HMS Surprise- The movie version

Beautiful job!

The new transom looks almost like a resin casting.... any for sale? 

How about a peek at the new bow?

 

Transom, and quarter galleries are scratchbuilt from Evergreen sheet, and strip styrene. I still have some detail work to do on the galleries, and a lot of work on the bow. The Surprise's bowsprit has a lower rise than the "Roger", I have some changes to make.

All the cannon are ready to install, and I'm starting on the gratings that I'll need. I cannot, in any form of good conscience, use the shroud/ratline/deadeye assemblies. I am looking into the possibility of using just the deadeye/lanyard part, with thread shrouds, and formed wire chainplates. Also, at 1:130 there are a lot of details I may have to leave off the finished model, though, the challenge is there to try to include them. I think furled sails will be the best approach, and I'll include as much rigging as I can find material to do it with. The heavy rigging will be fine enough at this scale, some of the lighter rigging may be left off, as it would be almost invisible.

I could use a full front, clear, picture of the figurehead. I'm still trying to determine whether or not the fore deck is raised, and if so, how big is the step, and how far abaft the bow it raises.

And my next project was to be an outside frame 30" gauge 2-6-6-2 in O scale!

Mighty impressive work! Do keep us informed. I see you cut back the quarterdeck; should the bulwarks be similarly cut back too? That's how it looks in pictures of HMS Rose that I have. More later.

Weasel

 Sweet!  Send me the info about the sails...sounds excellent!

           ewaldbros@hotmail.com

                        greg

weasel, First, my appologies, I didn't intend to hijack your thread, but it began to appear that I did.

In the pics I posted, I hadn't yet cut back the bulwarks, That cut happens behind the main shrouds, and wasn't immediately visible. It's been done  I'm working on the bow, and gun deck details. Attaching, and painting the gunport lids will be fun, and I don't know if I will try to reproduce the lanyards used to open the ports. That will depend on what materials I can find.

Greg,  I emailed you some info on the sails.   Pete

weasel, First, my appologies, I didn't intend to hijack your thread, but it began to appear that I did.

A glass of wine with you, sir! Apology? Never in life! Hijacking a thread, such stuff! The more threads on our dear ol' barky the better, do you not see, ha, ha, ha! I give you joy in your new thread!

But seriously folks....

I think you have hit the proverbial nail on the head with your decision to model the movie version of Surprise, a.k.a. the "HMS" Rose, as modified for the film. It's the only source of "accurate" plans we have, at least to my knowledge. I like the idea of following one KNOWN plan and sticking to it; to try to go with questionable published plans, fanciful wooden models, and written descriptions leaves me uncomfortable, like I'm just guessing. If I put that much effort into a model project I want it to be accurate according to something real.

As I'm sure you are well aware, there are great pics of Rose-as-Surprise at the HMS Rose website. To adapt the Lindberg kit I suppose you have abandoned the kit decks for wood-grained styrene sheet? And here is my burning question: can you describe how you cut and spliced the hull, specifically, how you rejoined the sections, and blended in the seam? What happened to the kit's wood grain? Sand it all off? How did you hide the seam, please?

I'm currently on book 20 (the last) in the series, Blue at the Mizzen (and I'm bummed). In reading the series I have made some notes on POB's written descriptions of Surprise, as well as notes on Geoff Hunt's cover artwork for the series. Hunt's artwork is reputed to be "very accurate", even by O'Brian himself, but accurate according to what I don't know. In any case I present my notes below for the board's perusal, use, or non-use:

HMS Surprise According to PO’B

 Text References:

 The Letter of Marque

Quote 1, p.37: “’… And even now, although this is not the Admiral’s supper table,’ he said quietly, looking at the wheel, which in the Surprise was just forward of the mizenmast, ten feet away, with its helmsman…”

 Quote 2, p. 66: “…but the four men at the wheel and the officer standing behind them with one arm around the mizenmast…”

      

Implication:       The wheel is in fact forward of the mizzen, not behind, as usually depicted, ca. 1813

 

Quote, p. 66:    “Most of the watch were in the waist, sheltering from the worst of the spray, rain and flying water under the break in the forecastle…”

 Implication:       Either 1) that there is a step up from the waist to the forecastle, OR 2) that the waist is open and one can go directly under the forecastle deck (2 seems more likely)

 

