"Hacksaw Ridge" Topic

Saw it today fantastic great movie.

My wife and I second and third that.

I liked it, great story and well acted

WOW! Just saw it. Amazing!

Waiting to see it … love the trailers.

Saw the review on NRO which gave it good marks.

Will be interesting to see as I just finished 'With the Old Breed' a memoir of a marine mortarman's (K/3/5, 1st Marine Division) combat experience on Pelelieu and Okinawa.

He wrote that he and his fellow marines had the utmost respect for the Navy corpsmen.

Imagine it was pretty much the same with the Army.

Just be warned – the last 45 minutes or so are intense – take the landing scene from Saving Private Ryan and make it three times longer…

Not a Date Flick! (well, depends on your date, I suppose, but most people won't feel cuddly after it…)

I believe that Mel captured perfectly what combat was like in the pacific against the Japanese.

Though a new unit that never saw combat before should have been briefed on what the Japanese were prone to conducting mass charges.

They should have been prepared for what was coming that morning but weren't.

Just watched the trailer and decided to keep my money in my wallet. Looks like every Marines movie ever made.

Reminded me instantly of "The Pacific" HBO series right away. Join up – train – land on island – fight Japanese.

Then go somewhere else and do it again.

OK that's how it was and a lot of good people died doing it but there are limits to how you can re tell it.

Desmond T. Doss was obviously an exceptional man but I've seen enough of this setting for movies. Respect to him and the real participants but not for me.

Besides I'd never get past Spiderman in the lead role.

Then go somewhere else and do it again.

Actually most units only did 1-2 campaigns since they were some long R&R after the campaign was over.

Island fighting was brutal and basically units needed that time afterwards to get their men minds right again and to put them back into fighting shape.

Plus we did not start the island campaigns until August of 1942 and the war was over my August 1945 so the total time was just 36 months.

Sure when we assaulted an island the fighting was done in around 6-8 weeks but those were very brutal weeks.

Quite agree and points well made.

The problem is when translating this into a movie or mini series it comes over as the same old same old.

The HBO series was the worst for this as there were three different real people's stories told and although they differed in detail the story lines were confined by overall events.

I think this was highlighted by being preceded by Band of Brothers which could of been confined by jumping out of airplanes but the real unit had such a varied career it never came across like that.

link

The reel story was toned down, because the actual behavior of Doss as he was wounded was deemed to be too unbelievable for a movie audience. That is a first!

I think that this film is the most inspiring war film I have ever seen. Very intense. Superbly directed. Mel Gibson redeems himself with this one.

Reading the mild objections above: there is nothing about this film like The Pacific. Yet in real life, Doss was already a veteran of Leyte Gulf and other campaigns before his unit got to Okinawa. He had already "done it again" before that Medal of Honor battle……………

It's not a first. They did it in the movie where Audie Murphy played him self. So toning down is not new.

I haven't seen the Audie Murphy film, that I recall, so it's a first for me at least. Anyway, the typical MO is to pump more Hollywood into movies, not keep the real stuff out because it is too unbelievable………….