims through history pretty quickly, but is fairly accurate aside from one or two things if I recall correctly. Overall, this is one of the most satisfying and rewarding shows I've watched in some time. A great way to get your spirits up after watching something like Game of Thrones.
I'd be interested to hear from other people who watched the show. What you think of the movie ideas, or what your favorite scenes were.
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Ciaran Hinds is amazing, though, and another favourite of mine is Tobias Menzies' Brutus. Such a tragic character (at least in this interpretation).
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
But gods did I love that show.
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Season 1
Season 2
Bonus favorite, non-murder based scene:
At least, I think that's what happened. It's been a while.
The second thing I think of, when I think of HBO's Rome:
Ruthless Ambition as personified by this lady
He did such an insanely good job as Antony. Though I think it was smart of them to not put the famous Brando speech in after Caesar's funeral as that would just force people to directly compare performances. And as good as Purefoy is, nobody can match that.
Yeah, they sped through about 10-15 years of history in 5 or 6 episodes. At least they were able to get the relationship between Antony and Cleopatra done very well in the time they had.
But huge, huge parts of Antony's life were just skipped over completely. They had 6 seasons in mind, I think, and by the end of that we would have gotten the ending we got in season 2.
I need to see Punisher Warzone now, I don't care how bad it is. I am officially a Ray Stevenson fanboy now.
Continues to be possibly my favorite scene in TV history.
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http://popclassicsjg.blogspot.com/2000/01/rome.html
Season 2's problems came from the fact that it WAS stopping there.
If they'd had more seasons, they wouldn't have had to dig up a new actor for Octavian, they wouldn't have skipped over years per episode, that sort of thing. They could've taken their time and done it right.
If you're interested in this exact portion of Roman history, check out Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast, he just finished up a six episode (~10 hours, 5 of which is episode 6) series on the Fall of the Roman Republic. He gives some really good background for the show (like if you're wondering who the Gracchi are who get referenced a few times, or what that room with all those creepy wax masks that Brutus and Servilia spend all their time with are.
No source on that, just someone mentioned it in the Game of Thrones thread. But man I wish they would just start making it again. Its a pity that the set was burned down.
Then again, with the way S2 ended I don't really see what they'd want to do in a film.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
JULIUS CAESAR: I like you guys
or
CAESAR: We should be careful around those two. They are favored by the gods.
I made it through the first season but it just wasn't enough to keep going for me.
O.M.G.
Eh, it wasn't just that. I mean, that hurt the show alot, but the big issue with S2 was that Vorenus and Pullo became ... extraneous.
S1 worked so well because everything just came together perfectly at the end. The Vorenus/Pullo stuff came together with the actual politics stuff in such a great way. It just worked.
S2 they flailed about with no direction. "Vorenus and Pullo join the mob"??? This is the kind of shit you pull when you are in S12 and you ran out of ideas 8 years ago and you've already done the "last season was all a dream" bullshit. It never worked and it never fit with the rest of the story or had anything to do with it.
S2 had some amazing scenes in it, but the season as a whole was a complete and utter mess.
S1 is still pretty much perfect though. My only real complaint is that while Brutus does amazing with every scene he has, there's just not enough. They never do a really good job of establishing him as Caesar's friend. Brutus' ending is quite good though, if overly rushed. Although obviously that's not the people making the show's fault.
Rome was cancelled because one of the parties backing it (I think it was the BBC) backed out over the cost being too high.
Of course, this happened before S2 aired and S2 ended up with even more viewers then S1 and the whole thing ended up being quite profitable in the end and now everyone involved is kicking themselves for fucking it up.
Fortunately no one has disliked it yet
it's going to be about the rise of the messiah.
on the one hand it would be amazing to see a non propagandist take on Jesus and the early Christians.
but on the other, , it stretches plausibility to have Vorenus and Pullo involved in everything Forrest Gump style, even if you disregard the ridiculous compression of the historical timeline
Literally the only reason it wasn't as incredible as Season 1 is because of HBO cancelling Season 2 when they were half-way through filming it. They had to wrap the story up in like 5 episodes, as opposed to the multiple seasons they had planned. Whoever chose to cancel the show should be fired. I'm pretty sure HBO even publicly said they regret doing it.
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I think I've only seen half of the first season of Rome, but the first thing I think seeing this is "Roman swords were designed for stabbing, not slicing." and "A scutum is made out of wooden strips glued together, so that decapitation is ridiculously outlandish." Which is strange since it conflicts with the show's tendency to portray many aspects of Roman culture correctly.
The second thing I think is, "That's pretty cool."
(The only reason I didn't watch more is because I only had one or two DVDs available to me)