I'm glad to find some others here who enjoy
Master and Commander!
Have any of you read the books it's based on by Patrick O'Brian? In the last couple of years I read all twenty of them and just loved them. The movie was an affectionate, beautifully detailed tribute to those stories, I thought.
There's talk of a possible sequel in the works, which would be great. I've heard that Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany agreed to do one if it materialized. "The Far Side of the World" combined a number of incidents that were in different books in the series, but there are plenty left to draw on. Besides being a naturalist, the Doctor is an accomplished secret agent for the British government. I'd love to see them include the time that Jack had to mount a secret operation to save Stephen from being tortured in a French prison on Majorca. They also sailed on missions to India, Indonesia, Botany Bay and the Antarctic. Great stuff.
I own the DVD. One of the almost ridiculously minute details it mentions - one that goes by in seconds in the movie and you wouldn't even know as a casual viewer - is that Russell Crowe fights with two swords in one scene. The other sword is - as I recall - a sword he would have had at a much earlier stage of his character's career/life and that he merely uses out of nostalgia. It's a personal quirk, in other words, but the producers of the movie made sure the sword was an accurate piece and you don't even get a good look at it in the fight scene!
Some more of many details that readers of the series would notice: Russell Crowe's ear is all scarred up because Aubrey was wounded in one of the books; Pullings has a sword scar on his face for the same reason. I think I remember the Doctor massaging his hands before playing the cello: in the French prison he had had his fingers broken.
Also, Aubrey wears a diamond chelyngk on his hat that he received from a Turkish pasha. You also see him writing to his wife, Sophie, who figures in a number of the novels.
I enjoyed the movie immensely, didn't miss the fact that there were no women in it at all. The emotional relationships of the story were between the men. 
I think that's the secret of Peter Weir's success, that he was able to get the friendship between Aubrey and Maturin right, as well as the love and loyalty that the crew feel for both of them. And, of course, it's just a beautifully atmospheric film.