The Yellow Admiral

Quote, p. 131:  “…he fell: fell almost straight, just brushing the maintop in his fall and striking one of the starboard quarterdeck carronades…”

 

Implication:       The quarterdeck had more than one carronades and one was located very near the main mast, ca. 1813-1814

 

The Hundred Days

Quote, p. 127-128:      “The gun crews had been waiting for the word, and now the red-painted lids all flew up as one, while two seconds later the guns ran out…”

 Implication:       The gun port lids were painted red, presumably on the inside, since the exterior had the Nelson Chequer; perhaps the interior walls of the gun deck were red, ca. 1813-1814

 

Quote, p. 165:  “…he had given Billy Green, armourer’s mate, a shove as he went aft along the gangway, a shove that Green had returned with such force that Killick plunged between the skid beams to the deck below…”

 Implication:       The waist was indeed open, with gangways on both sides and skid-beams for the boats and spars, and not grated over, ca. 1813-1814

 

Geoff Hunt Cover Art:

 The Truelove

 1. Shows ship’s boats on davits at stern and on starboard quarter (and, presumably, larboard quarter), ca. 1813-1814

 The Wine Dark Sea

 1. Shows the quarterdeck extending forward to the location of the main mast, ca. 1813-1814

2. Shows an open-topped waist with skid-beams supporting ship’s boats, ca. 1813-1814

 Blue at the Mizzen

 1.  Shows the quarterdeck extending forward to the location of the main mast, 1815

2.  Shows an open-topped waist with skid-beams supporting ship’s boats, 1815

3. (on full-sized painting, not just the book cover) Shows ship’s boats on davits at stern and on starboard quarter (and, presumably, larboard quarter), 1815

 

 A lot of variability here. That's why I like the idea of doing the movie ship plan, since trying to sort out all the other info seems undoable.

 

Anyway, I am inspried by your Surprise thus far and am glad that my kit (well, the hull) is still on my desk, masking taped together, and not put back into the stash. Your gallery windows are some fine styrene work, outstanding! Can't wait to see more!

 

All for now, and hope I haven't been boring,  

 

Weasel

 

P.S.: If you see weird formating above, I have no idea how that happened.....

 

 

 

 

 

As was mentioned alsewhere here, sectioning the hull in the area of the sixth, and seventh gunports, the two halves mate up well with little distortion.

I laid out a centerline on paper, and then crossed it with two lines, perpendicular to the centerline, and spaced the exact distance of the removed section of hull, and another line to mark the aft end of the keel. The hull half was then laid down, with keel on the centerline, and at the aft end mark, and taped down, to hold it in place. A machinists square (or any small square) was positioned on each of the "cut lines", against the bulwark. The keel, and bulwark were marked with a scribe line. The second hull half was done the same way. Masking tape was carefully laid on the hull, in line with the scribe marks (forward and after, on each hull half). to provide the line to cut to. Joining the sections was not difficult. I use MEK (Methyl Ethyl Ketone) as a solvent cement, it evaporates quickly, and the joint stabilizes fairly rapidly. A strip of styrene backs up the joint. Any mismatch, will occur somewhere in the turn of the bilge. It is most critical that the keel be straight. and the line of the bulwark be fair. It is better that there be a small space open at the turn of the bilge, where it can be backed with the styrene strip, than to have the hull crooked at the keel or bulwark. Cutting, close to the mark, and sanding to final fit is, of course, always the correct procedure. Pre assembly fit can be checked by laying the hull sections on a sheet of glass, and checking the joint alignment. The joined hull sections can be laid back on the glass sheet to help maintain alignment untill the joint sets.

   Woodgrain detail? Go look at a board that has been painted, and maintained. Find the wood grain if you can, then picture it reduced 130 times. You will have to sand the hull in the area of the joint, you can re-create the wood grain, or sand the whole hull. After a coat of paint, anything close to scale, in the way of grain detail, will probably disappear. Hiding the seam?  Any gaps in the seam should first be filled with styrene pieces/strips/bits, and sanded, then, use your favorite body putty, wetsanding if necessary. I use Squadron white putty, and help it flow into the finest areas with a little Testors liquid plastic cement, on the "application tool" (whatever you use to apply the putty).

A glass of wine with you, sir!

     And one raised back sir!

