Even with the flaws of this movie and the inaccuracies it’s an interesting story that brings a man who is almost forgotten in history it made me research the real story of Alan turing

The scene in which Turing is threatened by a Soviet spy (I know it didn't happen in real life) doesn't show being gay a security risk, but it does show outlawing it a security risk.

This can be a really troubling thing about biopics, if they become popular enough they can sort of rewrite history. Even though people know these sorts of films are never completely accurate, they'll assume they're mostly accurate and so when people think of Turing many will imagine Cumberbatch's tortured autistic genius stereotype.

Hi Bob, just watched this. A lot of it I couldn't have put better myself. A little about me, despite now being in my mid-30's I was, only this year, diagnosed with ASD. Secondly I've been volunteering at Bletchley Park for nearly 8 years now, thus I knew all the historical inaccuracies of this film but you opened my eyes to the major character flaws with Alan and the other characters. I guess not knowing I was neurodiverse myself I hadn't re-examined this film from this new viewpoint until watching your critique. Thank you for highlighting this for me. Also I can add one point to your list of gripes; the scene with not warning the convoy lest the Nazi's realise the code was broken was, very clearly, based on the British Government letting the bombing of Coventry go ahead for this exact same reason. I'm here to tell you this scene and it's basis is, heavily misinterpreted. I personally spoke to Bletchley's main historian Dr David Kenyon about this very incident and his exact words to me were it was "Cock up rather than conspiracy." There was never any intent to let Coventry be bombed in this way, of course they would've warned the populace. People can get so excited about conspiracy theories that sound plausible but based on scant evidence, these days, can't they? Anyway once again, very well argued points. I shall probably catch some more critiques another time, thanks.

It's been a while since I've seen it, but I recall there being many times where I would feel that movie-specific swell of things progressing, coming to a head, and having a BIG conclusion (whether that be a major revelation, success, failure, or some other large moment). I suppose that narrative momentum was what earned it it's screenplay award? I seem to recall it also landing at a key time when underdog, brainy, oddball protagonists were all the rage. This movie was exceptionally good at making moments *feel* earned. It's a shame that so little of it actually was. Great video!

Hilariously even the title is a lie. The Turing Test (identifying if a robot can pass for a human), AKA, what "The Imitation Game" has literally nothing to do with the movie. At all. But it sounds cool. Unless they insinuate Turing wanted to create a real AI where his dead under-aged not-boyfriend could be replicated like a crappy Twilight Zone episode.

This movie actually pissed me off quite a bit, for another reason. I have been working as a researcher for more than 20 years now, and I have become quite annoyed with the way Hollywood has been portrayed scientists ever since the 80s. A good scientist in an American movie is now a weird, solitary man with no social skills. He has no friends and he is awkward at best with women. He is at war with his superiors, does not understand jokes or sarcasm and every day is a challenge, with no grasp of current popular culture. What is weird is that in scifi movies of the 50s, the scientist was the one who got the woman at the end, the very definition of success in American movies. The very first time I saw a scientist depicted in this way, it was in Independence Day, and it has gotten worse over time. The Big Bang Theory was a perfect illustration of this trend, as if you needed to make scientists clowns to make them acceptable. This Turing is almost a rip off of Sheldon. When I visit American campuses, I'm absolutely fascinated by the absence of Americans among PhD students in science. You find Asians or Europeans, but almost no Americans. This depiction of scientists in American movies has real effects and may explain why enrollment in science and technology is so low in the US. Who wants to be a Sheldon, really? How can Alan Turing who revolutionized mathematics be depicted as this bumbling narcissistic idiot is beyond my understanding.

i watched this movie when i was young enough for it to be ingrained in my nostalgic core, so i was pretty hesitant to watch this video, but i'm not even halfway through and i have no regrets at all, please, go ahead and destroy a core childhood memory, i am loving this

I personally liked this movie, but I would recommend Codebreaker (2011) for a more accurate and complete portrayal of Alan Turing and his life.

You are so good at creating these videos. I can't believe you don't have more subscriber/watchers. I will be back for more soon. Thanks for your amazing content!

Your reviews feel so spot on and insightful to me that I’m shocked you don’t have more viewers and subscribers. I’m going to try to start commenting on each of your vids and I go through the back catalogue. Perhaps we can get some more momentum going in the algorithm. I’m glad you were recommended to me. Hopefully others find you soon.

This video is so well constructed, thank you for talking about it!

