If you’ve been wondering what in the name of Ba’al’s Bunghole Mel Gibson’s new movie “Apocalypto” is about after having watched the previews, you’re not the only one. I have yet to figure it out but, of course, that might be helped if I were to actually go see it.
LC & IB Ace is mystified too, and brings up a couple of reviewers that haven’t quite figured it out either. Well, the “Rolling Stones” rothead thinks he does, but it’s along the usual acid-laced lines of “it’s all about BUSH!”, so those “thoughts”, for lack of a better word, are best left to decay on the pages of that utterly worthless publication.
In case you have not an earthly clue what we’re talking about (and consider yourselves lucky if that’s the case), the movie is apparently about a bunch of Mayans offing each other in gloriously violent and brutal ways.
To quote the FOX reviewer:
With the subtlety of several thousand flying mallets and arrows, here comes Mel Gibson’s “Apocalypto,” a two-hour plus torture-fest so violent that women and children will be headed to the doors faster than you can say “duck” when the film opens on Dec. 8.
Indeed, “Apocalypto” is the most violent movie Disney has ever released, with so much blood spurting out of orifices that even Martin Scorsese would blush.
If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to see heads and hearts removed without anesthesia, then this is the movie for you. “Grey’s Anatomy” it is not.
But it lacks a point, he moans:
The problem is that, unlike in “The Passion of the Christ,” there is no noble goal here. The Mayans are merely fighting among themselves. There’s no indication that the triumph by one side over another will achieve anything.
Pretty much precisely describes the whole point of the civilizations of such “noble savages” as the Mayans, if you ask us. There isn’t one, there wasn’t one, and there never will be one. Those bloodthirsty mongrels and many others before and after them were brutal, savage, cruel and entirely without redeeming qualities, and the best thing that ever happened to this planet was when they were wiped out, never to be heard of again.
In fact, we owe the Spanish Conquistadores an eternal debt of gratitude for having wiped that blood-curdlingly bestial, brutal blight upon humanity off the face of the planet because, had they not done it, we would have had to do so ourselves.
The only reason to keep their temples and artifacts around is the very same reason that we don’t run a plow through Auschwitz and Maidanek and turn them into parking lots: To remind ourselves that there ARE things that truly need killing. Indeed, if the Aztecs and Mayans had been in possession of 20th century technology, they’d have made Mengele and Himmler look like Viennese choir boys by comparison.
I obviously still have no idea what Gibson’s true point with the movie is, but if it serves to drive just one tiny stake through the rotten heart of the myth of the “noble savage”, then it will be well worth the price of admission.
It is a lie long overdue for a burial.
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But Sire, I thought all non-Christian, non-European cultures lived in tune with nature. In fact, the Mayans probably floated four inches above the grass so as to avoid any negative impact on the environment. Had it not been for the bloodthirsty Anglos, the Maya, Inca and Aztec peoples would have invented an unlimited energy source derived from goat shit that would have propelled humanity to the stars. Instead, the SUV propels us towards “climate change.”
Thankfully, we have Al Gore to save us.
December 1st, 2006 at 9:48 pmIn tune with nature????? The white man gives them fire water, they gave us tobacco and syphilus…and thes characters bitch about Manhattan Island?
December 1st, 2006 at 10:18 pmSounds like Mooslimes to me…
Sounds like a plan… Somebody send a memo to the President.
December 1st, 2006 at 11:07 pmCortez has always been portrayed as a savage murderer by the revisionists. In fact, when the Conquistadors entered Mexico City they were appalled by the colossal extent of the human sacrifice. The pyramids were permanently stained red from the blood of the victims. There was a reason why the Indians were called savages. (One small nit to pick though. The Mayans were pretty much a dead civilization by the time the Spaniards arrived in the early 1500’s. A few scattered bands that were left fought pretty hard against the Spaniards, but as an empire(s), they were already dead.)
And the title savage was bestowed by men who were no strangers to brutality themselves. For a man as hard bitten and calloused to human suffering as a 15th century Conquistador to call a people savage, they must have earned it!
Same for our own domestic Indians. The Sioux practiced ritual corpse mutilation and many of the eastern tribes practiced ritual cannibalism. The Apaches could have taught the North Koreans a thing or two about torture.
And this is in no way to denigrate the Indians. That was there way of life and their stage of societal evolution at the time, and their a lot of things to admire. Their field craft, their courage, their martial skill, their stoicism. It’s just that I, like you Sire, am sick of hearing how “Noble” all of the tribes were and how evil the white men were. The true genocide was practiced by the Indians on themselves and they were well adept at it before we showed up. How many tribes were wiped out before Columbus was even a twinkle in his daddies eye?
