I saw "Bohemian Rhapsody"

From what Tony says this group failed to do their job

Not really as the changes were deliberate. Given May and Taylor were involved in the story line, it's doubtful anything was an actual mistake.

It was done more for supposed dramatic effect. The creation of the Ray Foster character was purely to create drama. To have a "bad guy" from outside the group who didn't believe and who could subsequently be proven wrong. Doesn't get any more Hollywood than that.

The rest of the changes were seemingly to make Live Aid the pivotal point in the band's history. It's pure story telling 101. The almost insurmountable struggle to get there, followed by the all conquering success when they pull it off. If a few pesky facts get in the way of pushing that angle, then just eliminate or change them. Pretty much like every other "based on a true story" movie that's been made.

Why anyone felt the need to tell the story from that angle is anyone's guess. As Tony has said, their story is interesting enough without the factual changes. But at the end of the day it's a movie, not a documentary.
 
Does anyone here think that the song "Bohemian Rhapsody" was written by Freddy about his disease? This just occurred to me today and I wanted to run it by all here.

"Mama, just killed a man...Put a gun against his head, pulled the trigger, now he's dead" (could be a reference to his cavalier sex life, he killed himself)

"Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth" (self explanatory)

"Too late, my time has come...."

The entire lyric of the song could easily be a thinly veiled attempt at confessing in metaphor, his condition.

The only thing that doesn't fit is the timeframe of when it was released which was 1975. Unless he deep down knew then?

Thoughts?
 
No. Not a chance.

Deep down he knew he had AIDS years before the disease had actually been identified?

Well, yes. Lol.

OK I didn't consider that fact.

I do that every once in a while....appear stupid... to make my fellow forum friends look good. Ya gotta take one for the team every so often.

Right now you are looking great Jules :)
 
Well, yes. Lol.

OK I didn't consider that fact.

I do that every once in a while....appear stupid... to make my fellow forum friends look good. Ya gotta take one for the team every so often.

Right now you are looking great Jules :)


You're always good for a giggle my friend. No doubt about it!!
 
Others believe the lyrics were only written to fit with the music, and have no meaning; the DJ, television entertainer and comedian Kenny Everett, who played an influential role in popularising the single on his radio show on Capital Radio, quoted Mercury as claiming the lyrics were simply "random rhyming nonsense".[41]

In an interview during the band's Australian tour early in 1985, Mercury explained, "It was basically three songs that I wanted to put out and I just put the three together."[44]
 
I don't think there was a need to completely fabricate all the things that they just blatantly made up in the movie

the Queen story is good enough and didn't need to be dramatized for Hollywood affect

So true. While the movie isn't horrible, it's not worthy of all the acclaim and awards. I was a huge fan of Queen until they started going downhill (in my view) around "Jazz". I was confused while watching the movie. It made no sense at all to me why they would change so many things. If it would have meant that the movie needed to be longer, they should have just focused on a few moments in the career.
 
Definitely fits the definition.

A rhapsody in music is a one-movement work that is episodic yet integrated, free-flowing in structure, featuring a range of highly contrasted moods, colour and tonality. An air of spontaneous inspiration and a sense of improvisation make it freer in form than a set of variations.
 
I don't think there was a need to completely fabricate all the things that they just blatantly made up in the movie

the Queen story is good enough and didn't need to be dramatized for Hollywood affect

decent movie ... but I just couldn't get past all the blatant made up stuff and the stuff just so out of sync with reality

which is a bit surprising because Brian and Roger were involved in the making quite a bit

some of what I'm talking about is ...

-The Ray Foster character is completely fabricated... he doesn’t exist and there was no executive at EMI who didn’t believe in Queen.
-The whole thing where Freddie reveals the he is sick before Live Aid... he wasn’t even diagnosed until nearly 2 years after Live Aid and literally didn’t tell the band he was HIV positive until near his death... they knew but he never uttered the words until near the end of his life.
-the dramatic band break up only to get back together years later for Live Aid is completely fabricated... the band never broke up ... they had even put out an album like 8 months prior to the show and were touring up until 8 weeks before Live Aid.
- the whole beef with Freddie’s solo album... completely false... Roger did 2 solo albums I believe before Freddie did his... it had very little impact on the band
- they depict We Will Rock you to be written in 1980 when the song was actually recorded in ‘76 and released in ‘77... bizarre
- they show John Decan playing bass as Queens first show... he was actually their 4th bass player and was nowhere near that gig.
- they say Freddie was randomly at the gig where their singer quit and they all met that night...completely fabricated ... Freddie knew all those guys for a long time ... even lived with a couple of them before joining Queen.
There’s a bunch more... just so bizarre because all of this stuff is well documented

Yep, I enjoyed the film, but found the fabrications unsettling. Surely they could have made just as good a film, if not better, by sticking to the facts.
 
Two changes just didn’t sit right with me, which I alluded earlier in the thread.

