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Reviews: Master and Commander - The Far Side of the World
By Rider, 30 October 2006; Revised
 Category: Early Modern Era
In many different shots, you can see maps of different areas. I am not entirely suitable of speaking of the coastline of Brazil, although it seems accurate compared to the today ones. The problem is, that it might not have been yet mapped so well for those times (around the Napoleonic Wars). On the other hand, I am very sure that the Pacific coastline of South America wasn’t mapped so well. The maps show that coastline with some 5% of differences compared to the today’s ones. There is a good scene about the Captain having his men try to train for quicker loading and shooting. I would consider such training a little late for an experienced Captain and a vessel that has been in service for a time and has certainly seen some battles. Also, it seems a little weird for me to see firstly men shooting with accuracy equalling almost nothing and later 95% of the shots went for the main mast? It might be of the distance but I am not certain if that is the correct answer. The trick of masking your warship as a whaling ship was commonly used, so I would believe that the French captain should have suspected it. Or perhaps he did and he just pretended to be defeated? Well, in any case, it is certain that the trick was known to Captains of that time. It seems to have succeeded too, the people dressed into simple clothes, lost all connections to discipline and retied the sails and lighted a fire? But it worked, and the battle that followed was better than what you would expect. |