"What Military/Historical Movie Do They Need To Make? NOW!" Topic

With modern CGI, cinematography, sound, etc. Hollywood can show us anything, future or past. In your opinion, what movies need to be attempted? Here are some of my picks by category:
Naval Biography – Joshua Barney
War at Sea Rehearsal – Tripolitan war
War at Sea – Anglo/Dutch Wars
Naval Battle – Lepanto
Army Biography – Smedley Butler
Land War Rehearsal – Mexican War
Land War – Russo-Japanese War
Land Battle – Austerlitz
Air Biography – Rene Fonck
Air Battle – Solomons WWII
Renaissance – Battle of Ankara
Ancient – Battle of Cannae
Book to make into a movie – Preble's Boy's, Fletcher Pratt

GWOT, America's longest war. Too many real hero stories to be told, too many comming home and will never adjust, Too many deployed too long.

VR
James Mattes

Rather than Austerlitz, I think Aspern Essling is a better drama.
FLight of the Goeben would be interesting, the actions of the Emden would work as well.
Land war, I think the beginning of WWI and culminating in the Battle of the Marne would make a good flick.

Still unlikely, but cool would be the John Biggins novels about Ottokar Prohaska, the Simon Scarrow Cato and Macro, Cornwell series, either Archer or Dark Ages

Naval Battle: Jutland. With the CGI available this could be made into an awesome movie!

Damon.

Jlundberg
Oh yea – and Spee at Coronel and Falklands. I didn't even think of Cromwell. He's interesting on many levels, like his firing the King and Parliament. these are things school children should see with their own eyes.

Youse guys do realize that the first responsibility of a movie is to make money? That means that someone has to pay to see it, and not only that, it has to be something his girlfriend will want to see too, so she will put out for him later.

Nothing suggested so far will acheive either of these goals.

I can just see Hollywood today making a bio of Smedley Butler. Come to think of it, maybe Hollywood would go for his later life when he just about condemned everything he ever did. That would fit the political views of Hollywood today.

As usual, you guys are delusional.
I challenge anyone who makes a suggestion to also suggest how much money it would make. Remember that maybe 4 other people in your area will actually pay to see it. We are NOT the target audience.

Keeping that in mind, I would love to see the Wyoming Massacre done.

They need to make Tarawa, Chosin, Belleau Wood and Fallujah.

John's point about the GF is right

"I'd like to see.." a movie about the Ever-Victorious Army in China. The movie cgi would help the hordes, and the Chinese angle would tap the millions of film lovers in China.

Fox Company's stand at Toktong pass during the Korean war and
Marines in Bellieu woods world war 1

OFM
Joshua Barney would be a date movie if there were any leading men awesome enough to play the role. Butler was only bitter in later life because rich industrialists tried to get him to overthrow the government he had sworn to defend.
Irish Marine
How about a Guadalcanal movie without all the wisecracks?

The siege of Malta

I tend to agree with John the OFM. The vast majority of movie goers cannot recognize the vast majority of battles mentioned.

What is needed is a story. All action adventure movies need a hero, a villian, a noble quest anc/or impending doom followed by a tragic death or salvation and triumph in either victory or defeat. The battle is only the background, unless it's Waterloo, Gettysburg or Stalingrad.

Otherwise who knows from Lepanto and Don Juan or or Frozen-Chosin?

Leyte Gulf would be an interesting story. The heros would be the destroyer/escourt captains some of whom died a heroic death. The villian would be Halsey who was off seeking more glory. The impending doom would be the Japanese surface fleet and the victim would be the landing fleet at Leyte.

Another would be the Battle of Baltimore. The heros would be Barney (the old sea captain), Sam Smith (the mayor and retired general) and Armistead the earnest professional soldier. The Villian would be the imcompetent Federal Government in the person of Winder. The impending doom would be the British fleet and army with the secondary villians of Cochrane and Ross. The inspriation would be the militias which came from as far away as Pennsylvania "to defend their loved homes from the war's desolation," solemly mustering with their own weapons and marching off to an uncertain future. Begin it with the buring of the Whitehouse and end it with the raising of the Fort McHenry Flag and you've got a story about a battle, not just a battle.

Bob Coggins

"How about a Guadalcanal movie without all the wisecracks?"

Then it wouldn't be a movie about Marines…

I'd like to see one about USMC on the DMZ, Vietnam, or the incursion into Cambodia.

Jack

Ah John,
Black Hawk Down made a ton of money. Modern movies about the GWOT include the Hurt Locker and Taking Chance among many other yet to come. It is a new era in military movies let's just hope the Anti-Military movies of the post Vietnam era do not come back.

VR
James Mattes

Army Biography – Smedley Butler

Would love to see a Butler biography, but 'Army'?