One last thing, The sheet of paper, with the lines on it? keep it safe, I used it to lay out the transom windows. The arc of the bottom of the transom windows, is laid, across the centerline, and gets the window spacing laid out on it. The tramsom piece is marked with the centerline, and the slant of the outer window openings, and taped on the marking line on the paper. Following the slant of the outer windows crosses the centerline, some distance up from the transom. That point is the radius point for all the windows on the transom. The same technique is used for the gallery windows, which radiate forward from the line of the slope of the transom. In this case, the aftermost edge of the gallery window plate, is laid against the centerline, the window spacing, at the bottom of the windows, is marked on the plate, with the approximate slant of the forwardmost window edge, which then determines the radius point for all the gallery windows.

Pete

Hi all,

Surprise is still alive. A question about Surprise drawings:

In the book "Patrick O'Brian: Critical Essays and Bibliography", the chapter by Brian Lavery states that the plans for Surprise  "...survive in the National Maritime Museum". His chapter includes line drawings and a cut-away of Surprise, but nowhere does it indicate that these are THE National Maritime Museum plans.

Can anyone confirm or reject that these plans are from the National Maritime Museum? Better yet, can anyone recommend a source for the "official" Surprise plans from the museum? Other than going there myself?

I ask this because these plans (and others from various Internet sources) conflict with O'Brian's written descriptions of Surprise. Yes, I am a pain in the ass.

Thanks,

Weasel

P.S.: Yo, Sumpter250, got any more pics of your excellent model?

 

 

 

I don't have the book Weasel505 mentioned, so I can't comment on the drawings reproduced in it.  It should, however, be fairly easy to tell whether they're the genuine Admiralty draughts or a modern version.  An eighteenth- or nineteenth-century Admiralty draught is characterized by beautiful draftsmanship (though the amount of detail varies considerably from drawing to drawing), handsome cursive lettering all over the place, and a "scale bar" running along the bottom of the outboard profile.  The scale bar consists of seven closely-spaced horizontal lines running the length of the ship.  Vertical lines are marked every foot, and numbered every five feet.  In the last foot at each end are a pair of diagonal lines forming a V, which let you step off units of two inches.  Some modern draftsmen (e.g., Howard I. Chapelle) adopted the same system, but virtually every Admiralty draught of the period has a scale bar like that.  The cross sections (which generally appear to the left of the sheer plan and waterline plan) include a series of diagonal lines that have no obvious relation to reality; they in fact indicate the radii of the circle arcs that form the cross-sections.  In good reproductions the background of an Admiralty draught usually looks light grey, probably with some darker spots at one end.  (The original was done on drafting cloth and kept rolled up for decades; the end with the stains was on the outside.)  Once you've looked at a few Admiralty draughts, it's tough to confuse them with anythig else.

If I'm not mistaken (as I could be; I haven't looked at the book in a long time) the Admiralty draught of H.M.S. Surprise is in fact reproduced in at least one other book:  David Lyon's The Sailing Navy List.  I don't have a copy of that one either; the price is beyond my budget.  But a good public or university library might have a copy.

The National Maritime Museum does sell prints of the plans in its collection.  They used to be notoriously expensive, and getting them delivered took a notoriously long time.  I think I've heard that the situation has improved in recent years; not ever having ordered any such plans myself, I can't comment from personal experience.

O'Brian was a novelist - an intensely knowledgable but highly eccentric one, to say the least.  I'm not the least surprised (oops) that he changed some details of the ship to suit his own purposes.  What does surprise me, in fact, is that he picked an actual ship to put in his fictitious stories.  C.S. Forester didn't do that.  Real ships occasionally poke their bowsprits into the Hornblower books (Hornblower was court-martialed on board H.M.S. Victory), but the Atropos, Hotspur, Renown, Lydia, Sutherland, Witch of Endor, etc. are all purely fictitious.  (Somebody may find one or more of those names attached to a ship somewhere in the history of the Royal Navy, but Forester clearly didn't intend any such association.)  One of the HECEPOB (Hideously-Expensive-Continental-European-Plank-On-Bulkhead) kit companies did produce a kit labeled "H.M.S. Atropos" some years back, but it was a reboxing of another kit representing a French corvette.

