It turns out the whole tribe this was based on was a slaving tribe. The only thing they were protecting was their economic ties to the slave trade. Not so sure this will go down as a classic.
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Exactly! Seems a bit like going to watch a movie about the KKK and them just leaving out the violent racist stuff and trying to make them look like tough do-gooders. I think I heard the stat that 1 in 8 of the slaves to the new world was sold by this tribe. Might still be a fun typically historically inaccurate Hollywood flick, but I'll maybe watch it when it shows up a streaming service.
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The liberties with history is one thing. An entertaining movie is an entertaining movie.

But the lead actress put the audience on the spot, if they stay away they are telling . . . someone, whomever, bean counters, . . . that a woman of color is unacceptable as the lead of a big budget movie.

Man when you put frames on your perspective, it taints everything you see. . . .
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It does seem odd to me that in their rush to blame colonialism for all of the Wests evils, many appear to have convinced themselves that a bunch of white British folks went into Africa with lassos and rounded up slaves.

Uh...fellas - that's not how it worked. At all. Tribal leaders in the 1700s and 1800s were a pretty vile lot. Odd to see a movie that attempts to make a hagiography of any of them.

There was nary a hero to be found back then...
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I'm beginning to see a trend but I can't quiet put my finger on it...
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I consider every one of the founding fathers to be heros, and I particularly have a fondness for Thomas Jefferson.
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Yep. Warlords were selling slaves to somebody. If it wasn't Europeans, it would have been someone else.

RE: Woman King, I haven't paid a lick of attention to any of it. Looks dumb as all fuck.
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Yes it does.

Which is disappointing because I do think Viola Davis is a hell of an actress. And in this type of roll she could've really been badass.

But this just isn't an era or a people/culture that should be celebrated on any level. These tribal leaders were savage and brutal killers who, by and large, had no issue murdering and enslaving to consolidate or enhance their power. They were petty versions of the worst extremists we've seen over the last 100 years.

Great actress - bad agent. She should have steered well clear of this one.
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Yeah the irony in Historical sense is the following:

- This Tribe REFUSED to stop selling slaves
- Regularly did mass killings of slaves for their god
- Europeans had to come in and FORCE them to stop with war
- The french lost a total of 8 men.....

OH and my favorite part.... These women warriors were the UGLY 1st born daughters of the kingdom. The pretty ones became the kings concubines, the UGLY ones were made his body guard. (And they really sucked at war)
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aaaand most of them got slaughtered by the French.
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But only after all the men got slaughtered first, thus necessitating women regiments. Because, y'know, they were war-hungry slave-traders who'd been pillaging and raiding villages for years prior to this story and in so doing virtually wiped out their male soldier population.

Oh, and don't forget that a big chunk of them were conscripts; either runaways or slaves in their own right. And those who weren't conscripts largely had their OWN slaves.

This is 100% not a society to be celebrated. How far up one's own ass does someone have to be to think this was a good idea? I mean you have to willfully ignore even a cursory understanding of what these folks actually did.
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So is this the prequel to The Equalizer with Queen Latifa?
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I believe the French Foreign Legion actually. A little bit different.
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The irony too is they used relatively modern guns too.. They had brand new mausers from the Germans. But they never trained with them the french said they would always shoot from the hip. :-)
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