Where's The Definitive "Fleet Boat" Movie?

[Schnee]

We all know about "Das Boot" - thats said to be the sub movie yardstick - all others are judged against it.

But the Silent Service in WWII had its share of thrills, chills and bravery. How come we have never seen anything in the movies resembling the definitive American sub movie?

[joea]

Becasue Hollywood made most of them.

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by joea

Becasue Hollywood made most of them.

I don't know if modern hollywood could make a good sub movie.

If I had to recommend one, I'd say "Run Silent, Run Deep."

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by Schnee

We all know about "Das Boot" - thats said to be the sub movie yardstick - all others are judged against it.

But the Silent Service in WWII had its share of thrills, chills and bravery. How come we have never seen anything in the movies resembling the definitive American sub movie?

Das Boot is good drama but lousy submarine material. It would lead you to believe that the main character's purpose is to sit there during an attack and look miserable, brooding about impending doom. It would have you believe that there were no evasion strategies at all, you just sat there waiting to be blown to oblivion; that destroyers come from nowhere and their first depth charge is laser guided. There is no approach strategy at all. Suddenly the ships are all arrayed around you except the destroyer that beams down from the Starship Enterprise to kill you. You learn very little about how to run a U-boat from the movie. I recall the book is somewhat better in that regard. But the primary dramatic device of the movie is to conceal information from the viewer which would not be concealed in real life and then use it to shock you with, just like the hokey sudden loud noise startle soundtracks in horror movies. You feel like a fool when they make you jump.

Das Boot is primarily a study of suffering and secondarily about U-boats. I was much less impressed with it when I watched a few weeks ago than I was when I watched it in ignorance 20 years ago. I guess my SH3 and reading experience spoiled the movie for me, revealing its true character as an updated Steppenwolf.

I have not seen "Run Silent, Run Deep" the movie, but have read the series of books. They are a graduate course in the theory and practice of submarine warfare in the Pacific, with plenty of good drama thrown in to keep it all relevent. Potentially, a movie based on any of the three books could be the true definitive sub movie.

The German side cries for someone to portray the German submariner as the non-wussified man he was, confident that he had the bag of tricks to deal with whatever adversity might come his way, realistically knowing that luck may turn against him, but undaunted nonetheless. That was the true character of the German submarine force.

But I agree about hollywood. They can't resist ruining a good story.

[Sailor Steve]

What I like about Das Boot: the feel of being inside the tiny, cramped hull of the u-boat. Other than that, Rockin Robbins' scathing indictment is really pretty much spot-on. I love the movie, but I wouldn't hold it up as a shining example of a realistic view of submarine warfare.

While it does have a good amount of interpersonal conflict and drama, Run Silent, Run Deep is a fairly typical rah-rah beat-the-evil-Japs movie from the period, even though it was made well after the war. I've never read the book(s), but from all I've heard the movie wanders a long way from its source material. I can't think of any U.S.-made sub movies that actually show tactical doctrine as it was, so I guess overall we're pretty much batting zero.

[Torplexed]

Yeah...if the most recent Hollywood take (the 2002 movie Below) is any indication we're never gonna see a definitive fleet boat movie. Just the exploit-the-submarine-clichés kind.

[jdkbph]

Originally Posted by joea

Becasue Hollywood made most of them.

Truth.

The war and historical operations simply weren't dramatic or exciting or emotional or poignant or <insert other appropriate adjectives here> enough for the American movie-going public. Therefore, were Hollywood to do a WWII sub ops movie, they - in their infinite wisdom - would most likely have to do a complete rewrite to make it better than it actually was.

Those geniuses who know what we want better than we ourselves have a long history of improving on reality and/or original works. Apollo 13, Lord of the Rings, I Robot, U571, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, Beowolf, Dune, Great Expectations, etc., etc. etc., ad nauseum, are a few examples.

So I, for one, would not expect much on this score.

JD

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by jdkbph

Truth.

The war and historical operations simply weren't dramatic or exciting or emotional or poignant or <insert other appropriate adjectives here> enough for the American movie-going public.........

Stop right there!!! Them's fightin' words! The American movie-going public has nothing to do with it because we only get to see what gets produced. Hollywood has no clue what we'd go see.

The fact is that Hollywood in its benificence deemed that the war and historical operations weren't <insert appropriate adjective(s)> for THEM. After all, THEY are professionals who DETERMINE what <insert appropriate adjective(s)> IS. The American public is far too simple and unlightened to know what <insert appropriate adjective(s)> is, and the rest of the world is more ignorant than THAT. Were it not for Hollywood's superior knowledge, compassion, benificense (choose the spelling of your choice) and darn it, just all around good-guyness, we would be deprived of all meaningul life experience whatever.

And now you know the truth. Nothing is meaninful, dramatic, exciting or even mildly interesting unless Hollywood says it is.:rotfl:

[jdkbph]

Uhhh... just so we're all on the same page and no one misinterprets any of this...

Tongue was firmly in cheek when I (mis)directed blame for this sad state of affairs.

JD (American movie goer)

[Rockin Robbins]

And your <insert appropriate adjective(s)> was genius! Why do you think I overused it without mercy!:rotfl:

[Wilcke]

RR,

Felt the same way about Das Boot(Directors Cut) ; then watched the 5 hour mini-series, much better continuity, more DD evasion, more sub tactics, balancing the dramatics. Plus the sub-titles were different and made more sense! A must see!

[mookiemookie]

I think they had to omit a lot of the mundane evasion and approach stuff in Das Boot as it wasn't really integral to the story of the movie. Was it done in a real submarine? Sure. Would it make for good storytelling? Probably not. The movie was already 5 hours long...to add that stuff in would bore an audience to tears. Of course a Subsim audience would eat it up, but we're a very small minority.

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

Das Boot is primarily a study of suffering and secondarily about U-boats.

I look at it slightly different. I see it as a study of suffering set in a U-boat frame. Remember, the purpose of the movie was to tell the story of the men on the boat, not to be a visual documentary of how a German U-boat operated. I can't fault Petersen for omitting that in order to get to the meat of the story.

[Peto]

I watched Das Boot with a WWII Subvet (American) and he said:

1. Depicts boredom very well

2. Captures the excitement/pucker factor of an attack very well (he said the lookout that didn't see the destroyer in the convoy attack sooner should have been thrown overboard)

3. The depth charges going off like they did in the movie were all way too close and sank too fast. They didn't depict a pattern well where they get closer and then Are Close, and then farther away. He also didn't like the depth charge explosions--"not at all how they sound".

4. He didn't like all the noise the crew made when they were under attack. In reality, submariners took the beating without yelling even when damaged. They were too close to panic in his opinion.

5. He liked the storm. Reminded him of a Typhoon he went through.

But he did like the movie, mostly for the portrayal of living with complete boredom to the extreme of complete terror--all happening in a very short time. He said Peterson got that right.

[Rose]

^^ Thanks for sharing that, Peto, some really interesting stuff there .

[tater]

Das Boot suffers from its German origin, just as Hollywood movies suffer from their origin. Das Boot and Stalingrad are cut for the same cloth. Both go to great pains to constantly hammer into the viewer that the protagonists hate their evil masters. seems to me if that feeling was so common, they would have ended the war themselves far sooner. It's kind of like the ffrench making it look like everyone was in the resistance when the reality was a vanishingly small fraction of people.

Movie makers are not representative of the viewers always (usually?).

I agree that Hollywood is likely incapable of making a good Fleet Boat movie these days. At the very least they'd need to find a way of making the USN look bad (along with hamfisted nods at current events) for them to be interested.