It seems that modelers determined to build Captain Aubrey's ship have their work cut out for them.  On the other hand, it's pretty clear that, in some respects at least, the vessel in question only existed in O'Brian's imagination.  Since he's dead, it would be hard for anybody to prove that a model of Jack Aubrey's Surprise was "inaccurate."

John:

I cannot comment on the oines in that book either, but I can add a few tidbits to yours.

It may be that the plans Lavery refers to are, in fact, the admiralty draught of the captured L'Unite that was later renamed Surprise. As I understand it, it was this ship that was the inspiration for O'Brien's novel.

Now, regarding the copies of plans from NMM. They are, in fact, very expensive. As I commented recently on another forum, a set of 7 drawings for a British light frigate of the 1770s would cost me, after all was said and done, around $200 US. And then I would have to redraw those plans in order to use them as they would have distorted from temperature and humidity over the last 200 years.

Russ

 

 

 

I think Russ has it right.  O'Brian seems to have based his fictional ship on the real Surprise/ex-Unite. Why he did that, rather than inventing a fictitious ship, will, I guess, remain a mystery.

The Royal Navy's policy was to prepare plans for every significant vessel it acquired, whether by construction, purchase, or capture.  (Thank goodness.  Admiralty draughts are among our best sources of information on American sailing warships - especially those of the Revolutionary War.)  My recollection is that the Admiralty draught of the Surprise/ex-Unite is indeed the one that's reproduced in David Lyon's Sailing Navy List.  The more I think about it, though, the less confident in my memory about that I am.  Our university library has the book; I'll try to remember to take a look at it the next time I'm over there.  Apparently the book is out of print and hard to find.  I couldn't locate a new or used copy at either the Barnes and Noble site, Amazon, or Bookfinder.com.  That's a shame.  It's a first-rate reference work - and a real wish book for modelers.  In addition to tabular information about every ship of the Royal Navy during the sailing ship period, it contains hundreds of photos of Admiralty draughts.

Russ is, of course, right about the problems of working with those old drawings.  Aesthetically they're things of great beauty, but as plans for modelers they do have their drawbacks.  The truth of the matter is that for many practical modeling purposes a good photo of an Admiralty draught is as good as the full-size prints the NMM sells.  When I was working on my little model of the Continental frigate Hancock some years back I worked from a print of the Howard I. Chapelle drawings, which are available from the Smithsonian (which charges quite reasonable prices and offers good mail order service).  Chapelle's drawings are tracings from the Admiralty draught, with corrections to fair the lines (among other things).  I found photos of the Admiralty draught in a couple of books, enlarged them to the model's scale on a xerox machine, and used them as a check on Chapelle's details.  (He had the nasty habit of making changes from contemporary sources - sometimes for questionable reasons.  That's another story.)  For anybody starting with a kit, buying full-size prints from an Admiralty draught would be a waste of money - if you can find a photo of it.

P.S.: Yo, Sumpter250, got any more pics of your excellent model?

I'm in New Jersey for the weekend, and left "Surprise" in fresh paint. At this point, I have some serious masking before the next color is sprayed. I need to get the hull paint done before installing the guns, and working the main deck details. I'll get pics up as soon as I can. I still haven't settled exactly what I'll do about deadeyes,and lanyards, but it's getting close to time for at least lower deadeyes, and chainplates. I did get a reasonable facsimile of the carving on the transom done. I'll feel better about it after the painting is done.

The Sailing Navy list doesn't have any drawings of Surprize (L'Unite) but does confirm that the NMM has 'lines & profile & decoration/quarterdeck and forecastle'.

O'Brien is not a reliable source for many technical details (he's not well considered by many sailors for the accuracy/realism of his sailing descriptions).  His talent was in scripting soap operas for men.

  

Apparently, then the NMM has a fair set of drawings for L'Unite. That's the good news. Note the description given in Lyon that mentioned decoration. That might very well mean they included her figurehead and perhaps some of the stern carvings as well. I have seen several "as captured" drawings from the NMM collection and most of them do include the figurehead and stern decorations. Quite often, when designing their own ships, the British did not include all the decorations on a "design" draught, but did on a few of the 1770s "as built" plans of their frigates.

Provided they did not do any serious rebuioding of L'Unite's struture before sending her back to sea, those drawings might well be useful in recreating Surprize.

Russ

 

 

 

sumpter250 wrote:

I still haven't settled exactly what I'll do about deadeyes,and lanyards, but it's getting close to time for at least lower deadeyes, and chainplates.

