Bohemian Rhapsody

The phrase you might consider when watching a dodgy film is suspension of disbelief. It means try and get over what the story is saying and ignore anything that doesn't seem right or real. So, for example, if you don't believe aliens are real ,you can accept for the film that they are. Biographical films, known occasionally as biopics. you would hope were closely linked to reality. That is normally true in many cases, until Bohemian Rhapsody came along.

My wife knew I liked the band, so she bought tickets for the film soon after it was released. I was looking forward to the music and how certain events were covered. I looked forward to depiction of the wild drug fuelled parties, instead got 1 very tame version. I wanted to see how the song Bohemian rhapsody was shown, so they created a fictional person to say the record company wouldn't release it. Not only did EMI release it, they had many more songs released by the label.

My younger wife enjoyed it as she only knew the songs, I knew the songs and the backstory and hated it. Which makes it even more bizarre that Brian May and Roger Taylor were heavily involved in the film. Or maybe that was a problem, they knew the real story but somehow decided not to include much of it. Reality was replaced, timelines were smashed and the most important events were replaced.

The cast looked like the band members, the music was accurate due to often being the original songs. The live aid performance was recreated with the performers and the original audience, though for some reason the 20 minutes was cut down. Before the performance the band members were shown begging Freddie to come back to the band to perform at the show. Wrong again as he was already back after a failed dalliance as a solo performer.

One of the most well known aspects of Freddie Mercury is that he died from complications from the AIDS virus. In the film , he is shown revealing the diagnosis during the live aid reversals, a clever trick as he wasn't diagnosed for another 2 years. The "split" that Freddie was called back from didn't happen. Brian May and Roger Taylor had released solo records before Freddie did and naturally it didn't break up the band.

The timeline is twisted so much it resembles spaghetti. Fat bottomed girls was shown being played on an American tour, 3 years before it was released. We will rock you was shown being recorded in 1980, 3 years after its actual release. Just before Live Aid the band is shown agreeing to cut all song writing credits equally among the band, many years before it actually happened. Freddie is shown meeting Brian and Roger after they had finished a gig, they actually met many years before. Freddie's long term partner Jim Hutton was shown as a waiter at a party that Freddie was at, Freddie was shown being initially rejected by him. reality is the meeting was at a nightclub.

I just checked online about the mistakes in the film to see if I had forgot much. Unfortunately this piece has to be under 3000 words. Roger is seen making excuses including wife and kids stuff, this was before the kids had been born. Despite claims otherwise the band didn't reform or come together once they had been asked to do Live Aid, they finished a world tour 2 months before. Also they were shown performing after U2, it was Dire Straits before them.

I've been told that I shouldn't take the film as gospel and its a story. What it actually is , is a story with Queen music as the soundtrack. I know the stories I wanted to hear about from interviews and news reports. The parties might have been tamed in order to get a more friendly age rating. Despite this there is plenty that could have been added correctly and still within the age range.

Having a timeline that reflects the real time line would be a good start. Not inventing characters would also be good. Many events aren't shown in the right decade, let alone the right year. The massive rock in Rio concert was set in the 70s, it happened in the 80s.

It was a total waste of a story worth telling, with most of the errors easily avoidable. Mile Myers played the fictional EMI boss arguing about Bohemian Rhapsody. Perhaps he wanted in the film so the character got created for him to play. Having half the band involved is the aspect that confuses me the most. Even with the rock star persona they know when songs were recorded or which people actually existed.

Of all the biopics I have seen this is the least biographical. Motley Crues The dirt includes the good, bad and ugly of the bands history. All the highs and plenty of the lows, including singer Vince Neil's drunken car crash that killed Hanoi rocks Razzle. Even the biographical books are full of all things, whatever the outcomes. Maybe its because The Dirt is very defiantly an 18 rated film, the books are as well. Maybe the band didn't want to show some of the dodgy stuff from queens past, even though most was common knowledge.

I used to bore my wife with all the things wrong with the film , Titanic. How the 2 leads wouldn't have met and many other things besides. At least I now have 2 films to complain about. I watched the Hail Mary project recently, one of the main characters is a moving and talking rock. It was science fiction based on a science book, so my belief was well and truly suspended.

I went in to Bohemian Rhapsody hoping to be reminded of events and maybe to learn a couple of things I might have missed. In fact there was very little fact, any fact that sneaked in was shown in the wrong time or wrong order. A great chance to make a great film from a great story was wasted.