World War 2 movies

All that was done much better in Longest Day. I feel private ryan was a shortcutted version that relied on picturesqe snapshots of only the key points of the landing… too much focus on red dye color.

Ok, SPR had the confusion of the misdrops in Normandy.  They were all over the place looking for Ryan, who misdropped.  Other paratroopers allude to it.

But the point of the story is to get you in personally with what was being sacrificed for this guy, and this is why it starts as a flashback and not simply “in the mix.”  That’s the theme: sacrifice.  Everyone was making it.  It was about the conditions surrounding it, the history behind the event, or the technical implications of the landing.  Spielberg wanted you to be there, and appreciate what all these guys did.  And I think he did a wonderful job of it.  You experience the movie rather than sit and learn about facts of WW2.

@Jermofoot:

I dare someone to say U-571 or Pearl Harbor.  8-)

The hell with U-571.  The best movie ever about submarine warfare is Das Boot and thats final.  Pearl Harbor could have been one of the greatest films ever but they screwed it up by putting Ben Affleck in it.

Agredd, Das boot probably will NEVER be beaten.

And Tora! Tora! Tora! is hell and gone better than Pearl Harbor.

yes but SPR had no german side to the battle. Longest day had everything and the kitchen sink. Their was no question on every event that happened. It was done with a broad stroke pen. I dont like seudo HBO style storys that focus on some personal story within overlord. I prefer to let history be the story. In longest Day we get everything from both sides.

I also dont like choppy battlefield scenes where you dont see whats going on. Thats a cheap way to make a movie so you dont have to employ thousands of extras. Longest day has a real long scene where you see an entire battle in panoramic view. Its awesome.

i too think there should be movies made about the africa front, with rommels german and italian afrika korps. the spanish civil war is also a good idea. i think a new movie on the bismark story could be good as well. they need to start making movies on a story that nobody has  made before like the fall of france/belgium/holland. or a story on the eastern front of the germans, including their hungarian and romanian allies. a movie like that would cover interesting topics that havent been touched on in recent movies.

@Zog:

i too think there should be movies made about the africa front, with rommels german and italian afrika korps. the spanish civil war is also a good idea.

I like that idea a lot.  They should really make that.

Hell is for heros, with steve mcqueen is good.

from hell to eternity, with audie murphy is ok.

marill’s marauders?

sands of iwo jima is one of my favorites.

i dont know which one is better. tora tora tora or the longest day, they are both epic.

i have tora tora tora and it is much better than pearl harbor. havent seen longest day though, but i need to.

@MechanizedWarfare:

@Jermofoot:

I dare someone to say U-571 or Pearl Harbor.  8-)

The hell with U-571.  The best movie ever about submarine warfare is Das Boot and thats final.  Pearl Harbor could have been one of the greatest films ever but they screwed it up by putting Ben Affleck in it.

Of course to hell with U-571.  :lol:  Pearl Harbor did exactly what IL is complaining about.  Way too Hollywood and over dramatic.

@Imperious:

yes but SPR had no german side to the battle. Longest day had everything and the kitchen sink. Their was no question on every event that happened. It was done with a broad stroke pen. I dont like seudo HBO style storys that focus on some personal story within overlord. I prefer to let history be the story. In longest Day we get everything from both sides.

I also dont like choppy battlefield scenes where you dont see whats going on. Thats a cheap way to make a movie so you dont have to employ thousands of extras. Longest day has a real long scene where you see an entire battle in panoramic view. Its awesome.

A German side is not required.  Spielberg wanted Americans to see sacrifice by other Americans.  Similar theme in Schindler’s List.  If you don’t like his style, then fine.  But he wasn’t trying to make a documentary.  He was making a movie you feel rather than observe.  If Longest Day is anything like A Bridge Too Far then it will feel “big” but very jumpy.  I loved A Bridge Too Far, but taking such a broad view, much had to be left out or modified to fit into regular movie time frame.  Otherwise, you’d get an 8-hour movie (not a bad thing, but 8 hours is a big commitment).

Don’t get me wrong, I’d like to see some German stuff, and think it’s pitiful that no one will make a game with a German campaign (like Call of Duty).  But no one is required to do so, so you take what you can get…

I’m surprised no one has said The Great Escape.  I thought it was cool…

I enjoy Great Escape but I’m partial to Stalag 17 myself. Hart’s War goes in the same list as U-571, and Pearl Harbor.

There is the game Panzer General, “Your first mission in operation Fall Weiss, the conquest of Poland is to capture the key cities of Kutno and Lodz.” The speculative scenario where you march on Washington DC is very much fun.

The one’s I would add to the list are one movie and two mini-series:

The Big Red One

Band of Brothers - incredible realism in this one
The Winds of War/War and Remembrance - this one is truly epic

SS

sorry, band of brothers was a worthless steaming pile of shit.

it was not real.

when they storm a town, they take zero casualties, or maybe one or two.  but kill like um 35 germans.  what bullshit.  the germans tore through americans every step they took.

the show makes the germans look inept. probably done purposely or by terrible terrible production and directing. even if it was speilburg.

it didnt happen that way.

