Alexander: The Making of a God

Maybe the creators didn't want to remake the Farrell Alexander. Or maybe there wasn't enough info that would be palatable to the Netflix audience that gets bored in the age of TikTok. Nita particularly good look at Alexander's life. The series starts with Al in exile at age 20. It leaves out his education with Aristotle and the taming of his famous horse. These two stories are part of the legend. Why they were left out is beyond me. Another reviewer noted the flaws in the armor worn by the troops. I can't speak to that but the horses were too large and the tack was off. I get really annoyed by that detail. Narrators pop in and out to provide sciencey exposition that stops the motion of the story. I'd suggest reading The Persian Boy instead of watching this series. And let's quit making the Persians the Evil Empire. It was a long lived and culturally diverse area that existed as part of the Silk Road. A series on Persia would be fascinating.

I am starting to notice a pattern.

You watch a Netflix series about some true historical figures, and you are shown some admirable things about them. The aesthetics are beautiful. You finish watching it, and you feel satisfied, and are glad to have been told an interesting chapter of history that you now feel you "know from beginning to end".

Then you later find out, through reading either the primary sources (or reading other people's reviews, as in the case of this series) that the series was actually wildly inaccurate, and in a suspicious way. A ton of really epic stuff was just LEFT OUT. They also added a lot of inaccurate stuff that makes the characters look bad.

The end result is that the story, and the characters portrayed, were watered down and made mediocre in the series, contrasted to the actual real story.

I've seen this with the abominable series "The Last Czars", and now also with this Alexander series. I also Notice that there is some overlap between these 2 series, regarding the writers behind them!

I can't help but wonder if this is done intentionally, to wipe away our history? As an analogy, it's like people going to see a huge epic temple that they've heard about, but someone has set up a cheap mediocre replica on the way, so that the people will stop there instead, and not see the real one.

I found the documentary disappointing due to its inaccurate portrayal of historical figures, particularly Darius. The depiction of Darius with a turban and eyeliner seemed more akin to a caricature than a respectful representation of the Persian Emperor, who was a significant figure in establishing human rights. Persia was the cradle of art and architecture at the time and at its highest. This portrayal of Darius felt more like a misrepresentation, leaning towards an 'Arabic snake dancer' stereotype rather than a dignified leader of the largest empire of the time. It seemed as though the documentary was more a tribute to Alexander rather than an objective historical account, failing to accurately represent the facts and events of that era. This was a letdown, as I expected a documentary to offer a factual and unbiased view.

Not a spoiler, highly inaccurate series. I agree with anither review saying that the 300 movie was more accurate than this 😂. So many missed moments, missed battles, inaccurate events oh so many. It felt like watching something like "ancient aliens", like this is a hypothesis of a couple of PhDs. The disappointing part also is that one of the historians is from St Andrews University. It had such high standards.. Clearly not anymore. Although, that historian was the most serious and studious than the rest of them! One is in love with Alexander and is telling a story that he has in his mind and the other is almost like making fun of him. What an odd series. Only reason I put 4 stars, is for the drama series, not the historians nor the highly inaccurate story.

I'm impressed at least by the fact that Netflix is paying more attention to audiences who are interested in history.

Having said that, I think the hardcore history audience will also demand a lot from the Netflix series.

They're such nerds that they've read everything and expect Netflix to present it to the public just like the books.

It's a docudrama with very strong drama, but it could be worse.

There are a lot of inaccuracies it is true. But giving this documentary 1/10 because you think "Alexander was Greek not Macedonian" reveals how stupid you are despite knowing more about Alexander than the producers.