Ron Howard Aztec Miniseries Scripted by Che Guevara Writer
via Ron Howard developing Showtime series about the Aztec Empire | TV | Newswire | The A.V. Club.
Although Ron Howard is plenty busy convincing the world that Arrested Development is filming a fourth season, he’s ready to take on another TV project steeped in myth and legend. Deadline reports that Howard is preparing to direct the Showtime series Conquest, a “sweeping period drama” written by The Motorcycle Diaries’ José Rivera about the clash between the Spanish conquistador Cortes and Aztec emperor Moctezuma II, who didn’t exactly appreciate being conquistadored.
Given the facts that Rivera A) was strongly influenced by Castro-defender Gabriel García Márquez, B) wrote a screenplay glamorizing the Stalinist executioner Che Guevara, C) followed by writing a play on the murderer’s final hours with the radical chic title School of the Americas D) this year the On the Road film coming out also bears his credit… it’s safe to anticipate a series indicting Western Civilization while downplaying the human sacrifice and slavery that took place under Aztec imperial rule.
Also related: human sacrifice as a recurring theme in recent popular culture?
Save yourself a lot of time and trouble and watch Mel Gibson’s “Apocalypto.” Despite some serious drawbacks, the movie hit a lot of the right notes. Say what you will about Gibson (there is plenty to say and I’ve said plenty of it myself,) the guy knows how to make a movie. The last forty minutes is a good as anything I’ve ever seen.
It’s unfortunate. Apocalypto mixed the actual rituals of the Aztecs with the symbols, art, and language of the Maya, producing a visually stunning but historically inaccurate piece of film.
In case you are referring to human sacrifice the Mayass parctaiced it too.
I understand that the Aztec temples were smeared with bloody gore. They stunk of raw (human) meat.
However, I am sure that Ron Howard’s Montezuma will be a learned and cosmopolitan man (it’s too bad we don’t have Alec Guinness anymore), and the Spaniards will be thuggish evil and quite dirty, as well as ignorant and slobby.
And I wonder if they will give a nod to all the local anti Aztec tribes who teamed up with the Spaniards in taking down the Aztecs, because (you know) they hated being enslaved and tortured.
Stunk of blood. The bodies were rolled down the steps to be taken out for barbecue. (Aztecs were short of larger meat sources.)
I wrote a paper about Aztec human sacrifice when I was an undergrad. Don’t read it before lunch.
Never mind the ignorant Spaniards were able to circumnavegate the world while the oh so learned Aztecs were barely able to cross the Mexico laguna. The ignorant Spaniards also mastered steel work, gun powder, built cathedtrals who from an engineering view point were leagues ahead of anything the Aztecs ever built and their scientists, knew, centuries before Colombus, not only that Earth was round but its diameter, Moon’s diameter and distance from Earth to Moon.
There could be a couple areas where the Aztecs were ahead of the Europeans a few technologies they mastered better but for one of them there were a hundred where the Europens were far ahead.
I’ve often wondered why someone hasn’t done something based on one of history’s most amazing stories.
It will be interesting to see how it’s handled. The true fact is that two empire’s steeped in the brutality of their times met and slugged it out. Warfare and slavery were endemic to both empires wherever possible. I guess the Spanish Inquisition, bad as it was, didn’t quite match the fun of having your heart ripped out and your body thrown down some steps. Priests in parts of that world squatted in temples whose walls were smeared with layers of human blood.
My prediction is that the Aztec civilization will be portrayed as rather innocent and erudite and which eschewed Machiavellian maneuverings rather than being naive, much the same way North American Indians considered machine guns as gauche and so never invented them.
Cortes will be portrayed as lucky and as someone who is devoid of ever having access to “true” spirituality and so someone who could never “get it” in quite the same way as an Aztec. The Spanish force will be larger than it really was and consistent attempts by the natives to kill and enslave the Spaniards from day one be replaced with embassies from the Aztecs not yet taught the value of parlay by sword and steel as was actually the case.
In fact there is little to choose between the two in terms of morality yet I’ve little doubt a liberal narrative will fix that up.
