Empire

Yet another example of TV failing to present one of the great stories of history. They spent the time and money on decent sets, costumes, and actors, but seemed to care nothing about history. Strange, because I believe Americans would enjoy seeing the real story if it was created at this level. However, even if you allow that they can spin their own (hi)story (hey, it's their money), this story started off dull and predictable.

Other reviewers have identified historical flaws in the Octavius character, so I won't repeat them here, but the writers also threw in a gladiator character who appears to be a weak extrapolation from the hit movie. These changes are bad decisions when dealing with such a rich era. When two major characters in the series are created poorly, the series will surely suffer.

Instead of watching the rest of this series, I recommend that you read a book (even a fiction one) about this exciting era to prepare yourself for the upcoming HBO series; they should handle this era much better.

Fiends and I at work thoroughly enjoyed Empire. We liked the characters as well as the actors playing them. We thought the story line was exciting and looked forward to each installment. We were not expecting a documentary or doctoral thesis, we simply enjoyed being entertained, as well as having the opportunity to learn interesting facts about antiquities, the Roman way of life and history, and period clothing. We believed Empire to be interesting, intriguing, and thought provoking as well as not insulting to our intelligence. We are vastly disappointed that Empire was canceled. We were prepared to watch Empire last week, and even speculated about whether a follow up series might be produced. Then, something else came on.

I've watched this four-hour TV epic on DVD with many reservations, which mostly turned out to be true. I've stopped counting the historical inaccuracies long ago and am now trying simply to enjoy this mini-series as entertainment but it's still hard to do, what with a retired Roman general named Magonius who is played by a Black man (!), a "gladiator prison" called "Arkham" (!!) and a slave, played by Jonathan (Beef) Cake, who speaks better English than his master (!!!). The treachery of Anthony is particularly appalling in historical terms but is typical of a script that must have been workshopped in a weekend writers' seminar while channeling every Roman epic cliché ever shot (including some from grand opera, like the deviant Vestal virgin) and putting their incidents in a blender, with the Cate Blanchett voice-over from "The Lord of the Rings" and the medical emergencies from "All My Children" thrown in for good measure. The production values are acceptable, the film shows a lot of sex, violence, sadism and decadence but the cinematography is divided into two groups of scenes: luscious long CGI shots of the countryside or cityscapes with great emphasis on colour, time of day, composition etc. and action/crowd scenes where the camera is jittery at all times and only captures the action in grainy or telephoto close-ups (à la "Gladiator") chopped up in an editing style which makes theses scenes very forgiving of little things like missed cues, bad stunt-work and confused direction, but unfortunately robs them of all majesty, grandeur and clarity. I suppose it could have been much worse. One positive thing is that since this was made for American television, all the major story points are repeated at least six times to allow the addle-brained viewer to follow the plot between bathroom and snack breaks. The four hours fly by rather fast even if they make the viewer less informed about Roman times than if he had never seen them.

After all the teasers, I watched the pilot & found it typically Disneyfied. It takes historical characters of late first century BCE and early 1st century CE and weaves a majestic tapestry of fabrication. It then hangs it on a few pegs of historical truth and expects you to swallow the whole story as fact, when it's mostly fiction. Some of this lack of fidelity to history has been pointed out by others already, so I shall not belabor the point. Having the adequate & comely Santiago Cabrera play Octavian or Octavianus, NOT Octavius! is a stretch. The future first emperor of Rome was 18 not 28 in 44 BCE. Given the state of cultural/historical illiteracy today, I am not surprised by 'Empire.' Afterall, it's Disney/ABC and not the History channel or PBS.

Sure its not entirely historically accurate but it is being shown in Australia during the summer, when most of the good shows have gone off. I personally think this mini-series a pretty good as Rome has been reconstructed back to its former glory and the clothes they were especially the women are beautiful. I would watch this mini-series if you like History and even though its not accurate its good entertainment and isn't as boring as most historical films. This mini-series i feel was directed brilliantly and i could watch it again on a rainy day. I'm sure a lot of people who love history won't like this due to the fact its not accurate but who cares? films are meant to entertain and i believe this one does!