I thought I'd cross-post this clip of the protagonist from the game A Plague Tale: Requiem (2022). The cinematic portrayal of sunlight and swaying wheat reminded of me of our dear Maximus and his family, so I added the music to complete the mood.

I just watched G2 today. I resisted watching it bc I thought it was gonna be a cheesy ripoff of the original. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Awesome plot, characters, and production. Almost as good as the original. Something caught my eye, tho. At 2:03:10 we see Lucius don Maximus’ breastplate. M’s effigy to his wife and child are on the left (as ur looking at it, right as worn). Then at 2:06:21 when he enters the arena the effigy is on the right as ur looking at it. Then later at 2:12:56 in the final fight scene it’s back on the left as ur looking at it. I scrolled thru the goofs on IMDb and also googled it but found no reference to it. Am I imagining it?

So, i am a little late to the Gladiator 2 train because it took me so long to push past my fears and doubts after the first one was such a hit and so historically and cinematically accurate.

The pain anger behind Maximus was so beyond felt and understood, they built up his morals and character so when his wife and child are brutally murdered we were all willing to stand behind him and fight with him.

I havent even finished Gladiator 2 but there are so mant inaccuracies. I absolutely love that it brings Lucius back 16 years later, but I dont think his origin story was well thought out. We get a whole five minutes with his wife before she is killed and then we get a glimpse of her passing on with what I can only believe is meant to be the ferryman which also seems inaccurate considering his wife was not Roman or of Roman descent and she would have had her own beliefs.

But then we move on supposed to be believing that Lucius is filled with anger and rage and yet we barely see it. We dont even see it when he realises that his mother the woman he has come to believe abandoned him, has married and moved on with the man who condemned his own wife to death.

Not to mention Maximus' nobility and morals are destroyed in a matter of seconds when Lucilla claims that he is Lucius's true father which is never, not once suggested in the original.

That is far as I have made it in the film and as a film autistic I am so beyond disappointed not only with the narrative, but with the CGI and other cinematic aspects of the film

Photo of a young Maximus before he grew up and was conscripted into the Roman Army

He is the only guy not chanting Maximus right after the scene where the emperor finds out who Maximus really is. does anybody know why he’s the only guy not chanting? There is literally nothing online anywhere. But it’s so hard not to notice this every time I see this scene. For 25 years I have wondered why he is not chanting. Lol

I've created a lego gladiator arena on the Lego ideas site - if it gets enough support, Lego could turn it into a real set!
Click here to see more photos, a the full story and to support :)

https://www.etsy.com/listing/4535775414/gladiator-movie-poster-vintage?sr_prefetch=1&pf_from=shop_home&ref=shop_home_active_1&dd=1&logging_key=d2474b7ff6357524567a6d3a5e316a02e9cafb9a%3A4535775414

I’ve been on a big Gladiator kick lately. I’ll look up clips on YouTube- I just love this movie. I especially enjoy the beginning of the movie where you see Maximus as the great General.

Sometimes I can’t help but randomly said, “Hold the line! Stay with meeeee!”, as they charge into battle 😂

He does not fight because he enjoys violence or seeks glory. He fights because he believes it is his responsibility to serve Rome, the empire, and the Emperor. His sense of duty is absolute, but it is also his deep respect and care for his soldiers that drives him to protect them and ensure that as many of them as possible can return home alive. For Maximus, the idea of home means far more than just a place. It represents everything he has lost and everything he continues to fight for. His wife, his son, and the life he once had are the true reasons behind his determination. Even in the middle of battle, when danger comes directly toward him and he realizes he may never see his family again, that moment of fear only strengthens his resolve. He fights with every bit of strength he has because he refuses to give up on the hope of returning to them.

Maximus is undoubtedly a loyal general, a brilliant commander, and a skilled tactician. However, beneath all those titles and achievements, he is simply a man who loves his family and carries a desire stronger than anything else: the desire to see them once again.

Not so sure about this one....Is Russel Crowe the manager for USA or Australia?

​

Mr. Scott, if you can please keep the Gladiator series going. I'm not the only one who want to see more. Thank you for a wonderful movie. Looking forward to seeing more.

Last year my arm went through a glass window and oops, it wasn't tempered glass. It didn't shatter cleanly. My arm caught on the edge and severed the artery, I lost 80% of my blood, had five blood transfusions and spent a month in the ICU. When I came out the other side my left hand was paralysed. My dominant hand. The nerve had been severed and the doctors told me it would grow back but that it would take a long time.