Reallay? Firsdt of all let’s remind the Conujikstadores were adventurers who wre probably in the bortomm half of Spanish morality. Second: Tell that to those who fell prsioners to the Aztecs…
The Aztecs fell to a relative handful of Conquistadors because the subjugated tribes of Mexico hated their cruel Aztec overlords. The Spaniards had a very large core of indigenous shock troops to throw at the numerous Aztec warriors. The Incas suffered the same fate for the same reason.
In a similar veign: Leftists who insist that the Soviet Union fell of its own accord should note that Reagan saw the increasing weakness of the tottering Soviet empire just as the Spanish saw the Central and S. American empires as ripe for conquest.
I wonder if the Che loving Leftist will ignore that aspect of the story.
– gotta keep that Sun moving across the sky.
The torture of the Spanish Inquisition made the Aztecs look gentle.
Ritual torture of prisoners was endemic from El Mirador to Tenochtitlan according to what I’ve read.
The excesses of the Inquisition are indefensible.
Having said that, the Inquisition, nefarious and brutal as it was, has been hyped and overhyped by several factors of ten relative to other cultures and their brutalities, predominantly by an education industry populated with individuals who are anti-Christian bigots and have an ideological axe to grind.
Most accurate estimates of the total number of victims of the Inquisition in Spain during those times as somwhere north of 10,000 or so, bad enough, but not comparable to centuries of brutal murder in the New World by natives, or the first wave of Mongol attacks to the West, or the first Jihad in MENA, or the 30 Years War (both sides), or the pagan inspired atrocities of Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan, or the atheist atrocities of the 20th century in the Soviet Union or Red China.
But guys like you, unattorney, have to make real, real sure that the notion of the Inquisition being the worst thing ever is never challenged, despite the facts, don’t you?
Actually Spanish Inquistion killed twelve thousand people in three centuries. Fourty a year. Protestnt Europe burned fourty thpusand witches in 40 years. That makes a thousand a year. Trials, a litigious sytem who required a lot of papper work and professional judges who keopt cool heads and dealt harshly with lynchers kill less than panic stricken peasants who have had a couple cows die from eating some poisonous weed. Also most of accusees were eitherr found not guilty or got only light sentnced like Saint Teresa’s grand father whose sentence was to spend dozen Sundays going in procession in the streets of the city while wearing the sanbenito: a coat making him as a sinner. Also in this number of twelve thousands are included Muslims who pretended to have converted to Christainity in order to be allowed to stay in Spain but secretly contnued to practice Islam, initiated several revolts in which they were particularly nasty towards local Christians and assisted Barbary pirates in their raids on the Spanish coast.
Let’s also remind the Inquisition initially shuns torture (was introduced in the thirteenth century through influence of Ancient Roman law and only to be used in exceptional cases), that it worked on the “innocent until proven guilty” principle, that several Inquisitors were dismissed or even jialed for excessive severity, that when created it gave far more guarantees to the defendant than royal justice (indicted was alllowed to producde a list of people who were in bad terms with him and who would not be allowed to testify against him, not sure of but I think he was allso allowed a lawyer), and that the death sentence could not be pronounced for a first sentence. It was only if after having repented he fell again in “heresy” he could be senteneced to death. That was what happenned to Joan of Arc who initially had been sentenced to a life of penance. (Some people say the English tricked her into reasserting her “heresies”). The above in this paragraph applies to Medieval Inquisition not sure about waht aplies to Spanish Inquisition.
Uh, no. They burned small children to death as one of their many methods of human sacrifice. (The heart rip ritual is only the most widely known.)
Another winner was the annual sacrifice of small children to Tlaloc, the rain god. The kids were sealed up alive in a cave. Priests waited outside to listen for weeping. The more tears, the better the omen for rain. I guess the symbolism was obvious…
Not gentle, but equal.
The Aztec vs. Cortez conflict was violent empire vs. violent empire, only modern popular history tends to whitewash the brutality of the Native American peoples during the 14th through 19th centuries. Both Aztec and Spanish empires used state terrorism posing as religion to target minority groups.
While better than liberals your post is still tauinted by far too much political correctness
Spaniards were not practicing state terrorsim for the simple reason the Cortez expedition was a private venture. In fact he had to defeat a force sent by the governor of Cuba to capture him. Also until tyhe indepndence the Spanish crown tried, ususllay with mittle success since Spain was far away, to protect the local populations and fopr that reason when in XIXth century the Spanish colonies fought for their indepndence the Indians sided with the Spaniards until it became clear they would lose the war.
