Inaccuracy In The Patriot And John Adams

Why are history movies inaccurate from real-world history? Well, the film can only go so far towards creating an accurate portrayal of the past. They also don’t use real people they have actors, costumes, and sets to recreate the historical narrative. For example the movies The Patriot and John Adams. These movies are inaccurate in many ways. I will tell you about them in this comparison and contrast paper.

First I’m going to summarize what the movie The Patriot was all about. The Patriot was a movie about the American Revolutionary War that happened in 1765 – 1783. This war was between army and the Americans who were backed up by the French soldiers. It’s a movie about revenge because the son dies and the father goes to war trying to get revenge back on army who killed his son. As the father kept fighting he finally returned home wounded. The main cause of this war in the movie was because the colonists (Americans) felt that they should not have to pay these taxes because they were passed in England by Parliament, not by their own colonial governments. They protested, saying that these taxes violated their rights.

The movie John Adams is also inaccurate in many ways. The movie first started off with the Boston Massacre of 1770 through many years as an ambassador in Europe, John Adams was the leader from 1735-1826 that gained independence from and became the vice president and eventually ended up as president of the United States in 1797-1801. The film was complicated but they basically portrayed him as a man of principle with a clear vision of what he wanted to do and aspects that he made sure he achieved. John Adams was a great leader in the movie. The only thing that wasn’t so great in the movie was he left his family by themselves all the time, but he did it for a reason. The reason was so that he could set up the country the way he wanted it to be and to make sure others couldn’t take away their rights.

Real history around the time of the American Revolution War was very important. I say it’s very important because this is when America changed. This changed the social and political position in the United States of America. Men and women had power and women obtained a lot more rights after the war. Since all the states were at liberty from Britain they were finally able to create their own form of government and elect a leader. The revolution had a lot of effects on its economy, not only the social and political aspects of America. After the Americans were attached to Britain for so long the Americans finally were able to trade on their own, even though the war messed up the established traditional trading system. Another great effect of this war was that Britain lost its ranking at them being the “undefeated Country”. There were a few negative effects of the war and one of those is that the French had to help America and the French ended up in huge debt and that’s what caused the French Revolution. Another negative effect was that many American soldiers died limiting our army, an estimated amount of 6,800 American soldiers were killed.

Real-world history around the time John Adams was a leader was very difficult for the most part but John Adams made a plan and stayed committed to it and he eventually defeated Britain. After John Adams defeated Britain he became the leading member of the continental congress. Then Adams helped negotiate the 1783 Treaty of Paris, even though Franklin most of the role in negotiating, Adams stubborn self was important as well. After John Adams finalized the Treaty of Paris he served as the first United States ambassador from 1785 to 1788 for Britain. John Adams eventually became the second president of the United States and served for only one term but before that, he served eight years as vice president. While John Adams was president a war was going on between Great Britain and the French and John Adams sent out a delegation to arrange peace between those two and that was known as the XYZ affair. The French wanted a big bribe before they arranged peace and then this started the undeclared war between the US and the french. This war was known as the Quasi-War it started in 1798. John Adams ended this war by sending peace delegations to the French. This war was in peace in 1800 on September 30th, the Quasi-War ended.

The movie The Patriot and real history are similar because the battles that were being shown and fought in the movie were actual battles of the American Revolution. The firearms that were used in the movie were very accurate of the time period. Some of the contrast of the movie and real life is that in the movie they had burn down the church and they made look like ruthless killers and they were very offended by that because they would never burn down a church and their has been no historical proof that people has ever burnt down a church with people inside. Another contrast is that men back in the American Revolution time always saluted by removing their hats and bowing to their side and then putting their hat back on, while in the movie The Patriot the men saluted by placing their hand on top of their head and that’s not the proper way they did it in real history. Also when the movie had five shillings almost every month of freedom and service were handed to the slaves that were fighting for the Continental Army, real history says that this didn’t happen during the war.

The movie or I guess you can call it the series of John Adams and real-life history had many accurate and inaccurate scenes that did and didn’t happen in real life. Some of the inaccuracies are first when the shots went off on March 5, 1770, John Adams was not at his Boston house he was out with friends elsewhere and when he arrived at the massacre on king street both the dead bodies and soldiers were not at the scene. In the movie, it showed John Adams at his home in Boston and when he arrived at the massacre on king street the soldiers and the dead bodies were still there. Also the movie was filmed in colonial Williamsburg which is the name for the new town instead of the old one that was known as Williamsburg.