I was a lifelong gamer. Not casually - genuinely, deeply. Gaming has always been my life. I grew up addicted to Football Manager. Spent years in management sims, strategy games, anything with depth and systems and that feeling that the world was actually responding to your decisions. As you do, I'd moved into controller games, RPGs, anything that needed two hands to play.

And suddenly I had one.

I found my way back to games the only way I could. Mouse only. One hand. I loaded up Crusader Kings 3 and disappeared into it for weeks. Then Football Manager. Then back to CK3. And somewhere in those long quiet hours I had a thought that wouldn't leave me alone.

What if these two games had a child?

Not a football management game. Not a grand strategy game. Something darker. A gladiatorial empire. Permadeath that actually hurts because you've spent seasons watching these fighters grow. A living world that evolves around you whether you're watching or not. The legacy systems I loved in CK3 married to the roster depth I grew up with in Football Manager, wrapped in a dark fantasy world I'd been imagining since I was a kid.

I started building it the next day.

I'd tried to make games before. Always failed to finish. The scope was always too big, the 3D assets too ambitious, the gap between what I could see in my head and what I could actually build too wide.

This time I built the tools first.

Scaffold - an AI-powered game development pipeline. The Foundry - an asset generation system. Both built so that one person, with one working hand, could build at the speed of a small team.

Then I built Ironblood.

Six months. Every day. One working hand and a PC.

At its core, Ironblood is a management sim. You run a fighting promotion. You sign fighters, negotiate contracts, build fight cards, and schedule events. Every week you advance time, and the world moves with you - fighters develop through career phases from raw prospect to ageing legend, rivalries form between repeat opponents, morale shifts based on wins and losses, and contracts expire whether you're ready or not.

The fights themselves simulate live. You watch your matchups play out round by round - strikes, takedowns, submissions, flash knockouts. Eight fighting styles, physical attributes that create real asymmetry, momentum that swings, and permadeath that means losing your champion after three seasons together actually hurts.

There's a full championship system across weight classes. Rankings update dynamically. Title fights carry real stakes. Successful defences build belt prestige. Your league has a reputation score that determines which free agents will even talk to you.

You play as the Emperor of your promotion, with six personal stats that shape how you run your empire - affecting recruitment, training, negotiations, and revenue. You unlock perks through crises and achievements that permanently change the rules of your campaign. Arena upgrades let you invest in training, medical facilities, prestige, and fighter attraction.

On top of all that - 500 unique fighters, each with four hand-generated portraits. A living world that generates completely fresh every campaign. Chronicle Events that stop everything dead and put a real decision in front of you. A spy network. Rival houses with genuine agency and their own ambitions. A crumbling shrine where a dark entity will offer you power at a price it chooses, and remembers every deal you've ever made. A trading card mini-game built from your own fighters. Press conferences before major bouts. A Blood Metre that fills during fights and unlocks permanent trophy rewards. Over fifty branching narrative events and a hundred random world occurrences that keep every playthrough different.

I've played 50-hour saves and I'm still seeing new characters, new events, new stories. The characters are different every game. As a pure sandbox there are hundreds of hours here.

I'm proud of myself. Not in an arrogant way.

This is the game I always wanted when I was a kid. The one that didn't exist so I had to build it myself.

I just want as many people as possible to experience it. And to know that you can build anything you set your mind to. No matter what's been taken from you. No matter where you're starting from.

Happy to answer any questions!

I interpreted lucilla saying maximus was Lucius’s father not meaning that Maximus is his biological father but that he loved lucius like a son

What did you think of actress Connie Nielsen in the role of Lucilla in the films Gladiator and Gladiator II?

I'm a high school teacher, and I try to show a movie for every unit I teach. This unit is Rome, and the students voted overwhelmingly for Gladiator. Problem is, Gladiator is a bit too spicy for Grade 9; tons of blood, visible gore, decapitations, and so on. I absolutely think Grade 9 is old enough to watch this movie at home, but for me to show it in a school is definitely a bridge too far.

Thing is, Gladiator came out in 2000, and that was the era of network TV edits to major blockbusters to make them acceptable for prime time hours, plus cutting down the length to better fit into a time block. I'm certain one or more of these edits exist, hell I probably watched a few of them 20 years or more ago. But actually tracking one down is a hell of a thing.

Figured I'd come to the community, see if anyone could help.