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RE: OT: Saving Private Ryan - 10/30/2005 11:33:30 PM

Yamato hugger

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Platoon isn't a war movie, either...

What is a war movie? I thought Platoon was very good if you get past the dialogue. The fact that you dont wear steel pots on a night patrol for example. Or having to trigger a claymore 3 times to fire it. There is some very good "real" things in that movie that a lot of people that havent been exposed to it just plain miss.

Now personally, in my humble opinion the greatest "war movie" ever made was Kellys Heros. Right up there has to be Tora, Tora, Tora.

Pearl Harbor was a huge disapointment. An Eagle squadron pilot is shot down in the channel and survives for months in France, OK. I can buy that. But after god knows how long over there, he is rescued and pops in on his wife in Hawaii without so much as a letter saying he was alive? Doubtful. Fighter pilots flying B-25's off the Hornet? Heh.

Only thing about We Were Soldiers that was out there was him showing up at the door without calling. The scene where the helicopter crashes I thought was fantastic. Thats how they crash. Clunk. No big explosion, no huge hollywood fireball, just clunk. I guess the scene where the "dust off" helicopters aborted and didnt go in was true, but the evac pilots I knew were true heros (498th air ambulance company, 34th medical bn). Once in Germany back in '77 we got a call to pick up survivors of a traffic accident. Fog was so thick you couldnt see the end of the rotors. We went up, made the pick-up and crashed near the LZ at the hospital. Only thing the pilot was worried about was getting the critical man to the OR. Everyone survived. The bird was a write-off.

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Post #: 31

RE: OT: Saving Private Ryan - 10/30/2005 11:36:05 PM

GaryChildress

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quote:

ORIGINAL: TulliusDetritus

Gary Childress, good points, analysis.

Anyway, my point: the pathetic and superficial lackeys (no names) who started their "peculiar cyber crusade" against "politics" are going to spank your a**. The little kids/brats make no prisoners. You are warned

P.S.:
General Hoepner = Pier Luigi Collina ??

[EDIT: oh, my prefered "war movie" is of course "Dr. Strangelove". It shows how stupid militarism is. Yes, I like wargames. A contradiction? ]

I too love to play war, as you say a contradiction, but the real thing is something to be horrified not glorified IMO. Get yourself killed in a war and you can't enjoy playing war anymore after that!

Oh no, I'm starting to sound like Johnny Cochran!

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Post #: 32

RE: OT: Saving Private Ryan - 10/31/2005 12:02:15 AM

TulliusDetritus

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Right, Gary. And I noticed this "fact". Those who really fought in a war do not like to talk about their experience. War is hell. Only an idiot would embellish it. End of story.

Those who were in the rear (a.k.a. second-line troops in our beloved game) will tell you (fabricate, that is) a lot of heroic stories. Needless to say, they are inventing.

This is well known and true. Almost always

P.S.:
oh, this is too political. I'm soooo sorry

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Post #: 33

RE: OT: Saving Private Ryan - 10/31/2005 12:23:26 AM

GaryChildress

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quote:

ORIGINAL: TulliusDetritus

Right, Gary. And I noticed this "fact". Those who really fought in a war do not like to talk about their experience. War is hell. Only an idiot would embellish it. End of story.

Those who were in the rear (a.k.a. second-line troops in our beloved game) will tell you (fabricate, that is) a lot of heroic stories. Needless to say, they are inventing.

This is well known and true. Almost always

P.S.:
oh, this is too political. I'm soooo sorry

Interesting observation. I have a cousin who was in the 82nd Airborne, wounded in Italy, hardly talked about his experiences there at all. But my step grandfather is the one who really got me interested in war stories and such. He served under Admiral Nimitz in Washington DC some time before Nimitz took over in the Pacific. Needless to say he worked at a desk for the whole war.

My passion is with wargames but my reason tells me that real war is something horrible, to be avoided at all reasonable costs.

Anyway, just thought I'd throw that in there for posterity.

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Post #: 34

RE: OT: Saving Private Ryan - 10/31/2005 12:54:08 AM

Herrbear

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Any one ever see the Finnish film The Winter War about Finland - Russia? I thought that film portrayed the horrors of war pretty well.

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Post #: 35

RE: OT: Saving Private Ryan - 10/31/2005 1:05:43 AM

TAIL GUNNER

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Heard about Mel Gibson's Iwo Jima movies?

Simultaneous release of TWO movies....one from American side, one from Japanese...

