Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Sandman on April 06, 2003, 03:14:57 PM
-
This movie came up a few times on the Top 5 War movies thread.
Can someone explain it? I just didn't understand it and because of that, I didn't enjoy it.
thanx.
-
Did you see it in a theater or at home ?
I don't think the screenplay or the realisation was great but the "ambiance" was pretty good
-
I saw it at home.
-
I had to see it a few times before it made sense. I think its message wasn't to glorify the warriors, (as they were shown as normal people in abnormal situations) but to show how fluffied up war was/is.
-
When I've seen it a 1st in theather I thought it was great but at home before I got my new audio/video installation it was just average :(
-
Worst war movie ever made. Its simply one giant rhetorical question.
MiniD
-
Hated it!
I have bought some bad movies before but this one will never be in my collection.
-
What MiniD said, I hate it when they try to shove those down my throat...
-
It is a great movie of men at war. One of the best. Rethorical? Just the opposite.
-
Yea no wonder an italian likes it.. :D
An Italian infantry unit Somewhere in the North African Desert 1941.
Men its time to attack, charge!
Hey Vincenzo is it really moral to attack?
Probably not Salvatore, but I am more perplexed by the issue that our attack, if succesful, will glorifly war.
Ahh, good point - lets just sit here and wait for the british and surrender.
Yes lets do that, and give me some cappucino.
:)
-
I enjoyed the movie - but I see how many people might not.
First off, watch it a few times - once or twice isnt enough - youre missing too much.
Second, instead of trying to "figure the movie out" try and just take it in.
Third, dont watch the movie with the assumption thats its an anti-war film - its not.
As for the rhectorical question issue - I suppose you could see it that way - and its a bad point IMO if this is viewed as the message the writer is trying to get across.
The movie looses momentum from time to time with flashbacks of home, etc etc, but I enjoy the how the movie protrays, as was stated above, ordinary men in extraordinary situations. Its just a different slant on WWII - no glamour, no "good fight," no glorified deaths (except the last one), and no underlying point beneath it all. The watcher/reader is allowed to make his own analysis about what the movie is supposed to mean.
The charectar development is also intriguing. The most anti-war hippie nut case is the one that shows the most dedication and resolve under fire, the most "hardcore, kill em all" types and shown crying, etc etc.
Blah, blah, now Im rambling... sorry - worthless post.
Bottom line is that I dont think you can explain the film (or explain what it means to 'you.') without a 20 page essay. Its far too complex.
Just watch it with an open mind. Absorbe everything instead of trying to figure out what the message is - the movie draws out the emotion in you very well.
-
Thanks Saur... maybe I'll give it another go.
-
THIN RED LINE, THE: THE ABRIDGED SCRIPT™
By David Faulkner
FADE IN:
EXT. JUNGLE
Shot of leaves. Trees. A LIZARD. Birds. More trees. More leaves. Birds. Lizards. Etc.
AUDIENCE Wasn't this on PBS last night?
EXT. PEACEFUL NATIVE VILLAGE
JIM CAVIEZEL is AWOL (whatever that stands for) and hanging around with native people. It is very PEACEFUL and PLEASANT, even though they are PRIMITIVE. This is contrasted later with VIOLENT, UNPLEASANT, but supposedly CIVILIZED people fighting their war.
JIM CAVIEZEL I sure do like it here. This symbolizes the existential metaphysical being of the essence of the human condition...
A big sinister American ship shows up. JIM CAVIEZEL is taken on board.
INT. SHIP
The ship is very lifeless, claustraphobic, and sinister seeming. This is a sharp contrast from the wonderful natural world outside.
SEAN PENN You were AWOL again. Guess I'll make you a medic.
JIM CAVIEZEL A medic, symbolizing my role as a healer within this horror of warfare, the dualistic nature of the...
SEAN PENN Shut up.
EXT. SHIP
JOHN TRAVOLTA (with a silly looking) mustache) Wanna join the Church of Scientology?
NICK NOLTE Uh, no thanks. Oh, by the way, I'm a fanatical war-loving type of guy.
JOHN TRAVOLTA (not so subtly) Some people in wars do stupid things to try to increase their prestige and stab people in the back. I wonder if that is a foreshadowing. Oh, I'm only in this movie briefly as an awkward cameo.
EXT. JUNGLE
More trees and jungles. A simple native man looking for food walks by as the scared ****less American soldiers march through the jungle.
DIRECTOR TERRENCE MALICK It's symbolic!
