Barbarians (History Channel)

Rating:
Summary: Simply Awful
Review: I bought this DVD after watching the DVD of "Spartans" by PBS. I was really in the mood for another great history show. However, what I got was simply awful.
To start with, I can't stand the overly dramatic narrator, who tries to imbue every syllable with ominous overtones. His narration is extremely poorly written, it sounds like a script from a B movie.
The shows are also filled with innumerable blunders, an example of which is that in showing a map of the Viking's homeland of Scandinavia, it completely leaves out the territory of present day Denmark, even though the Danes were a major part of the Viking age.
Then of course, there are the horrible historical re-ennactments, which though copious, are also innacurate. Mongols, Tatars, and Arabs are all portrayed by Caucasion actors and actresses. I find it mind boggling that they couldn't even find actors of the right ethnicity to play an important historical figure like Ghenghis Khan.

Anyone looking to buy a History Channel DVD should think twice and then get one of PBS's excellent productions.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining, while educating as well
Review: Barbarians is a big budget history channel miniseries that covers 4 of the better known "barbarian" peoples of history. The Goths, The Mongols, The hun, and the Vikings (a documentary on Ghengis Khan is thrown in as a bonus... one wonders why they did not include one on atilla as well seeing as how the history channel has such a documentary on atilla that it airs all the time). Many have heard of them and knwo something about them, but few really know who they were as a people.

The series does a beautiful job illustrating the commercialization of the history channel and discovery channel today. The series is very entertaining, but the focus on entertainment and on popular appeal overpowers it's historical accuracy and it's determination to cover the topics at hand. The series is a lot of fun, but tries to be a bit too main stream. This is why it has so many bad reviews.

The episode on the mongols is hands down my favorite, while the rest of the series does a good enough job. I will give this 4 stars because I did in fact enjoy the series, but I will also agree this could have been MUCH better, and had much more substance. Not enough information is given, and the maps, while good, are used sparingly. There's only a few battles covered, and the ones that are covered arent covered with as much detail as other documentaries. This is more an overview than anything else... dont expect to come away with a real understanding of history after watching this... you'll have learned some things, and enjoyed it... but too much is skipped and ignored. The only mongol leaders covered are Chengis Khan and Tamerlane, what about the many other important khans and khanates? No real depth is present, and there is so much facinating stuff left out (the planned mongol invasion of europe... the possabillity the mongols may have caused the plague in europe by tossing corpses over city walls during a seige... kublai khans failed invasion of japan... and many of the religious and cultural and social dimensions of mongol expansion arent discussed in any detail. The other episodes are lacking in similar ways.

I suppose I must rate this for what it is though. And it obviously wasnt meant to be comprehensive or far reaching. it was meant to be a fun overview of barbarian peoples, and consequently there is little quality of information and lots of attention paid to style and ratings. Barbarians is soundly centered on entertaing rather than being a serious historical endeaver. I would have liked to have seen what this series could have been if it really explored these peoples fully and gave detailed accounts of history and the battles, but for what it is, I did still enjoy the series enough to buy it.

Rating:
Summary: Good ...but it could have been way better
Review: I watched "Barbarians" when it was aired by the History Channel. This four-episode series offers a good overview regarding nomads tribes that fought and destroyed the dominant empires of their times --i.e., the Bizantine Empire, the Western Roman Empire, the Jin and Song Empire, and the rest. However, I was very disappointed with the fact that the producers of "Barbarians" did not even bother to use ethically correct actors. To watch Genghis Khan or Attila the Hun being portrayed by white guys with fake black moustaches and phony-looking beards was a really disappointing experience and, from a historically point of view, it was grossly inaccurate. If the producers are willing to spend millions of dollars on costumes and settings for battles, why don't they hire Asian actors to properly portray these ruthless yet mesmerizing warlords???

Additionaly, the producers of "Barbarians" attempt to show the viewers, with some degree of success, that the leaders of the Vikings, Goths, Huns, and Mongols, far from being brutish, narrow-minded hirsutes, were in fact highly intelligent, sophisticated, and competent men of arms. However, despite the producers' best efforts, because each of the four episodes is just 50 minutes long, what viewers end up getting is a rather watered-down depiction of the sagacity and acumen of these astonishing self-made warriors.

I was also turned off by some comments made by a few historians about the brutality of certain tribes, particularly the Mongols. Yes, the Mongols were bloody to the bone, and killed millions of people. But the same could be said about many other groups such as the Romans, Aztecs, Zulus, and, in our modern era, the Nazis, Communist Russians and Chinese, and so forth. To be perfectly honest, I have never heard of any great empire being forged by pacifists.

Overall, "Barbarians" does entertain and inform. I guess it is O.K. but definitively not great as I could have been.

Rating:
Summary: A fraud!
Review: Just by seeing the Tv preview the many faults of this fraud are evident. Seing the actual feature is worse:
- Badly choreographed and historically inaccurate fighting!
- Childish or Hollywoodean weaponplay!
- Weapons and armour sometimes inaccurate or even anachronic!
- A "viking ship" being constructed skeleton-first mediterranean style!
- Caucasian "mongols"!
- Etc. etc.
A HONEST approach using easily available basic research and expert advice could have avoided this trashing of resources. It's clearly a missed chance to produce a great historical documentary.
To be a truly informative resource (and not an unreliable biased fake for mass entertainment) The History Channel must be more carefull with its features. Academics already call it "The Story Channel"!

Rating:
Summary: Glaring Inaccuracy
Review: The use of Caucasian actors to play Mongolians-especially Genghis Khan- has effectively discredited the History Channel as nothing more than mindless entertainment. If they are so careless about this obvious aspect of history, then what other lies are they tying to pass off as historical truth? This is no different than yellow-faced white actors in any horrid asian themed movies way back in those less "progressive" times. The Barbarian series should be categorized as dim-witted entertainment and not educational.

Rating:
Summary: Playing Barbarians
Review: Viewers who object to the Caucasian actors in this series portraying Mongols should take a look at the classic whopper of the genre--John Wayne as Genghis Khan!