Rich

Oops, meant military, not Army (semper fi)

For the American Civil War, a movie about John Wilder and the Lightning brigade would be great. So would a movie about Chattanooga, which must have been one of the most visually spectacular battles of all time.

For what it's worth, John has made his point about movies being made to make money before. I've had the opportunity to mull this over, and concluded the reason movies are made is because somebody wants to tell a story. Money only becomes important in the second stage of the process, when they go find somebody with more dollars than sense, and convince them to fund the thing. This always involves BSing and frequently flat out lying about the film's potential for making the guy funding it even richer. This step can be repeated as needed: "Hey, you're already in for $15 USD mil, which will be a total loss if we can't get the last $2 USD mil to finish the flick."

Grelber

What about a Downton Abbey musical, which could then be transferred to the silver screen?

I've never seen the show but it seems pretty popular. It seems that it might follow other TV shows that did well in a movie version like Sex and the City.

I think a good movie could also be made about James Graham, the first Marquis of Montrose. It might be a little bit braveheart-like, you have an execution at the end, there are the Irish, they are fighting other Scots and the English. There is action, adventure, comedy (or at least potential comedy) and tragedy all at the same time.

It could be a great flick.

But what would be wrong with Hannibal and his conquest of Spain and the invasion of Rome……as long as they don't butcher it like they did with Alexander……….Colin Farrel was crap and the 'Celtic' Macedonians were a crime!

Ross Leche has already done a very good historical novel on Hannibal and Scipio.

Or any new WW2 film that actually admits that the British did a hell of a lot of fighting!! Even after the Yanks decided to join in………..

If the biggest movie audience is the US, then fair enough, but there are so many great military stories that don't actually involve the US.

The Pope and the Italian Renaissance Wars
The Hugenouts in France
Marlborough & Eugene
The lines of Torres Vedras
WW1 Mesopotamia
Spanish Civil War, guns of Andalucia
Desert Rats
The 2nd World war in Burma (14th army and Chindits..)

etc….

Bosworth 1485 would make a good film. There are lots of interesting characters and a complex sub plot of who is on which side.
And of course, now we have found Richard the 3rd, there is public interest in the period.

I would also like to see the Swiss Burgundian wars of 1476 with the story of Charles the Bold. This could be done at the same time with a few livery and flag swaps :-)

Mick

You'd have a hard time trying weave a romance into Jutland without calling it 'hello sailor'.

John's hit the nail on the head when he says we aren't the target audience. Even I would be bored rigid with half of these suggestions let alone my G/F. although she does like the first two series of 'Spartacus'.

It's my opinion the CGI has ruined more films than it's improved.

Wayne's Legion. Pretty well contained story.
Only remake Bosworth if at the closing credits King Richard comes out of the parking lot holding his sword and claiming he is King Arthur returning to defend England from Justin Beiber.

The siege of Malta

Which one? I think the Great Siege of 1565 would make a great movie.

Sir Ben Kingsley's production company was looking at Jutland a few years back with Sir Ben playing Jellicoe. I guess the financial forecast wasn't good….

The Tidal Wave low-level raid on Ploesti. Think of the spectacle. Three hundred B-24s, at tree-top level, through fighters, flak, haystacks…Then you get to blow up an oil refinery.

Cast Bruce Willis as the jaded, wise-cracking, tough-as-leather American squadron commander, Natalie Portman as his romantic interest Hannah Seresh. Hannah doesn't belong at Ploesti, but shoehorn her in – she can parachute from Bruce's bomber on her heroic doomed mission just as he turns for the final flaming bomb run.

Sure. Fire. Hit.

A mini series on Frederick Funston, from his days of joining the rebellion in Cuba to his service with the US Army in the Phillipines.

Take the book Ambush Alley and make a movie.

1066 – 3 big battles, a traumatic change for England. Marriage of Harold to Edith, and Ealdgyth's finding his body. The escape of his children & others.

Wars of the Roses, one giant family squabble, everybody related to everyone else, deaths & marriages galore.

The Thirty Years War (or certain elements such as the Winter King & Queen, sack of Magdeburg, Swedish intervention)

Wars of Charles I, duke of Burgundy

The Life of Prince Rupert of the Rhine

Brian Boru and his attempt to unite Ireland, culminating at Clontarf 1014.

The first thing that this crowd does when they see a movie that supposedly caters to our tastes is rip it apart.
Go back and read the reviews of "Alexander". They combined Issus and Gaugamela! How dare they!

Wrong tanks in Patton! "It sickened me to see the wrong tanks in Patton!"

Then, we get the delusional "auteurs". Remember when the producers of the latest "Four Feathers" and even "The Patriot" (!) crowed about how accurate they were?

