Master and Commander: Patrick O’Brian: Book 1 (Aubrey-Maturin)

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Despite the success of Gladiator in 2000, also starring Crowe, the historical epic had lost much of its popularity among general audiences by the time of the Master and Commander release. But always heart and soul, blood and purse in some cause from which he can derive no conceivable personal benefit. The novel did respectably in Britain ("selling a most surprising number" according to O'Brian), [23] but was not initially successful in the US. Film critic Scott Tobias wrote a positive retrospective article about this film in 2019, begrudging the fact that Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, another sea-faring film also released in 2003, had led to a string of Pirates of the Caribbean fantasy films, but there was no demand for a sequel featuring Captain Jack Aubrey and deeply rooted in historical facts of the Napoleonic Wars, the Age of Sail and the Age of Discovery. This calmness under pressure is most often seen in pilots today where an impending crash and death is often handled with chilling calm as it allows the pilot to focus and attempt to fix or make the best out of a situation.

By driving the truck at 70 miles per hour (110km/h) into a 30–40-knot (56–74km/h; 35–46mph) wind, and modulating the wind with barbecue and refrigerator grills, King was able to create a range of sounds, from "shrieking" to "whistling" to "sighing", simulating the sounds of wind passing through the ship's rigging.

Their interaction takes on a preening quality, reminiscent of the interaction of the ' Star Trek' characters four or five movies down the line. a b c " "The Sounds of Realism in 'Master and Commander'" - National Public Radio interview with Richard King". I felt like I learned enough to get by but not so much that I could effectively command the ship myself. Set in 1805 during the Napoleonic Wars, Far Side of the World has Captain Jack chasing down the larger French Privateer, Acheron with his smaller corvette/frigate ship, the Surprise in an attempt to keep the French out of the Pacific. A victory against such odds would normally bring official recognition, promotion, and significant prize money, but unfortunately for Aubrey his superior at Mahon is Captain Harte, with whose wife Aubrey has been having an affair.

I took the position that I could follow enough of the action to make the characters' stories make sense without constantly flipping back to the glossary to find out which mast had been carried away by what kind of cannonball, or which way the ship was turning when a certain directive was given to the helm. When reviewing The Wine-Dark Sea in the Hudson Review, Gary Krist is very critical of the plot of the books, suggesting that the books are full of elements of "pop fiction" and O'Brian's excessive "delight in the sheer specificity of seafaring mechanics. Like Aubrey in the book, however, Cochrane did not receive from the Admiralty the promotion and prize money he might have expected from so spectacular a victory. Though not a bad moviemaking choice in any way, it should be noted for historical accuracy that the characters shown are fictional.

For the Algeciras Campaign O'Brian studied the dispatches of admiral Sir James Saumarez along with other contemporary reports of the battle.