Pretty cool idea....we'll see how it pans out!

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Post #: 36

RE: OT: Saving Private Ryan - 10/31/2005 1:18:23 AM

Blackhorse

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I agree with Yamato: Kelly's Heroes was the best war movie of all-time. Paid more attention to equipment and uniform details than most serious war movies. (Donald Sutherland's Sgt Oddball was the inspiration for my Armored Cavalry career: "Hey, I don't know what makes 'em work, I just ride 'em.")

Best anti-war war movie is All Quiet on the Western Front. Both the 1930 original B&W and the 1979 Richard Thomas / Ernest Borgnine flicks are excellent. Das Boot was also superb.

Despite its "Hollywood" moments, I thought Saving Private Ryan should have won the Oscar for best picture. (Shakespeare in Love? puleeeze) I didn't think the initial shooting of Germans trying to surrender was intended to be a message about atrocities and who commits them -- just a matter-of-fact acknowledgment that soldiers were frequently shot trying to surrender "in the heat of battle."

Pearl Harbor was bad. Thin Red Line was worse. I like war movies, even anti-war war movies, but TRL was a national geographic nature special interspaced with conversational psychobabble.

Two cheezy favorites of mine are Patton (oh, the musical score!) and Battle of Bulge. A hundred things wrong with both of them, but still great fun to watch.

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Post #: 37

RE: OT: Saving Private Ryan - 10/31/2005 1:19:25 AM

Speedysteve

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Hi all,

For what it's worth I [ersonally class the first 30 mins of SPR as being uop there with some of the 'greatest' movie moments.

Agreed the rest of the film is not fantastic but the first 30 mins..

I personally also just enjoy seeing WW2 stuff 'in action'.

Someone mentioned Stalingrad. I have that on DVD. A good film. Very gritty. Shame about the awful dubbing though which detracts a lot IMO.

Don't forget Cross of Iron guys

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Post #: 38

RE: OT: Saving Private Ryan - 10/31/2005 1:19:41 AM

Terminus

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Juggalo

Heard about Mel Gibson's Iwo Jima movies?

Simultaneous release of TWO movies....one from American side, one from Japanese...

Pretty cool idea....we'll see how it pans out!

Erm, they're being made by Clint Eastwood, as far as I know...

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Post #: 39

RE: OT: Saving Private Ryan - 10/31/2005 1:20:40 AM

Terminus

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Speedy

Someone mentioned Stalingrad. I have that on DVD. A good film. Very gritty. Shame about the awful dubbing though which detracts a lot IMO.

So you must learn ze German, mein herr! It is ze zuperior langwage!

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Post #: 40

RE: OT: Saving Private Ryan - 10/31/2005 1:22:00 AM

Speedysteve

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Jawohl Herr Oberst

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Post #: 41

RE: OT: Saving Private Ryan - 10/31/2005 1:22:14 AM

SurrenderMonkey

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quote:

ORIGINAL: TulliusDetritus

Those who really fought in a war do not like to talk about their experience. War is hell. Only an idiot would embellish it. End of story.

Agreed.

< Message edited by SurrenderMonkey -- 10/31/2005 1:23:31 AM >

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Post #: 42

RE: OT: Saving Private Ryan - 10/31/2005 1:22:52 AM

Blackhorse

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quote:

Don't forget Cross of Iron guys

COI rules!

And lest we forget the sequel -- Breakthrough! -- arguably the worst WWII movie ever made.

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Post #: 43

RE: OT: Saving Private Ryan - 10/31/2005 1:23:00 AM

Terminus

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Speedy

Jawohl Herr Oberst

I'm just glad dubbing isn't used around here...

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RE: OT: Saving Private Ryan - 10/31/2005 1:23:52 AM

Terminus

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Blackhorse

And lest we forget the sequel -- Breakthrough! -- arguably the worst WWII movie ever made.

Oh, can't we just forget it? Pretty please?

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RE: OT: Saving Private Ryan - 10/31/2005 1:25:11 AM

Speedysteve

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So am I Mr T. So am I............

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Post #: 46

RE: OT: Saving Private Ryan - 10/31/2005 1:27:56 AM

ctangus

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Terminus

quote:

ORIGINAL: Juggalo

Heard about Mel Gibson's Iwo Jima movies?

Simultaneous release of TWO movies....one from American side, one from Japanese...

Pretty cool idea....we'll see how it pans out!

