Rami Malek got Academy Award for portraying Freddie Mercury so we know acting is good. Bohemian Rhapsody received also Acadamy Awards for Best sound editing, Best Sound Mixing and Best Film Editing, so we know that the movie has good music and editing.
But, what is the status of historical accuracy in Bohemian Rhapsody?
Below are TOP 5 Bohemian Rhapsody Historical Mistakes.
Drama is fictional
The peak of movie drama is the Live Aid concert 1985.
All bad things intended to demolish Freddie and the Queen but with the huge effort, they save the day and their careers to become immortal legends.
Bad things are: struggling with AIDS and former partner who betrayed him and Queen is struggling how to not fall apart after a long time of not playing together while Mercury is forcing his solo career.
AIDS recognition probably did not happen before Live Aid concert, betrayal of personal manager Prenter happened year after the concert and the band paused tour just to perform on Live Aid concert.
Meetings are fictional
The movie shows that Freddie Mercury meets Roger Taylor (band drummer played by Ben Hardy) and Brian May (Gwilym Lee) in a single night after their lead singer left their band called Smile. The same night he had become the lead singer and meets his future love Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton) while complimenting her on her coat.
That is pretty wrap up but completely wrong and misleading.
Mercury has shown interest on several occasions in becoming a member of the band and he met Mary Austin when he was already the lead singer of the band. Before that Austin briefly dated Brian May.
The untold real status of the band
The Bohemian Rhapsody shows that after their breakthrough single Killer Queen everything went smoothly for them. They got plenty of resources for an album A Night at the Opera and soon went on a tour in US and were participants on South America tour Rock in Rio.
Actually, during US tour they were opening band for a Band called Mott the Hoople and they never visited Cleveland, Houston, Atlanta, and Pittsburgh, as shown in the movie. There is no obvious information in the movie that Queen was opening band on tour, only a brief glimpse on another bus during their travel through the US.
Also, Rock in Rio was in 1985, not in 1977 as shown, and Queen performed with 30 other bands.
Whole possible break up because of Freddie solo career is fictional, and it is failed to mention that was subsequently blacklisted by the British Musicians’ Union because of 84′ shows in apartheid South Africa.
Ray Foster – the guy who lost Queen
One of the biggest “Why’s” is why they put the character of Ray Foster in the movie, a completely fictional character. He is played by Mike Myers and he is chief of EMI Records. After the making of Bohemian Rhapsody song, he confronts band members because he knows no one would listen to the song.
Freddie Mercury makes a dramatic show, tells Foster that he will be remembered as “The guy who lost Queen” and smasher Foster’s window.
All that is just fictional.
In reality, chief of EMI Records was Roy Featherstone who had doubts about the length of Bohemian Rhapsody song but otherwise was generally supportive of the band. They did not break up with EMI Records because of Bohemian Rhapsody song.
Anachronisms
There is to many anachronisms that get away.
The crew did a tremendous job with costumes and wigs. Each actor playing a band member had multiple wigs for his character and Rami Malek wears a wig in every single scene.
Some of the anachronisms are:
– Fat Bottomed Girls is being performed on an American tour set prior to 1975. This song was not released until 1978.
– The band is shown recording/releasing We Will Rock You in a scene set in 1980. This song was recorded/released on the News of the World LP in 1977.
– During the U.S. tour montage scenes, the tour bus uses the 1990s Queen logo.
– The shot of Munich’s skyline shows buildings build 2002.
– a fair share of musical instruments before they were invented etc.
Guess, they did not put the effort into details so they can focus on telling a truthful story.
Full Bohemian Rhapsody history review is available at the link.
