okay, here we go; game on: Ryan vs BoB
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZgKo...eature=related

beach part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKpn0...eature=related

Spielberg hollywood part: (look at all those tigers:haha:) all of these parts remind me more of a video game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntSno...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8Seb...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B4NX...eature=related


BoB:
(the luger part really happened: you stoopid mick:har:)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FLpL2FBGTw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Y5_O...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncC0l...eature=related

Why I like BoB more and it wins hands down:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0HTl...eature=related

Game over before it even started. As a former Paratrooper I am biased to BoB over those leg Rangers in SPR.

Jar my memory: 82nd or 101st?

10th SFG(A)

Somebody here really likes We Were Soldiers?:huh:

"I will be ... the first ... man ... on ... the ... ground ... and ... the ... last ... man ... off!"

*cue cringe worthy slow motion when he steps off the helicopter, and later back on*

Also, the scene where he talks to the recruits about the new helicopters, turns around and whooosh! it screams by.:rotfl2:

I like war movies but that one was a stinker.

The very final scene of We Were Soldiers is of the Vietnamese general or something who walks through the battle field and says something like "The Americans think they won but they've just prolonged the war" which I thought was a pretty good way to end an otherwise pretty stereotypical war movie.

And from what I've read there was a lot of picking and choosing and artistic licence when it comes to the subject matter of the movie. In reality there was no heroic final charge by the Americans but infact a really deadly ambush that the Vietnamese pulled off.

Are you claiming that those two incidents never occurred?

So you like propaganda movies?

Yes, I claim that the commander did not step off and on the helicopter in slow motion to pompous music. I also find it hard to believe they timed that flyby in real life.:salute:

Right. Why would there be an American flag flying over a cemetery maintained by the American Battle Monuments Commission containing almost entirely American servicemen? At the beginning and end of a war movie following American soldiers, showing them being killed and horribly maimed. Really, it makes MUCH more sense to show, say, the flag of Bhutan.

Of course it's ok to have a US flag at the beginning of SPR. And it was equally ok for the Germans to make movies about Jewish people before and during WW 2. They made perfect sense also.

Most popular war movies I do not like. Those that I liked, are:

A thin red Line (strange that nobody mentioned it so far)
Das Boot
Die Brücke
Band of Brothers (much better than Private Ryan)
Apocalypse Now

Two popular but very overestimated movies, imo, are Kubrick'S Full Metal Jacket (although I like three of his movies very much, this is none of them), and Platoon.

Many war movies suffer from one of two things, or both: they are entertaining for the sake of being entertaining, and/or they are ridiculously pathetic.

Both makes mockery of the dead.

:hmmm:

Hal Moore stuff:
http://www.lzxray.com/

The book:
http://www.amazon.com/Were-Soldiers-.../dp/0060975768

:salute:

Hmmm...I'm looking forward to the Pacific version of BoB. I thought it had already aired in Australia? That would mean it would be available on the interwebs via...alternative means.

Good choices. One war movie that had the greatest impact on me was Schindler's List. I've seen so much battle footage, both real and Hollywood style, that's not interesting. I really enjoy the ones that tell us about the people and what they went through, like SL, BoB, and Das Boot.

Looking forward to Pacific. I just hope it's done with the same quality as Brothers. My father served in WWII, Korea and Vietnam. All of his WWII time was in the Pacific so I'm really looking forward to this one.

I think there is a general consensus that the first thirty minutes of SPR was the only part of the movie that really matters.

I thought Apocalypse Now was WAY too overblown. Even more overblown than FMJ, if such a thing is possible.

As for We Were Soldiers, the only guy I liked was the Sergeant-Major. My Chief was almost exactly like that. Just a tough mother that did not take anything from anybody. He was a good drinker too. One night, I remember him getting so tossed, he jumped up on the table and solved all the military's problems including solutions such as killing the politicians, bitch slapping the commissioned officers, and for some reason, lawyers in general should have their arms cut off, and the entire Middle East, including Israel, should be bombed with B-52's and we should take all the oil for ourselves.

And when he was finished, we gave him a standing ovation.

Ah, good times in the Air Force.

Yeah the battle and the training period that led up to it took a heckuva lot longer that just 138 minutes too. At some point every film maker is forced to summarize events in order to tell the story. That doesn't make it propaganda though or you might as well add Das Boot and every other movie to that list too.

You really are a piece of work. :nope:

Its not about summarizing, to be anal its about making something last longer than it actually did. But most of all its about going over the top and making scenes that make people look away. I never said WWS is propaganda, I said its bad, its almost a caricature of war. It fails in some of the same areas as The Patriot. (Although it does not suck as wildly as that movie does)

My likes:

Das Boot
Stalingrad
Band of Brothers (really looking forward to the next one)
All the shooting in Saving Private Ryan
The Thin Red Line
Black Hawk Down (it has its moments)
Master and Commander :)

I think its time for a huge and expensive war drama from WW2 Africa. Imagine what they could do with the budget of those Transformers movies.

Not yet it airs this year though. I understand it was to have been aired here in 2009 but something in the deal between Seven Network here in Austraila with HBO in the US means that HBO gets it first in March 2010.

I'm looking forward to it as well. Quite big chunks of the production were filmed in Australia and it as part funded by Seven Network.