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I decided to step outside of my comfort zone a bit and watch a movie with a rating below that which I’ve said is my threshold indicating decent context. I granted an exception because it was free-to-me on Amazon Prime and an apparently top-tier release from Hollywood. The movie in question showed up recommended to me both as a historical drama and as a military-themed film and I do like those genres. That IMDb ranks it at only 6.5 suggests that its quality would be marginal but I elected to take a leap. I thus watched The Four Feathers, a 2002 film staring Heath Ledger and Kate Hudson.

Once committed, I decided to look up how Netflix rated the same. As I’ve explained, I’ve found that the Netflix DVD ratings are the most accurate when it comes to predicting my own tastes. What I discovered is that The Four Feathers was rated but a single star, and that rating I had put in myself!

Now, I have no memory of having watched this movie but I need not rely on an increasingly unreliable recollection. I am able to search my viewing history on Netflix and so I could see that I’ve never rented this work through them. My best guess is this… When Netflix was new to me, they would frequently ask me to rate movies to help seed their algorithms so as to provide me more recommendations. Obviously, they wanted me to rate the movies I’d already seen but their database had no way to know my viewing history absent my responses. I suspect that I was getting bombarded with movies to rate, many of them that I had never seen, and I accidentally clicked on the “1 star” rating without intending to. Absent my input, Netflix rates The Four Feathers as a 3.4 but suggests that I’d only give it a 3.0.

Turns out that’s pretty durn’d close.

At first, I thought the film had been underrated by other viewers. It’s a very attractive film with lovely period costumes and fantastic scenery (both for Victorian England and Sudan’s deserts). While the tale may have been a little too “period” in-and-of-itself*, the presentation would seem to more than make up for any shortcoming. But then… a bit more than halfway through the movie I started getting put off.

This film has a habit of making big jumps in the story. One scene has the regiment assembling on a dock in England and then, in the very next on-screen moment, they’re marching around in Sudan. That leap was a bit too jarring and it is but one example. Some user reviews suggested this made the story hard to follow. I don’t think that’s a problem… the story line is simple enough for you to fill in the blanks. It’s just that it takes a few beats for that filling in to happen. That moment of puzzlement and figuring is just not pleasant when you’re seeking to be entertained.

Mine is an aesthetic complaint more than anything else.

As the film approached its the end, these jumps got more frequent and more distracting. It made me wonder whether there might not have been a hour or so of extra footage on a cutting room floor somewhere, removed to make a studio target for film length. Even as I came to that diagnosis, I don’t think more scenes are necessary – rather I just think a way could have been found to make transitions a little smoother. This flaw is profound enough to counterbalance the well-done cinematography and to lead me to the conclusion that those ratings (6.5 and/or the 3-3.4 range) have it about right.

Congrats once again to my AI friends.

At the same time, I think there is much more to this rating game that we can explore.

You see, what I didn’t know until I was well into watching The Four Feathers is that this film has quite the history of its own. The source material is a book written in 1902 in the Victorian** “adventure” style. By 1915, it was already adapted for film and by 1929, three different silent-film versions of the story had already been created.

In 1939, the a film version was again made. This time it was with sound, naturally, and in color. It is this version that many hold up as the ultimate movie adaptation of the novel. IMDb gives it a must-see 7.4. It was very popular in Britain at the time and it is held up against Lawrence of Arabia as one of the greatest movie visuals of the African desert. By way of contrast, the 1929 version receives a 7.0 from IMDb, although one wonders if the reviewers aren’t giving the older work a little extra consideration given its origins. In my experience, silent films are at least as much to be “appreciated” as they are to be enjoyed.

Oddly, the film was again made in 1955, this time titled Storm Over the Nile. Said version was a shot-for-shot recreation of the 1939 picture. New actors were cast into the old roles but the same script and even many of the same locations shots were used. The purpose here was to recreate the experience on CinemaScope but on a budget. This attempt did not fare as well on IMDb – it receives a mere 6.2 stars.

Some location scenes were again reused to remake the film in 1978 as a made-for-TV “Bell Special” on ABC. The version received mild praise at the time. Many thought that adapting an out-of-date 1939 work for the (then) thoroughly modern 1970s was a useful and productive exercise. IMDb offers a 6.4 for the effort.