I could never figure out why dropping someone's testosterone levels was supposed to make them tremble a lot.

I really wanted a movie about Turing, it seemed like a really interesting idea, and I really did wish that they did better for this one. I'm sure it could've been great if people actually, oh I don't know, did their research, put said research to use, and chose not to create a caricature of an incredible person for the awards or whatever. Anyways, lovely video, you really put how I felt about the movie into words. I do appreciate that it introduced me to Alan Turing though, that was great :D

Irony: using your own astism as a victim narrative while bashing victim narratives in film.

I can certainly understand the criticism for historical inaccuracies. But a lot of great movies have massive historical inaccuracies. So it is absolutely fair to bring up these inaccuracies (in fact we should) but I still liked the movie. It's not an all time great, but it had a compelling story.

this is one those movies where the so-called "pathos" outperforms the "methos" and "logos", which is the key for making a well-conveyed story cause if you nailed the pathos, there would be high chances no matter how bad the methos and logos are, they can still be made up for.

There is one aspect of this film, that I also see over and over again, in any movie about the military, where the lead character is either not part of the military, or doesn't fit a militaristic stereotype. That is this false idea that military leaders are completely stupid, only caring about winning battles at the sake of causalities, both military and civilian, and don't care about wasted money, time, or human life. That they have some religiously binding ideal towards anything done in the same way, especially if it is tradition, even in the face of concrete evidence that that course of action is clearly wrong. Like the whole point of the military is to find, employee, and even educate and trian scientists, mathematicians, environmentalist, diplomats, etc., in thier respective disiplines, for the soul purpose of having them sit at the decision making table just to be yelled at. As if they were brought there just to be told nothing will be changed, and that they just needed some nerds around so they can tell them that. Like, that's how angry, stupid and evil the military is. Why is this always the way the way the military brass is depicted in film?

This film does something very right, but I can't place my finger on it. Like a bad song that's somehow good. The parts work well together despite everything.

thank you for calling this out, hope another person tells this story better

I cannot for the _life_ of me understand how this video has only 4800 views. It's _astonishing_ how many people completely bought into the director's "creative liscence" argument without even taking a _moment_ to read about what was actually said.

I don't go into biopics expecting them to be super accurate. I thought this movie was decently acted, and it was a springboard to anyone wanting to know more about the man, who, in fact, should be SUPER famous considering how much every one of us relies on computers nowadays. I also never assumed he was autistic, only odd in the way many brilliant people often are. Perhaps they should have made him more gay and less odd, after all he did not live a completely closeted life in a time when most did. But the movie was about his wartime contributions, which are rather complex if they had tried to be super accurate.

Damn I commented before watching the entire video and I commented something dumb(I deleted it). I feel like this movie is better watching it, knowing nothing about Alan Turing. The movie itself was really enjoyeble to watch, and had great emotional moments. But can we please take a moment and give Benedict Cumberbatch some props? Holyshit, his acting (Alan Turing) was absolutely insane.

Imitation Game is a hugely entertaining and often very moving film. If you want accuracy, read a biography by a respected author. Expecting a complete and accurate portrayal of Turing's life from a non-documentary movie is simply ludicrous.

thank you so much for putting all this into words!! this is a really well done video, i wish you the best

Thank you for this video - people should know how false this movie is. When I first watched it I thought: well, nothing special, but not that bad. But then I've read the book, rewatched the movie and was like: wait, what? This movie got an Oscar for the best screenplay - how was that even possible?? And the most insulting thing is that if you know nothing about Turing, you're just left with this nonsense - and how bad is that for a biopic... Not to mention that Cumberbatch is awful in this movie. Just to look at him is painful. I think he's a very good actor, I love him as Sherlock Holmes, but here his performance is just unbearable. He looks like a guy who desperately tries to act, but fails every time. So sad to watch 😞

I myself liked the film and think I’d still like it knowing the inaccuracies but it’s fine if you don’t like it.

