This is a very interesting debate. Filmakers are never going to be responsible, as some call it, and make films that accuratly represent history, or stop making films that don't. They are there for the money, and the audience, and apparently distorted history sells. I guess there is never enough fiction to just make a movie about that, although it makes you wonder why not? As for making a history film accurate to history for kids, that would just be a flop. Adults ( read this as if it were in bold/italic), yawn often when they hear the word history. If you know that, just think of what it is like for kids. Most of them these days are so fed on anything other than books or serious stuff it isn't funny. I saw this movie when I was 11, but I never watched TV or videos until I was eight, and I was always more fond of books than other forms of entertainment. That or the outdoors os much better for kids than TV and such things in my opinion, but enough of that.
This movie did get many interested who never would have been otherwise. It got their interest in ways that any other way of representing history did not. I think that rather than not make people think about history, this film makes them think about it. It brings kids history through a meduim that they are infintely more familiar with than a book. They might see it and wonder what happened next, and since there is no sequel to this, then they might be interested enough to go pick up a book and start looking at it, or hopefully reading it. Even if it's that Royal Diaries Series which is not that accurate, it is better than nothing. So, the movie gave them the spark to perhaps be interested further. I think it's natural for kids to be interested in what happens next in stories, and movies. At least, I always was, and given this natural urge kids will want to go out and find out more, even if they discover Anastasia didn't survive.
I think the movie should have been more inconclusive to make more kids wonder about what sort of sequel could this story have had? As well, sometimes it kids know it is fictional they will want to know the real story, and go out and try to discover it. That is what happened to me, but I was interested in the Romanovs before the movie came out because I saw the cover of Anastasia's Album and that girl sitting there in that white dress really intrigued me. Of course, some kids will just watch it and move on to other mindless crap. So, I think movies like this have some relevance in getting kids more interested in history in a way they understand. If the movie wasn't fictional, there woudn't be the further impetus to seek the real story out. So while movies should be respectful, having some elements of fiction might inrigue kids further.
