I've always liked the ending bit of Master and Commander when Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin sit down and play this little piece by Luigi Boccherini. The soundtrack, as everything else about M&C, is one of the very best ever, IMO

The soundtrack is first rate in M&C. Semmern, do you own the bluray version of the film now or do you have to standard 2 disc set that came out a few years ago? I have the 2 disc set that came out in the brown box and has a nice fold out map of the South Atlantic.

It's a great film, I really wish they'd make some more of these films

My guess would be that M&C didn't quite do well enough at the box office for the studios to feel that making another one would be worth their effort.

I got these numbers from boxofficemojo.com,

production budget: 150 million

US box office: 93 million
International box office: 118 million

http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=masterandcommander.htm

Yes great stuff. I always liked that little piece as well.

One of my favourite movies, and the soundtrack is absolutely top notch.

Is it true there is an extended version out there somewhere?

I have not heard of one. I have the 2 disc special edition and it does have deleted scenes but the movie itself is not any different from the theatrical version.

One of my favorites also. I'm not sure if there is an extended version--however the two disk set, which is what I also have, has 5 or more deleted scenes that are really nice little vignettes of shipboard life on the Surprise.

The "making of" special is quite good, showing how thay selected actors to get the look of the period, how they trained them as coordinated naval crews, how thay built a full scale duplicate the ship for use in a huge water tank along with sound stage interiors and the like.

I want the bluray version, but wonder if they included any of those extras on it.

I found an answer to your question and unfortunately the bluray version does not have many of the extra features that are on the 2 disc set. Read the "Supplements" section.

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Master-and-Commander-Blu-ray-Review/201/

Everywhere I go I see Master and Commander for 5 bucks. What a great deal for a great movie. Strange that it is so cheap. We already owned it but I bought a copy for a neighbor.

Brilliant flick, I'm going to have to get that one out now. When I go blu-ray, this will likely be one of my first buys.

I realized how great the casting was when it occurred to me that no one else could have played the roles of Aubrey and Maturin as brilliantly as Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany.

Totally agree, a superb film and the soundtrack is one of the best parts.

Oh, I gotta get this.

You wont be disappointed Tom. I guarantee it.

I have both the 2-disc DVD that was packed with extras, and the BluRay that doesn't have very much beyond deleted scenes and a theatrical trailer. Even if the special features from the DVD are all but omitted, the BR is well worth getting, as the sound quality, clarity and punch in DTS-HD is AMAZING! Seriously, it's the best sound I've heard on ANY DVD/BR, and it will probably never be eclipsed. The movie did win an Academy Award for the soundtrack.

The original books by Patrick O'Brian are fantastic and IMHO the movie although it took some liberies was one of the best movies from a book EVER! I absolutely loved it and I've read all 21 of the books and will read them again. Too good for the masses I quess but I would love to see 3 more movies made in a production like Peter Jackson did with the Lord of the Ring Trilogy. I'm a dreamer.

I fully expected to dislike this movie the first time I watched it.
It didn't take long for me to change my mind and thoroughly enjoy it.
It's one of the few movies I know I will enjoy if I watch it again.


Wheels

Great music and great film! Russell Crowe is superb in M&C.

Totally agree. The books are the best bits of literature ever. I read the entire series last year, and I've already started re-reading a couple of the books.

How I wish for more M&C movies!

Personally I'm more a fan of 'Hornblower', but M&C was a very good movie. Interesting that both in Hornblower and in the Aubrey/Maturin books (and movies) you encounter the same stories - for example the raft with the lantern they built that then drifted off, thus escaping a French ship of the line. o'Brian and Forrester definitely used the same captain's logs.

Nitpicking mode on:
Technically, a ship of the line was a ship much larger than a frigate (which is what the Surprise is escaping from in the film ). A ship of the line would typically carry from 74 guns and up, and be part of the line of battle, hence the name
Nitpicking mode off.

