"which war film gets you mad?" Topic

Per Ditto T- 'Telly's Tank' looked like it got fried by a beam weapon so maybe Gearkrieg wasn't so far off.

"Troy -- made me sick to see the Trojans actually riding horses"

It made me sick to see them fail to ride their horses into the broken Greeks and finish them off! Pursuit, Priam, pursuit!

Wow, 7 pages and still going. Some kind of record!

CanuckCommander: Personally, I think the world would have been more stable if America developed inside the British Empire.

Very interesting thought which I will ruminate on. And I am American.

I think we may well have avoided at least 1 WW and a very long cold war.

I guess I need you to expand on that one a bit. Didn't the US enter each of the World Wars well after the UK and Commonwealth? (And if you are also counting the mess in the latter 19th century, didn't America stay out of that one pretty much?) Had the Commonwealth been bigger, it would have had bigger forces … seems to me the opposite of an incentive to stay out of wars. Feel free to add about the cold war comment as well.

Supercilius Maximus: It's all but impossible to think of a British-made film that, for example, portrays the modern IRA in a bad light.

"Patriot Games"? Directed by Philip Noyce. Oh wait, he's Australian, not strictly British, maybe that doesn't count.

vonLoudon: … I've always enjoyed movies where the actors in many epic movies and war movies had British accents. For some reason in my American mind, I associated those accents with good actors and I took the history in many of those movies more seriously.

You're not alone.

green beanie: … did you hear that the Rangers had inproper body armour?

According to Mark Bowdon's book which the movie was based on, the Rangers were in the practice of removing ceramic plates from their armor to reduce weight and heatstroke. Most of them kept the front ones only, reasoning that even if they got in a firefight they wouldn't be surrounded. Also Delta Force had discarded their armored helmets and wore instead padded hockey helmets, reasoning they needed to protect their heads from bumps in the helicoptor but not from bullets. Tragically many Rangers died of body wounds from the side or rear and many Delta Force died of bullets to the head.

… the Commander on the spot had the Rangers only use the frontal armour.

You have a source for that statement? That they were ordered to go underarmored due to supply issues? I know Bowdon's book is outdated (famously the 9/11 Commission Report cites the presence of Al Queda in the area which Bowdon did not uncover so it's not in his book), but I haven't read any newer material on that conflict.

Bob and his dog: SO what movie(s) does (do) every one like????

My earlier post was clear but not explicit so I'll say it openly.

For me, "Apocalypse Now" is one of the best war movies ever. And "Apocalypse Now: Redux" is one of the worst, a fabulous lesson in what an editor brings to the movie making process.

Note I have no idea if any of the gear in either "Apocalypse Now" version is accurate. It feels accurate, and that's what's important.

I'm with a lot of the suggestions in this Thread but I do like to draw a line between a story with a war setting and a film which purports to tell you the History of an event, albeit with a back story.

Thus, "Ice Cold in Alex" is outstanding but Battle of the Bulge I can't stand.

Why the hate for "300"? It's not supposed to be realistic because it's the story (suitability embellished) told by Dilios to Spartans on the eve of the Battle of Plataea to rev them up. It's so ott that I don't think you get the impression it is a history lesson, whereas Patriot and Braveheart are held out to be fact.

Is Patriot really show in US school history lessons?

I've watched soviet and nazi propaganda films and none ever were so infuriatingly blunt and blatant as the Patriot. This is propaganda brought to you courtesy of a sledgehammer.

If Goebbels had been in charge he would have stared with open mouth at this disaster, have everybody shot and the movie re-done.

The Fallen – WORST MOVIE EVER. An absolute horrific, eyball aching, cringe-worthy nightmare of a war movie.

I've watched soviet and nazi propaganda films and none ever were so infuriatingly blunt and blatant as the Patriot.

You ARE kidding? What Soviet and Nazi Propaganda movies have you seen? Jud Sus? Of Lebensunwertes Leben? or Ukraine in Flames?

A sense of proprotion please. I am British, and I can tell the difference between Mel's 'Cartoony Baddy English' and The Poison Dwarf's 'Killing Jews and the Handicapped is only Natural' approach to movie making.

