Midway (Nov 2019)

[wood 11227]

1 hour ago, Macanudo said:

I said it before and I'll say it again....  They fucked up by not making this a mini-series.  Could have opened with Pearl, done an episode on Coral Sea, emphasized the code breaking and getting Yorktown back out to sea.  The lead up to the battle on June 3 and the climax with the actual fight.  Skip all the wife bullshit and that crap.  

The movie was just shitty as is.  There was no reason to have the Roy Pearce storyline and the Doolittle raid wasn't worth the mention either.  When Dixon calls Best on deck to see Doolittle's B-25s was just  laughable.  It's not like they had been in the hangar the whole voyage.

And Best dropping his bomb dead center on the Rising Sun of the Hiryun? Bwahahaha.  At that altitude the bomb would have probably skidded right off.  And it's really not even known if Best hit the Hiryu.  Now, the dude had giant brass balls. Dont get me wrong.

But the movie was shit.

Oh, and STILL think Carriers should be named Yorktown, Lexington, Hornet, Saratoga, Ranger, Essex, Intrepid and Wasp, Enterprise (yes, I know Ford class CVN named that is coming). I'm ok with Nimitz and there should have been a Halsey and a Spruance. 

Now get off my lawn.

Couldn't agree more, re: the movie & re: the carrier names. My pop did two tours on the Big E during Vietnam, and was shaking down the Nimitz when he retired... /csb

[TwiceHorn 31509]

Well, Spruance did get a whole class of destroyers named after him, as well as a Burke class.

And Halsey got a cruiser and a Burke class.

We should start a Trump class of garbage scow.

[atomheartbevo 89735]

On 8/20/2020 at 9:17 AM, Hagbard Celine said:

may i again recommend james bowen's web 1.0 html3 artifact frozen in time in 2009.....

it's only a matter of time before this massive historical treasure trove disappears down the memory hole....

Archive.org/Wayback Machine has it archived fully.

[atomheartbevo 89735]

2 hours ago, Macanudo said:

I said it before and I'll say it again....  They fucked up by not making this a mini-series.  Could have opened with Pearl, done an episode on Coral Sea, emphasized the code breaking and getting Yorktown back out to sea.  The lead up to the battle on June 3 and the climax with the actual fight.  Skip all the wife bullshit and that crap.  

Hanks/Spielberg/Howard are making an 8th Air Force series for HBO, and if it does well, would be fantastic to do a Pacific War series.

[Macanudo 12994]

9 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Hanks/Spielberg/Howard are making an 8th Air Force series for HBO, and if it does well, would be fantastic to do a Pacific War series.

I don't know that a series on the whole Pacific War is doable or even interesting enough for other than WWII junkies.    The naval side definitely but slogging from island to island fighting pretty much the same kind of battle time after time doesn't really do it for most people.   I think that's why the Pacific one done based on Sledge's book isn't looked at like Band of Brothers is.

But back this up and you have the Marshalls raids, Coral Sea, Iron Bottom Sound/general naval fights around Guadalcanal, Midway, Marshalls/Gilberts again, Philippine Sea then Leyte Gulf (and give the Last of the Tin Can Sailors their due while talking about Halsey's wild goose chase.)   Book end it with Pearl,  Repulse and Prince of Wales getting sunk (and how that scared the shit out of the British), the ABDA disasters, PT Boats in the Philippines (BUT DO NOT TALK ABOUT THAT ASSHOLE McCARTHUR!!!) as the prelude to all of it and end it with sitting in Tokyo Bay on the Mighty Mo as the surrender is made official.   Toss in the USS Indianapolis and run it during Shark Week. 