Got you there, you landlubber

Maybe he was interpreting the 44 gun french frigate/privateer as a cut down ship of the line or a razeed frigate, which is what the British thought the American "heavy frigates" really were--cut down ships of the line. So, he wasn't really that far off

This is part of the reason why I love SimHQ so much. Rivet-counting is alive and well.

Technically speaking it is cannon-counting

*looks at his 80cd box of Karajan recordings*

I bet I can find some Boccherini in that one

Another series worth reading is the Bolitho series by Alexander Kent, which is a pseudonym for Douglas Reeman. Reeman has written a ton of naval fiction set in WWI and WWII mainly under his own name as well. He joined the Royal Navy at the age of 16 in 1940, and served in WWII and Korea, rising to Lieutenant.

Anyway, they escaped from this French boat...



Been a while since I saw the movie... I thought the story was that the Acheron was so much stronger it was a ship of the line.

Are there wooden ship models that depict this era BTW? Billing Boats, Artesania... stuff like that. Can't really remember... It can only remember older (galleons, viking ships) or newer (clippers) models.

The Surprise was an aging 28-gun frigate, the Acheron a new, 44-gun one. It was armed with 18-pounders IIRC, as opposed to the Surprise's 9-pounders, thus throwing considerably more metal with each broadside. The fact that frigates grew around the start of the 19th century and that the Surprise was somewhat aging ("would you call ME an aging man-of-war, doctor?" ), is often made a point of in the novels. Even Jack Aubrey doubts he could take on one of the new 38-gun American frigates in the Surprise, but mostly because she wasn't built to take the guns that would be required to attack one. Yet he still loves his ship, and indeed takes it yardarm to yardarm with a French 74 in the Indian Ocean in "HMS Surprise", the third novel, actually managing to inflict some damage, and getting away because of the superior sailing qualities of his ship.

That is one of the things I love so much about O'Brian's books; the descriptions of how Aubrey loves the Surprise, and is able to bring out the best of its sailing qualities, often outrunning much larger and more powerful ships.

They basically based Archeron on USS Constitution -- a 44 gun American built frigate (which the British thought were really cut down ships of line during the War of 1812--which they were not, but were in fact about as strong and powerful as a ship of line). In fact, they may have used Constitution for some of the long shots in the opening battle--or based the shots from film taken during her sailing restoration.

To model Archeron, use a kit of the Constitution. There are plenty of wooden sailing ship kits out there from companies like Mamoli, Billings Boats, Artesanian Latine, Model Shipways etc. And some good plastic kits too from Revell, Airfix and Heller. The old Lindberg "La Flora" kit, now often labelled as "The Jolly Roger" Pirate Ship, makes a decent substitute for Surprise.

Speaking of number of guns, I recall reading that the "Santisima Trinidad" which was the Spanish flagship during the Battle of Trafalgar had 103 guns. Crazy!

Interestingly, Patrick O'Brian imagined that Charlton Heston would have made a good Jack Aubrey.

He definitely had the acting ability to pull it off but I dont know how good his English accent was. I dont think I've ever seen a movie with Heston where he used one.

I thought O'Brian's mentioning Heston was very strange as Heston's body type is completely different than Aubrey's in the books; in the books, Maturin is constantly needling Aubrey about his corpulence whereas Heston epitomises lean. Peter Weir said that if they had cast the characters of Aubrey and Maturin as described in the books, the characters would have resembled Laurel and Hardy and the audience would not have bought into the story. In the end, they decided to take some liberties with the characters, which I think was the right decision.

I think I have read everything Reeman (Kent) has ever written. The last few have been a bit repetitive of earlier works....but I still enjoyed them.

The Bolitho series is excellent and spans generations of the Bolitho family and touches on many great historical naval events.

There's a relatively new series by Julian Stockwell--the "Kydd" series that's about a guy who goes from pressed seaman to admiral. I read the first two books a couple of years ago. Pretty good but I couldn't bring myself to start another series.

I think it was actually 130. 30 more than the Victory

Got it yet?

I meant to type 130. Damn internet typing dyslexia!