So, I just now watched the movie- and I'm completely with you. I wanted to like it, truly. It was such an interesting story, but... bleh. It was only just okay- All throughout the entire thing I was just constantly thinking of ways even I could have done it better. I wanted to watch the movie, and then research Turing, and this film was just such an injustice. I hope, someday, they'll make a new and better one, starring an appropriate actor (I love Cumberbatch, truly, but I feel such a big actor wasn't what this movie needed, especially when trying to portray this complex of a character) and having the accurate stories being told. I'm disappointed, and I wish I wasn't. Hopefully someday the movie industry will be able to see past awards and prizes, and focus back on telling stories and, in this case, bringing justice to the heroes of our past.

i think the movie is great but i also agree that it could've been much more accurate to the real story. i personally like the acting but also neurodivergent or gay actor would have been nice to have:D so uhh in conclusion i love the movie but also see and agree with all the points you made 😃👍

thank you so much, this is such an excellent breakdown of how inaccurate and actually offensive this film is holy hell! it was absolutely made to just win diversity points, tick a box and win an Oscar -not tell turings story. he deserved a better biopic than this. I read ‘the imitation game’ graphic novel by Jim ottaviani which made me want to rewatch the film and it’s so crazy how off base the film is, the graphic novel is so much better !!!!! it’s incredible with loads of interesting detail, respectful and you can tell the writers actually did their research 😵‍💫

I remember really liking this film back when I saw it, now after this video I feel much more conflicted about it.

I mean there’s also the plot hole during the debate of alerting the ship of the pending attack. The plot hole being that they were debating alerting a ship of a pending attack pretty much a whole day after the Intel was received. In the context of the film, they were decoding encrypted messages that they had received up until midnight, had a breakthrough, and worked until early morning hours deciphering the messages received the prior day.

Although I understand the problem with very stereotypical and sometimes flat out wrong depiction in these kind of movies making fun of Joan as just the "strong female lead" feels a bit misplaced here. It can an annoying thing sometimes, I agree, but you kinda leave out the part where Joan was in fact kind of a badass…

Cumbervatch plays Sherlock who plays Turing. Deja Vu.

But you’ve missed the most important factor of cinema. Is the film enjoyable? If the audience enjoyed it, then the film has succeeded. I loved the film and that is coming from someone with Asperger’s.

I liked the movie because as a stand alone it is good and it brought me to research Alan Turing but as a biopic it absolutely failed like most biopics do. I think biopics should die out they are just almost always disrespectful to the real person.