Erm, they're being made by Clint Eastwood, as far as I know...

They are made by Clint Eastwood. Regardless of who's making them, though, the two viewpoints idea interests me. I just hope that they stay historically accuarate and don't make another Pearl Harbor.

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Post #: 47

RE: OT: Saving Private Ryan - 10/31/2005 1:33:54 AM

String

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Hm, seems like the thin red line is a movie that either people hate or love. I personally loved it. It's on the top of my best movies list, war or not. I always get amused when someone says something like

quote:

Orignal: Blackhorse
TRL was a national geographic nature special interspaced with conversational psychobabble.

about the thin red line. Seems like some(or most? go figure) people fail to understand the meaning of the "NG" scenes, or indeed, most of the movie.

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Post #: 48

RE: OT: Saving Private Ryan - 10/31/2005 1:38:37 AM

Blackhorse

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quote:

ORIGINAL: String

Hm, seems like the thin red line is a movie that either people hate or love. I personally loved it. It's on the top of my best movies list, war or not. I always get amused when someone says something like

quote:

Orignal: Blackhorse
TRL was a national geographic nature special interspaced with conversational psychobabble.
about the thin red line. Seems like some(or most? go figure) people fail to understand the meaning of the "NG" scenes, or indeed, most of the movie.

To each his own. Like you, I notice that most people either really enjoyed, or truly disliked, the movie. Obviously, I'm in the second camp. It is possible to understand the movie, and still not like it.

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Post #: 49

RE: OT: Saving Private Ryan - 10/31/2005 2:01:29 AM

Taglia

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This Rocks

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RE: OT: Saving Private Ryan - 10/31/2005 3:03:13 AM

RevRick

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I don't know, guys. I'm a little older, and my Dad served in the So Pac in the Corps. I've known a lot of parishioners who are now talking, very quietly about their experiences, including a number in the ETO. A lot of them talk about the things in Private Ryan being all too real - including shooting prisoners, on both sides. And one thing that those who had seen the movie also said was that the opening scenes were almost realistic enough to take them back - but you have to multiply it over 9 km or so.

All movies, as all histories, are usually written by the victors - and have that perspective. No one from the Soviet Union really talked about what happened in Berlin when that city was taken. The Germans don't like to talk about places where people went in and simply did not come out. The US didn't like My Lae, or Wounded Knee. No one is really John Wayne, nor the cartoon version of Hitler. Perhaps we ought to remember Paul - "All have fallen short of the glory of God." On every side.

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RE: OT: Saving Private Ryan - 10/31/2005 4:22:46 AM

witpqs

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Good points, RevRick. I saw SPR not as justifying those things described in this thread, rather it presented them for those who were not there to see them for the harsh, terrible reality they are. The only judgements put forth in SPR were about the purpose of being there and the huge sacrifices made.

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Post #: 52

RE: OT: Saving Private Ryan - 10/31/2005 4:58:20 AM

Captain Ed

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This post and Saving Private Daffodil just belong together

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Post #: 53

RE: OT: Saving Private Ryan - 10/31/2005 5:06:19 AM

Crimguy

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YH you and I are on the same page. Kelly's Heroes rocked. I don't see why Platoon is not a "war movie." It was revolutionary at the time, and is about war in the same vein that The Deer Hunter was a (anti)war movie. For us civvies, they were very powerful stuff.

My favorites are Das Boot, Platoon, Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now. Might not be "war movies" in the Bridge Too Far sense, but they are superlative at what they set out to do.

Accuracy is not something easily found in a war movie, so I stopped looking for it. When it reaches the point of distorting historical characters (Enemy at the Gates) or being silly (Pearl Harbor), I get really upset though.

And I ask you: who doesn't watch The Great Escape every time it's on?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Yamato hugger

quote:

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Platoon isn't a war movie, either...

What is a war movie? I thought Platoon was very good if you get past the dialogue. The fact that you dont wear steel pots on a night patrol for example. Or having to trigger a claymore 3 times to fire it. There is some very good "real" things in that movie that a lot of people that havent been exposed to it just plain miss.

Now personally, in my humble opinion the greatest "war movie" ever made was Kellys Heros. Right up there has to be Tora, Tora, Tora.

Pearl Harbor was a huge disapointment. An Eagle squadron pilot is shot down in the channel and survives for months in France, OK. I can buy that. But after god knows how long over there, he is rescued and pops in on his wife in Hawaii without so much as a letter saying he was alive? Doubtful. Fighter pilots flying B-25's off the Hornet? Heh.

