History Trivia / Hamlet

** Also, when Hamlet is referenced in media or other fiction, it usually combines his "To be or not to be" with the image of him holding Yorick's skull, which is a different scene altogether.

* CreatorBreakdown: Possibly. Shakespeare had a son who died at age eleven, whose name was Hamnet. A few years later (we think), Shakespeare decides to adapt a Danish adventure yarn called ''Amleth,'' (Anglicized to Hamlet) only he makes the entire thing about death and grief, and changes the happy ending to a tragic one. There's notoriously little evidence of Shakespeare's personal life, and he was at least a partly AbsentFather, but still... it's hard to believe there's no link at all.

* WordOfStPaul: The text of much of the notoriously garbled First Quarto of Hamlet is widely believed to have been reconstructed from memory by whoever played Marcellus in an early production, because all the scenes with Marcellus in them are closer to their counterparts in later editions, whereas whenever Marcellus is offstage the text starts to read like a best guess by someone who's witnessed several productions but has never bothered to memorise the whole thing. Hamlet's famous soliloquy in this text starts with " To be, or not to be, I, there's the point". The 'mousetrap' scenes in the First Quarto are also very much as they are in later editions, suggesting that the actor doubled up (highly common in Renaissance theatre) and was in those scenes too.

* WordOfStPaul: The text of much of the notoriously garbled First Quarto of Hamlet is widely believed to have been reconstructed from memory by whoever played Marcellus in an early production, because all the scenes with Marcellus in them are closer to their counterparts in later editions, whereas whenever Marcellus is offstage the text starts to read like a best guess by someone who's witnessed several productions but has never bothered to memorise the whole thing. The 'mousetrap' scenes in the First Quarto are also very much as they are in later editions, suggesting that the actor doubled up (highly common in Renaissance theatre) and was in those scenes too.

* BoxOfficeBomb: Budget, $18 million. Box office, $4.7 million.

* {{Trope Namer|s}} for (deep breath):
** AlasPoorYorick
** BeAllMySinsRemembered
** Administrivia/BrevityIsWit
** CatchTheConscience
** CountryMatters
** CruelToBeKind
** GetTheeToANunnery
** GoodNightSweetPrince
** HoistByHisOwnPetard
** TheOphelia
** ShowWithinAShow
** SufferTheSlings
** ...and indirectly:
*** TheCoronerDothProtestTooMuch
*** MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch

** Another is "The Queen doth protest too much" or "Methinks the Queen doth protest too much". The actual line is "The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

* CreatorChosenCasting: Franco Zeffirelli cast Creator/MelGibson as Hamlet based on the scene in ''Film/LethalWeapon1987'' where he tries to kill himself.

%%* DirectedByCastmember
* DoingItForTheArt: The cast had to rehearse and go through the entire play at one point beforehand so they would have a rough idea of where they were in the chronology of the story when scenes were shot out of order. Additionally they had to rehearse for up to three hours a day for simple set-ups (to co-ordinate with the elaborate camera set-ups). They had marks on the floor they had to memorise, as they would be visible on camera.

** PlayingGertrude

* DawsonCasting: ''Magazine/{{MAD}}'' joked that Hamlet and Gertrude seem to be the same age. While not quite the case, it ''is'' bizarre to have Creator/MelGibson - 34 at the time of production - play the son of then-43-year-old Creator/GlennClose! Hence the trope PlayingGertrude.

* AllStarCast: The film threw in a bunch of {{flashbacks}} and {{imagine spots}} in order to have more parts to cast stars in. Apart from Branagh himself: Sir Creator/DerekJacobi, Creator/JulieChristie, Creator/RichardBriers, Creator/KateWinslet, Creator/TimothySpall, Creator/BillyCrystal, Creator/RobinWilliams, Creator/BrianBlessed, Creator/GerardDepardieu, Creator/JohnGielgud, Creator/JudiDench, Creator/CharltonHeston, Creator/JackLemmon, Sir Creator/RichardAttenborough, Sir Creator/JohnMills and Sir Creator/KenDodd.

* DirectedByCastmember

* {{Trope Namer|s}} for:

* ImageSource:
** DownerEnding
* QuoteSource for:

** {{Angst}}

** DreamTropes
** {{Foil}}

** JerkWithAHeartOfGold
** LapPillow
** NeverLendToAFriend
** ObfuscatingInsanity

** OpinionFlipflop
** PleaseShootTheMessenger
** RescuedFromTheUnderworld
* ReferencedBy: Lo and behold: ReferencedBy.{{Hamlet}}.
* {{Trope Namer|s}} for:
** AlasPoorYorick
** BeAllMySinsRemembered
** Administrivia/BrevityIsWit
** CatchTheConscience
** CountryMatters
** CruelToBeKind
** GetTheeToANunnery
** GoodNightSweetPrince
** HoistByHisOwnPetard
** TheOphelia