I love WW2 movies -But I am having a tough time deciding to pay the $ to see the Midway movie in the theater when I have a pretty good idea it will be the second coming of the Pearl Harbor movie... Or is the only redeeming quality seeing some of the scenes on the big screen (ala, Pearl Harbor again).
Anyone see it and have any feedback?
I have not seen it. It's supposed to be a bit overdone. It clearly has some inaccuracies.
It should, at least, be visually interesting, so good to see on a big screen. Go in with low expectations.
The original Midway movie clearly had some visual effect issues... so there's that.
The commercials were enough evidence for me. Go back and watch the very good 1976 version.
The sad thing is, the whole battle is dramatic as it happened. Embellishments are not needed.
I honestly can't tell you the last time I've been to a movie theater or sat down and willingly paid for a movie.
Movies these days to me are complete trash and I'd rather throw my money at other trash.
I'm torn. Not because that I expect the movie to be good- on the contrary- I think it will be bad.
But watching some historians discuss the trailer, there are actually scenes that are shown accurately, as re-interpreted learning new info about the battle. The thing that was specifically noted that the Japanese carriers were not bombed with planes all over the flight deck- that didn't happen. So I'm interested, at least.
I went and saw JoJo Rabbit and really liked it. Its not your typical WW2 movie but it is funny and has a good message.
I heard that it didn't get way off plot (unlike Pearl Harbor where they go up in a pair of P-40s and are shooting down Zeros left and right) but that it just plays out like watching the Wikipedia entry. There's no real depth to it or insight into any of the people involved, the characters are all pretty shallow and 2-dimensional, and it doesn't chart any new territory. I'm curious if it gives any coverage to the poor bastards who flew Devastators pretty much knowing that they weren't coming back.
Aaron_King said:I went and saw JoJo Rabbit and really liked it. Its not your typical WW2 movie but it is funny and has a good message.
Yeah, I saw that one.
One of my observations is not something you wouldn't expect to hear:
Hitler was pretty funny
NickD said:... I'm curious if it gives any coverage to the poor bastards who flew Devastators pretty much knowing that they weren't coming back.
It pretty much HAS to. That IS a critical aspect of the pivital part of the whole battle!!!!
(in a previous post, someone posted a picture of a Devastator fusalage mock up they used to shoot close ups of the crews)
aircooled said:NickD said:... I'm curious if it gives any coverage to the poor bastards who flew Devastators pretty much knowing that they weren't coming back.
It pretty much HAS to. That IS a critical aspect of the pivital part of the whole battle!!!!
(in a previous post, someone posted a picture of a Devastator fusalage mock up they used to shoot close ups of the crews)
Never underestimate Hollywood's ability to screw up history.
We went and saw it yesterday. The first problem they have with it is that the Battle of Midway itself makes little sense and isn't a very compelling story without a decent amount of context. And most of the context required to understand it isn't as well known. Pearl Harbor is pretty easy to catch people up on what with December 7th, 1941 living in infamy. They need to give you a history lesson and they don't have all day to do so, which makes the first half of the movie a little bit disjointed with lots of characters getting introduced and lots of background getting pushed your way. Think of it like History 101 taught by the Micro Machines Man, right? Or maybe Johnny from Airplane! explaining everything that's happened up to now.
The next problem is that they had to squeeze in the Doolittle Raiders, because that's part of why the Japanese felt they needed to launch their attack, but they spent way too much time on it. I can only surmise it is because of all the Chinese money that was poured into the film. I have a sub-rant about how having a movie about American military history being made with Chinese money being analogous to Harbor Freight putting out a Veteran's Day coupon for their Chinese-made American flags, but that's a different show.
The biggest problem through all that, though, is that they spent all their (Chinese) money on some pretty amazing visual effects but when it came to writing the dialogue, they only had enough money left over to hire the writing team that brought you classics like Your Local Car Dealer's Overnight TV Ads. I believe the last line of the movie is literally (spoiler alert for those of you that got in F in history and do not realize that we're not speaking Japanese in America at this point) "We won".
But.... Go see it. Understand that it isn't a Military History Epic worthy of the ages like Saving Private Ryan or Blackhawk Down or We Were Soldiers or, hell, even The Siege of Jadotville. But even though it isn't that, you still get a sense for what it must have been like for the pilots and the sailors. Watching the pilots entering their dive bombing runs with the flak cannons firing directly at them, other planes getting hit and breaking up around them, and then trying to land their bombs on their target. The reality of looking around the room between sorties and seeing half the faces missing. They didn't call out the fact that the European side of the war was getting all the Good Stuff, including the newer and better planes (primarily because we didn't think that the Japanese were capable of building or inventing anything and that all they could do was make low-quality copies of things that white people invented), but they did capture the feeling of unpreparedness that must have permeated the theater in those early days since it was a whole new type of warfare.
