The Complete Aubrey/Maturin Novels by Patrick O'Brian

The movie opens, literally, on the high seas - we are given no context other than the opening silent text, reproduced above.

The Complete Aubrey/Maturin Novels by Patrick O

Perhaps the most important thing to say about the movie is this: while it does not directly adapt any of the books, it takes elements from roughly the first eight novels and tacks them on a base plot from one of the novels ( The Far Side of the World contains the basics of the chase around South America, although the quarry is an American frigate in that book) and does it incredibly well. Life on board a man-of-war is brutal and difficult, and this film makes no bones about it. It's a bit of a throwback to the sea epics of the 1920s and 1930s, but with a bit less swashbuckling and a bit more grim reality. As he put it, at one point there just wasn't enough of the Napoleonic Wars to fit everything, so a good seven to ten of the novels all take place in some sort of phantom 1812 or thereabouts. From that humble beginning, they begin a friendship that will literally span the globe and decades, despite O'Brian's admitted massive japes with the flow of time. The time is the Napoleonic wars, and the place is the English naval base at Gibraltar. The former is an officer in the Royal Navy, while the latter is a penniless physician and amateur naturalist when they meet at the outset of the first book. Their names are Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin.

The current node there doesn't give much information beyond a list, so: that series is the single, episodic story of the friendship between two men. This film is an adaptation of the Aubrey/Maturin novels, comprising 20 complete (plus one incomplete) novels written by Patrick O'Brian between 19. Let's start with the history and context.

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World is a bit of a cumbersome title, but it's tacked on to what I consider a very, very well-done film.

The Complete Aubrey/Maturin Novels by Patrick O'Brian