Have you considered photoetch for the deadeyes and lanyards? I am working on a set for the Jolly Roger, but haven't decided how to do it yet.

Well, Schoonerbumm has saved me a trip to the library.  My recollection of the photos being in the Lyon book obviously was (like so many of my recollections these days) in error.  Sorry about that.  Seems like I've seen those drawings somewhere or other.

What's the scale of that old Lindberg kit?  For my 1/128 Hancock I found that the smallest size britannia metal deadeyes from Bluejacket were about right for the lower fore and main deadeyes.  Model Expo sells some nice walnut ones that are smaller than that.  They're a little thick, but can be filed down.  The smallest deadeyes I've ever encountered commercially are some beautiful turned bakelite ones that I bought from Model Shipways about 25 years ago. I used them for the topmast shrouds of the Hancock.  I haven't seen those bakelight deadeyes on the market for years; I have a few left, but nothing would induce me to part with them.

Shipmates:

                     In the book Nelson's Ships by Peter Goodwin ,Chapter 22 is the profile of the captured French ship L'Unit'e. There is a RN profile of the ship when she was still French "configured". She was a 38 gun ship in the French Navy. The profile shows her having 14 gun ports per side on the gun deck.The history is "mixed" in the text it is known that the first "refit" the RN did to her was change her to a 36 gun ship.It is not clear if she was "cut down" her bulwarks were changed to reflect the higher "step up" of the aft bulwarks. I can not remember where I read this but some writer once claimed that the L'Unit'e was reworked agin and became the 2nd HMS Surprise. I do not know if this is factual or the writers opinion.

                     Bill Luther took the profile from this book and enlarged it to 1/130 scale, he laid the starbroad hull 1/2 from the JR kit on the scale copy. The fit was almost perfect. The aft bulwarks did not match up perfectly but that might be due to what plans were used to make the Lindberg JR. I cut down the hull of the JR to 13 gun ports per side.That was two gun ports from the center waist. I covered the aft most gun port over. She now has 12 gun ports per side.

                      I can scan this profile and send it anyone who would like a copy. I am currently working on the sails, the vac sails are not up to par. I am expermenting with making paper sails.

                                                                                              Ferg  

John:

I dug this up over at DDM. This may be what you were thinking of. This is the NMM plan of L'Unite aka Surprize.

http://members.aol.com/batrnq/images/WSurprise.jpg

Russ

 

 

 

 

Well, this is getting interesting.  I do have a copy of Mr. Goodwin's book, and when I compared the L'Unite drawings in it with the Admiralty draught Russ posted it became pretty clear that they depict two different ships.  It seems the British captured two French frigates of that name. 

The one described in the Goodwin book, according to the text, was in Royal Navy service for six years, being captured in 1796 and sold in 1802.  She retained her French name throughout that period.  The one shown in the Admiralty draught that Russ posted is, obviously, the one that got renamed H.M.S. Surprise.

There are quite a few differences.  The Unite in Mr. Goodwin's book has a raised poop (actually more of a roof over a roundhouse); the one in the Admiralty draught has shoulder-high bulwarks on her forecastle.  The distribution of the gunports is different, as is the number of deadeyes for the lower shrouds.  The angles made by the sternposts and transoms are a little different, as are the shapes of the rabbet line at the bow.  The bow of the ship in the Admiralty draught has a considerably leaner and meaner look - as one would expect in a ship that was built quite a bit later. 

Presumably Mr. Goodwin (a fine scholar who knows precisely what he's doing - and is listed as one of the technical advisors for the movie "Master and Commander") based his drawing on the Admiralty draught of the earlier Unite.  Which - if either - was the inspiration for Mr. O'Brian I have no idea.  Bottom line:  we know what the real H.M.S. Surprise looked like, because we have the Admiralty draught.  We know what the ship used in the movie looks like (quite a bit different from the real ship), because she still exists.  We know that O'Brian, when he was writing his novels, was (some of the time, at least) visualizing a vessel that looked at least a bit different from the real one.  But we don't know, and have no way of knowing, just what the one in O'Brian's head looked like.  Maybe Captain Aubrey did command a ship that looked like La Flore.  Nobody can prove he didn't.