It’s one of the greatest films ever made. Sorry

I don't see any of these as flaws! This is yet another rant from someone that has decided that realism is more valuable that storytelling. Not necessarily this video, but people in society at the moment that are taking on other peoples battles for them, being offended on their behalf, I'm hoping are a weird phase that will pass. A saw a fantastic video recently taking this subject head on by dressing in stereotypical garb from a number of countries and cultures, then visiting the country of origin and asking the people if they were offended. Not a single person came even close to being upset, they said they felt honoured. Cultural appropriation is an invention of people. It's a movie - therefore it's written to be entertaining. Why is everyone so suddenly upset with the lack of realism. We don't go to the cinema to see real life. And if it's a movie about a real subject or person, then it has to be written to be entertaining, otherwise you might as well just read the biography of a person. Tropes are an essential communication format that allow concept to be delivered to an audience without stopping the movie and turning it into a documentary for 45 minutes explaining in detail what Autism is from a medical perspective. The centre of this movie is the code breaking, it's not really about Alan Turing as a person. So the off-screen discussions regarding his sexuality are irrelevant to that point. His school days, bullying and his first relationship DO have relevance because it explains the name of the machine. You can pepper a movie with as many subplots for spice and interest as you want. The point where Alan upsets people because of the decision not to reveal that they have broken the code in order to save the war, rather than a single passenger craft - is another movie shortcut, it kills two birds with one stone. It advances the story and it further adds to his character development. This whole video, seems to be your opinions, but that have been formed from listening to too many other people about what is 'appropriate', what 'should be' instead of taking it as face value a movie. The story of Alan Turing could be told in a completely different way, with more focus on any of his other mathematical papers, achievements and breakthroughs in information science. His life was, sadly, 42 short years, whereas a movie is 90 minutes. Screenwriting is about engaging the audience, telling a story and following 'beats', in order to move at a consistent pace. 10 other movies, all completely different, could still be made and have very little overlap. Fundamentally, the story of codebreaking a machine with 158 trillion settings, the mere design of which is an approximate 40 pages on Wikipedia and the machine that built it made from 1940s technology the likes of which even fewer people have any understanding of than those even comprehend terms like cypher and codebreaking. Personally, I believe that this film has managed to do something quite special - it turned a fringe subject into something the mainstream could not only understand, but appreciate. It was Top Secret at the time, but now that Alan Turing's efforts have been formally acknowledged (even so far as to him having his head on a British coin) people neither understood nor appreciated what he actually accomplished. This film tells the story in such a way as to allow more people to understand. Recently, there has been a gigantic wave of releases I would dub "historial". We've had the stories of Facebook (The Social Network), Steve Jobs at Apple (Jobs), Clive Sinclair, Hidden Figures (Black women doing maths at NASA in the 60s), The Founder (MacDonalds), Ford v Ferrari, Radioactive (Marie Curie), A Beautiful Mind (John Nash), The Man who Knew Infinity (Srinivasa Ramanujan), The Theory of Everything (Steven Hawking).... to name a few! I assume these are they types of story that you refer to as "Oscar bait". Character driven, biopic about a subject in that characters life, of which we are all familiar with. Some films are better than others.. some reveal things about the 'hero' that we didn't know and don't necessarily like.. (eg, what sort of person Steve Jobs was, how he treated his daughter, for example) I feel that your video would be more appropriate in describing many of these other films. The reason being, The Imitation Game is about something that many people won't understand even straight after walking out of the cinema. I'm certain that 'studio interference' is common practice in the film industry. A director's vision is messed with so much that they either quit ("creative differences" as a headline to directors leaving a project is all too common) or they succumb to the pressure just so that they can finish it and move on. It's really difficult to make a film. Where do you aim? Tropes exist for a reason. They are cinema shorthand, saving time and the expense of upsetting a seasoned film buff who has seen everything ever made and therefore nothing is new. Do you purposefully alienate certain sections of the audience in order to tell a more accurate, detailed, yet drier version of the truth? Or, do you decide to hand hold the people for which the subject at hand is a complete mystery through to the very end so they 'get it' whilst sacrificing the approval of the smallest percentage of the audience - the smart ones. For people like us, in order to enjoy more movies that are perfectly acceptable - don't think for one second that I am talking about dumbing down enough to swallow cinematic brain candy for the intellectually challenged - I mean, letting 90 minutes go by without criticising a detail in every frame of a well made movie that serves to accomplish an answer to a binary question - did you enjoy yourself? I've enjoyed my life so much more after practising ignoring the analytical part of the brain that has started writing an essay about the colour grading before the opening scene is even concluded. Stopping the judging the characters on screen against what we know of the people in real life. IT IS A MOVIE. NOT a documentary. When making a movie, especially one like The Imitation Game, the directors choice is to give a polished and satisfying experience (containing as many story elements as possible - off the top of my head; tension, emotion, love interests, setups, payoffs, mystery, resolutions, conflict and characters - both good and bad, all of which The imitation Game somehow managed to have) at the expense of "truth", which is impossibly subjective anyway. Right below this comment I am writing, my entire point has been summed up by someone else. It says; "Even with the flaws of this movie and the inaccuracies it’s an interesting story that brings a man who is almost forgotten in history it made me research the real story of Alan Turing" And with that, we have the only review we will need. It succeeded.

Turing gets a much better turn in Neal Stephenson's novel "Cryptonomicon".

You must of watched a different movie to me. It might not be completely accurate but it was still a well written well acted movie.

I think Tora Tora Tora is one, if not the best example of a historically mostly accurate movie. The actual history is interesting enough that it doesn't have to be pampered by "screenwriter logic". I find this trend to hand feeding what the audience is ought to think in a given scene more and more infuriating. ESPECIALLY when it is supposed to tell history. Like with the Queen movie. Are you really telling me that the wild parties those guys had weren't interesting enough on their own and you had to cramp in some artificial drama to make the gig at Live Aid more "magical"? Really?

They could of if they wanted tennion use that of the Conventy blitz

Regarding the criticism of Rain man... The film does not suggest that all Autistic people are alike. It introduces one Autistic person who is also a savant. Regarding the imitation game... I think it is a cracking movie. Great story... Great acting.

Thank you for the video I was having a hard time trying to explain what I didn't like about it

One of my favorite movies to rewatch. Recommended it to everyone, should have won best picture instead of theory of everything I think. How is portraying history bait? I didn't know that Turing was gay or autistic before watching the film.

I don't get it. If everyone on the spectrum has their own individual experiences and challenges, how can a writer tell one person's story in a way that pleases you? One story is about that one person. BTW I'm not arguing your take on the film at all. I get that abelist and white savior stories are focused on the experience of racism through white eyes or character development for the non-autistic through their experience of an a person with autism. I truly am interested in understanding your point and I hope you can clarify, thank you Edit: I just read my comment over and perhaps I answered my own question? It's about whose experience and development is being shown, that a personal narrative from an individual perspective is best. Anyone?

