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

Jeff Shaara's "A Blaze Of Glory"

Passchendale, as a musical, and The Anabasis, as a buddy comedy.

A Remake of "Villa Rides" during the Mexican Revolution and/or a better "Major Dundee" during the French Occupation. Expand it to include the Battle of Puebla so all of misinformed amigos know what the heck the celebration of "Cinco de Mayo" was really all about.

Use actors like, Michelle Rodriguez, Edward James Olmos, Salma Hayek, Danny Trejo, Diego Luna, Benicio del Toro, etc., to bring in a chance of making some money as was suggested in an earlier post.

Just a thought.

NELSON: THE MOVIE!

Okay John here is one you are bound to like

Hannibal staring Jason Statham. the guy from Transporter and Crank series.

VR
James Mattes

What Military Historical Movie do they have to make?

Simple-- The first one.

Recently a friend of mine on another group lamented the awful things movie makers do including in gladiator having lifted the soundtrack from Zulu for the chants of the Attacking Germans in "Gladiator."
I told Steve (the frined) ---

Let me put it this way.

Steve cares.

BUT!!!

The producers don't care.
The writiers don't care.
The Directors don't care.
Hollywood doesn't care.
The backers don't care.

And they don't care because …

The vast majority of Joe Sixpacks who go to the movies don't care, and are only there because their insignificant other, the Wanda Walmart's, dragged them to the movies. They wanted to stay home swill cheap beer, get drunk and watch the game and then pass out, or else watch porn and then pass out.

Wanda Walmart only cares because she wants to imagine the hulky hunks in the gladiator between her legs and dream that she was once Empress of Rome or wife of a senator, filthy rich and looked like a million bucks, and she could send her worthless husband to the salt mines of Numidia or castrate him to keep him away from her.

Joe Six-pack in the other seat is either dreaming about the skank pole dancer at the bar he secretly goes to on the way home, and pouring more beer down his gullet. The only thing he'll notice about the movie is the gladiators because he understand bar fights and how many times he's been beaten to a pulp in them. Somewhere in there is a vestigial Brando moaning "I kudahh been a contedah!"

Wanda Walmart is imagining how wonderful it would be to have a hunky hunk like that instead of the hugely fat, bald, sweaty guy farting and belching in the seat next to her. She wants a guy whose smoking hot, not just smoking like a chimney.

The movie you refer to was nothing more than a rip-off of the classic "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" which degenerated into a gladiator movie too. So there.

Ok so Steve cares- but the average schmuck, guy or girl, doesn't want a course in history- he, or she wants *huge breasts*, smashed faces, blood spurting on the sand, gorgeous fashion, thin lithe women they can imagine they could look like if only they could dump the slob next to them and find a good man, a fine man, a nice catch-- like the Emperor of Rome!

There, that pretty much sums it up.

If you want historically accurate movies with all the combat techniques right- go see the wartime productions of UFA and AGITPROP, the Nazi's and the Communists lavished big bucks and detail on this sort of thing-- but!!!!!!--- when they showed them in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, the theaters were still empty.

Well, I would question the veracity of propaganda and agitprop films. They tend to shy away from the mud-and-blood aspects of combat.

But there is no trade-off between box-office value and attention to detail. We can all name movies that get it right, more or less. Sure, there will always be quibblers, who can be dismissed as an obsessive fringe, but it's also fun to gloat when someone like Mel Gibson brags that his latest project is the "most accurate telling of history" (as he did before his films about the AWI, William Wallace, and Jesus).

In the end, a successful movie depends on a good story. Setting, effects, and period detail can be wasted if the script is a dud and the director has a leaden touch.

That said, there are some figures with fascinating stories who could do with a big-screen treatment. William T Sherman, rising from drunken binges and depressive funks, hardening as the Total War escalated, and ending as a celebrated hero. A suitably epic treatment of Nelson would be a feast for the eyes as well as a gripping yarn. Finally, I think a film focusing on Washington's travails in the early AWI could tell a critical nail-biting story about the founding of the USA that has never been put on the big screen.

So based on the need to keep Joe Sixpack and Wanda happy can I suggest a serious look at the Flashman novels as a basis for a decent movie. It has what we want – military history, and what Joe and Wanda want sex and violence. We could either remake the first Flashman or do one of the later novels say The Crimean war one.

Agesilaus,

Private Ryan is an excellent example of how Hollywood works. The greatest applause was for war crimes. The crowd went wild when the Rangers executed unarmed German soldiers who were obviously trying to surrender, then laughed when the killer said he didn't understand German.

The next war crime was at the end of the movie when the sniveling little translator gunned down an unarmed prisioner with no justification.

Let us never forget Stan Frieberg's family motto, "Art for Money's Sake!" Spielberg hasn't.

Bob Coggins