Hornblower and Sharpe series

have you tried black sails - bit more pirate adventure (and some topless lesbian action too) but also historical-ish (with a mix of real and fictional characters thrown together) and with plenty of emphasis on leadership, character etc.. etc..

you can easily find the first episode for free online if you want to try out watching this initially without handing over $$$ (by legal means! - it is on youtube etc.. and intentionally released for free by the producers for promotion AFAIK - though it isn't family friendly so I won't link to it here), if you like that then the rest can be watched with an amazon prime subscription (you could always subscribe and then cancel if you don't have one already or don't want one long term) or you can probs buy the boxed sets now too

anyway here is the season 1 trailer if you're interested


I'd thoroughly recommend doing a search on youtube for the first episode - the first scene/action sequence alone is awesome!
 
Just restarted watching Sharpe this weekend, an absolute classic in my eyes. Shame they're unlikely to make any new ones.
 
The "prequal" one they made at least the book was prequal, Tiger, if I remember straight, was pretty bad.
An aged Sharpe and Harper was nice to see but it certainly had lost a little magic.

Kinda in the same way Indiana Jones 4 just felt a bit meh.... All the characters were there but it just felt hollow.

Still one of my fav TV shows of all time.

Poor Perkins. :p


Hornblower too. Pretty good, great characters.
 
I also enjoyed both but they definitely show their age.

Black sails is good. As is master and commander (film).

I wish they would do a modern tv show set in the Napoleonic era as it's a very interesting time imo.
 
I loved both shows at the time, Hornblower has aged much the better of the 2 for me. Sharpe lacks the scale of the source material. Very few battles or scenes have sufficient extras. Modern CGI could solve this but the cost is probably prohibitive.
 
PlacidCasual said:
I loved both shows at the time, Hornblower has aged much the better of the 2 for me. Sharpe lacks the scale of the source material. Very few battles or scenes have sufficient extras. Modern CGI could solve this but the cost is probably prohibitive.
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Would agree with this. I loved Sharpe at the time, not really sure I could watch it now without cringing a bit. The actor who played Harris still dresses up in the clothes and does various shows. Bit sad really.
 
The remastered HD versions were available on YouTube a while ago, gone now though.

While the still suffer from the lack of extras they’re generally a lot better and less “aged” than the older versions. Well worth watching if you can get the BD or buy them online somewhere.
 
Amp34 said:
The remastered HD versions were available on YouTube a while ago, gone now though.

While the still suffer from the lack of extras they’re generally a lot better and less “aged” than the older versions. Well worth watching if you can get the BD or buy them online somewhere.
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What is quite amusing about the Bluray release (of Sharpe) is that they're presented in widescreen rather than 4:3 which results in some of the crew being visible!
 
I echo the advice for Black Sails. It's a bit slow starting off but it really develops into something epic. The naval actions sequences are as good as they come.

I too would love another Napoleonic era series. BBC's War and Peace was good but it's hardly comparable with Sharpe etc. The problem is you need a big budget to make any action sequences look impressive (Sharpe's Waterloo was laughable with the 20 or so horses), so you have to get the US audiences interested. This rules a return to the Peninsular war out I think.

I'm hoping this rumoured this Stanley Kubrick HBO Napoleon series materialises:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/cary-fukunaga-talks-direct-hbo-895382

As I googled that ^ I also saw this on wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoléon_(miniseries) May have a look into it.
 
Uther said:
The actor who played Harris still dresses up in the clothes and does various shows. Bit sad really.
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He's done quite a lot, generally... but when you're only recognised for one main thing, and occasionally a beer commercial, I guess there's little point in doing much else, especially if they pay you well enough to just dress up and promote your merchandise. Plenty of actors get stuck in that same rut - David Prowse, for example.
 
Sharpe and Hornblower are two of my all-time favourite series, particularly the former. Even though he wasn't originally cast in the role, the producers couldn't have cast a more apt actor than Sean Bean as Richard Sharpe.

Also a fan of Black Sails, mentioned by a poster previously.
 
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