Youse guys will get the movies you are clamoring for, and you will HATE them. Not only that, they will bomb at the box office, and the studios will swear to never make another one.

The lines of Torres Vedras

A MOVIE? Are you serious???

yes, The Great Siege

"The first thing that this crowd does when they see a movie that supposedly caters to our tastes is rip it apart.
Go back and read the reviews of "Alexander". They combined Issus and Gaugamela! How dare they!"

Exactly. Look at the comment on it above:

"But what would be wrong with Hannibal and his conquest of Spain and the invasion of Rome……as long as they don't butcher it like they did with Alexander……….Colin Farrel was crap and the 'Celtic' Macedonians were a crime!"

Alexander did a very good job of capturing the character of the historical people involved from the primary source material. The use of different accents to show the Macedonians from the Greeks was pretty clever.

Colin Farrel wasn't a great actor but he all together the story was Alexander.

And yet the fact that they used British accents is labelled as a crime. As if we could possibly have any idea what Macedonian accents from the 4th century BC sounded like.

What accent would someone want?

John the OFM wrote:

Then, we get the delusional "auteurs". Remember when the producers of the latest "Four Feathers" and even "The Patriot" (!) crowed about how accurate they were?

The Patriot? You jest, surely? I know there are some stupid people about, but wouldn't people that stupid forget to breathe sooner rather than later?

Me, I'd quite like to see a war film about the experience of a member of one of the teeth arms in 21 Army Group. 4/7 DG and the DLIs at Lingevres, SRY and the death of Keith Douglas, 1 NY at St-Aignan, 11 armoured exploiting to Dickie's Bridge, 15th Scottish in Epsom, the Polish lancers at the Mace, the Welsh division in the Rhineland, anything, really. In fact I'd quite like to see a war film where the British are not a bunch of inbred idiots, the baddies, or in black and white.

All the best,

John.

I am saying that MEL ing GIBSON said it was accurate. He is the "auteur" of that cinematic crime!
I didn't say that *I* said it was accurate!

It is a new era in military movies let's just hope the Anti-Military movies of the post Vietnam era do not come back.

Of the dozen or more GWOT movies that came out since 9/11, how many gave a positive image? One? Maybe two?
"Horrywood is a lost cause" as Tyrion told Bronn about Joffrey.

FLight of the Goeben would be interesting, the actions of the Emden would work as well.

The time when those could have been made was in the 1950s, maybe the 60s.
The time is long past.
Back then, a movie COULD have been made about the flight of the Goeben, and with an all star cast, or your typical competent Pinewood British ensemble cast.
That was back when you knew that you had fought a Good War, and wanted to be reminded of it, albeit entertainingly.
Today, it has to be a star vehicle for Brad Pitt.

Today, the film industry is no longer a willing propaganda partner of the Government. We no longer have wars that the populace can or do unite behind.
The special effects required to make the movies wish listed above is horribly expensive. If a movie cannot make $200,000,000 USD today it is a failure, and the executive who green-lighted it is soon working at 84 Lumber, driving the forklift in the rain. (Well, maybe not… sometimes it seems the bigger the failure, the greater his chance of making another, even more expensive movie… ) It's the moderately successful or moderate failures that are the kiss of death.

Aspern-Essling? You've got to be kidding.

This is one of those oft-repeated TMP threads, but it only comes up once a year or so.

You know what I would like to see?
I would love to have the classic miniseries of the 70s and 80s rebroadcast.
The Winds of War
War and Remembrance
Shogun
Centennial
And just to show that they still know how to do it, Band of Brothers.
The Borgias is certainly over the top, but hugely watchable, and we can even pretend that "the uniforms are right".

THAT is the way to do it, where you can do the whole story. Slightly out of what we are talking about, how about the Game of Thrones? THAT is how it is done.
You cannot cram what you guys want to see into a 2 hour movie.

O.k., how about Trafalgar?

You've got the romance angle with Nelson and Emma Hamilton.

Nelson "bucking the establishment" with his plan for the battle, and his death at the moment of his triumph.

The plight of the poor Spanish civilians impressed into the navy on the eve of the battle.

And the big finish as England mourns as Nelson's body returns to England at the end of the movie.

I confidently predict the box office take to be a minimum of 7 billion quatloos, or 235 trillion Bongolesian bling-bling.

Guadalcanal has been done – the latest was "The Thin Red Line" a beautiful movie done as a "dream," it has one of the best combat scenes I've every seen.

Trafalgar – British miniseries "I remember Nelson" 3 parts I think with his death in part 3 very well done. Trafalgar was done from the 3rd gun deck of the Victory and from the perspective of a gunner/seaman. Very well done and touching at the same time.

