Pearl Harbor

[Wingnut_0]

Like I mentioned to my squad, all in all I came away liking the movie.  Some movies, like "Tora, Tora, Tora" can pull off a tense buildup, etc to action where as "Pearl Harbor" was more a story instead of history and you need a story to fit all the pieces together.

I grew up watching old blk and wht war movies, etc and I had more of a feel of those type of movies with this one.  So this will go next to my video collection of good classic movies.

Wingnut

[Nifty]

I enjoyed the movie myself, definite 4 outta 5.  Yeah, there were historical plane/ship inaccuracies, but for the most part, what percentage of people are going to pick up on it?  So the Spits had Hispanos?  The way I see it, we were lucky enough to see some Spits and 109's fly at all.  Maybe they just couldn't get their hands on some Spits that only had 303's.  In AH we run scenarios that sometimes we have to use the "wrong" plane, just because it's all we have to work with.  Maybe the same thing happened here.

Tho I agree with the dragging 3 bandits for the most part.  Though I've seen people drag gobs of fighters in AH and not get shot down for minutes!  

I guess my point was that I don't mind techie inaccuracies as much as historical ones.  To me, the movie made it look like Yamamoto (Mako rules by the way!) was the one that decided and pushed for the strike on Pearl.  I'm sure I've read that Yamamoto was strongly against the attack, but planned it out because he was a good soldier and did what his country asked of him.  That inaccuracy bothered me more than hispanos and 70's frigates!    Tho to be fair, Yamamoto did have a couple of lines where it showed he didn't really agree with the strike.

Yeah, the love story was predictable, but name me some movies that have love stories that are NOT predictable!

[Hajo]

take it for what it's worth, a vehicle for a hollywood studio to make money.  some of us would ppreciate a more factual account......some of us just want entertained.  to each his own.

[Twist]

Cheese and rice!!! toejamskull and Eblurt don't hold a candle to the critics here in AH!   I'm going to see it this week regardless of what I read or hear, I already know what really happened anyway. Sounds like both me and my wife will be entertained, that is the intent no?

[This message has been edited by Twist (edited 05-28-2001).]

[Naudet]

In Germany Pearl Harbour starts on 7th June so yet i only saw prewies etc.

1st to all that expect realism, guys this is a Hollywood movie, not a documentation. DOnt expect any realism in the flight scenes. Also dont wonder about all those "legends" implanted into the movie, about the 2 pilots and also about this black hero (Cuba Gooding Jr. is playing him) to appear. The USA have to celebrate their last generation that fought for freedom not for oil.

2nd to all that take this movie as historical acturate, "hello its a movie" its outta the dreamfactory and it produces the dreams needed at the moment. If u want real info about Pearl Harbour go and buy a couple of non-pro-US books and study the facts. There were a couple of US fighters that got airborne (5 if i remember right) but they were only involed in minor A2A combat, and not even came close to the main combat area, in the combat no kills (or max 1-2 were score). I think the movie will not show the Pearl Harbour commander in chief that stated "Pearl attack? Ridicolous" when he got the message that the Arizona had been sunk.


Movies will never tell the reality, and Hollywood mainstream production will for sure not show all the failures the USA made over their entire history. Fact is the winner writes the history and as we all know the USA won the 2nd world war, and so their legends will be shown in whatever WW2 movie comes outta the dream factory in Beverly Hills.

[Bodhi]

Naudet,

Considering the attack on PH happened on US soil, I highly doubt any other "after the fact" opinion is going to change.  As for the "so-called" legends you spoke of;

Cuba Gooding played the part of a black mess steward named Dory Miller.  Who took over a gun after it's gunner waskilled.  He was awarded the Navy Cross for his actions (two kills), and was killed two years later when the ship he was on was torpedoed by a Jap sub.

The two pilots that got aloft in the P-40's (romance not withstanding) were modeled after two pilots who happened to be out late drinking the night before, and who ran down a car driven by a civilian who took them to Hickam where they took off to fight the 2nd wave.  All told, the US accounted for 9 air to air victories that day.  The movie claimed 7, but again it is Hollywood.  The point here is that these people are not just ficticious characters, but are retells (with some embelishement) of actual exploits of the combatants present.  So please, research as much as you can before discounting these personages as mere American propaganda, it may surprise you.  