Soldiers find a mutilated American soldier.
NICK NOLTE Damn Japs. Let's go shoot some of those yellow Nazi-loving evil squinty- eyed Japanese so they make TVs and Walkmans instead of trying to take over half the world. Har har har.
battle starts. JAPANESE SOLDIERS shoot at AMERICAN SOLDIERS.
NICK NOLTE stays a safe distance away.
NICK NOLTE (into radio) Go lose your life with a frontal assault on their base, even though you're outnumbered and being slaughtered, but I want to be a big war hero.
ELIAS KOTEAS (through radio) No, they'll all die.
NICK NOLTE Who cares, ****ing coward. God bless America.
AMERICAN SOLDIERS kill JAPANESE SOLDIERS in a bunker, take some captive. JAPANESE captives are all half- starved boys, trembling and praying in terror.
DIRECTOR TERRENCE MALICK See! They're not really faceless evil monsters!
STEVEN SPIELBERG Damn you, people might compare that to SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, where the EVIL GERMANS were just faceless EVIL NAZI enemies. Then again, people are idiots, so they probably won't.
Battle is over. AMERICANS beat crap out of JAPANESE prisoners, pull out their teeth, torture them, etc.
JIM CAVIEZEL War is bad, takes away people's humanity, the essence of their lives, ripped away, their souls torn as the very fabric of consciousness is torn with a barbaric blood lust, the transcendent flow of their being rippled across the jagged terrain of the symbolic human struggle...
JIM CAVIEZEL goes back to the native village, where he sees people arguing, children fighting, and a child dying from disease.
DIRECTOR TERRENCE MALICK You see, we idealize even nature, but in reality, there is no such thing as a perfect place. Get it?
AUDIENCE Duh...huh...what?
BEN CHAPLIN daydreams about fondling his wife.
BEN CHAPLIN My wife sure is hot, I can't wait till this war is over so I can go back and **** her. That's the only thing giving me hope to keep on going.
BEN CHAPLIN gets a letter from his WIFE, saying she fell in love with another man and wants a divorce.
BEN CHAPLIN Aww ****.
Suddenly, hordes of JAPANESE attack. People DIE. It is very SAD. The LIZARD that was shown in the beginning is DEAD.
DIRECTOR TERRENCE MALICK Get it? Isn't this deep and meaningful?
TEENAGE BOYS IN AUDIENCE What the ****'s he talkin' ÁÃout, yo? Let's see some Japanese bellybutton get kicked, otherwise they'll never become pacifists and just make consumer electronics, like my crappy SONY PLAYSTATION and my NINTENDO 64 that I waste vast amounts of time playing, when I'm not listening to music on my SONY DISCMAN or watching my SONY TELEVISION.
TEENAGE GIRLS IN AUDIENCE Where's MATT DAMON?! I thought he was supposed to be in this! He's SO CUTE, almost as cute as LEONARDO DICAPRIO.
WAR VETERANS IN AUDIENCE Damn, when I was in the war, I just remember wanting to go home alive. I guess I should've noticed all that symbolism and the philosophical side to it. Now where are my dentures?
STAUNCH REPUBLICANS IN AUDIENCE THIS MOVIE REALLY SHOWS WHY AMERICA RULES! USA IS THE BEST. WE HAVE THE BEST MILITARY IN THE WORLD, NOW WE RULE THE WORLD INSTEAD OF THOSE JAPANESE ****ERS! I CAN'T BELIEVE THOSE ****ING HIPPIES IN THE 60'S DIDN'T WANT TO GO INTO ANOTHER JUNGLE AND FIGHT MORE ASIAN PEOPLE FOR THEIR COUNTRY! GOD BLESS THE USA, THE LAND OF THE FREE!
CRITICS This movie sucks, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN was much better, because it had TOM HANKS, and WE LOVE TOM HANKS.
More leaves, trees, birds, etc.
FADE OUT:
GEORGE CLOONEY Hey, wait, let me make my cameo before you end!
GEORGE CLOONEY shows up for some unnecessary part tacked on the end.
END
-
lol where you find that, bro?
-
More fun reading at: http://www.capalert.com/capreports/thinredline99.htm
-
Originally posted by Rasker
lol where you find that, bro?
Copied from AGW.