Indeed there is some merit in the idea that, using up-to-date technology, techniques, and effects can improve upon a 75-year-old work. Or if not improved, at least done justice via the update. That 2002’s The Four Feathers missed its target seems more than a bit of a missed opportunity. Having neither any talent nor experience in filmmaking, I don’t know how valid this analysis is but… It seems to me that this version did much of the hard part (acting, scenery, etc) right and failed when it got to the easier part (pacing, structure, and editing).

I’ll just conclude that it was pretty to look upon. Maybe one day I’ll get my hands (and eyes) on the 1939 version to put it in proper context.

Feeling less than fully satisfied, I wondered if perhaps the the solution was to top my watching off with a game experience. Allow me to, once again, digress a bit.

– Not much of a square I must admit

The 2002 Four Feathers seems to feature the tactical situation of the Battle of Abu Klea (or perhaps the Battle of Abu Tulayh if you’re adverse to massacring the local language with an English tongue). I specifically cite the 2002 version and further use the hedge-word “seems” for a couple of reasons. I read elsewhere that the connection to the historical battle was specific to 2002’s version of the story. As we saw above, I am unfamiliar with all other versions, so I don’t know if that’s exclusively so. Whether it is or isn’t, though, the movie interpretation of this battle misses a few key historical marks.

Most obviously, Abu Klea was a British victory, albeit an unfruitful one, in stark contrast to the disaster portrayed on film. At the real Abu Klean commander Sir Herbert Stewart, faced with vastly superior numbers, formed a defensive square. Having successfully fended off the enemy he then used that square in the attack. It was a example of technology and discipline overcoming superior numbers – another fine case of asymmetric warfare.

Unfortunately for all involved, the greater goals were not served. Stewart fought while marching to the aid General Charles “Chinese***” Gordon who was besieged at Khartoum. Even following this victory, Stewart’s force arrived two days after the fall of the city and Gordon’s death.

The scenario Abu Klea is both a perfect example of why we need a new version of Age of Rifles and why it sometimes doesn’t work.

This game play also did not quite satisfy. Part of it is I am entirely rusty when it comes to the mechanics of play within this old game and I got my guys slaughtered – much as was portrayed (inaccurately) on film. Part of it also is that the scale isn’t quite right for the tactics. There just aren’t enough “stands” on the gameboard to recreate the drama of trying to form and hold an infantry square even while moving and attacking. I also didn’t see the American-made Gardner machine gun represented, despite it being a key element in providing victory to the British.

And yet, none of that detracts from what Age of Rifles does provide.

The urge to develop a “Wargame Construction Set”, circa early 1990s, is no longer with us, perhaps due to its subpar commercial model. The last thing any struggling game company wants to do these days is sell their customer a be-all, end-all product that will keep them happy for decades – thus implicitly competing with any future offerings and interim DLCs. And yet, the open ended “sandbox” game creates an experience like no other.

For Age of Rifles, the popularity of Napoleonics and The American Civil War buoyed a platform wherein the like of the Siege of Khartoum could be built by-and-for players. I can’t imagine any other route whereby a PC game treatment of the Sudanese Mahdist War would be viable. The presumed success of games like Command: Modern Operations and Field of Glory II suggest that there is still a place for a toolkit type game. The question is, has the expectations on gameplay grown such that the support for a “generic” scenario capability outgrows its value? As a exhibit, I go back to my discussions on the apparent difficulty of creating Field of Glory II scenarios relative to the original Field of Glory.

To end on a high note, I’ll share this with you. On Facebook, I saw an update from Game Labs featured two in-development games. We knew about Ultimate General: American Revolution (1775) for a while now but the site now features some additional screenshots. Perhaps things are getting close to fruition? There is also an image, a sailing ship painting, to announce a game called Sea Legends. From its one-sentence of explanation, it appears that this might be just what I asked for when I suggest what Ultimate Admiral: Age of Sail could do to get it right. The second, if not the first, might be just that kind of “wargame construction set” that I wish we had around these days.

*There is a reason for this, but you’ll have to bear with me.

**So the book was written in the same year that Victoria died, and after her death. Is it still “Victorian” then? Not having yet read it, I’m going to simply assume it shares much with the late 1800s works of which I’ve spoken before.

***General Gordon took command of the Ever Victorious Army after the death of Frederick Townsend Ward (one of the real-life inspirations for Tom Cruise‘s character in The Last Samurai). Under his command, the force achieved key victories toward the defeat of the Taiping rebellion, earning him the “Chinese” appellation.