We adapted to their way of war and now we are supposed to be the bad guys? We didn’t invent raiding and destroying an enemy village, we just did it better. They would raid and steal each others food stocks for the winter, thereby ensuring that the raided tribe would starve and die that winter. Where’s their condemnation?
Oh and scalping, contrary to the revisionist BS, it was an Indian invention. The British just preferred scalps as proof of a kill for bounty payment over the Indians preference of male genitalia. Yup, guess that makes the white man the bad guy.
December 1st, 2006 at 11:12 pmBTW, a little OT, I hope our Imperial Sithness forgives me, but tomorrow is the 108th Army/Navy game.
GO NAVY! BEAT ARMY!
FOUR IN A ROW BABY, COMING UP!
December 1st, 2006 at 11:16 pm“YOU IS A RACIST!”
Right on the mark, Emperor.
December 1st, 2006 at 11:48 pmI hear this all the time from my sister’s friends about how the Indians were peaceful people and how the White man is evil and war like.
But when one tribe fights another tribe to take thier hunting land it isn’t a “war” according to him.
Usually I end uip appilying a cluerifle to thier heads.
December 2nd, 2006 at 12:02 amSlavery amongst the “nobles”
December 2nd, 2006 at 12:58 amIndeed. Most cultures were like that at one point or another, my ancestors included. Not the Vikings, they got a much worse rap than they deserved because people were scared shitless of their prowess in battle, Viking society was bound by quite strict moral codes (and theirs is still the oldest surviving monarchy on the planet), but their Stone and Bronze Age predecessors… Oh my…
The Greek? Sure, they were the birthplace of democracy and Western Civ, but before that… Same with the Romans.
Every single culture went through a stage like that and some, like Islam, seem to be stuck in it.
The point is, whenever I have to endure Rousseau’s ignorant “noble savage” blather uttered by some fuckheaded moron, I find myself wishing that I could whisk their flabby butts into a time machine and send them back so they could commune with those “wonderful” human beings, first hand.
They’d last about 10 minutes. Tops.
December 2nd, 2006 at 1:11 amWhat I can’t understand is why, why, WHY it’s being advertised as “Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto.” And he’s doing the voiceover on the commercials.
Wouldn’t it be better marketing after last summer’s fiasco of Mel’s Jew-hating rants to take his name OFF?
I wonder if he thinks his name will (still?) bring people to the movie, and if he does think so, he must be drunk again.
December 2nd, 2006 at 1:23 amWell, I’ll be going to see it. If for no other reason than to marvel at the cruelty and decadence. If it’s anything like most of HIS movies, it’s going to be very historically accurate. Aside from that? Let y’all know.
December 2nd, 2006 at 1:57 amI’ve been looking forward to Apocalyptico for months now. I really think it’s going to be quite the spectacle.
December 2nd, 2006 at 2:09 amDer Kaiser sagt:
Japan at least claims to be about 2500 years old.
December 2nd, 2006 at 4:36 amWell, I really feel sorry for you lot that come from a lineage of fierce warriors, rapers, pillagers and genuinely nasty people.
Being of Scottish extracton, I take great pride in the gentleness, manners, sobriety and quite pacifistic tendancies of my Highlander forefathers.
:innocent2_tb:
December 2nd, 2006 at 2:31 pm
Oh please, the Christians during the Crusades and middle ages were more brutal, savage, animalistic, and bloodthirsty than the Mayans or Aztecs ever were.
December 2nd, 2006 at 2:34 pmI must have missed all the good parts then, because I don’t recall having read about the massive human sacrifices during the Crusades.
December 2nd, 2006 at 2:54 pmPage 35…paragraph 3.
December 2nd, 2006 at 2:58 pmYour Rottieness;
See also “Symbols of Crusader sacrifices during Crusades”
It can be found in the dictionary somewhere between “shit” and “syphillis”.
December 2nd, 2006 at 3:04 pmcrunchtime sez:
Oh please, the Catholic and thus the Christian church have been through THREE major reformations to correct their bloody past, they saw the wrongs and atoned for them.
Yes, what the Crusaders under Godfrey of Bouillon (sp) did to the population of Jerusalem was nothing but an atrocity, but it was an isolated thing….not a ritual like sacrifices and depopulation of villages and raiding of other tribes crops to starve them into extinction. That was practiced by the noble savages YOU hold to such esteem.
Hey crunch, I see you’re post hopping here, are you doing that to hit and run and avoid debate or are your cyberballs big enough to stick around and argue with us nice little Rotties? Smart money is on the former…..think I’ll go up to my friendly neighborhood Indian casino and put a little wager on that….
smart businessmen those noble savages….very smart indeed.
