YuccaMan

Ahh damn, that's right, I forgot

Oh shit, is Matt back or were his bits just pre-recorded?

Further proof that RT must be scourged from this earth

I'd never heard of this one, I'll have to give it a watch! Sounds like it's exactly my thing. And yes, bless Cold War-era Russian directors, their attention to detail is astonishing

We need more counterfactual history movies in this world, and I'd watch the hell out of that one

Right? There's so much untapped entertainment value with Napoleon, but all that anyone seems to want to do is Waterloo, Russia, and Austerlitz

Seriously, reading Andrew Roberts' biography of him, I came away thinking Napoleon had genuinely lost his mind when I read his writings from the period. It's been a while, but I recall that he harbored fevered fantasies of going rogue and installing himself as some kind of latter day pharoah or caliph in Egypt and creating some grand new society in his image. A movie about the Egyptian campaign would be entertaining as fuck.

I have more complaints about this movie than I feel would be polite to heap on people that I actually like, but for everyone's sake, either avoid this movie in favor of Sergei Bondarchuk's Waterloo, or if it's too late for you, go watch it to get the taste out of your mouth. It's free on youtube, and it's pretty good quality.

Rod Steiger's performance as Napoleon is regarded as hit or miss, but I personally feel it gets across Napoleon's charisma, mental acuity, and mercurial temper perfectly.

And importantly, unlike Napoleon, which I felt was trying to be three different types of movie at once and ultimately had no real identity, Waterloo is very tightly focused, and also unlike Napoleon, is (for a film anyway) extremely well-researched and historically accurate.

Then of course my favorite part, the sheer number of extras the production pulled together for the big battle. Napoleon's battle scenes were a travesty, resembling not at all the actual history and being so much smaller in scope. Does anybody know if Scott used live extras for the battle scenes? I can't be fucked to check. At any rate, Bondarchuk pulled in something like 15,000 people for the battle scenes, and the way they're shot gives the impression of an honest to god Napoleonic army up on screen.

Most importantly though, Waterloo is actually entertaining, which Napoleon was not. And if you ask me that's the one unforgiveable sin for any movie. How can you fuck up making an actually entertaining movie about such a huge personality as Napoleon? I'm not even gonna get into the weird psychosexual stuff, or Letizia Bonaparte being turned into a creepier version of Barry Lyndon's mom. Just go watch Waterloo, or Barry Lyndon, or anything else.

That's what he says, sure, but it's implied at points that he harbors more sympathy for the communards than he lets on. I personally doubt that he'd be too upset about a second revolution, particulary considering that Harry's station captain is probably the one conspiring to bring it about.

Even if you never manage to find the Archer, the game beats you over the head with the idea that the Moralintern not only stands for nothing, but is willing to resort to insidious tactics to stand up for that nothing. And even if you manage to never pick up on those hints, the few representatives of the Moralintern that you're able to meet and speak with are parodies of your average dull-minded pro-austerity EU bureaucrats. I mean really, imagine declaring your full throated support for a parody of Mario Draghi, that the game openly mocks you for supporting

other research

Ominous

This, but conflict among states in the southwest over resources, particularly water, are not beyond the realm of possibility I think. California is sure to dominate regional politics in a Balkanization scenario either way, in my opinion, but water scarcity will append a question mark to any political calculus one could devise.