It's my understanding every word in the Patriot is absolutely true, even though the British deny it. I particularly enjoyed the wrestlng match in the last battle in the movie.

"Sink the Bismark" and "Pursuit of the Graf Spee" were quite good movies. They each had a climax, pursuit of the Goeben has none.

Better would be a movie on Grant. From the absolute failure and humiliation to the victor of the ACW and then president. Perhaps the greatest soldier in the history of the US, its a great story of the swells humiliating an ordinary American who was in fact extraordinary. When he died he was the most popular man in the world. Indeed he became the greatest celebrity of the 19th Century, much greater than Lincoln. I always liked Billy-Bob Thorton for the role but now he's too old.

Bob Coggins

Kursk

Also for Ploesti

Caesars' Gallic Camoaigns/Alesia/Xanten and the Britain foray as a miniseries.

Zenobia

Space: 89AD by Joss Whedon-'PhoenixFly'

Raphael Semmes and tha Alabama

Anvil-Dragoon

Guadalcanal Campaign miniseries-all air/sea/land battles

Operation Olympic/Coronet

Falklands War

Gojira/Gulf War

Perry's post-war Antarctic Weird War campaign

I would actually like to see a film or mini that hires either my daughter or my long suffering spousal unit.

Both are actors and have been for a number of years. Both are on IMDB, actually.

John is quite correct. It's all about the dollar no matter how much Tom Hanks or anyone else bloviates. If they can't bring in people, it doesn't matter how accurate it is…

Eric

"The special effects required to make the movies wish listed above is horribly expensive."

That's the thing. Today we have CGI so good that we can make a spectacular 90-minute movie almost as easily as an artist can draw a two-page comic spread. Fifty years ago the studio had to buy warbirds from the Spanish Air Force to film The Battle of Britain. Today we can computer-generate 300 X B-24Ds with individual markings and battle damage, thundering across Rumania at tree-top height.

Tidal Wave would be a great title.

1066 – 3 big battles, a traumatic change for England. Marriage of Harold to Edith, and Ealdgyth's finding his body. The escape of his children & others.

I agree and I think that this would potentially make money, as it is such an important year in British History.

I've always thought that "Gone for Soldiers" would make a wonderful motion picture. It's full of characters that would go on to greater things in both US and Mexican history.
It would go a long way in explaining just how the USA expanded into the SouthWest. And it's topical due to today's immigration debates.

Great locations and large battle scenes are usually a receipe for a good action movie. Knowing the outcome for RE Lee and many others, who fought in the battles, and went on to become Presidents and Generals, is fascinating. Characters like Jackson, Grant, James Polk, Longstreet, Zach Taylor and Santa Anna are all fodder for a great story.
Lots of room for backstories. Winfield Scott was an exceptionally interesting character whom history seem to have forgotten. Especially since History, in the United States, seems to be a taboo subject in many schools. Unless it's politically correct and totally revisionist.

In any case, it would be a fascinating movie to cast.

Suggestions for the lead roles?

If I ever hear that SOME of you people have any say in what movies are to be made, I will immediately instruct my stockbroker to dump all Hollywood stocks from my portfolio.

I've always thought the 1814 campaign on the Niagara would make a great movie. You have heroes and buffoons to go around, a tactical US win (Chippewa) and strategic failure (Lundy's Lane) with a "happy ending" in long friendship and the longest undefended border in the world. Throw in a romance between some private in the US 25th and a Canadian farm girl and you've got all the bases covered and everyone happy. The English speaking world gets some good vibes and everyone gets a history lesson.

Another action/adventure story in a wartime setting is the rescue of Mussolini by Skorzeny's crew. Problem is, the bad guys win one.

Master and Commander II

I've seen two amazing events in my years of going to war movies. Years ago at the premier of Tora Tora Tora the audience, many of them older folks who had lived through WWII, sat quietly through the movie until an American P40 got on the tail of a Zero and as the Japanese plane burst into flames the entire theater of blood thirsty Wisconsinites cheered and applauded.
This happened again in Saving Private Ryan. When the Americans made across the beach and shot the German machine gunner in the neck the audience went wild. I thought poor German, he got shot in the neck, but Spielberg made the entire audience feel it. It was not an audience that remembered the event either.
So, a brilliant director telling an awesome story will make his point, and money too, even without a love story. I think movies are the best way to teach History, but I believe that Hollywood tries to make Historical epics into flops. Even very expensive Historical spectacles often go into narrow release to make them look bad at the box office. Movies like Gettysburg or Glory took weeks to make it to my local theater.

FLight of the Goeben would be interesting, the actions of the Emden would work as well.

For what it's worth, there is a new film about the Emden:

YouTube link