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Bodhi
-*Armageddon*-

[Skybax]

"Cuba Gooding played the part of a black mess steward named Dory Miller. Who took over a gun after it's gunner waskilled. He was awarded the Navy Cross for his actions (two kills), and was killed two years later when the ship he was on was torpedoed by a Jap sub."

yep..... and he also had a US Navy ship named after him.

"The two pilots that got aloft in the P-40's (romance not withstanding) were modeled after two pilots who happened to be out late drinking the night before, and who ran down a car driven by a civilian who took them to Hickam where they took off to fight the 2nd wave. All told, the US accounted for 9 air to air victories that day. The movie claimed 7, but again it is Hollywood. The point here is that these people are not just ficticious characters, but are retells (with some embelishement) of actual exploits of the combatants present. So please, research as much as you can before discounting these personages as mere American propaganda, it may surprise you."

yep..... well you got most of it right.

Lt.`s Ken Taylor & George Welch.

           

"He and Taylor were on their way. Running at full tilt, the two pilots piled into Taylor’s car. Racing for the base gate, they were strafed by a passing dive bomber. Once on the road to Haleiwa, Taylor drove at breakneck speeds, frequently pushing 100 mph, and covered the winding 16 miles of road in little more than 15 minutes. Sliding to a stop in a cloud of dust and gravel, both men raced to their P-40s, now warmed up and ready. Jumping into the cockpit, Welch listened as his crew chief said, “Lieutenant, we don’t have any .50 caliber ammo here. All that you’re gonna have is the .30s.” “Ok” said Welch, as he got his harness buckled. The crew chief continued, "We got word that we should disperse the planes, sir." "The hell with that", said Welch, "get off." The crew chief slid off the back of the wing and George pushed up the throttle and taxied to the narrow airstrip. Ignoring the usual pre-takeoff check-list, George slowly fed in full power and roared off the grass with Ken Taylor two minutes or so behind him."

They were able to land, re-fuel, re-arm, and take-off again for a second hop!!! But not without the Japanese trying to vulch them on their second attempt. Not only did they avoid getting vulched, they shot the vulcher down!!!

These 2 pilots shot down at least 6, if not 10 Japanese aircraft in 2 hops.

Read the story here:

 http://home.att.net/~historyzone/Welch1.html

Awesome story on Welch. Went on to get 4 more in a P-39 later in the war, and 8-9 more in a P-38. Was killed in Oct. 1954 flying a Super Sabre.

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Skybax
328th Fighter Squadron
352nd Fighter Group.com
Blue-Nosed Bastards of Bodney


[This message has been edited by Skybax (edited 05-28-2001).]

[Twist]

Thanks Skybax...enjoyed it.

[Bodhi]

Skybax,

Excellent article to accompany your post!  I was unaware that Welsh was one of the P-40 pilots.  Awesome research.

[GRUNHERZ]

This movie sucked!

It sucked as movie: Bad dialogue, bad plot, stupid story, no direction or focus, bad directing, bad production- all courtesy of Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer the brilliant folks who gave us such magnificent films as The Rock and the deep deep Armageddon. All Bay and Bruckhemer know how to do is pander to the lowest common denominator by dumbing down the story and characters and adding huge explosions, pointless souless sentimentalism, an overdone overly emotional score, and absolutely stupid slow motion "HERO" walking towards the camera shots.

Even the special effects were sub par, take a look at the Arizona explosion it looks nothing like the real thing, the real explosion was enormous while the movie one was a mere pop. Great parts of the real pearl harbor timeline were messed up and significant events alltogether ignored.

As far as characters go both the US and especially Japanese were such stupid cardboard people that nobody would give a damn if they died or not. Plus that stupid romance love triangle and the fake horny MTV nurses are simply soap opera garbage, again all pandering to the primitives and idiots, of which there are plantly in the USA these days.

Then the stupid dialogue like Ben Aflecks: "Im not anxious to die, Im anxious to matter". Im sure the retards this one was made for will find that a clever and meaningful line.....

Then this movie has no flow or scene developent. For example one post attack  scene ends, then we cut to Yamamoto and an aide somewhere on a ship.

The aide says: "Congratulations"

Yamamoto answers: "I fear all we have done is awaken a sleeping giant"

Thats it.
CUT! to next scene dealing with the stupid love story.

Not only did that idiot Bay remove half of Yamamotos real words, he made the whole scene meaningless and irrelevant by not developing it. Just two lines of dialoge
and cut to the shameless idiotic all-important love triangle.

Ugghhh, I hated this move Im really sick of such dumbed down unintelligent garbage.

