History Channel & Pirates

[Animal]

I was looking through the History Channel's site, looking for anything on Buccaneers. I came across 4 DVD that they offer on pyracy. I was wondering if anyone saw the series and what they thought of it. Are the DVD's worth the price? They saw in their descriptions that they try to despel the image that Hollyweird has bestowed on us. Just wondering.

Animal

[blackjohn]

Eh... save your money and buy a good book instead. Or some rum. Or both.

[LadyBarbossa]

I found the archeology on the Whydah to be more helpful than any other pirate documentary out there.

Entertaining they were.

~Lady B

[LadyBrower]

I watched the History Channel DVD on pirate ships. I found it rather informative, but I think most of the people around here would have found it very 'obvious' I guess. As a newbie, I liked it... I don't know how much I'd pay for it (I watched if free through instant netflix) It depends on how often you would watch it... I've watched that pirate special twice already, and then another pirate special three times... the other option is *hehe* pirating it off the internet... lol

[Capt. Sterling]

**Waves hand - old jedi mind trick**

Trust Blackjohn...seriously.

[Joe Pyrat]

I've seen True Caribbean Pirates and I believe it was called The Great Ships; The Pirate Ships found them entertaining and informative. Being somewhat a fan of Roberts, I noticed a couple of mistakes related to him in True Caribbean Pirates, but otherwise I found it enjoyable.

National Geographic has one out called Blackbeard; Terror at Sea which is very well done for a documentary, but kind of skips over the whole grounding of the Queen Anne's Revenge thing. One minute he's on the QAR and the next on the sloop Adventure with no explanation. Of course there are time limitations on such projects, but that's kind of a biggie if you ask me. Still I enjoy watching it quite a bit.

[erisblackrose]

The one I liked they repeated yesterday was Modern Marvels "Pirate Tech". Which I found much more informative.

A lot of them pirate documentaries seem to repeat themselves, especially if you already have knowledge of pirates already, skip facts or don't want too much information for a 1 hour show. They do that with anything related with History. What was also fun was Discovery Channels "Mythbusters" Pirate myths.

ERIS

[Joe Pyrat]

That was the Myth Busters that made me question all their other conclusions.

[Sjöröveren]

The History Channel's total lack of even a semblance of accuracy in costuming, set decoration or casting has put me off their entire network. I once sawa 6 ft, 300-lb bearded man cast as James Madison! (who was barely 5 ft tall, maybe 120 lbs and of course clean-shaven.) If they are that slipshod in production details, I can't help but disregard the entire show as irrelevant.