Netflix has given us some good products and many “bad” products. In the new documentary about Alexander the Great, things have gotten pretty shabby since the makers and the platform itself don’t give a damn about history and what it means to be accurate when making such a great TV series that will be seen by so many people.
The fact is that – unfortunately – the entertainment industry will only learn the hard way to respect history, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t movies and shows that haven’t. In this case, the Alexander the Great series seems to have come out of the mind of a screenwriter who not only has never read any history but has the most inaccurate readings as his sources.
On the other hand, though, we kind of expected it. Look what has happened to Cleopatra or Achilles.
And there it all went completely wrong. The bad thing is that the mistakes are probably also made somewhat deliberately because the new culture of “fast consumption” that pays little attention to historical facts now demands it.
In short: we want to make an accurate documentary series but at the same time we don’t want anyone to be bored. So we’ll put in juicy inaccuracies and obscene gossip.
The sad thing is that a whole platform with so many millions and so much power can’t for the life of it study the correct sources and see who Alexander the Great actually was. The really disturbing thing about the whole thing is that the platform resonates with an audience that is also ignorant of history. And all of this is done in order to satisfy a narrative that is probably for… garbage.
When you get to the point of saying that “300” is fine as a movie in front of this overpriced Netflix abomination, then we all know that things aren’t exactly going well. We’re not saying don’t watch it. Of course watch it to have your own opinion, provided you’ve read a little history.
But is it possible that Darius III, one of the most powerful emperors of his time, could be portrayed as a fakir or a snake whisperer and even with…eyeliner?
As stated above, many major Hollywood productions have had inaccuracies in their narrative. Even films like Troy or Oliver Stone’s Alexander may have had several things wrong in places, but they also had many things right, such as the costumes and the sense of authenticity they brought out in the viewer. Netflix’s Alexander the Great doesn’t even have that.
The battle scenes are completely ridiculous and inaccurate and last very little. The costume of the Greek soldiers isn’t right either. They look like they came out of some warehouse with cheap Halloween costumes at a bargain price. At least the Colin Farrell movie has really good battle scenes and costumes.
One major oversight is the complete absence of the training Alexander the Great received from Aristotle, as well as the absence of Bucephalus, the great general’s faithful horse. We are saddened to see the producers focus on ridiculous stories and scraps of gossip that have nothing to do with historical facts.
We should also say that no attention was paid to the reasons why the Macedonians were able to attack the Persians as they had developed war tactics and even inventions that they used in battle. Even the “academics” who are shown speaking in the documentary are of no interest, they have the charm of a… robot and ruin the rhythm at all points.
Netflix really did the impossible: they took the story of Alexander the Great, which is a truly wonderful narrative, and made it seem like a tasteless, dull, comic book trite.
If anyone feels like wasting a few hours of their life thinking they’re watching a drama series with a fantastic script that somehow resembles the story of Alexander the Great, they can do so.
The only thing is that Netflix shouldn’t launch it as a documentary because it isn’t.
In an age where the viewer is being led by example by TikTok and only driven by not being bored for a minute, then this “documentary” series has achieved its “purpose”. For those who respect history, it is another re- sounding and ugly failure of the platform.
