@Ledbetter: Your example about Chernobyl is pretty close to what I'm going for with mine but the problem still persists. I mean, when you mentioned Titanic, I'm sure 98% (including Billy Zane) didn't happen, but there were people who died. How it got that way doesn't matter so much in the end. What I'm talking about, though, is fictionalizing the events of a hurricane and saying that people died in them, even when there were no reported casualties. Something like that will probably cause some logistical problems.

@Dreamer: Yeah, no historical movie is really accurate. If they were, odds are they wouldn't be nearly as interesting, I think. Either that, or it would have to be shortened because most people don't sit in a theater and watch people talk. They like explosions and all that good stuff.

@Stevie: That really doesn't help the problem at all. I'm going off hurricanes that hit New York in '24, '38, '56 and '80 (off-hand, I'm guesstimating on the last two because I don't remember specifically).

@AJR: JFK. Entertaining. NOT factual.

@Ledbetter (again): Use it to create entertainment. Basically, some of the story is cops linking murders happening during hurricanes and their belief that it'll happen again with an upcoming hurricane.

Good point AJR, guys. I saw JFK in the movie theater. Riveting. And yes, it pissed me off. A whole generation of Americans takes that stuff as history. Stone plays with the facts not just to entertain, but to serve his fantastical vision of the world.

Funny thing is, that I swore I would never see a Stone movie again. Then I saw his film  Nixon, of all things, at home, and it's absolutely brilliant. It really captures the paranoia and at the same time the humanity of Nixon. Gets the facts right too. People complained about the scene where he talks to Kennedy's portrait in the White House, but I thought that was brilliant, too. Nixon was obsessed with Kennedy.

It's tough to do history well in film, and now that I am trying to learn screen writing, I really appreciate how tough it must be to fit things into a 2 hr narrative.

A great movie is Bridge over the River Kwai. One of my favorites. But not even close to accurate, and in fact, is pretty racist. The idea that the Japanese couldn't engineer a bridge is ludicrous. Japan was already an industrial power. But for drama, and for exploring the theme of the British sense of duty and order and how that conflicted with common sense at times was brilliant. Plus, who can ever get that whistled tune out of their head!

You want to talk about altered facts, look no further than "U-571"... Lol.

Of course, they've admitted how they fucked that one up, but I just thought it was hilarious that they wrote it the way they did because they didn't think people would notice or care.

I've seen the film, but I don't know what the true facts were. I really don't remember the film very well.

Wouldn't it be cool if someone broke the mold and had the CIA be the good guys? I guess we have those Jack Ryan films, those are well done. The CIA obviously makes great bad guys, it's just become a little cliche.

Are the hurricanes really that important to you script? It has already been pointed out that you are fictionalising historical events already. If you are going to religiously stick to correct dates and times etc, you would be doing a documentary, not a screenplay. Concentrate on the 'drama' in your script, that's where the story should be. If it isn't there, then the hurricanes and dates etc is just fluff and it won't matter if the dates are correct or not, real or fictional etc. Cinema time is different to real time anyway.

People like it when the government is the bad guy. Makes things more fun, although I agree that it does become tired after a while.

Quoted from Eoin Are the hurricanes really that important to you script?

Very.

Quoted from Eoin It has already been pointed out that you are fictionalising historical events already. If you are going to religiously stick to correct dates and times etc, you would be doing a documentary, not a screenplay. Concentrate on the 'drama' in your script, that's where the story should be. If it isn't there, then the hurricanes and dates etc is just fluff and it won't matter if the dates are correct or not, real or fictional etc. Cinema time is different to real time anyway.

No, I know for yes, they're a major part of the script. That's why I'd feel bad about changing it.