Page 1 of Trivia question on Gladiator!

Hardware Forum

Trivia question on Gladiator!

lees (Competent) posted this on Friday, 8th June 2001, 00:01

I`m pretty sure this has been asked before on this forum, but here goes again! On the Gladiator DVD during the opening battle, the Caesar character ( Richard Harris) is sitting on a horse looking at the battle scene! What colour is his tunic meant to be?
Now I have watched this film on a number of different TV`s & maybe it`s me, but on some tellies it looks blue & on others it looks purple!
The majority do display the colour as blue though!
Anyone got a definitive answer?

RE: Trivia question on Gladiator!

Thesourmillman (Mostly Harmless) posted this on Friday, 8th June 2001, 00:33

It is meant to be purple - as this is the imperial colour of Roman Emperors. End of story!!!

RE: Trivia question on Gladiator!

bob 76 (Harmless) posted this on Friday, 8th June 2001, 13:22

BORING FACT:

Purple was adopted as the color of roman emporers because it was a very difficult colour to achieve. It was therefore distinctive.

END OF BORING FACT

RE: Trivia question on Gladiator!

WPKenny (Competent) posted this on Monday, 11th June 2001, 09:48

Additional boring fact:

It wasn`t so much difficult to achieve, just rare. The only way they knew to get this colour was to squeeze it from the guts of small fish. I forget the name of the fish now. So since it would take LOADS of these little fish guts to be squeezed to make this colour it was very expensive, hence a mark of status. Mostly it was used just simply to dye the outline of cloaks as it was just as noticable, but far cheaper.
I know that sounds far fetched about the fish but it`s true. Honest! They had no way of synthetically manufacturing it back then so it all had to be obtained from natural sources.

This item was edited on Monday, 11th June 2001, 09:49

RE: Trivia question on Gladiator!

Iain M (Competent) posted this on Monday, 11th June 2001, 14:59

fish make dye... bees make honey... woodlice make chutney and spiders make gravy.

RE: Trivia question on Gladiator!

lees (Competent) posted this on Monday, 11th June 2001, 19:19

I was sure it was purple but have seen Gladiator displayed on a number of TV`s & Plasma screens now & the colour displayed on most of them seemed to be more blue than purple. I do remember a topic about this on one site & they said the best way to see the correct colour was to use an RGB feed as they decided the composite & svideo route displayed the colour incorrectly!
Or maybe my interpretation of colour is impaired with watching all these DVD`s!

RE: Trivia question on Gladiator!

Tricky Dicky (Competent) posted this on Monday, 11th June 2001, 23:57

Purple on my system.....

RE: Trivia question on Gladiator!

lees (Competent) posted this on Monday, 25th June 2001, 22:23

Now tried Gladiator on 5 different tellies round mates houses & they all agreed .........ALL display the tunic as a bluey colour, it`s not purple at all! That`s on the following TV`s.All widescreen.
1) Sony Wega 32"
2) Toshiba 32"
3) Goodmans 28"
4) Phillips 28"
5) JVC 32"
Pause the scene when the Caesar character is looking at the army fighting & you will notice a purple flag waving to his left then look across to him & you will see the colour of his tunic is more a BLUE colour, it`s certainly not purple!

Don`t really care about this now but I thought I was going mad but 5 people have all confirmed this now so it`s not just me who`e mad.!

RE: Trivia question on Gladiator!

WPKenny (Competent) posted this on Tuesday, 26th June 2001, 00:23

LOL! Now that`s dedication to prove a point! :) 5 TV`s.....

You must be a fan of the film eh? ;)

RE: Trivia question on Gladiator!

mattski (Competent) posted this on Tuesday, 26th June 2001, 20:44

surely this is how all threads should be, not just detailed but obsessive to the point that it is quite frightening!! lol lol

Go back to Hardware Forum threads, or All Forum threads