December 2nd, 2006 at 4:06 pmLet us remember that one of the major criticisms of certain British cavarly officers (like Banastre Tarleton) during the Revolutionary War was that they liked to let their Indian allies loose on the colonists. The Indians had nothing even remotely resembling rules of war, and they committed many massacres. Indeed, the idea of the “noble savage” is wrong from Tierra del Fuego to Alaska. Lots of native tribes committed what we would call genocide and enslaved other tribes all the time, all over the Americas. I would say that life for these people was probably better before the Europeans came (the reason being that your standard Indian nation did not have the technological ability to wipe out its enemies on the same scale that the Europeans could) but anyone who thinks that life was perfect for these people is deluded. A more apt quote comes from Thomas Hobbes: that the life of man is “nasty, brutish, and short.”
December 2nd, 2006 at 4:28 pmGee, muista missed this one in Medieval History…
From Wikipedia.
December 2nd, 2006 at 5:21 pmSee, you’re all forgetting the first rule of Moonbat Anthropology:
If a native culture practices cannibilism, murder, rape, human sacrifice, genital mutilation, bestiality, infanticide, communismm incest or any other ghastly thing you might care to name, it’s an example of “cultural diversity”.
Whereas, if a white fellow even mentions the practices of “cultural diversity”, he’s a Nazi-racist-genital mutilation-ophobe. If he goes so far as to actually criticize then, he’s a candidate for public censure, letter bombs and mobs of patchouli-reeking “peaceful” protestors who will physically assauly him, his family and anything else in range.
So endeth the lesson.
December 3rd, 2006 at 5:07 amNCLivingBrit:
Or, that wasn’t REALLY what they did, it was just that the European Invaders anthropologists were doing a hatchet job misinterpreting what they were seeing in their imperialistic takeover of the poor, virginal natives’ territory studies of the primitive, pure, unspoiled native culture.
The astounding ignorance displayed by your average dingleberry infested, patchouli wearing, useless waste of oxygen moonbat still amazes me. Maybe we need to upgrade the cluebats to a model with dual counter-wound springs in a flexible handle???
Discuss.
December 3rd, 2006 at 9:09 amPlease. The only reason the Crusades are more than a footnote in some history book of armed atrocities is that the acts of some Crusaders were observed, judged, and abhorred by Christians.
The Pox-On-Both-Your-Churches pontificating* by CNN-watchers is a sad illustration of the decline of critical thinking in America and the West. Interweb Atheists, especially, are guilty of selective history. They think the West just pulled morality out of its collective ass sometime during the 60s.
While the Gibson movie may not be an ideal Saturday night out, works like it serve to remind us that Judeo-Christianism (and yes, their idiot cousin Islam) may have been the cause of some acts of evil, but it is also the cause of all of the good.
You’re behind the times, Majesty. “Noble savage” is a horrible insult. Suggesting that these different cultures, with colorful practices, are savage because they aren’t like us or we don’t understand them, is a xenophobic racist value-judgment of the highest PC order.
*pun intended
December 3rd, 2006 at 12:08 pmApocalypto is apparently an action movie about a Maya named Jaguar Paw who is taken to be sacrificed, but manages to escape, and tries to return to his village while being chased by warbands. Also, it seems that Gibson is trying to make some liberal point. From Wikipedia:
December 3rd, 2006 at 3:54 pm*Sigh*
First off, cool your heels, everyone. Sorry to say it, you too, Majesty.
Everyone’s flying off on their rants without having a broader, encompassing mind.
What do we know about the Aztecs? Only what’s been passed down through several centuries, and that we owe them the concept of 0. What do we know about Cortez? That upon entering the Aztec city, he immediatly plundered, raped and pillaged the place, stacking the bodies of men, women and children alike, like firewood.
As for the Mayans, I don’t know a lot about them, so I cannot take a side in a rant one way or another.
Were the Native Americans, both North and South, savage? If you ask me, they, like Europeans, had their shortcomings. But more mass atrocities were committed at the hands of the Europeans and early Americans then the natives ever performed. Does this mean we should feel guilty about it? Hell no. The sins of the ancestors do not hold weight on us. But what we should take to heart, is that the concept of ‘Savage’, noble or not, is entirely dependant on the beholder.
Why do I not have an encompassing mind where the Middle Eastern countries full of fanatic Muslims are concerned? Because I’m personally biased and wish every last one of those towel-headed camel rapists and their worthless lands be turned into a lovely mirror.
But as to peoples we know truly little about… *Shrugs* who knows?
December 3rd, 2006 at 5:31 pmZucca Felt says
Actually Zucca, it was the Mayans who discovered the concept of 0, not the Aztecs. And we don’t owe them for it, we figured it out on our own, just about a thousand years later is all.