Folks, I do believe I'll stick with models of real ships.  I enjoy digging up bits of information from historical sources, and filling in the inevitable gaps with inference and personal taste.  But reading the mind of an eccentric, ideosyncratic, and deceased novelist is beyond my capacity.

L'Unite was a 'Corvettes 24 de 8', in service from 1793 until captured in 1796 (Boudriot). The British uprated her to a 'fifth rate' or 'frigate' (Lyon). By this time she was effectively a sixth rate based on her 9 pdr. armament (but if my memory is correct, rating her as a fifth rate entitled her commander to a post captain slot) 

L'Imperieuse was an 18 pdr. frigate in service from 1786 until captured by the British in 1793 (Boudriot). The British renamed her Unite in 1803 (Lyon). She was finally hulked in 1836 (Lyon) a remarkably long life - so much for the stereotype that the French built frail ships.

OK ,now I'm more confused.

                                          Ok,the Royal Navy themselves state that they had 4 ships named HMS Surprise (Surprize). Ship #1 was a small ship not a frigate. I know the # 4 ship was a "cut down" 64 or 74 gun ship to a "british 44 gun" aledgeitly (sp?) to compete with the Americian 44 gun frigates ,ie: USS Constitution. She was at Fort Mc Henry , Francis Scott Key was detained or her during the shelling of the fort.

                                         Ok was there a ship named HMS Surprise that was a converted captured French frigate ? Is this a myth or fact ? Does any one have facts on ships # 2 and # 3 ?

                                                                                                          Ferg

I can't sort out the whole story either, but a partial answer is:  yes, there was a British ship named Surprise that was captured from the French.  This, courtesy of Russ, is her Admiralty draught:

http://members.aol.com/batrnq/images/WSurprise.jpg

The label "SURPRISE late L'UNITE" appears clearly on it.  There's little room for doubt:  this is the ship that (well, sort of) inspired the O'Brian books. 

The careers and dates of the other Surprises ought to be in Lyon's Sailing Navy List (and, for that matter, its older predecessor, Colledge's Ships of the Royal Navy).  I gather Schoonerbumm has a copy of the Lyon book; maybe he can help.

It sure would be nice if navies would agree never to use the same ship name twice.  (I wish I had a dollar for every photo I've seen that purports to show the Yorktown that sank at Midway, and in fact shows the later, Essex-class ship.)  Sometimes, of course, the re-use of a name is almost a patriotic ritual.  But other times it just seems to beget confusion.

I think the most spectacular case of such mistaken identity I've witnessed was one I saw in the museum where I used to work.  In the ship carving gallery was the figurehead from a big, early-twentieth-century luxury yacht named Mayflower.  With my own ears I heard a visitor tell his kid, "look, Jimmy, this figurehead came off the Pilgrims' ship!"  Next to the figurehead was a huge photo of the vessel from which it had been removed - complete with belching smokestack.  Oh, well...whatever.

Ferg:

John is correct. The plan in the link is certainly the ship that inspired O'Brien's Surprize, but that is about all that can be said. From this point it is all a matter of trying to figure out where the Surprize in the plan stops and where O'Brien's Surprize begins. Unfortunately, there is no way to know for certain.

Russ

Well, the Royal Navy was full of Surprizes....  nine of them are listed in David Lyon's 'The Sailing Navy List', serving from 1746 to 1837.

Three British built fifth rates, a 1741 Establishment 24 X 9, a 1770 Enterprise class 24 X9, an 1808 Leda class 28 X 18 (a sister to the Shannon).

A captured sixth rate upgraded to a fifth rate, the Unite 24 X 9 (french 8 pdr) rearmed by the Brtitish with 24 X 32 pdr. carronades, 8 X 18 pdr. carronades on the quarterdeck and 4 X 6 pdr. on the foc'sl.

A captured American Privateer

A captured french cutter

A British cutter

A captured French merchant schooner.

A captured American schooner on the Great LAkes 

As Dr. Tilley points out the Unite/Surpris(z)e was the inspiration for Aubrey's ship.  The 1741 ships were from the Seven Years War, the Enterprize class Surprize was sold in 1783 and the Leda class came too late.

Of course O'Brian took liberties with the ship and her armament and Hollywood stretched them further. Even though 'Master and Commander' is a catchy title and was probably the most read Aubrey book, that title is incorrect for the story portrayed in the film. Master and Commander refers to the fact that the officer in command of a sloop (or smaller vessel) was not a captain and did not have a sailing master. One person was responsible for both functions. As a post captain, Aubrey was in command and would have had a dedicated sailing 'master'.

