Well, I am not enough of a pedant to let a few inconsistencies with historical acuracy put me off. Nor am I going to worry about whether or not they slavishly followed the story line in the books. Knowing hollywood I figured that was not going to happen. My major concern was that Hollywood would miss the flavor of the books, the relationship between Aubrey and Maturin, the need to hold aloof from the rest of the officers and crew and Aubrey's appaarent (rarely spoken) gratitude in his friendship with Maturin.

Those who see a homosexual relationship between them are painting a former century with a modern brush. And they have never had a truly close nonsexual friendship with another person. In an age where one held the world at arm's length for safety, a world not too far removed from the savagery of the "dark ages", a world with carefully ordered and stilted codes of behavior, the chance to have a close friend on whom one could rely was one of the great opportunities of the world. Believe it or not, sex does not necessarily underlie every relationship.

O'Brian understood that and shows it in his books. For Jack Aubrey women were for marrying and sex. Men were to be fought, used to run his vessel, and in only one instance, for confiding in. He had some men who served him through the majority of the books, men who looked up to him as the epitome of the naval officer. And Aubrey treated them as the employees they were. In the last book, when one of them gets killed, Aubrey notices and then orders the body tossed overboard. Later there is a single reference to his emotional reaction.