Well, watched a movie called The Charge of the Light Brigade. There was eventaully a charge, made by a brigade … with about nine minutes left to go in the film. The first two hours were about some love affair in India and some evil stereotypical Arabic sheik that massacred a bunch of people. With 15 minutes to go, no one had uttered the words “Light Brigade,” “Crimea,” or “war,” and I wasn’t convinced I was actually watching the right movie. Given how little time I had left to watch the movies and get a rough draft done, this was rather worrisome. I’m almost certain the antagonist never actually existed, but even if he did … wow. My brain tried to escape out my ears. This movie represented itself as “a historically-inspired fictionalization.” I’ve researched the actual event thoroughly, even calling this thing an alternate reality is generous.

The good news? I planned to slam the movie as being historically inaccurate, so its horribleness worked in my paper’s favor. If it had been historically accurate, I would have had serious problems with my thesis, and it was too close to the deadline to restart from scratch. Picking apart+ the film was easier than I ever imagined.

The bad news? I’m terrified that people will watch this movie and think they’ve got some idea of what happened in the Crimean War. Every historical aspect of this movie, save the fact that the British Empire ruled India and participated in the Crimean War and the Battle of Balaclava specifically, is as far as I can tell completely wrong. Even the uniforms were out of whack.

If you watch this movie, be aware that everything you see is basically fiction. It does not reflect recorded history in any meaningful way. It does not reflect reality in any meaningful way. You’re better off looking at Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone, including people who think they are Napoleon reborn.

New life goal: Invent time machine for the sole purpose of going back in time and taking vengence upon everyone involved in this film, for the sake of the entire human race. Yes. Good plan. I hear that such a device may have other applications, like settling once and for all what killed the dinosaurs, or who killed JFK, but these queries surely pale in comparison to the vital importance of erasing The Charge of the Light Brigade from existence.

The fact that Warner Brothers had a research department whose sole purpose was to come up with historical background information for films and they … excreted … this thing is quite frankly terrifying.

I literally had a huge headache after the epic struggle between the part of me that knew what really happened and the part desperately trying to pay attention to the film enough to write about it. After viewing, I had to distract myself with ice cream and cartoons lest my brain start analyzing the myriad plotholes and implode.

Short version: Do not watch this movie if you are pregnant, planning to become pregnant, male, female, below 21, old enough to drink, or breathe oxygen. If you or a loved one comes in contact with this movie, immediately flush eyes with water and seek delicious food.

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