Maybe it's just because I enjoy 20th century military history, but even with its problems I don't regret paying a couple bucks to go see it. And if you enjoy the topic and want to know way more than you ever wanted to about the whole lead-up to the war in the Pacific, check out Dan Carlin's Supernova in the East. Part 3 dropped about a month ago, so if you have about 14 hours to spare, it's a great listen.
wae said:...Watching the pilots entering their dive bombing runs with the flak cannons firing directly at them, other planes getting hit and breaking up around them, and then trying to land their bombs on their target....
...and this is one of the easily fixed issue I have with it. Dive bomber did not dive in mass (as shown in the trailer), they dived a few seconds apart (clearly you don't want a bunch of planes right next to each other diving for the same spot). Also, one of the issue with he Japanese carries is that their AA guns could not elevate enough to shoot at dive bombers. THIS COULD EASILY BE PORTRAYED ACCURACTLY, and it would just as, or more dramatic. It took me a grand total of about 10 minutes to research the above!!!
As an interesting side note. The Dauntless was a more accurate dive bomber then the Val or Stuka becaue of it's split dive brakes. The split brakes destroyed much of the lift from the wings and allowed he plane to dive at a much steeper effective angle (80+ as opposed 70 is degress). Think about it. Plane flies straight down, wings still create lift, move plane upward (forward) making for a lesser angle. The forward motion was probably somewhat useful for tracking a moving ship though, so a true 90 for a navy plane might not be ideal.
Here's a quick idea: Make the movie about Torpedo 8. Clip in the rest of the battle / situation as thier story is told but concentrate on the personalities in the squadron.
I saw it last week. It's OK. Story-wise, it's much like a 60s-70s war movie in that there's a huge cast with many well-known actors, but you don't get to know anyone all that well. I'm pretty familiar with the battle and the planes and everything, and it was pretty accurate, especially by Hollywood standards. T
The battle of Midway itself is the dramatic conclusion, but really the story is of the first six months of the war from the perspective of the Enterprise and her pilots. I think that's why they covered the Doolittle raid in some detail, but barely mention Coral Sea, though they do talk about the miracle repairs to Yorktown that allowed her to be present at Midway. Another thing that bugged me is that Bill Halsey plays a fairly major role in the movie and is played by Dennis Quaid, whereas Ray Spruance, who was actually in command at Midway, is barely mentioned and played by some nobody.
Honestly, the biggest issue I had is that the CGI is kind of crap by modern standards. It's not terrible, but compared to most big-budget blockbusters, it's not very good.
Overall, see it if you're as big a naval history nerd as I am, but if not, skip it and wait for home video.
By the way, my unpopular opinion is that the 1976 movie isn't that great. I loved it as a kid, but watching it with modern eyes, there's too much love-story fluff and a huge overreliance on stock footage.
Tom_Spangler said:By the way, my unpopular opinion is that the 1976 movie isn't that great.
But... but... but:
Netflix has a "World War II in Color" series right now and I watched the Midway episode last night. I found it interesting and didn't have to leave the house.
I'm waiting patiently for the Part 2 of the Montemayor YouTube video on Midway... His video and detail on Pearl Harbor and Coral Sea are very well done.
The CGI for the bigger things was horrible. I can't wait to see how bad it will look on TV.
Every character had to have a "memorable, quotable" line to say on the order of "I'll be back!"
It made many parts that were meant to be serious very funny as we all wondered what they could say to ruin the moment. There was laughter from all over the theater which would have been good if they'd advertised it as Camp.
You can understand why they had to use the gimmick of releasing it on Veterans Day in a vain attempt to get sales.
FuzzWuzzy said:I honestly can't tell you the last time I've been to a movie theater or sat down and willingly paid for a movie.
I can tell you when it was for me...when the World's Fastest Indian came out in 2006.
Never Forget...
Never remember...
Hmmmm . . . I was planning to take my son on Monday, but snowpacalypse kept us home-bound. Maybe we didn't miss anything.
NickD said:I heard that it didn't get way off plot (unlike Pearl Harbor where they go up in a pair of P-40s and are shooting down Zeros left and right) but that it just plays out like watching the Wikipedia entry. There's no real depth to it or insight into any of the people involved, the characters are all pretty shallow and 2-dimensional, and it doesn't chart any new territory. I'm curious if it gives any coverage to the poor bastards who flew Devastators pretty much knowing that they weren't coming back.
That is pretty much how ToraToraTora was, which is fine, because that is exactly what this kind of movie should be like.
Disclaimer: Have not seen the 1976 movie. Do want to.
Old_Town said:I'm waiting patiently for the Part 2 of the Montemayor YouTube video on Midway... His video and detail on Pearl Harbor and Coral Sea are very well done.
You too?
I saw Part 1 the day it came out as a recommended video, never having seen his channel before.
A month later, realized his channel was not the type to update every week.
slefain said:Netflix has a "World War II in Color" series right now and I watched the Midway episode last night. I found it interesting and didn't have to leave the house.
Yes! The Netflick version does a great job of setting up the background and exactly how the battle was fought.
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