Only thing about We Were Soldiers that was out there was him showing up at the door without calling. The scene where the helicopter crashes I thought was fantastic. Thats how they crash. Clunk. No big explosion, no huge hollywood fireball, just clunk. I guess the scene where the "dust off" helicopters aborted and didnt go in was true, but the evac pilots I knew were true heros (498th air ambulance company, 34th medical bn). Once in Germany back in '77 we got a call to pick up survivors of a traffic accident. Fog was so thick you couldnt see the end of the rotors. We went up, made the pick-up and crashed near the LZ at the hospital. Only thing the pilot was worried about was getting the critical man to the OR. Everyone survived. The bird was a write-off.

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Post #: 54

RE: OT: Saving Private Ryan - 10/31/2005 5:29:45 AM

TAIL GUNNER

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quote:

ORIGINAL: ctangus

quote:

ORIGINAL: Terminus

quote:

ORIGINAL: Juggalo

Heard about Mel Gibson's Iwo Jima movies?

Simultaneous release of TWO movies....one from American side, one from Japanese...

Pretty cool idea....we'll see how it pans out!

Erm, they're being made by Clint Eastwood, as far as I know...

They are made by Clint Eastwood. Regardless of who's making them, though, the two viewpoints idea interests me. I just hope that they stay historically accuarate and don't make another Pearl Harbor.

My bad...someone was talking about "We Were Soldiers" in an earlier post and Mel Gibson stuck in my head....

Lemme see if David H. included a new smiley face that sez "you're an idiot for saying that":

hey, close enough!

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Post #: 55

RE: OT: Saving Private Ryan - 10/31/2005 5:41:45 AM

GaryChildress

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Crimguy

And I ask you: who doesn't watch The Great Escape every time it's on?

Forgot The Great Escape, another great one!

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RE: OT: Saving Private Ryan - 10/31/2005 6:00:07 AM

Big B

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quote:

ORIGINAL: RevRick
snip...

All movies, as all histories, are usually written by the victors - and have that perspective.

...

Just ONE of the MANY reasons you don't want to loose a war...

B

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RE: OT: Saving Private Ryan - 10/31/2005 6:44:03 AM

ilovestrategy

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I just can't believe you guys. This thread has gone on for this long and no one has talked about beer, the main staple of any military man from any nation or from any war.

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RE: OT: Saving Private Ryan - 10/31/2005 6:48:48 AM

wobbly

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Not a movie obviously but I loved Band of Brothers. Especially the Episode "crossing" directed by Tom Hanks. He took alot of ideas from Spielberg but the opening scene with Winters running along by himself as the bayonet on his rifle bobs in and out of view, and you can here him breathing flat tack as he runs... I just loved it.

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RE: OT: Saving Private Ryan - 10/31/2005 6:48:51 AM

Big B

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Oh yah, and as for saving Private Ryan,...entertaining certainly, realistic in some ways - absolutely stupid in others, but the wierd feeling I walked away with from that movie was that I had just seen a WWII propaganda movie whose over powering message was "Never Trust a German".
I mean, I thought that was what Spielberg was trying to say with the whole deal at the end of Upham 'coming to his senses' and wasting the former German prisoner he was instrumental in saving earlier in the film....I don't know - it just seemed out of time and place for a film today.

Tor Tora Tora - excellent
Kelly's Heroes - how can you not love it?
Thin Red Line - excellent if you make liberal use of the scene skip feature and cut it down to about 45 minutes.
Dr Strangelove - excellent
The Bridge - excellent
Das Boot - excellent (ending su-ucked)
A Walk In The Sun - very good (weak ending with the music)
The Story of G I Joe (Ernie Pyle's story) - Excellent

The list is long,.. but my All Time Favorite - 'The Battle Of San Pietro' narrated by the film's maker, John Houston. I think this was THE best piece of filmwork ever put together about what WWII was really like (at least in Italy) because it's a documentary made during the war. In fact it was so good, the US Army banned it's publication (the wankers) fearing the public might figure out people, a.k.a. Americans, were actually getting killed.
I don't think it was allowed to be shown to the public until a decade or two after the war. The story goes that when John Houston was told that his film was felt to be 'anti-war' he was supposed to have said "if I ever mke a pro-war film - Shoot Me". A powerful movie...not the least of which because it's all real.

B

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