And the Spaniards did not sail to Mexico for the purpose of converting evry one at word point. Diaz del Castillo, a member of the Cortez expedition, ie a man who wrote with XVIth century sensitivity not XXIth one, writes: “Only voluntary conversions are valid”. Whatr they expected was their priests persuading local populatiions of embracing Christianism. But when they found canibalism and large scale hulman sacrifice their tolerance and goodwill vainshed.
Well, the Spaniards did not sail to Mexico intending to convert evry one at (Microsoft) word point. Neither at sword point.
On one occasion the Aztecs killed more than 20,000 people. It took them a few days to cut all those hearts out. That body count is more than 5 times the total killed by the Spanish Inquisition during the 400 years of its existence.
The Aztec god Xipe Totec required that every day some prisoner have his skin cut off with pieces of broken glass and the skin be draped over the statue. The Spanish Inquisition used some rough methods for interrogation but I’ve never read of them doing anything remotely like that.
The torture of reading such non-sense makes the Spanish inquisition look gentle.
Opie is dopey.
The thing is, this could be fascinating if done right. “Rome” was about a highly dangerous and skewed period in history, especially as regards political maneuvering, but the (albeit historically inaccurate) portraits of the people on both sides, as well as the ubiquitous everyman characters of Vorenus and Pullo, made for fascinating television. I’d love to see something like that for the Aztecs and the conquistadors.
Alas, it’s not going to happen. Noble natives versus bloodthirsty conquerors, etcetera, etcetera. I wonder if they’re going to trot out the old “natives thought Cortez was Quetzalcoatl” myth again? It could be used to send a nicely lefty “RELIGION IS EVIL” message.
Propaganda posing as entertainment. It’s Thursday.
Next project > > ReTell the story of ‘The Black Hole of Calcutta’< < As a musical comedy.
Would have suggested the Spanish Inquisition, but Mel Brooks already did that in History of the World.
New Subject:
With the real story, as iterated by several posters, do we have any question about the inbred ancestry of the current crop of Mex Drug Warlords and their bloodthirsty ways.
What this kind of movies never say is the Spaniards could never have conquered the Aztec Empire without local assistance. One thousand Spaniards could defat the whole Aztec army unassisted but what they couldn’t do was control territory and guard Cortez’s line of communications (not to mention carry fcarry from Veracruz to Technotitaln the ships who wrestled naval superiority from the Aztecs). And why did the Tlazcatltecs assist Cortez. Simply because they hated the AZztec’s guts, they hated them for all the decades of taking their finest young people and sacrifying them in Tenochtitaln. That is why they assisted Cortez. And during the siege of Tenochtitlan the Spaniards had to keep a watch around Aztec prisoners in order to; prevent the Tlazcaltecs from killing and eating them.
Even if you leave out human sacrifice and military conquest of other tribes, Aztec customs were bizarre even by the standards of their indigenous neighbors.
Aztec society was rigidly stratified into a caste system even more convoluted than the Hindu system in India. Just speaking to someone “above” you in the pecking order was a complex ritual, requiring flowery compliments and titles;
And that was just to ask the silly bastard “Do you want cream or sugar in your coffee?”
When a high official was called before the emperor, or indeed anybody approached him for any reason he wanted to talk to them, they were first required to strip naked, put on the metlis robes of a peasant, and then enter on all fours, moving on hands and knees, and with their face to the floor. And not speak until spoken to. At which point the sort of spiel quoted above was just a patch on what they were supposed to say (for half-an-hour or so) before they got around to the actual reason for the “audience”.
Oh, and let’s not forget that the Aztecs were masters of bureaucracy and bookkeeping. Every year,every ear of corn and grain of wheat in the Empire was meticulously cataloged. Which took most of the year.
And oh yes- screwing up at any of the above generally resulted in being executed. Without a trial.
Is it any wonder that progressives think the Aztecs had a perfect society? They’d love to be the rulers, running a setup like this.
(Source; the Florentine Codex of Bernardino de Sahugun, the most accurate account of Aztec society written during the Conquest era.)
cheers
eon