The way his dad was portrayed, in that he was disappointed/disapproving of Freddie’s music career and lifestyle/sexuality and only came round the day of Live Aid - when in fact both his parents were supportive and countless biographies all state that his dad was a loving supprtive father throughout Freddies career.

I’ve read both his parents and sister barely missed UK shows for example, they only didn’t attend Live Aid with Freddie as they wanted to take it all in and the enormity of it from home. Why they needed to portray his father like that I don’t know but it’s very disappointing.

The angle on Freddie’s solo career when he was one of the last band members to do a solo album (May and Taylor had already taken that road) as already discussed earlier. That he was getting too big for his boots by breaking away from the ‘family’ of the band

I guess it’s ok to change a few facts to dramatise a story but to change facts on people no longer able to defend themselves (especially how the family were portrayed) and perform character assassinations doesn’t sit right with me at all, especially when members of the band were involved in the making of the film.

It’s just not right.
 
Two changes just didn’t sit right with me, which I alluded earlier in the thread.

The way his dad was portrayed, in that he was disappointed/disapproving of Freddie’s music career and lifestyle/sexuality and only came round the day of Live Aid - when in fact both his parents were supportive and countless biographies all state that his dad was a loving supprtive father throughout Freddies career.

I’ve read both his parents and sister barely missed UK shows for example, they only didn’t attend Live Aid with Freddie as they wanted to take it all in and the enormity of it from home. Why they needed to portray his father like that I don’t know but it’s very disappointing.

The angle on Freddie’s solo career when he was one of the last band members to do a solo album (May and Taylor had already taken that road) as already discussed earlier. That he was getting too big for his boots by breaking away from the ‘family’ of the band

I guess it’s ok to change a few facts to dramatise a story but to change facts on people no longer able to defend themselves (especially how the family were portrayed) and perform character assassinations doesn’t sit right with me at all, especially when members of the band were involved in the making of the film.

It’s just not right.

Very well said. It also seems these days that if you do point out discrepancies in things like this, you're a purist or a miserabile joy-killing nerd spoiling it for everyone.

Surely they could have made an amazing film and still stuck to what really happened.
 
Surely they could have made an amazing film and still stuck to what really happened.

There was enough drama surrounding the Sun City gigs of '84 to last any band a lifetime. That story contains enough "conflict and redemption" fit for any Hollywood script. It was the perfect backdrop to the "redeemed at Live Aid" angle the film followed anyway. Yet strangely, it was omitted altogether.
 
Well I guess art doesn't always imitate life-so its fiction and just eerily sounds vaguely similar to the band known as Queen-though in this instance they must be lost in some space-time warp of ever-changing events in time with new characters-obviously from another dimension. I reckon. I think it would have been better if they added another dimension that Freddie was actually a secret agent for the CIA, like Elvis, and he staged his death to be happy saving the world. Then when he sang "Mama, just killed a man
Put a gun against his head
Pulled my trigger, now he's dead
Mama, life had just begun
But now I've gone and thrown it all away
Mama, oh oh
Didn't mean to make you cry
If I'm not back again this time tomorrow
Carry on, carry on, as if nothing really matters" The meaningless lyrics would jump out he was shooting people in the head to save the world. Dang they should have called me to make this film. As the credits play- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvY3kRWuyIM
 

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Not really as the changes were deliberate. Given May and Taylor were involved in the story line, it's doubtful anything was an actual mistake.
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https://www.indiewire.com/2016/03/s...nted-freddie-mercury-to-die-mid-movie-263717/

There were disagreements between May and Taylor and early versions of the script, related to downplaying Mercury's sexuality and making the movie, and the bands legacy, more family friendly. In addition to telling more of their story after Mercury's death.

Sacha Baron Cohen would have fun to see In the lead role, imo.
 
Congratulations to Rami Malek on his Academy Award win for best actor. I'm sure it will look good on his mantel.
 
Congratulations to Rami Malek on his Academy Award win for best actor. I'm sure it will look good on his mantel.

Wow I didn't know there was an award for lip-synching. They should have had him lip-synching Queen rather than Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga actually singing. How passe'
 
Great movie, and kudos to the props department until they put new Zildjian cymbals in the Live Aid scenes! They could have just removed the logos...
Great movie though, altogether. Had the props people done some homework, they wouldn't have had ink logos on the cymbals at all in the scene were Freddy goes to see SMILE play. Also, Roger Taylor played Premier drums in the early '70's, but is depicted playing Sonor drums from the late '80's, or early '90's. Fun movie for sure.
 
Wow I didn't know there was an award for lip-synching. They should have had him lip-synching Queen rather than Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga actually singing. How passe'

That's a bit of a cheap shot isn't it? It's a movie, and it's all make believe. There are grounds to criticise Rami Malek's performance, and debate whether it was Oscar-worthy. Personally, I don't believe it was, but the fact that he lip-synch'd is not an issue.

...in other breaking news...word has just come in that Harrison Ford only pretended to be piloting the Millennium Falcon.
 
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