Alexander: The Making of a God makes a fool of reality. Alexander the Great, the Macedonian king, is portrayed as a blond king with bright blue eyes. The Netflix television series was probably inspired a little too much by Greek/Roman images and white people's vision, because how many people with blond hair and blue eyes come from this region?
In addition, Alexander's sexual orientation is depicted quite explicitly. At that time it was normal to have multiple relationships simultaneously. It seems that the version depicted in this television series is correct. In fact, the stories that his great love fought alongside him in the battle may not receive enough attention. It is striking and it is indicative of the current times how much criticism there is that Alexander visibly loves his great love in this television series.
The series is a quite successful interpretation of a very impressive story.
It illustrates the freedom that Alexander: The Making of a God takes. That in itself is not so strange. In fact, hardly anything was recorded when Alexander made his remarkable rise. Moreover, what was recorded has disappeared. This means that the special story has quite different interpretations. The fact is that everything that is conveyed orally in terms of a message varies considerably the more people are involved. I haven't even mentioned the time factor yet. Each new interpretation has an adapted contemporary vision of the same past.
If this season is judged as one of the many interpretations of the story of Alexander the Great, then it is quite well put together. The documentary style is now well known in these types of series. The reenacted scenes alternate with experts who say something about (one of) their favorite topics. Their reliability is sometimes quite questionable given their work and background. Ultimately, though, that shouldn't spoil the fun.
It illustrates the freedom that Alexander: The Making of a God takes.
The acting is good. Moreover, it is clear that quite a bit of budget has been invested in this series. The sets, the fights and the clothing all look great. It's probably all a bit too nice and clean. A mistake that several television series make. Sometimes the backdrop is clearly a computer-created world. That shouldn't spoil the fun.
In our current time it is actually difficult to imagine what a special achievement Alexander the Great achieved. It is unprecedented the gigantic distances covered on foot, on horseback and by boat in an extremely hostile environment. Then also fighting against enormous odds. It's all been portrayed a bit too rosy. For example, the fight against hunger and heat is considerably underexposed. As mentioned before, we often see this in (historical) series. I don't judge Alexander: The Making of a God on that.
The conclusion is that Alexander: The Making of a God is a quite successful interpretation of a very impressive story. It is a great choice not to let the story go beyond the conquest of the Persian Empire. This means that there is sufficient time to tell more about the associated background.
About the writer, Karzal
Mike (1995) has been a member of MySeries since 2016 and is mainly active on the English version of the site. Since 2018, he has been actively translating news articles, columns, reviews and basically everything that ends up on the Dutch site. The original articles, columns and reviews were actually written by others. During the week Mike can be found at IKEA, where he is a national systems specialist and occasionally also in the classroom to teach an English lesson. In addition, Mike logically enjoys watching series and has actually been spoon-fed this from an early age. The genre doesn't matter, there is a place for everything in the otherwise busy life.
