History Film / Apocalypto

** When Jaguar Paw is being pursued through the jungle by the Mayan raiders and hides in the trees where he discovers a a black jaguar cub and it’s ''mother'', as he is running away he is spotted by a raider who chases after him and ends up in the path of the big cat who proceeds to mall the raider to death, allowing Jaguar Paw to escape.

** When Jaguar Paw is being pursued through the jungle by the Mayan raiders and hides in the trees he discovers a black jaguar cub and ''it’s mother'', as he is running away from the Jaguar he is spotted by a raider who chases after him and ends up in the path of the big cat who proceeds to mall the raider to death, allowing Jaguar Paw to escape.

** When Jaguar Paw is being pursued through the jungle by the Mayan raiders and hides in the trees only discover a black jaguar cub and ''it’s mother'', as he is running away from the Jaguar he is spotted by a raider who chases after him and ends up in the path of the big cat who proceeds to mall him to death, allowing Jaguar Paw to escape.

''Apocalypto'' is a 2006 Epic Historical [[{{ActionGenre}} Action]]-{{Adventure}} film directed by Creator/MelGibson.

Filmed entirely in the Yucatec Mayan language, it deals with a village of rainforest tribesmen who are attacked by an ambush of city-dwelling Mayans; many are captured for use as slaves, human sacrifices, and [[KickTheDog target practice]]. One young captive, a hunter named Jaguar Paw, desperately tries to make his escape back to his pregnant wife and child, who are trapped in a well at the mercy of the elements. His pursuers will have no mercy.

''Apocalypto'' is a 2006 Epic Historical [[{{ActionGenre}} Action}}]]-{{Adventure}} film directed by Creator/MelGibson.

''Apocalypto'' is a 2006 Epic Historical {{ActionGenre Action}}-{{Adventure}} film directed by Creator/MelGibson.

''Apocalypto'' is a 2006 Epic Historical {{action}}-{{adventure}} film directed by Creator/MelGibson.

''Apocalypto'' is a 2006 film directed by Creator/MelGibson.

* AlwaysABiggerFish: The powerful Mayan civilization is abusing the smaller groups of forest-dwelling natives to feed their own greed. At the end of the film, [[spoiler:the Europeans arrive]].

* AnachronismStew: [[spoiler:Despite being set in the classical Mayan era, the ending has the Spanish show up ready to colonize Mexico despite the fact that it wouldn't happen until 600 years after the events of the movie which by then the Mayan civilization had completely collapsed]].

* ArtisticLicenseSpace: A solar eclipse is significant to the action. That night, a full moon is significant to the action. It's impossible for both of those to occur within 24 hours of each other because solar eclipses and full moons occur during completely opposite phases of the moon, and it takes roughly two weeks to transition between the two.

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: The creepy little girl's prophecy ''did'' come true...

* NobleSavage: Played straight with Jaguar Paw and his village.

* ScarilyCompetentTracker: Zero Wolf and Snake Ink.

* ArtisticLicenseAstronomy: A solar eclipse is significant to the action. That night, a full moon is significant to the action. It's impossible for both of those to occur within 24 hours of each other because solar eclipses and full moons occur during completely opposite phases of the moon, and it takes roughly two weeks to transition between the two.

* StupidEvil: The slavers from the city would have been much better served if, instead of burning down Jaguar Paw's village, sacrificing the men who dare to fight back, raping and killing the women, and driving everyone else deeper into the forest to live in exile, they had left the village standing and kept returning at regular intervals to "harvest" slaves from a still-sedentary subject population, or even demanded yearly tribute. Which incidentally, was exactly what the RealLife Aztecs did. To be fair, the Mayans are shown to be getting pretty desperate for labor at this point.

** Zero Wolf is fine with killing a lot of innocent people during the village raid, but he doesn't like it when Middle Eye décides on his own to "let go" a dying slave. Though like the above example this comes off as another inversion since he seems more irritated that Middle Eye "killed" one of ''his'' spoil of war and without his permission.