Ah, the things I loose sleep over.

 

 

 

Well, that seems to sort it out pretty clearly.

I have the impression that lots of cooks stirred the broth of that movie.  Somebody apparently got the notion initially that a Patrick O'Brian book would make a good movie, but picking one of the novels for the purpose apparently just wasn't practicable.  It's fairly easy to reconstruct the logic that probably went into the eventual decision.  The plot from The Far Side of the World offered a big, obvious attraction:  it only involved two ships.  But the Bad Guys in it were Americans, so something needed to be changed:  the American frigate (obviously based on the actual Essex) had to become a French privateer.  And the people responsible for the script apparently couldn't resist interjecting little bits of plots from other books into the movie.  They apparently were desperately worried that if they didn't do everything just right, the thing would be a financial flop.  And somewhere in the process somebody decided to put a title together out of two book titles.  It is indeed amusing that the finally-chosen title has nothing to do with the finally-realized story.  Unless I'm much mistaken, there's not a single person with the rank master and commander in the movie.

The other side of the coin is that, in my opinion at least, the result was pretty daggone good.  I'm not O'Brian's biggest fan.  (I like O'Brian's books, and I respect his knowledge of early-nineteenth-century British history, but, unlike a lot of his fans, I don't worship him.  In the long-standing conflict between the O'Brianites and the Foresterians, I'm still in the latter camp.)  But that movie is so much more believable than any other flick about sailing warships that it practically occupies its own planet.  Hollywood has had a horrible time bringing stories like this to the screen effectively.  The only other movies I'm aware of that even deserve to be mentioned in the same breath are "Damn the Defiant" and "Billy Budd."  (The latter is marginal.  The distant shots of the ships in it are pretty hokey, but the depiction of naval life and discipline is excellent - and the acting is superb.  "Damn the Defiant" is, in my opinion, an excellent movie - a good story, excellent photography, fine performances.  The last shot always makes me regret that Alec Guinness never had the opportunity to play Nelson.  But a frigate with a cargo boom on the front of its main mast???)  I liked the British TV mini-series "I Remember Nelson," but the budgetary limitations on it were glaringly obvious.  And the old Gregory Peck version of "Captain Horatio Hornblower," though lots of fun for audiences at the time, really doesn't stand up to modern scrutiny.  (I certainly wouldn't want anybody to get introduced to the Hornblower series by that  movie.)

To make a good movie about sailing warships, and make it appeal to today's mass audience, requires an almost unimaginable amount of money.  (The "Hornblower" mini-series on A&E cable shows what happens when people with good intentions try to make such movies without having enough money.)  Those of us who are interested in such things should, I think, be grateful that "Master and Commander" is as good as it is - and that it did, as I understand it, make a respectable profit.  If it had been a financial bust, it's unlikely that anybody would ever try to make such a movie again.  I've heard, though, that Peter Weir and Russell Crowe are talking about a sequel.  If it happens, they'll get my ticket money again. 

jtilley wrote:

To make a good movie about sailing warships, and make it appeal to today's mass audience, requires an almost unimaginable amount of money.

Amen! There are so many little details that they got right for Master and Commander too. There's an almost throw away scene when the Surprise has gone far south. It shows snow and ice on the ship with some sailors throwing snow balls. At the very beginning of that scene, you can see a poor sailor freezing while sitting at the head!

Another great, little detail is right at the end when everyone is assembled for the funeral. As the crew is reciting the Lord's Prayer, the camera pans over a few faces. When they get to "For thine is the kingdown, the power ...," you can see that Stephen has stopped praying because he's Catholic, and Catholics don't finish the Lord's Prayer the way Protestants do.

It's a very little detail. Nowhere in the movie does it mention that Stephen is Catholic, although he does state that he's Irish. Still, that particular detail shows just how much the film makers paid attention to details.

The costumes are great, the ships are great, the battles are great, and the characters are great.

I've heard, though, that Peter Weir and Russell Crowe are talking about a sequel.  If it happens, they'll get my ticket money again.

That would be great! I wonder which book or books they'd adapt next. I've only read the first 8 novels in the series, but one featuring the women, especially Diana, might be good. I always picture Catherine Zeta Jones when I think of Diana.