Thanks for saving me from watching this apparently awful film. And let's not even get into the fact that Turing was running very good marathon times and in fact could conceivably gone to the Olympics of that event, he was that good. As for autism, bah. Odd, sure. But he got through English public school and became a Don that early, he had to have a decent ability to get along in society and the societies of schoolboys as well as college officios are both rather brutal.

You have to wonder what was so wrong with the original/accurate life story that the screenwriter felt he had to make up so much fiction. I enjoyed film initially but now that I know it was mostly nonsense I feel less about it than I did. Thanks

yeah it was really not good. i was really surprised by this movie

You bring up some good points, but it’s very unfair to call this a bad film imo. It’s not a masterpiece, nor is it historically accurate, but it’s still a fun film with a compelling story, great acting, and a good score. I think you’re grasping at straws when you try to make the point about the portrayal of (supposed) neurodivergence. Clearly, it was speculative. I think we’re meant to wonder, but not to confidently assign any particular label. He’s just “odd” or “peculiar” and we’re meant to be satisfied with that vague notion because the terms for these conditions, as we know them today, did not exist back then. Giving a posthumous diagnosis is impossible. So the screenwriters just gently gesture at some commonly noted atypical behaviors. With regard to the peas and carrots in particular, I believe that in 2014, that could’ve come across as more of character quirk than a behavioral symptom, as if to indicate that he likes things very neat and orderly. One must remember that before we threw around labels like OCD, we were content viewing such people as clean freaks. This is because stigmas were greater back then, and so only the most extreme cases were given a diagnosis of any sort. I agree that biopics were super played out at the time, but frankly, I don’t think my expectation for their historical accuracy is anywhere near as high as yours. I assume that they are intended to give you only a very general sense of what actually happened so that you might be encouraged to look them up. I assume that if a viewer were to later claim that Turing separated his peas and carrots, that he’d be embarrassed to admit that he’d “learned” that from a biopic. Some biopics clearly present themselves with the intention of seeming historically accurate, like Oppenheimer for example, but I wouldn’t bet money on anything in that movie being factual unless I’ve read about it elsewhere, as would anyone with any media literacy whatsoever.

For the algo

"Dumpster-fire of a film" - go watch Transformers, I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

I don’t agree with all of your criticisms being how “this or that didn’t happen in real life the same or at all as shown in the movie.” Yes of course it’s a film, not a documentary or a book. I was expecting real criticism of a genuinely mediocre film but instead I uninteresting nitpicks that matter only to you. Disappointing

i saw this movie again irecently and absolutely hated it. Not because of the historical inaccuracy of the film, I discovered that later, but because of how boring all the characters are. They are all one-dimensional blobs that only act to progress the story. Turing himself is also super boring which is insane given his real-life character. This movie really did waste their opportunity at making a great movie by focusing on making a boring, shallow oscar bait that despite its flippant disregard for the truth still manages to make an extremely uncreative film.

There is a reason u don’t have many subs

the imitation game is the best movie ever made, your just jeloose. I bet you don't even know what 1 x 1 is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! or do a back flip

I recently self-diagnosed as being on the spectrum. My mother wanted me to watch this movie with her, and I couldn't help but feel insulted after seeing it.

Who cares about all of these topics?

I don't watch films today. And this is one of the reasons why. This one happened to be on in the background while visiting a relative tonight and I must say I am absolutely amazed at the shallowness of other reviewers who didn't see what I saw right off the bat. I think you are right on about the " Oscar bait" aspect. I had to laugh when you used the term "strong female role" or close to that as I found that aspect the most lame.....especially the dialogue. To sum up, only watched the last 40 minutes, but even then I found the artistic licence to be a bit much not even knowing who Turing was til tonight. Seemed to me like another opportunity to herald and normalize gay tendencies and make a hero out of someone who should have been recognized more for his contributions in winning a war. But then that sort of tedious, boring work does not make for great screenplay. Ask yourself a question.......would this story ever make the big screen had Turiing not been gay? Hell no. And this is what I mean by agendizing movies and why I don't bother watching any lately. Hollywood has had this problem for a long time. I have to scratch my head at one thing among many who herald this as a masterpiece.......so you want a society that medically castrated gays to win a war? Seems a bit counterproductive.