** Zero Wolf is fine with killing a lot of innocent people during the village raid, but he doesn't like it when Middle Eye décides on his own to "let go" a dying slave.

** And stranger yet, ''Film/{{Midnight Cowboy}}''

* ChekhovsGun: The tapir trap.

* NewMeat: Cut Rock is the nervous newbie of the slaver band.

* PinkMist: A rare non-gunshot related example.

* StupidEvil: The slavers from the city would have been much better served if, instead of burning down Jaguar Paw's village, sacrificing the men who dare to fight back, raping and killing the women, and driving everyone else deeper into the forest to live in exile, they had left the village standing and kept returning at regular intervals to "harvest" slaves from a still-sedentary subject population, or even demanded yearly tribute. Which incidentally, was exactly what the RealLife Aztecs did.

* OhCrap: The exact look on Jaguar Paw's face, when after climbing a tree to hide from his pursuers, he [[spoiler:[[CubsCueProtectiveParent finds himself between a jaguar cub and its pissed off mother]].]]

* BeeAfraid: Jaguar Paw wraps a beehive in a massive leaf and chucks it at his pursuers. It works pretty well.

** Many aspects of the depiction of Mayan civilization were criticized as unrealistic, but some have basis in fact, such as the Maya did practice human sacrifice (only the movie gets the methods wrong: the Maya tended to drown victims or cut themselves to spill blood), did wear blue body paint, and their civilization still existed when the Spaniards arrived.

** The scene of the solar eclipse was criticized because the people of the city become awestruck and fearful of it, when the Mayans were renowned for their knowledge in astronomy; however it's reasonable to say that such knowledge was not widespread among the common people, in fact the movie acknowledges this when it's shown that the priests timed the sacrifices to coincide with the eclipse.

* {{Mayincatec}}: The film depicts a Mayan culture with elements taken from the Aztecs. The religion seems mostly Aztec. The Mayans didn't sacrifice humans to Kukulkan (their sun god). Also, the sheer scale of the human sacrifices plus the practice of raiding smaller villages and settlements in order to capture slaves and sacrifices' victims, as portrayed in the film, are more reminiscent of the Aztecs than the Maya. There's also no evidence of slave auctions for the latter. Although WordOfGod has said that what he wanted to do was to depict the [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything decadence of a once proud civilization, brought by political corruption, environmental collapse, and that was now resorting to sacrifice its own people]]; which, according to archaeological finds, were some of the probable causes for the Maya collapse in the southern lowlands. This would not have worked had TheEvilEmpire of the film been the Aztecs, since they were on the apex of their splendor when the Spaniards arrived.

* ArtisticLicenseIndigenousPeoples:
** The film, set in Mexico in the early 16th century, depicts human sacrifices as celebrated en masse (only the Aztec Empire practiced human sacrifice on that large a scale).
** There is also a hunter-gatherer tribe that does not know of the existence of cities, in a region where agriculture had been the dominant form of subsistence for thousands of years and where you couldn't throw a rock without hitting a pyramid.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: The film depicts a Classic Period Maya city, seemingly during the Maya Collapse of the southern lowlands, who speak Yucatec Maya (spoken on the northern lowlands), at the same time of the Spaniards' arrival and the smallpox epidemic they brought (that happened in the Postclassic, 600 years later), in which human sacrifices are celebrated en masse (only the Aztec Empire did human sacrifice on that scale). There is also a hunter-gatherer tribe that does not know of the existence of cities, in a region where agriculture had been the dominant form of subsistence for thousands of years and where you couldn't throw a rock without hitting a pyramid.

* DeathMarch: The enslaved villagers are transported through brutal conditions with no medical attention and plenty of taunting from Middle Eye. That said, Zero Wolf doesn't approve of the villagers being deliberately killed.

''Apocalypto'' is a 2007 film directed by Creator/MelGibson.

* QuicksandSucks: Jaguar Paw falls into a quicksand pit, but he manages to escape, signifying his prophecized "Rebirth from Mud".

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Jaguar Paw returns in time]], but 95% of the cast are dead, and then there's the InferredHolocaust.