Regards,

John:

I will respectfully disagree with your opinion of Master and Commander. Yes, the details are good. Yes, the battle scenes are remarkably well done. The film has a lot of little things to attract viewers.

But, and I am coming at this from the standpoint of one who has never read any of O'Brien's books, what about characters? The film does little, if anything, to really develop the main characters. If you have not read the books, you can get lost pretty quick. I have no idea why Aubrey and Maturin are arguing about punishments and spying on the crew. Why? Because I have never read the read the books and I do not understand right off the bat the kind of relationship they have that allows the ship's doctor to barge into the great cabin and grouse with the captain. I can get past this problem because I have read quite a bit on the period and on naval officers, but what about someone who is a lay person and does not have any basis on which they can understand these characters?

The main problem I have with the film is the story. Like you said, they wanted to find elements from O'Brien's books that would attract people and yet not blow the budget. Fine, But, this film suffers the same problem they had with Peck's Hornblower film. They ripped up two or three books and created a 2 hour screen play. There were scenes in the movie that had nothing to do with the main plot. I think the main plot was the chase the Acheron and take her or sink her. Fine. But what does Maturin's little science expedition to the islands have to do with that? What does the young officer committing suicide have to do with it? And that wonderful little fully framed model that the two crew members just "knocked together" to show the captain what he was up against? That was useful in the story, but come now!

Well, I do not want to turn this into a debate on the merits of the film, but I just had to get this out. Sorry if its off topic. :) 

Russ 

 

 

Russ,

I hadn't read the novels either when I saw the movie. Since then, I've read the first eight of the series.

I had a very different reaction to the movie than you did. However, movies are like that -- no  movie will  satisfy everyone. My wife is lukewarm toward the movie, but she does like the characters and their story arcs.

At least we both love Lawrence of Arabia and The Seven Samuri.

Back to the origin of this thread, I think it's great to build a model of the movie version of the Surprise! For that matter, I'd love to see a kit of the Interceptor from Pirates of the Carribean.

Regards,

I can easily understand why anybody who hadn't read any of the O'Brian books would find the plot of that movie baffling.  The moviemakers apparently assumed - for better or worse - that a large portion of the audience would be made up of O'Brian fans.  Such people would know that the captain and the doctor are close personal friends.  (Critics have commented at length that the series is a 21-volume rumination on the nature of male friendship - rather remarkable in view of the fact that O'Brian, an extremely eccentric and not-altogether-likable character, seems to have had few if any close friends of his own.)  The two met at a chamber music concert, and discovered a mutual interest in that subject.  (One of the least impressive aspects of the movie was Russell Crowe's attempt to look like he was playing the violin.  I speak as a former, extremely unsuccessful violin student.)  The doctor, like many members of his profession in those days, is an expert on natural history.  And - though this point doesn't figure in the movie - he's also a clandestine agent for British intelligence.  (There's one brief piece of dialogue in which he and the captain refer in passing to the fact that both sides in the war have intelligence agents.  That brought grins of recognition from the O'Brian fans in the audience.)

The moviemakers must have been at least partially right in their assumptions; the movie apparently made lots of money.  I repeat:  I'm not among O'Brian's biggest fans.  But I have read some of the books (not all of them yet - though I've bought all of them), and I do recommend them to anybody with an interest in this area of history. 

Regarding the old Gregory Peck "Hornblower" movie - one curious aspect of it is that Forester himself was credited with the screenplay.  I don't know who else may have had a hand in it; I rather suspect he got leaned on in various directions by the Hollywood moguls.  But to my knowledge he never openly disowned the movie or expressed any dissatisfaction with it.  I believe Forester moved from England to California for the specific purpose of trying to break into the Hollywood scriptwriting game.  Several of his books and stories got made into movies, including the novels Payment Deferred and The Gun (movie title:  "The Pride and the Passion," with Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra, and Sofia Loren - a really awful flick) and the short story "Brown on Resolution" (movie title: "Sailor of the King").  If I remember right, the movie "Sink the Bismarck" also was identified as being based on Forester's book.  All those flicks got mixed receptions; the only Forester-based movie that was an unqualified hit, and has really endured, was, of course, "The African Queen."

Now we've really moved off topic.  Sorry about that; my fault.