I just tracked it down to.
http://ter.air0day.com/
There's a ton more. :D
-
never saw "the thin red line" the movie, i'm guessing it's another hollywood anti-war movie.
the only thing i know about the real "thin red line" is thats what they called the british troops in all the english colonies in the 19th century because the troops wore red coats and were spread thin and thats all that kept the barbarians out of the empire.
as in "all that protects the empire is the thin red line of british troops"
if that movie is about WW2 it should be called "the big green line" but thats not plagerisiam and no body would go see it and it would lose money.
-
LOL - am I the only one that liked this movie? (the 3rd time I saw it) :D
-
It was a horrible movie.
No offense to those who liked it, but did you REALLY like it? Or did you just like it because it was suppose to have some kind of deeper meaning.
It didn't have any deeper meaning, just lots of trees. Trees don't make a bad movie good.
Dingo
-
LOL! "You just didn't get it" is the battle cry for those who loved this movie. I got it. It sucked. Just getting it is not enough to make this movie good. Some people like that they got it. Good for them. It still sucked.
Watching it over and over is like trying to cut something again and again because you cut it to short and it just keeps getting shorter and shorter.
MiniD
-
What realy ticked me off was the "Off voice reading the letter", uhhhh...
-
Was a decent book, never saw the movie
-
One of the few movies that I got up and walked out of because it was so bad.
-
ROFLMFAO
-
I didnt like the Thin Red Line the first time around, but the next few times I learned to enjoy it.
The basis of the movie is this: The main character keeps questioning why he has to fight a war, especially in the serenity and peacefulness of a tropical jungle. What kind of god/creator would make men fight each other like this?
The main character doesn't want to fight, he just wants to enjoy life. But he ends up in the thick of it and dies.
-
Originally posted by GRUNHERZ
Yea no wonder an italian likes it.. :D
:)
Thank you Grun, you have reminded me again how badly trained, equipped and led into battle were those hundred thousands guys fighting to defend a crazy dictatorship they didnt believe in :rolleyes:
Hell, what am I doing, I'm teaching history to a wannabe Luftwaffe pilot in a thread about movies? ;)
-
I liked it and still do like it.
You enjoy movies more when you are not always desperately looking paranoically if the director has an agenda.
-
Originally posted by GRUNHERZ
Yea no wonder an italian likes it.. :D
An Italian infantry unit Somewhere in the North African Desert 1941.
Men its time to attack, charge!
Hey Vincenzo is it really moral to attack?
Probably not Salvatore, but I am more perplexed by the issue that our attack, if succesful, will glorifly war.
Ahh, good point - lets just sit here and wait for the british and surrender.
Yes lets do that, and give me some cappucino.
:)
The real think, sadly, would have been as follow:
An Italian infantry unit Somewhere in the North African Desert 1941.
After a 50 Km march (no trucks), the officer orders: Time to attack men!!
Sergeant: Sir, the men are tired, we have no water and just one clip per man, no machine gun ammo, no mortars, are you sure you want we attack?
Officer: Baionets on, pick the clips from the deads, or launch stones, but attack now.
Sergeant: Yes sir.
(After the Brens fire and the light armoured vehicles have taken their toll)
Sergeant: Sir we are without ammo and under heavy fire!
Officer: Ok, sergeant, let's let the men drink, eat and rest, we surrender, to hell Mussolini and it's like!
:)
-
Yeah to hell with Mussolini, he was Hitler's moron lapdog.
Thats the last guy I would die for, even worse than Hussein and Bush.
-
I liked it and ended up buying the DVD.
-
didn't like it first time, liked it very much the second.
I guess it's a question of your expectations from the movie.
If you expecting Saving Private Ryan, you'll be disappointed.
It's a different war movie.
Hey Puke, did you serve with VF 143 ?
-
Originally posted by Animal
I liked it and still do like it.
You enjoy movies more when you are not always desperately looking paranoically if the director has an agenda.
Well said.
-
hated it.
Ya know..... If you need to see a movie 3 times to "get it" something is wrong with the movie!
-
Originally posted by Saurdaukar
LOL - am I the only one that liked this movie? (the 3rd time I saw it) :D
No your not.
Took me also 3 or 4 times until I liked it.
-
Enjoyed the book
Hated the film first time I saw it - not what I expected at all. Seemed like a long thin but not red line. Dinnae seem to be held together.
Watched it for a third time last month. Great movie.
One just have to drop ones preconceived notions of what a war flick is to be about to enjoy this film.
Saving private Ryan was a big Hero USA patriotism overly romaticized war films that was absolutely great. Thin Red Line beats it because it seems closer to reality.