Pat

300

worst film ever, I would sooner crap a hedgehog than watch that film again.

Phil

Hey, how did this get back on the front page?!?

They are still just movies like or dislike, not worth the emotion of getting mad. There are way too many other issues to worry about.

They are still just movies like or dislike, not worth the emotion of getting mad. There are way too many other issues to worry about.

yup, wish my life was so great that the worst thing in it was a bad movie.

Why does the title of this tread on main page say there are only 21 postings?

Hey, how did this get back on the front page?!?

Why does the title of this tread on main page say there are only 21 postings?

Because The Bug abides …

"temporary suspension of disbelief" is now, and always has been the key to good drama. If you want everything "right" with the kit on film then watch a documentary.

I agree that Patriot showed the rank and file brits unfairly, but Tarleton has been viewed as murderous thug around here (South Carolina) long before the movie came out, so the villian in the movie wasn't too off base to me. Exaggerated, obviously, but aren't most movie villians? What can I say, I'm a Francis Marion fan. Bad movie-wise, I think SS Doomtrooper is the worst I've seen…

The Pirates of Penzance really enrages me.
What were they thinking when they put the Major General in that uniform???

Or thinking that anything interesting has ever happened around Penzance?

The problem with Patriot is, as I udnerstand things, Tarleton was exaggerated excessively. As I said before, if you're OK with US forces being shown the same way, fair enough.

That said, it's entirely possible Carolinan opinion is wrong. I doubt the rebels were angels.

For me the worst part of the film is how it skews race relations through 180 degrees. One of te main causes for the war was probably the UK moving towards abolishionism and yet here we have a black bloke fighting for freedom, well, for the white guys at least….

It looks like this topic has been pushed aside. I did not realise that it could but thanks to everyones thoughts. The editor has his reasons ( I have asked lol)

Great topic and a great site; cheers

movies don't equal documentary don't equal truth/history

Enjoy entertainment, contemplate documentary messages, be part of history

expecting more will always usually come up short at some point

Everybody expects more from things they are interested in. Other than it being a bag of pang I don't have any gripes with the portrayal of NASCAR racing in Days of Thunder, for example. I bet a NASCAR enthusiast would probably pulltheir hair out though.

I'm prepared to cut movies a degree of artistic license, so I take things like 300 for what they are – in that case a pretty effective movie from a comic book. Is it historically accurate? I reckon not, although they blundered into Spartans not wearing armour probably by acident, if 100 years or so too early. Regardless, to hate 300 as a piece of inaccurate history is simply pointless – it's like hating a dog for not being a cat.

What i can't abide is when a big budget movie deliberately decides to be inaccurate when it could have been accurate AND looked even better than it did. I go back to Gladiator, and the extremely dodgy Roman armour. I thought Ridley Scott did a pretty good job with the armour in Kingdom of Heaven, so what went so utterly wrong in Gladiator? It's not like the actual kit is uncool or anything.

I also can't believe anybody is unloading on Saving Private Ryan because the Tigers weren't really Tigers, for example. It's one of the best, if not THE best, movie efforts at German vehicles I can recall. It may be that the portrayal of the Germans as incompetents is a bit harsh but looking at casualty figures in 1944 it doesn't suggest they did overly well, so maybe it's not so far from the 'truth'.

But Bangorstu, slaves DID fight for the revolution, and in fairly substantial numbers, so that part is actually on target. And I agree that the "rebels" could also be a fairly rough lot, but Tarleton's actions at Waxhaws and against the noncombatant civilians of South Carolina show him for the thug he was. The war in the south was more of a civil war than one of nation vs. nation, and I wish The Patriot had more closely examined that facet.

Recon – the vast majority of the black population of the American colonies were, so far as I understand it, supporting the British.

Could be wrong, it's been known.

Agreed that the fact of the AWI being a civil war should be examined more closely. As should the fact that without the French, you'd have lost…

Did we not have a thread about Bond complaining that Connery was a SCOT? As another aside, "scot free" is an old british term of complaint. In modern times, we sometimes forget the origin of some of our basic terms, like "scot free"…

The origins of the term "scot free" have nothing to do with Scotland or the Scots.

Absolutely agree with that last, as well, Bangorstu.