What do you think of war films?

For example what are your favourites, and which ones don't you like much?
And are there any in which you think the tactics and strategy didn't ring true?
One of my favourites is 'The Bridge at Remagen' starring George Segal as Lt Hartman, his tired war-weary performance is absolutely rivetting.
Near the end, Maj. Barnes (Bradford Dillman) orders Segal to charge across the bridge with his platoon in a near-suicidal assault, and naturally they're not keen to go, but they go in the end while Barnes stays back in safety.
This raises a couple of questions-
1- In real life does a subordinate have the moral right to refuse to carry out an order that he doesn't agree with?
2- If you were Maj. Barnes would you have led the assault across the bridge yourself?

 

I'm not familiar with the movie but:

1. no
2. no

 

Not familiar with the movie in question. I watch war movies from time to time. The answer to the questions are 1) no and 2) Doubt it. Majors tend to need to be in the rear with the gear.

 

Most war films are bull **** and the Hollywood left rarely gets it right.

Most war movies are historically incorrect. You also don't experience what combat is really like on the big screen and you have no conception of the smells the heat or cold, humidity, the over pressure of explosives, etc. etc. One can not experience sleep deprtivation while watching a movie.

What did a base camp smell like in Vietnam ? hundred degrees heat with 90% humidity and add the smells of diesel fuel, JP jet fumes, rotting vegetation, feces, body order and brewing coffee along with freaking big rats, and an occasional cobra, python and pit viper.

Captain Dale Dye is probably the best military adviser for Hollywood in the business today. http://www.warriorsinc.com/ ( Saving Private Ryan; Band of Brothers; The Pacific; The Thin Red Line; Forest Gump; Platoon; Casualties of War; Born on the Fourth of July...)

Capt. Dye said it's pretty hard working with liberals when making a war movie. Liberals rarely listen to the experts or those who been there and done that.

There's a book out there that actually rates war movies on accuracy, being historically correct, getting the weapons, uniforms and language correct. Forget the title of the book.

During WW ll most war movies made during WW ll were propaganda movies. But one movie rated as being the most historically correct WW ll movie was based upon Richard Tregaskis book, "Guadalcanal Diary."



My opinion as the best war movies...

Best WW l movie:"What Price Glory."

Best WW ll movie: "Mister Roberts"

Best Korean War movie: "Retreat Hell"

Best Vietnam War movie: (It hasn't been made yet)

Best Cold War movie: "Dr. Strangelove"

 

I have never been to war so I can't attest to how "real" any movie might be, but then again a movie isn't a documentary.

War movies I liked a lot

Paths of Glory - WW1 french unit charged with cowardice for refusing to go "over the top". Kirk Douglas, Adolph Menjou - a movie precisely about the OP questions.
Saving Private Ryan - as nightmare said, those Omaha beach scenes were incredible.
The Bridge - german ww2 flick about a bunch of conscripted junior highschool students defending their village's bridge against the advancing americans.
Apocalypse Now - peaking on acid in the middle of a fire fight at night on a boat. Insanity now should have been the title.

And my guilty pleasure - The dirty dozen, cause I love lee marvin.

 

I don't watch many more than once, even as a kid I didn't care for them. I did like parts of Saving Private Ryan, and watched most of Band of Brothers, and I liked All Quiet on the Western Front, the version with Ernest Borgnine as the German sergeant trying to teach his squad how to stay alive in the trenches. I haven't watched any of them twice, though I do have the Band of Brothers soundtrack on CD, it's one of the better movie soundtracks ever. I would much rather watch military history documentaries with real footage than a fiction film; the former make the latter look pretty stupid and dumb.

I was never affected by fear 'in the moment' in the least, even as a kid, but I get the uncontrollable shakes afterwards, big time, sometimes for several minutes. Been that way my entire life, and so have my brothers and uncles, so it must run in genes or something.

 

I thought Mel GIbson's "We Were Soldiers" is a decent Vietnam War film.

I'd say "Fail Safe" is the best Cold War movie, although Dr. Strangelove is a great parody of Fail-Safe.

Don't care for "Mr. Roberts" personally. Das Boot is a good WW2 movie, but there are hundreds of good WWII movies. The Longest Day has it's strong and weak points.

Can't think of a WW1 movie offhand.

 

"We Were Soldiers" was pretty good. One thing they got right was the flash suppressors on the M-16's were many Vietnam War movies get it wrong. The Battle of the Ia Dran Valley took place in 1965 and all M-16's in the Nam still had the three prong flash suppressors. The bird cage flash suppressors didn't start appearing until late 66. So they got that right.

In one scene there's a couple of Huey Hog's gunships (UH-1C) There were no Huey gunships in Vietnam during 1965.

In the book "We Were Soldiers..." Col.Moore said it was USAF Douglas A-1 Skyraiders that prepped the LZ by bombing and strafing the LZ. In the movie you saw Huey gunships prepping the LZ.

"Fail Safe" is up there as one of the best Cold War movies.

trivia:

Have you ever watched "Johnny Got His Gun" ?

It's a WW l movie but has to be the strangest war movie ever produced.