@balungaloaf:

sorry, band of brothers was a worthless steaming pile of sh*t.

it was not real.

when they storm a town, they take zero casualties, or maybe one or two.  but kill like um 35 germans.  what bullshit.  the germans tore through americans every step they took.

the show makes the germans look inept. probably done purposely or by terrible terrible production and directing. even if it was speilburg.

it didnt happen that way.

I think you must have watched a different series.  Plenty of casualties on both sides.  Guys dying for meaningless objectives (e.g., the prisoner snatch episode).  Gliders getting blown up on D-Day with no chance for the soldiers to get out and fight.  Main characters died throughout the series and, if you forgot, it was based on a true story.  The guys who survived the war actually survived the war.  Get the DVD and you can watch all the special features which include interviews with the guys from Easy company who survived.

SS

@balungaloaf:

sorry, band of brothers was a worthless steaming pile of sh*t.

it was not real.

when they storm a town, they take zero casualties, or maybe one or two.  but kill like um 35 germans.  what bullshit.  the germans tore through americans every step they took.

the show makes the germans look inept. probably done purposely or by terrible terrible production and directing. even if it was speilburg.

it didnt happen that way.

Read the book, then see how wrong you are.

It was great BTW, so much that people I know who had no previous interest in WW2 developed an obsession with the series - and often went on to other WW2 things.

embellished.  american propoganda loves to make heros.  sometimes out of nothing or very little.

anybody remember the part when they were walking down the road and a mg34 of mg42 opened up on them.  nobody was hit.  thats bullshit.  me and my buddy could only watch the first episodes, even though when they got back onto the history channel i then watched all of them.

especially the episode when they strom that town.  you know the one where shifty has to out sniper the sniper.  any unit moving into a town like they did in the show. would have been cut to pieces.  i love it when germans fire machine guns, nobody gets hit. when americans do they hit mucho germans, like when they are running away through the river.

i’m sorry to say but the germans and russians were much better soldiers than the americans.  in the ratio of combat for dead and wounded, even with air support or was it without it, the germans handed our asses to us.  we took way more punishment.  the russians killed 9 out of every 10 germans killed in the entire war.  the rest thats one out of ten, were killed by dutch, norwiegans, french, brits, polish, and us combined.

every scene in that damn show is rediculous. and the acting was terrible.

@balungaloaf:

embellished.  american propoganda loves to make heros.  sometimes out of nothing or very little.

Read the book.

anybody remember the part when they were walking down the road and a mg34 of mg42 opened up on them.  nobody was hit.  thats bullshit.  me and my buddy could only watch the first episodes, even though when they got back onto the history channel i then watched all of them.

Read the book.  And you are wrong.

especially the episode when they strom that town.  you know the one where shifty has to out sniper the sniper.  any unit moving into a town like they did in the show. would have been cut to pieces.  i love it when germans fire machine guns, nobody gets hit. when americans do they hit mucho germans, like when they are running away through the river.

Read the book.

i’m sorry to say but the germans and russians were much better soldiers than the americans.  in the ratio of combat for dead and wounded, even with air support or was it without it, the germans handed our asses to us.  we took way more punishment.  the russians killed 9 out of every 10 germans killed in the entire war.  the rest thats one out of ten, were killed by dutch, norwiegans, french, brits, polish, and us combined.

Read the book.  How is this relevant?

every scene in that damn show is rediculous. and the acting was terrible.

Tell them that.  Oh, and read the book, read the book, read the book book book!  Then you’ll understand why Dick Winters is the bomb.

great maybe the books good.  but putting it into film sucked balls.  big ones.

also, books cant be embellished.  even eye witness accounts can be embellished.

all i know is that when they were walking up that road, two singe file lines on both sides, and the machine gun opened up from a hundred yards away and hit nobody, i changed the channel.

@balungaloaf:

great maybe the books good.  but putting it into film sucked balls.  big ones.

also, books cant be embellished.  even eye witness accounts can be embellished.

all i know is that when they were walking up that road, two singe file lines on both sides, and the machine gun opened up from a hundred yards away and hit nobody, i changed the channel.

Well, they keep the series pretty damn close to the book.  I looked for anything that might have been wrong/incorrect, and can’t recall anything that sticks in my mind.

Did they make it more dramatic?  Probably…but that goes for any film.

On the MG inaccuracy - people were hit, it’s just that the book and show focuses more on the Company in general or specific individuals the revolved around Winters.  Also, shooting at a targeting range and shooting in a war are two different things.  Have you read about people in gunfights from short distances having terrible accuracy?  Accounts of officers firing multiple times with a very low hit rate?  I think maybe you are focusing too much on what they didn’t show you, and missed out on a lot that they did.  If you didn’t like it, fine, but the reasons I hear aren’t very found…