Plus think of this it was rated PG13 to maximize profits, so all we get is ridiculos sanitized violence. Remember all those strafing zeroes. Well exactly what does a 20mm shell do to person. SPR showed it in its full horror, while in PH people just fall down.

Basically PH is a piece of toejam that doesnt doesnt take itself or the real PH attack seriously, but sees itself as a giant profit machine to draw money away from idiots and teenagers who want a giant videogame. This is no different than any other garbage that Bay and Bruckheimer made. Its a shame these two got their hands on 135 million Disney dollars to cheapen the December 7 attack and the deaths of 3000 Americans.

Im ashamed that I couldnt resist seeing this shameful monstrosity and contributed $7 bucks to this enterprise. I honestly feel that I never want to see this garbage again, ever.

Absolute garbage on the the lovel of "Battlefield Earth".....

If you still havent seen it please resist the temptation to do so even to see its faults, its really that bad and extremly tiring to watch as you wade through the roadkill.

[funked]

Yep it was a bloated rotting maggot-infested turd of a movie.  But it had Spitfires and Zekes and Mitchells.  

[Glasses]

I knew this would be an Armaggedon type cheesy special effects,no plot movie ...I was right I guess . I'll prolly rent it when it comes out on DVD.

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Glasses---I may have 4 eyes ,but you only have one wing.
9./Jg54

Besser tot als rot!

[funked]

Glasses that's a good move.  Rent it, fast forward until the guy arrives in England, watch it he's done there, then fast forward until you see Japanese planes taking off, watch it until they are done, then fast forward until you see Mitchells.

You'll still see plenty of historical inaccuracy and "Armageddon" style B.S., but at least you will be able to skip a lot of the worst stuff.




[This message has been edited by funked (edited 05-29-2001).]

[funked]

PS This isn't my line but it sums up about 2 hours of this godawful film:  "Snora! Snora! Snora!"

[Hangtime]

I kinda liked it. I was lookin around.. the young folks there were quite impressed... most folks get their history served up kinda dry w/o sauce in school.. this movie maybe; JUST MAYBE woke some young people up to what our nations mindset was.. attitudes and political/stategic dynamics were pretty close to dead on. Besides the examples above...

Roosevelt and his tounge lashing of the general staff. Complete w/ his climbing outta the wheelchair.. accurate. The Navy's original concept of the tokyo raid, in particular a sub driver commin up with the plan... true. The attack on the hospital.. true. The strafing of sailors in the water.. true. The sinking of the japanese sub at the harbor entrance.. yup. The admiral on the golf course.. right again. Doolitle's training of the buff pilots by example and refusing to stay on the carrier and lead that raid.. the broomstick guns, the panic lightening; the 10 cans of gas.... all true.

Not mentioned... after the tokyo raid the japenese slaughterd (no ... MURDERED in cold blood would be a more appropriate description) over 60 THOUSAND chinese from the provinces the raiders landed in.. for assisting the Americans.

Not true.. the Doolite raid went in singles.. no fuel to loiter after takeoff to form up. 5 japanese citys were hit, only 2 aircrews fell into japanese hands, one crew landed in russia, the rest in china. 67 men outta the 80 made it home. Finally; the Congressional Medal of Honor was pinned on Doolittle.. not Afflack. His words were "On behalf of the other raiders; I accept this honor..." just as he did in the movie.

For the most part, I thought it was a great history lesson, despite the sappy love story. The flying was about the best I've ever seen on film.. an outstanding meld of 'real' A/C, models, cinamatography magic and computers.. the film had me rootin fer the good guys, shoutin "YES!!!" when they whupped the vulchers.. WE all know P40's and their superbly dismal performance.. fact remains, only TWO planes really did get in the air, and they KICKED BUTT.

Anbody else spend the attack scene wondering when the B17's would show up??  

Anyway; if it gives some folks some flesh n' blood imagry that the cold dry histroy book lessons couldn't, and shows the folks the severity and scale of that hammer blow... it was a horrible thing.. all those sailors perishing, sealed in their ships..

Not mentioned: the fact that; as a result of the attack on and the utter destruction of the pacific fleet we lost every Marine on Wake Island and nearly every soldier in the Phillipines.. Corregidor; Baatan.. let alone the fall of Indochina, Singapore.. Over a Million civilians and various armed forces personnel perished at the hands of the japanese in the first 4 months of the war. A million. It still chills me. All because we lost that fleet.

Lest we forget... and WTG hollywood.

Hang