 

I prefer realism in my war movies. Sure the story in Saving Private Ryan is fictional and loosely based upon the Sullivan brothers (if memory serves me correctly), but when I watched some WWII vets critique the move on the History Channel while they watched it, they said it was as authentic as a movie could get in recreating the Normandy landing. Their only gripe was in the scene where the soldiers silhouetted themselves on a hill at night which the vets said that they would never had done in a combat situation. They also said the sound that the Panther tanks made was spot on and raised the hair on the back of their neck!

 

Firefights vary in my opinion. They are an "OH ****" type of situation most of the time. Depends on how you get yourself into the firefight that determines whether or not it's terrifying, or in some cases, fun (depending on your personality).

Our company had total control of this hilltop for a week. We were being engaged from below on our last day there. Aiming that .50 cal and making it rain was a cool moment for me. Probably not so much for them. Adrenaline was popping off and I was screaming "WOOOOOOO". I mean, that's why I was an 11bangbang in the first place.

That was an instance where I felt like they had no chance to hit me and we were in control.

Instances of actual battles where it's anyone's game...yea, that's an "OH ****" situation. That's the kind of thing that is impossible to forget. I have NO idea how I would have responded landing on Omaha beach.

 

Which brings up the most historically incorrect and politically correct WW ll movie every produced, "Pearl Harbor." < http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0213149/ >

You can list over a hundred flaws in the movie.

Just 3 hours of political correctness, revisionist history and total bull ****.

Feel free to add to the list.

Not one person is seen smoking a cigarette.

No freaking way in 1941 would Army Air Corps pilots be taking a medical physical at a U.S. Navy hospital.

No Army personnel who were on Hawaii on Dec. 7th, 1941 took part in the Doolittle Tokyo Raid.

No American who volunteered for the RAF "Eagle Squadron" showed up in the UK wearing the U.S. Army uniform.

There's more.

 

My guilty pleasure,
Zulu
The Welsh singing Men of Harlech gets me every time. Pure theatre but great.

Dropships sergeant has some great lines,
When asked by a young lad "why us sarge" "cause your here lad, cause your here"

 

That was a pretty good war movie.

 

Ya, then there was a John Wayne movie where he hits the beach of Normandy looking fresh as a daisy, unburdened by equipment, and trotting down the beach like he was out for a leisurely stroll on a southern California beach.

 

Tora Tora Tora was quite good.

Troy was good too.

Good here having the meaning of very accurate and dramatic at the same time.

 

I also liked Fury but because it gave a rendition of my father's life during WW2 starting on Utah Beach with his own tank.

 

All riveting movies, yes.

 

The 'Nam movies have taught me that it sucks being on the defensive, like the US was during that conflict.

If you are going to invade someplace, then hit the beach and kill and burn down everything in your way, then push your battle front all across it until you reach the other side, which in the case of Viet Nam would have been Beijing.

Of course this is also what MacArthur wanted to do in Korea, although Truman disagreed.

 

The ancient Greeks invented drama to both entertain and move us in many ways.

The best thing war movies can do is teach you what others have gone through before you and help you answer the question what would you do and are you man enough to get it done.

 

My dad was a tank officer, first lieutenant, during WW2. I decided long ago that I did not want to be cooped up in a noisy slow metal box that anyone could hear coming a mile away.

They make them faster now.

But I still prefer to be the boots on the ground.

When I went in I did not want no teenaged queen, I just wanted my M-14.

 

CRUSH and BOLT. (Go in kick butt big time so they don't forget then BOLT (leave.) No nation building bull ****.

Former President Eisenhower warned President Kennedy more than a few times.

Do not get involved with the Diem regime in the RVN, it's to corrupt.

Do not make your stand against communist expansion in Southeast Asia at the 17th parallel !

In one of Eisenhower's last conversations with JFK he warned JFK if you ignore my warnings and find yourself in a shooting war in South Vietnam, it has to be fought as total war.

 

I thought "We Were Soldiers" was very well done.

But the most impactful war movie for me was "Saving Private Ryan". The first time I saw it, I had gone into the theater with almost no knowledge about the movie. I just knew it was about WW2, and I had heard that the beach landing scene was very graphic. That's it. So in the opening scene, an old man is walking into the cemetery. I didn't know it was Private Ryan. I just assumed it was somebody connected to the story. He stops among the grave markers and stares into his memories, and the movie transitions to the Omaha beach landing.

To tell you the truth, the movie was so intense that by the time the final battle was over, and Cpt Miller had died, I had completely forgotten about the opening scene. And as Private Ryan looks down upon the fallen Captain Miller, his face transitions into the face of the old man at the cemetery.

And when the now elderly Private Ryan looks at his wife and says, "Tell me I have lived a good life. Tell me I'm a good man", the whole purpose of the story became crystal clear to me. And I'm going to have to admit that I couldn't stop myself from shedding tears right there in the theater. Not much gets to me, but that got to me.

When the movie came out in 1998, my son was 13 years old. Little did I know that nine years later my son would be wounded and almost die on some faraway battlefield. This movie has special meaning to me because today my son is Private Ryan. He is living well, never forgetting the sacrifices of others he fought with.

God bless our troops.



Seth

 

Ha! "Jody" was going to get her anyway ....

 

Nobody liked Bat-21, with Gene Hackman and Jerry Reed? The photography was pretty good, though it wasn't filmed in Nam.