There's all sorts of room to talk about torpedo problems, aircraft development/improvements, commanders (explaining the shift back and forth between Halsey and Spruance, etc.) and awesomely brave but possibly reckless stuff like Mitscher turning on the lights at the Philippine Sea.  Skip ANYTHING home front related.   Showing us momma back home worried about Sonny on his destroyer is worthless.   We don't need to see Flyboy's wife at Pearl worried about her handsome man.  Besides, by 1943, there were not a whole lot of dependents left on Oahu.   It was easy for the Navy to let officers bring families with them when there were only 3-4 carriers at a time operating in the Pacific.  By the end of 1943 there where 50 plus carriers, escort or fleet.   Most of those were based in the Pacific.   Home life was not a thing for most sailors or officers until the end of the war.   They left home and stayed in theater unless they were wounded.  

This could easily be 10-12 episodes or even two 7-8 episode seasons.   Done right, this could be Band of Brothers quality.   However, there is a decided lack of cast continuity because the only ones who would pretty much be constant throughout would be the senior commanders.   What made BoB so special was the "regular guy" quality of Easy.  

 

Oh, and someone brought up Walter Lord.   His book on the Coastwatchers is a good one.   Mostly British and Australians who really did risk life and death to watch for boats and planes coming out of Truk and Rabaul down to the Slot.    If they got caught they were pretty much dead men.   

Edited August 24, 2020 by Macanudo

[Hagbard Celine 10882]

peter montemayor's part 2 & 3 are up:

 

[RPM 26326]

Watched it last night because nothing better was on, I thought. Jesus this movie pisses me off how bad it is because it could have been greatness.

[trza-hawk 269]

Someone uploaded The Pacific War in Color to yt with tons of personal home videos and footage that hasn't been recycled over and over again through the years:

 

[Augustus 3061]

Had to be plenty of Japanese on those carriers, as they watched bombers coming in from north and south, thinking we'd just executed an absolutely perfect plan of attack.

Reality is crazier than fiction.

[TwiceHorn 31509]

On 8/30/2020 at 6:52 PM, trza-hawk said:

Someone uploaded The Pacific War in Color to yt with tons of personal home videos and footage that hasn't been recycled over and over again through the years:

 

That's a really good series.  That channel/guy has a shit ton of military docs.  That one in particular is pretty good fidelity, unlike a lot of movies/tv shows posted on youtube.

[Felix 607]

12 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

That's a really good series.  That channel/guy has a shit ton of military docs.  That one in particular is pretty good fidelity, unlike a lot of movies/tv shows posted on youtube.

The Smithsonian channel is probably my favorite channel on TV.  Pure history and science with excellent production and no pseudo-scientific bullshit.

[RPM 26326]

This has been in heavy rotation on HBO. It's very rewatchable, but I still have issues with the storyline. In fact I call bullshit on the whole pilot pussed out and gave away our position story. 

[lateshow 1304]

I made it about 20 minutes. Awful. 

[naija 2869]

terrible. and not in a good way.

[Gil Bang 25980]

this piece of dogshit is on tonight.  

 

fucking A, it looks like the budget was tens of dollars.  The texags Brandon Jones film was better across the board

 

[atomheartbevo 89735]

On 6/29/2019 at 6:31 PM, Lobo said:

 This'll make a fun, half-drunk watch on December 7th, 2021 for free on cable.  

Guess what?  It's free on https://tubitv.com/ (free/ad-supported streaming service).

And so is another 2019 movie, Dauntless: The Battle of Midway starting Judd Nelson and C. Thomas Howell.  Which is based on Richard Best's after-action reports.  But it doesn't have Richard Best as a character!  So yes, it manages to be really shitty.

But at least The Final Countdown is on Tubi as well.

[atomheartbevo 89735]

I watched Midway last night in one sitting (well there were some ads).  Not as terrible as I expected, kept my interest more than I expected (although Best's character could be annoying as fuck).  I had seen bits and pieces of it previously, but not watched the whole thing.

I can definitely say that this was a passion project of Roland Emmerich, and was surprised it was an indie project.  It felt like a love letter of sorts.

I had a really bad feeling about this movie earlier, given that it covered Pearl Harbor, Doolittle's raid, and Midway in less than two hours, and it was definitely rushed.

I'm happy that Layton got a lot of screentime/credit - he gets left out a lot in the films.