Sin límites

After attending others spanish history-based productions, like the ones based on I. Falcones's books or the terribile Isabel, I was pretty much scared that Sin Limites would be another soap opera. And indeed this kind of production seems to not be fully capable of let go some of the genre tropes or putting the necessary care were needed (like when representing the great court of the king of Spain as a empty room with a table and some candles). But, letting aside the various "artistic liberties" the authors took on the real historical journey of Magellan, I was pleasantly surprised to see how they were capable of creating an entertaining and visually pleasing story. The Show is well written and directed, the photography does it's job, and the characters are generally well rounded, even if they couldnt' avoid some classic tropes, expecially on the first episode, but you get the feeling of emprovement as the show progress. In conclusion, even if not completely historically accurate and with some ingenuity, the Show is capable of delivering an engaging story, characters with positive valours of loyalty and strenth, and portrays the ambition, the will power and the dedication that drove the famous voyage. In this time of wokeness, baseness and stupidity it's even more important.

As a Briton, I knew very little about Magellan.

Historic details I don't know in detail. The dirt and squalor of the time look realistic. The smallness of the cannons, and a ship being steered with a lever in the middle of the ship. Things that go against expectations.

The series could have had less on details of the suffering on the later parts of the voyage. And as others say, it was not a profitable route at the time, given the vastness of the Pacific.

This will entertain anyone who has never read anything on the subject. That's why it doesn't get the lowest score.

There was no need for "artistic freedom" to change so much of what happened in reality. I guarantee the real story is much more interesting. Read Zweig or Bergreen. The best thing about this time of culture clash of civilizations and exploration, is that there is no script that can be better than reality. The best bet is to be faithful to the events, because they are very well documented.

I'll just leave here the sentence at the end of this production as an example of the complete absence of historical support: "With this new route to the West, Spain controlled the spice trade for decades".

What? How can something that claims to be historic end up with this blatant lie?

None of the advisors heard of the Treaty of Zaragoza(1529)? In it and after some skirmishes between the Spanish and Portuguese in the Spice Islands with Spanish defeat, Spain accepted money from Portugal to settle the matter leaving control of the spice trade to remain in the hands of the Portuguese until the Dutch took it much later.

If this is the historical rigor, I think it would have been better to end by saying that Elcano, who is meant to be exaggeratedly glorified and who under no criteria can be considered the greatest hero of Magellan's expedition, a few years later, sailed through space in a winged ship, having been the first to surf the rings of Saturn with his surfboard covered in cloves and cinnamon.

This is a glorious and impressive description of the two greatest explorers . It deals about their risked travel , their fighting against enemies and the fame that first greeted them . The men who explored the unknown seas is shown in all his flawed complexity in this series . Magellan is well portrayed in a good acting by Rodrigo Santoro and Alvaro Morte who takes a contemporary approach as an ambitious adventurer . A splendid TV series in 6 episodes about the fabulous feats carried out by Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Sebastián Elcano.

Story of one of the most incredible adventures ever happened: the first trip around the world. It was realized to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the most incredible journey by sea ever made. A nice and spectacular TV series , this ¨Sin Limites (2022)¨ or ¨Boundless¨ mixes action , fights, adventure and epic by taking a look at humanity's journey into the unknown, focusing on two different eras with a common human and technological challenge.

Boundless (2022) is an enjoyable and attractive series that presents us a lot of biographic elements about Fernando de Magallanes and Juan Sebastián Elcano . Focusing on the deeds of the Portuguese Magellan and the Spanish Elcano between 1519 and 1522, when the former commanded a flotilla of ships armed by the Crown of Spain in search of an alternative way to the Asian land route , passing the Magellan strait , arriving to Guam , Marianas islands , to reach the Moluccas Islands and establish a maritime trade route bordering America to the south, and the second, Elcano, completed the feat after the death of the Portuguese in what are now the Philippine Islands, in the island of Cebú while he combated rebel natives . Secondly, but obviously associated with the first, the film shows the analogies between that first circumnavigation trip around the world with the space race and, specifically, with the arrival of the first man on the Moon in 1969, concluding that space is the new ocean that the human being tends to explore, something that is in the very essence of homo sapiens, the curiosity to find new lands, new spaces, new frontiers, physical or intellectual. A big budget series made is similar style to ¨1492: Conquest of Paradise¨(1992) by Ridley Scott and ¨Christopher Colombus : The Discovery¨(1992) by John Glen that were produced for the 500th anniversary of Colombus' voyage .This series was well directed by Simon West (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, The General's Daughter m Expendables II, Stratton , Con Air) .

Adding more historical remarks to those depicted on the movie , these are the following ones : Magallanes was a Portuguese explorer and a subject of the Hispanic Monarchy from 1518. He is best known for having planned and led the 1519 Spanish expedition to the East Indies across the Pacific Ocean to open a maritime trade route, during which he discovered the interoceanic passage bearing thereafter his name and achieved the first European navigation from the Atlantic to Asia. During this voyage, Magellan was killed in the Battle of Mactan in 1521 in the present-day Philippines, after running into resistance by the indigenous population led by Lapulapu, who consequently became a Philippines national symbol of resistance to colonialism. After Magellan's death, Juan Sebastián Elcano took the lead of the expedition, and with its few other surviving members, in one of the two remaining ships, completed the first circumnavigation of the Earth when they returned to Spain in 1522. Born 4 February 1480 into a family of minor Portuguese nobility, Magellan became a skilled sailor and naval officer in service of the Portuguese Crown in Asia. King Manuel I of Portugal refused to support Magellan's plan to reach the Maluku Islands (the "Spice Islands") by sailing westwards around the American continent. Facing some criminal offences, Magellan left Portugal and proposed the same expedition to King Charles I of Spain, who accepted it. Consequently, many in Portugal considered him a traitor and he never returned. In Seville, he married, fathered two children, and organised the expedition. Granted special powers and privileges by the King, he led the Armada from Sanlucar de Barrameda, southwest across the Atlantic Ocean, to the eastern coast of South America, and down to Patagonia. Despite a series of storms and mutinies, the expedition successfully passed through the Strait of Magellan into the Mar del Sur, which Magellan renamed the "Peaceful Sea" . The expedition reached Guam and, shortly after, the Philippine islands. There Magellan was killed in the Battle of Mactan in April 1521. Under the command of captain Juan Sebastian Elcano, the expedition later reached the Spice Islands. To navigate back to Spain and avoid seizure by the Portuguese, the expedition's two remaining ships split, one attempting, unsuccessfully, to reach New Spain by sailing eastwards across the Pacific, while the other, commanded by Elcano, sailed westwards via the Indian Ocean and up the Atlantic coast of Africa, finally arriving at the expedition's port of departure and thereby completing the first complete circuit of the globe. While in the Kingdom of Portugal's service, Magellan had already reached the Malay Archipelago in Southeast Asia on previous voyages traveling east (from 1505 to 1511-1512). By visiting this area again but now traveling west, Magellan achieved a nearly complete personal circumnavigation of the globe for the first time in history.

Actors with very good performance and the main caracthers well presented. The main facts have been developed mostly with historic accuracy. I do not why someone says the are going to East this is not pictured in the series. They sail South sometimes just to escape the Armada attacks. The lack of some insights to the main audience,like quick geographic references,makes the series a little complex to understand. The Director is not the best one by sure and the series lacks a sense of continuity by cutting key passages in the trip. But in general good action, well designed costums and sequence of events.