Wow, you are terribly misinformed. The film is set among the Aztecs, evidenced by the arrival of none other than Cortes at the end of the film. Jeeeee-sus. The Maya had only been dead for several hundred years - you'd think someone who had toured Maya ruins would have picked up that little tidbit.

Oh, and for the record, the Aztecs did a lot worse things than merely chopping people's hearts out. How about flaying them alive, for instance? The priests would make suits of the flayed skin (this, too, was to please some sort of god. I think it might have been the god of rain). Then there was the child sacrifice, which conveniently happened to be the sacrifice of tributaries to the larger Aztec cities. Lots of people talk about how Cortes was, at first, chased out of Tenochticlan, but no one ever mentions that he conquered the place some time later, leading a massive army of natives fed up with the Aztec barbarity.

In fact, let's consider what Slate's qualifications must be for writing articles, or, for that matter, for editing them:

"1. Do you know anything at all about this subject?

2. Do you know the basics of whatever cultural reference you're going to include/allow?


Now, if you've answered yes to either of those, kindly leave.

If not, please answer the following:

3. Will you, given you ignorance, choose travel companions who are knowlegable about either this subject or your planned cultural references?

If not, congratulations! Your fresh insight is what we value here at Slate."