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10,000 BC (2008) More at IMDb Pro »

The following FAQ entries may contain spoilers. Only the biggest ones (if any) will be covered with spoiler tags. Spoiler tags are used sparingly in order to make the page more readable.

For detailed information about the amounts and types of (a) sex and nudity, (b) violence and gore, (c) profanity, (d) alcohol, drugs, and smoking, and (e) frightening and intense scenes in this movie, consult the IMDbs Parents Guide for this movie. The Parents Guide for 10,000 BC can be found at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443649/parentalguide.

No. 10,000BC is based on an original script by director Roland Emmerich and composer Harald Kloser with revisions by screenwriters John Orloff , Matthew Sand, and Robert Rodat.

Possibly. There are references to him "flying on the water [cavemen's term for 'riding on a boat') when his land was swallowed by the sea", hence the large ship shown in the Almighty's temple. So Atlantis is a possible origin and would explain his (relatively) advanced technology. Also, a map is briefly shown that indicates the Almighty's people came from an island that doesn't exist anymore.

No. "10,000 B.C." cobbles together wildly disparate elements in human prehistory.

To start things off, the geography/climate of the movie is totally incorrect. The movie takes place during the beginning of the mesolithic era, which was immediately after the end of the ice age. The ice age ended about 12,000 years ago, causing a global warming of around 7°C and major sea level changes. All megafauna (saber-tooth tigers) became extinct soon after this period, giving a rise to the hunting of small game. Tundra became forest, but most importantly, tribes moved closer to the sea, because that is where most natural resources were. It is generally agreed that there was oral language 12,000 years ago, but it wasn't remotely similar to English, and individual tribes would have had their own dialects and languages.

The most historically inaccurate aspect of the movie is the whole concept of civilization. Around 10,000 BC, humans in the "Fertile Crescent" of the Near East were just beginning to create permanent architecture, generally living in pit-structured ("semi-subterranean") houses, and they had not yet developed the technology to create monumental buildings such as the pyramids shown in the film. Complex civilizations and cities did not form until the end of the mesolithic era about 5,000 years ago (or 7,000 years after the setting of the film): the first true stone pyramid was built at Saqqara in Egypt in the 27th century BC, and the large mudbrick temples of Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium BC were eventually modified to form ziqqurats (stepped pyramids) in the 3rd millennium. On the other hand, recent excavations in southeastern Turkey, at the mountain site of Göbekli Tepe, have uncovered early Neolithic structures containing stone pillars decorated in relief that seem to have been created before the advent of agriculture, shortly after 10,000 BC. The excavators suggest that hunter-gatherer groups combined forces to build these structures as sanctuaries (since there is no evidence that they were used for domestic habitation), though they are only a few square meters in area and so are much smaller than the structures shown in the film. This may be a case in which fact is stranger, and more fascinating, than fiction!

The earliest evidence for the domestication of the horse comes from Central Asia and dates to approximately 4,500 BC. Archaeological finds such as the Sintashta chariot burials provided unequivocal evidence that the horse was definitely domesticated by 2,000 BC.

In addition, at the end of the movie, D'leh is given some seeds to help his tribe to overcome food scarcity by planting them and domesticating agriculture. The seeds he is given, however, include corn/maize, which existed at that time only in the Americas.

The main shortcoming of the film is its name, which implies some semblance of historical accuracy.

The film currently holds an 9% positive rating (11 out of 99 reviewers) on RottenTomaotes.com. The consensus is that whilst it boasts slick CGI work and one or two decent action sequences it is none the less to slow and takes itself far to seriously. Metacritic scores it 32/100 suggesting a largely negative feedback from critics.

Some Critical quotes

"In the realm of heroic historical loincloth adventures, 10,000 is much less than 300." - Colin Covert

"10,000 B.C. isn't only brain-dead, it's completely dead. It's inert and without a heartbeat." - James Berardinelli

"Cheesier than a four-cheese pizza and marginally more accurate than the Flintstones,"-BBC film review, 2008

"Emmerich is more enamored with selling the characters as action figures than human beings, "- DVDTalk, 2008

"catastrophically awful "- Tiscali UK, 2008

"10,000 B.C. will take your money, rob your time and hit your brain like a shot of Novacaine"- Rolling Stone

there are predatory terror birds and saber-tooth tigers, and, of course, the mammoths, but the story also has a spiritual undertone to it "- Sci-Fi movie page, 2008

"sporadically entertaining, if ultimately forgettable, experience"- Mel Valentin, 2008

Mostly at various locations in New Zealand with some scenes shot in Namibia (South Africa).