Washington

Why is everyone contrasting this against the John Adams mini-series? It's clearly a documentary done in documentary-style format with commentary from various historians. No matter what, it'll never be accurate enough for some people and the actors will never look enough like the real people, etc., but I enjoyed it for the simple fact that it was well-made and the actor playing Washington was engaging and did what I can only assume was a great job with his accent (he's Scottish and we really have no idea how "Americans" talked back then). One of the things that irked me was the filmmakers showing us how woke they were by pointing out how unwoke Washington was because he owned slaves and took pains to make sure they didn't win their freedom by a technicality. You know who else owned slaves? Literally most everybody else who could afford it back then. And I guarantee you they would have taken the same steps to safeguard against the loss of their property, too. We know he's human and has flaws and I think we already at least assumed he owned slaves, so this was unnecessary. So, does this mean the father of our country is cancelled now, or is it okay if we can at least appreciate the positive contributions he made?

Firstly why have non historians such as Bill Clinton and Colin Powell in this? Especially if they are going to make statements like Powell's: "He (Washington) could have been King." That is ludicrous. Worse yet I read an interview with one of the makers of the historians "advising" that this "contrasted" Washington with Trump. What? 1. The "refused to be king" nonsense has been as debunked as the Cherry Tree legend. 2. this points to a motive int eh glaring omission of any exposition at all on the power of the presidency at the time which was profoundly limited in nature literally almost that of simply a presiding officer at the time, when today when the US presidency in the 21st century is a profoundly more powerful office -- and one which arguably virtually the American colonial revolutionaries would consider tyrannical by its nature since FDR or earlier. Once you realize this is going on there is a bit of insidiousness and agenda to the selection of the short phrase sized quotes chosen by the makers.

As far as the military aspect, both the role of the militias, and the role of the French, is given very short shrift and it is made to seem the Continental Army was virtually the entire effort. Sadly one starts to wonder if this is agenda driven. Sure as cultural decedents of the British, we all like to hate on the French a bit. But at the time of the American Revolution they were a massive factor in Britain's inability to quash the revolution. The role of the militia was also key. The peer reviewed work looking at the writings of the British military leaders show this was more of a problem than the Continental forces. Yes, classically British military trained officers in the US continental Army downplayed the militia, did not like the militia tactic of attacking and fading/harassing, and irregular warfare. But the evidence is that this forced the British to constantly use resources, move men around, be unable to concentrate forces and eventually be beaten in a couple of key battles by the continental army. in this sense it is like the Viet Cong in Vietnam conflict. yes we beat the and NVA when they stood for fixed engagement, but they only made that mistake of participating in pitched battle a couple of times. The general effect of the Viet cong. and the US militia was to counter area denial, cause attrition of men, materiel and political will, to huge practical effect.

I give this four out of ten stars. See the HBO Adams series which is better acting and better history.

Watched it twice. Loved the narration and actors. Learned a lot and God Bless America.

8 rating for the historical content alone. Strong lead character but I question casting choice for looks. Definitely could do without this type of documentary especially given they chose Bill Clinton to speak.

Mostly the "professional" historians offer surface analysis and apparently didn't mind repeating themselves like the reality program / Top Chef nonsense, or oversimplifying and assessing history with a modern lens. Not really for the history buff but nice to see actual history on this channel.

Washington not looking like Washington is odd. He looks more like Jefferson. You would think they would have tried to cast someone that looks like the narrator. The strange casting is that of John Adams being played by a Dutch actor makes no sense at all. I mean he is a descent actor, but looks nothing like him and not sure he even speaks fluent English. Other than that an enjoyable documentary to watch, and excellent historians that I have seen before. Also, I had no issue with Clinton. I mean why doesn't it make sense to have a former president talk about the first president, my guess is the negative comments were more political.