Netflix series Barbarians.

[pws]

..The Germans talking German and the Romans Latin was interesting...

The ONLY interesting side of this production... all the rest simply boring.
Just a lot of false modern sterotypes with old names, barbarians=freedom and romans=slavery really tired me out, really.

[Mindenbrush]

I got to the end of episode 6 .......... expecting there to be more ........... but that was it 

[Silent bob]

Whilst I agree about artist's being at liberty to use artistic, something fundamental to free speech/expression, license. I also know that is can be folly if it takes the pee. A balance has to be drawn and the production team failed the test IMHO. I'm not angry, bitter or anything of that nature, just mildly amused and having a chuckle to myself about what was at the end of the day, essentially a misleading story about historical events.

In the overall telling of 9AD - was the story so misleading?......forget about Wolfspeer & Frauline Whatever Her Face (Thusnelda).....they were just engines to make the series more interesting to WAGs.....a bit like Jack & Rose in Titanic.....

The basic story was there - Hermann (the hostage son of a German chief) goes rogue and leads the Romans into an ambush in the trees......3 Legions lost..... Rome 0 Germany 1.....

OK Thusnelda did not feature in the narration until after 9AD

Maybe Series II will be when Flavus and Arminius get it on.....and Germanicus shows up and kidnaps Thusnelda....

I must admit I found the 'A Team' eagle snatch raid a farce.

I think if I was on the production team and heard the biggest gripe was mullets, I'd consider it a success.....I spose maybe I am getting mellow in my old age....

[Inkpaduta]

Another thought. Why don't they call him Hermann? What is up with Ari?
I come from Minnesota near the town of New Ulm (Most ethnic German city
in the US) and they have a big statue of Hermann the German.

[Silent bob]

Another thought. Why don't they call him Hermann? What is up with Ari?
I come from Minnesota near the town of New Ulm (Most ethnic German city
in the US) and they have a big statue of Hermann the German.

Not sure about that but 'Hermann the German' was the working title of a supplement I was working on for WAB, before it went to the wall/or down the pan

I have always thought that Hermann doesn't sound too 'macho' regardless of the Old German origin, but I cant figure out 'Ari'....maybe 'Armi' would have been better....

[Mad Doc Morris]

Why don't they call him Hermann?

Perhaps because that's a humanist hoax? 
'Germanising' Arminius to "Hermann" was a nationalistic trick. Unfortunately, the series sticks to that by using "Ari"; quite randomly in the original dialogue some initial sounds are dropped or flattened (like "Herusker" instead of "Cherusker"), so a likely explanation is that the writers wanted to allude to the – obsolete – etymology of Arminius from "Hari(mann)" > "Hermann" (=man/leader of an army).

[Atheling]

Another thought. Why don't they call him Hermann? What is up with Ari?
I come from Minnesota near the town of New Ulm (Most ethnic German city
in the US) and they have a big statue of Hermann the German.

There's one facing France too which I have always found to be in bad taste....

Hermannsdenkmal ("Hermann Monument") in the Teutoburger Wald (Teutoburg Forest), Germany

[Fremitus Borealis]

Perhaps because that's a humanist hoax? 
'Germanising' Arminius to "Hermann" was a nationalistic trick. Unfortunately, the series sticks to that by using "Ari"; quite randomly in the original dialogue some initial sounds are dropped or flattened (like "Herusker" instead of "Cherusker"), so a likely explanation is that the writers wanted to allude to the – obsolete – etymology of Arminius from "Hari(mann)" > "Hermann" (=man/leader of an army).

Beat me to it! Though I thought calling him "Ari" was a nice touch, actually. As you say, Hermann is basically a fake name (of course, what name isn't? A topic for another time, I suppose 😁), but the Germans in the show had to call him something, and I'm glad it wasn't Arminius, because that would have meant a rather shallow understanding of the source material. I guess they could've gone with *Harjaz or something, but the fact is we don't know what his team name was, only that it probably shared a similar linguistic element to Caesar's pal Ariovistus from a couple generations earlier..........or maybe they are both just based more on titles that meant something like "that warrior guy", and we'll never know what they were really called

[Citizen Sade]

FWIW, Ari as a given name is still is use in Scandinavia, at least, though not commonly. Supposedly derived from Norse and meaning eagle.

[Captain Blood]

Just finished it. I enjoyed it 
Ended a bit up in the air, but I didn’t think it was too bad overall.

It’s now a golden rule of all ancient, medieval, and fantasy movies and TV shows that battles have to have fire - preferably involving lobbed flaming fireballs. Not sure if Gladiator or The Return of The King is to blame for this, but it’s now an absolute must-have staple. It was fairly lightly handled in this I thought

[Sterling Moose]

Hermannsdenkmal ("Hermann Monument") in the Teutoburger Wald (Teutoburg Forest), Germany

I used to live in that town.  Loved it!!

[Inkpaduta]

It looks very much like the statue in New Ulm.

[cadbren]

Okay storyline once you get over the silly night raid to capture the eagle. The final battle was tripe unfortunately, started off well with different parts of the column being attacked but once the flames were lit it was rolling eyes time. At the very least you have to accept the Romans not noticing a huge amount of flammable material poured into trenches, either the turned earth itself or the smell of the flammable material. This was also done in one of the battles in Braveheart and looked just as stupidly pointless.

My biggest beef is the costumes of the Germans, day to day costumes were okay but their fighting costumes were just fantasy rubbish, inspired more by African tribal warriors with long face masks and random war paint. There is one group mentioned as using warpaint, it was black or at least very dark and the tribe was the Harii, they also fought at night. Having these guys involved in the ambush during the night fighting would have been amazing. Not sure where the chin markings for the women come from, that looks polynesian/Ainu.

Thumbs up in the first Germanic council for pointing out that not every group present was even German, there were likely Celts still around and various others that history has not recorded. Great to see the suebian knot. The guy wanting Thusnelda as his wife I think was Teurisci - a Dacian tribe that likely was originally part of the Celtic Taurisci.

[Silent bob]

Just finished it. I enjoyed it 
Ended a bit up in the air, but I didn’t think it was too bad overall.

It’s now a golden rule of all ancient, medieval, and fantasy movies and TV shows that battles have to have fire - preferably involving lobbed flaming fireballs. Not sure if Gladiator or The Return of The King is to blame for this, but it’s now an absolute must-have staple. It was fairly lightly handled in this I thought

Maybe Spartacus? Kirk and his rollers?......I once watched French series about William the Conqueror and they had (IIRC) burning wagons at Hastings.......

[Rick F]

I really enjoyed it, I just had to keep reminding myself that these things are made for a very general audience, as one of the historical advisors said on a different programme "the director will listen to a certain extent, but storyline and visual appeal will beat accuracy every time" As for what we actually know about the period and battle, it's not too long since if you'd said they were wearing segmented armour in AD9 you'd have been ridiculed. Imagine what we'll know in 50 years, AriHerminious was actually a Polynesian prince who'd crossed the oceans on a balsa raft