Judging by the preview of "10,000 BC," the caveman feature opening in South Bay theaters today (here are some show times in and around the South Bay), almost none of the film is historically accurate. In LA.com, our film writer, Glenn Whipp, points out that "10,000 BC" is faithful to the caveman-film tradition of causing archaeologists and students of ancient history to scratch their heads -- who could forget Raquel Welch in "One Million Years B.C." having to deal with giant sea turtles and dinosaurs? But it certainly isn't faithful to the history books.
Where to begin?
How about with the sailboats? In the preview, we see red-dyed sails powering boats along a river. Aside from the dubious physics of that scene, it's pretty clear that sophisticated sailing of that type wasn't occurring until about 4,000 B.C.
So if our "10,000 BC" cavemen hadn't discovered sailing yet, surely they'd been getting around by domesticated horse. Wrong. The earliest hypothesized date for horse domestication is 4,000 B.C.
Well, what about saber-toothed tigers? Most sources agree that the huge, fearsome cats were extinct 10,000 years ago, or 8,000 B.C. Our caveman friends in the film encounter them (if we're to believe the movie's title) around the tail end of the cats' existence. So that's not to say there couldn't have been any saber-toothed cats roaming the area -- except that saber-toothed cats are known to have inhabited North and South America. And if the pyramids in the "10,000 BC" preview are the ones in Egypt -- which wouldn't have been built until roughly 2,000 B.C. -- the movie isn't taking place anywhere near Kansas. Or anywhere near the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan, an Aztec site that was likely built in the 14th century A.D. That's right, A.D.
So before we ruin the entire film for you, we'll stop with the too-easy historical debunking. But let's just say that you should watch "10,000 BC" for entertainment value only.
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