Not really. He was welcomed by Montezuma as a potential god. Cortez didn’t have the manpower to enter Mexico City and start slaughtering and pillaging. He had about 500 Conquistadores, maybe a few thousand Indian allies. Montezuma had, IIRC, an estimated 1 million man army. The Aztecs were eventually conquered by a meager 500 Spaniards because the tribes who had been conquered and enslaved by the Aztecs joyfully joined Cortez’s forces because the Aztecs were hated so much. The Aztecs built palaces out of the skulls of their victims, literally. The Conquistadores were no choir boys, but what the handiwork of the Aztecs turned their stomachs.
December 3rd, 2006 at 6:17 pmre: munchtime’s & similar comments.
December 3rd, 2006 at 8:55 pmMight I respectfully suggest a corollary to Godwin’s (?)
Law (the first person to reference Nazis in a discussion
not about the Nazis loses). That is: the first person to reference either the Crusades or the Inquisition in a discussion not having to do with either, particularly a discussion about present-day Islamofascism loses. Your opinions, please.
BTW, what does IIRC stand for?
irish19
December 3rd, 2006 at 8:59 pmIIRC = If I Remember/Recall Correctly
Thanks, Crunchie. I’ve been wracking what’s left of my brain trying to figure that out.
December 3rd, 2006 at 10:49 pmYer welcome there irish.
December 3rd, 2006 at 11:04 pmI propose we call it the Irish Corollary to Godwin’s Law
December 4th, 2006 at 8:11 amYep, the indians were REALLY noble, in 1912 my great-grandmother, an Oklahoma blackfoot of 12 years old, was sold to my great grandfather, an old Arkansas trapper, for $20 worth of hides.
Don’t get me wrong, I love granny very much and she taught me lots of different things when I was a kid, but it was a shame to sell your youngest daughter.
December 4th, 2006 at 11:00 amHey, maybe Gibson’s making this movie to justify a movie about Cortez coming in and kicking their ass?
I will definitely go see this movie. Being a historical reenactor, I love period flicks, if for no other reason, because it helps give you a good idea of what life at least looked like back then. For the most part, this is one thing that Hollywood seems to be improving on. “Passion of the Christ” wasn’t as historically accurate as I would have liked (compare evidence from the Shroud of Turin to how Gibson depicted the flogging), but for an example of the sounds and apearance of the biblical era, they did a very good job.
And anyone who saw Mann’s version of “Last of the Mohicans” got a good eye-full of reality there. It finally showed the Indians as what they really were: human beings. Native Americans suffered all the vices and problems of white folks, Asian folks, black folks, etc. They were no more noble than any of us. The whole concept of the Noble Savage dates back to some of this country’s earliest Lefties, anyway!
I’ve done a lot of research on Native American culture, and although I respect that culture, I’m not so Leftardedly insipid as to think they were so much more admirable than anyone else. Yes, they had great cultural ideals, and still do, but they were still human beings. They had turds and jerks in their society too.
Native Americans in this country got screwed, no one’s arguing that, but it was a clash of cultures, and theirs lost. Sorry. Deal with it.
Semper Fi,
December 4th, 2006 at 12:05 pmMattski
[…] The review from the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler Blog states: “Pretty much precisely describes the whole point of the civilizations of such “noble savages” as the Mayans, if you ask us. There isn’t one, there wasn’t one, and there never will be one. Those bloodthirsty mongrels and many others before and after them were brutal, savage, cruel and entirely without redeeming qualities, and the best thing that ever happened to this planet was when they were wiped out, never to be heard of again. […]
December 5th, 2006 at 4:45 pmAhhh, the noble savage!
Oh so noble in warfare… :lol_wp:
December 5th, 2006 at 7:38 pmA friend of mine who is half-Blackfoot/half-Ute has this to say: “Instead of Monday Night Football, we’d have Monday Night War. It would be the Blackfoot and the Ute setting up bleachers in Utah to watch the Navajo and the Apache go at it down in Arizona.”
Basically, the same kind of things my ancestors were doing centuries before, only the fights were divided by clan and petty kingdom — not to mention a much smaller area — instead of by tribe.
Was it brutal? Ya sure ya betcha. Were they barbaric savages? Better believe it, and I for one don’t see any differences between the ancient Celts and the native tribes in North America. But no one who has seriously studied history (or who at the very least isn’t taking a generous hit from the crack pipe) would claim that the Crusades/Inquisition was 100000000 times more brutal. The past was bloody and death was part of day-to-day living, and our modern concepts of genocide, torture, and non-combatant status simply did not exist.
Sucks, but them’s the digs.
December 6th, 2006 at 6:14 pm