Hernán

Very much worth a binge. I watched it in Prime in two 4 episode nights.

At home, my mother was an avid reader of history and as a High Schooler she made me read the epic book "The True Story of The Conquest of New Spain" by Bernal Díaz del Castillo (2 volumes, written in XVI Century "Castellano", the term Spain hadn't been created yet).

As far as I know, the Aztec culture, as well as the events leading to the "Noche Triste" (Sad Night, the first defeat of Cortés by the rebellious Mexicas) are very well portrayed. Some parts of the series are made up and romanticized but nevertheless are fitting to the plot. Modern archeology and history scholars have also contributed much to our present day knowledge of the times, that the original Díaz del Castillo obligedly omitted from his much redacted revisions.

The series as historic entertainment is not only dramatic and gripping but also very much humane. It emphasizes the clash of two cultures with a crudeness that permeates any attempt of smoothing the tension the arrival of Cortés' group created among the nations then populating the area.

For people not familiar with Mexico's hirtory, it will show how far from "savages" were the people. Human sacrifices was a horrific custom that was accepted by all the nations of Mezzoamerica and in a way not much more shocking than Roman practices of crucifictions, circus and roman candles (tarred Christians set on fire to lit Roman streets). Yet, Romans are considered a great civilization while Aztecs are deemed savages.

The only reason that kept me from giving it a ten star rating is the casting of the main character, Hernán Cortés. From Bernal Díaz we know he was fair skinned and probably brown haired, as natives thought of him as Quetzalcoatl. Not as nordic as Pedro de Alvarado who was called Tonathiu (the sun) by the Mexica but certainly not as dark as Oscar Jaenada is. We must remember Moors had just been expelled from Southern Spain and Cortés was a Castillian, thus of Celt ancestry. The rest of the cast is perfect and comprised of great actors.

Script, direction, special effects, sound, acting --even Spanish accent- are all exquisitely delivered.

I cannot wait for the second season to be delivered.

Starting with bad points:

• They decided to use permanent flashback, there is no beginning, no middle and no end to the story, it is all messed up, unbearable. It is a very poor choice, specially because the history of the conquest was to slowly discover that there was a quasi mythical city in a middle of a continent.
• It is an amazon production, so they bend history a bit in order to fit their liberal stereotypes (Europeans bad, Christians bad, Muslims good etc ...) but not too much (and these strong women lovers forgot about Maria de Estrada).
• The production want us to believe that Spaniards massacred thousands of cholulan just for fun ...because "Europeans bad" I guess. The fact is that Cholula was a trap, the Spaniards were about to get massacred so they (over)reacted the way they did. Later on, Alvarado massacre was much more disputable however motivated by his hatred for local tradition (kid sacrifices etc ...).
• Obviously Cortes never had a muslin girlfriend, and if muslins weren't very popular in Spain, it was because Spaniards just liberated themselves from muslins after 8 centuries of domination (I wish liberal production mentioned that more often but .... "Muslims good" I guess).

Good points:

• Except few exceptions mentioned above, they really try to stick to the history even with tiny details. We got more of the point of view of the Conquistadors but there are a lot of fantastic descriptions of the very diverse pre-Columbian societies.

So it is fantastic to have a fairly accurate visual depiction of what were the fascinating pre-Columbian civilizations and this incredible moment of history. But in order to understand I recommend to study the history of the conquest before watching the show because of the permanent flash back/forward. I would have gave a 10 stars if the history was in order.

I am personally in love of the conquers. Thanks Amazon for bringing us these hansome and charismatic men to the screen. As a Mexican I have read about the history and being in the hot spots in Mexico City, but watching it in tv helps a lot to understand it. Even so, is too soap opera style.

I really wanted to like this series, but with all of the flashbacks and jumps forward in time, I'm getting seasick. Just tell a story and don't try to be so clever. They make this same mistake in the series El Marginal.

This playing around with the timeline isn't clever; it's highly annoying and takes away from what could have been a great narrative. They have squandered a big budget and some fine actors by resorting to film school tricks.

The show is entertaining and the actors do a good job. However, it is very unrealistic. Native Mexicas are depicted as good-hearted people (like Rousseau's Noble Savage) who accidentally sacrifice and oppress other humans without bad intentions. If you ignore this absurd premise, it is a good show.