I've seen The Last Samurai

[Imperialus]

They screwed up the sword ettiquite too, when Tom gets his sword he compleately draws it in front of the man who gave it to him with the edge faceing him. That wouldn't have been done. He would have turned it so the edge was faceing himself and drawn it halfway.

The Japanese troops had Bolt Action rifles in 1877 which struck me as a little odd seeing as how they made their first apperance in the mid eightteen eighties in the hands of a Prussian army.

The noble selfless protecter of the pesants thing was a little odd too though I think that monderen day society tends to accept the view that the lives of pesants were a lot worse than they actually were praticularly before industrialization. Some times were worse than others, the 14th century in europe would have been a lousy place to be a pesant, but then again it kinda sucked for the nobility too.

Gunpowder had also been used throughout Japan since the Shogunate wars something like 3 or 4 hundred years before this. Dutch traders had been bringing matchlock and wheellock muskets from europe for hundreds of years. They weren't as prevalent as they were in europe but they were there none the less and I've seen a contempory painting from the 16th or 17th century which showed a samurai in full armour holding a pistol.

 

[Krieg]

The Japanese troops had Bolt Action rifles in 1877 which struck me as a little odd seeing as how they made their first apperance in the mid eightteen eighties in the hands of a Prussian army.

The Swiss were the first to adopt a magazine fed bolt action rifle in the eary 1870's.

Dutch traders had been bringing matchlock and wheellock muskets from europe for hundreds of years. They weren't as prevalent as they were in europe but they were there none the less and I've seen a contempory painting from the 16th or 17th century which showed a samurai in full armour holding a pistol.

By the late 16th century (1580 or so) there were more firearms being used in combat in Japan than anywhere else in the world. That was only 40 years after they were introduced to the Japanese by the Dutch in 1543

 

[Imperialus]

The Swiss were the first to adopt a magazine fed bolt action rifle in the eary 1870's.

but the Prussians were the first to use it in battle.

By the late 16th century (1580 or so) there were more firearms being used in combat in Japan than anywhere else in the world. That was only 40 years after they were introduced to the Japanese by the Dutch in 1543

Thanks for clearing that up. I did a project on the earliest traders to make their way to Japan but it was almost 4 or 5 years ago now, dates have gotten kinda fuzzy.

It's important to remember that gunpowder was introduced to Japan during the Shogunate wars, which were probably equivilant in scale to the hundred years war in Europe. It was a very ugly knock down drag em out fight and most of the factions would seize upon any possible advantage they could gain over their opponants includeing gunpowder.

 

[MaxKaladin]

The Swiss were the first to adopt a magazine fed bolt action rifle in the eary 1870's.

Actually, the Prussians used them against the Austrians in 1866.

Edit: Whoops! I forgot those were single shot rifles. The magazine fed guns came in 1884. Sorry.

Both France and Prussia had single shot bolt-action rifles in the Franco-Prussian war (1870-71), FWIW.

 

[Wombat]

Yeah, and the Prussians learned most of their tactics from having hordes of military observers here in the USA during the American Civil War (truth: second largest number of military observers, after Great Britain).

 

[Dragonblade]

I enjoyed it for the fights, the cinematography, and their attempt (poor and utterly incaccurate though it was) to show a poignant clash of a traditional culture and modernization.

What I did not enjoy was the revisionist anti-American PC history. Talk about raping a culture's history (both Japan and the U.S.) so that Edward Zwick could spoon feed everyone his social opinions.

I lived in Japan for two years and speak Japanese. I think many Japanese people will like this movie because its a celebration of their own traditional culture, they like Tom Cruise, and they love it when Hollywood makes cool movies about Japan. My wife, who is Japanese, loved it for all those reasons.

But the historical inaccuracies, plot holes you could drive a truck through, and the modern day PC BS just made me cringe. The movie would have been so much better without that last scene with the emperor:

Algren: "Here are Katsumoto's swords, Emperor. He died fighting for the noble and pastoral way of life of your traditional and beautiful culture."

Emperor: "Oh, thank you for showing me how the evil capitalist American white-man and his guns has corrupted and destroyed our idyllic and utopian existence. I shall now grow a backbone and honor my unique and special culture by rejecting this treaty with the evil industrialist West."

Gag me...

 

[satori01]

Emperor: "Oh, thank you for showing me how the evil capitalist American white-man and his guns has corrupted and destroyed our idyllic and utopian existence. I shall now grow a backbone and honor my unique and special culture by rejecting this treaty with the evil industrialist West."

Gag me...

Come on it wasnt that strident. The film is a celebration of non industrial values and sentimentality. Remeber the line "if Japan is a whore, it is the samurai who have made her so". Industrialization of course creates huge disruption to traditional life, be that Japanese or European peasants forced off their land, feudal land lords, native populations, or even more recently ethnic minority neighborhoods destroyed to make way for american roads in the fifties.

A call to remember and value the past while progressing to the future is not the same as what you described the emperor as saying.

I concede that the film was more heavy handed,(and inaccurate) for my tastes, but the same could be argued for the novel The Jungle, or any artistic work advocating a strong position.

Artistic works never = scholarly rigor.

It certainly was a much better film than Dances with Wolves, where all things white and American were cast as evil.

 

[Ranger REG]

I thought America is evil.

 

[Krieg]

Industrialization of course creates huge disruption to traditional life, be that Japanese or European peasants forced off their land

Feudal peasants had no land, the lords owned it. For better or worse, industrialization gave the peasants someplace to go in order escape "their land". For the most part it opened opportunities that otherwise would have been unavailable.

 

[Ranger REG]

Industrialization only destroys the fuedal lifestyle and the gentry class, but give way for the aristocrats and industrial barons, who still continues the practice of getting in the way of mom & pop businesses.