Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Commander Cody

Well, the original had the politically correct internment sideplot, when Japanese descendants in Hawaii in real life were never actually interned in WWII (it was strictly a mainland thing). So, the question becomes how could Hollywood top that? Show Nagumo as being a sensitive, caring calligraphy master with a gaijin mistress back home who is interned as well?

The concept of PC hadn't been coined when "Midway" was made. (Also, every cast member under 30 had a non-regulation haircut.) I think the Japanese girlfriend subplot had a lot more to do with post-Vietnam US introspection.

The story-telling problem with historical movies is that the history is iron-bound in macro terms. Midway = huge US win. Pearl Harbor = huge steaming pile of US loss. The general audience knows this, at least about these two events. (Not so much Leyte.) So, if Midway has to follow history, and it's fiction and thus must have conflict, or, said another way, something at stake, how does a poor screenwritter handle that? Same way as Shakespeare did. Introduce family strife. To anyone who has read The Bard, either Heston or his son was toast the moment both walked on stage. Just as either Affleck or the other guy was; we just didn't know which one. That movie could have gone either way, which is why I give it a C- and not an F.

But Midway is "easier" to write because it has a triumphant end. Yes, people will die, and you'll know some of them well when they do. That's drama. But with Midway the creators can send the audience home happy, and they'lll tell their friends. The creators of "Pearl Harbor" felt they had to add that abortion of a Doolittle Raid because if they'd ended with smoke and death and destruction at Pearl Harbor--you know, history---they'd have torqued off their US audience, especially the female portion who got an aborted love arc AND death and destruction with no redemption. Pearl Harbor is prehaps the most difficult modern US wartime subject matter. To volunteer to make a movie of it is . . . odd, from a moviemaker's career standpoint.

Leyte is hard too, for different reasons. It recalls that classic movie "Bambi vs. Godzilla." No matter how you portray Taffy 3, the Japanese were going to get creamed. There's no doubt of that, and that's hard to do from a storytelling POV. What every fiction writer wants is a fair fight between credible opponents. That's one reason the technothriller genre in novels fell on hard times after the USSR fell apart. The might of the USA vs. Colombian drug cartels is Bambi Vs. the lizard.

Leyte could be written in a "The Pacific" manner. focusing on a few, tight character arcs, and showing the battle through their very narrow, local lens, but I doubt that would satisfy many of this forum's denizens. They want a god's-eye POV of maneuvering fleets and grand strategy, and that just isn't what Hollywood is good at. Or what modern audiences will pay for.

Final comments on "Midway". I looked around the Web and learned that there was a TV version made, split into two nights, for whcih about 30 minutes of new footage was shot. The goal? To give HESTON a girlfriend, much younger and very pretty, to explain why he divorced the mother of his difficult son. So, two romantic arcs. Also, I learned that Yamamoto's voice dubbing was done by Mr. Paul Frees. Yes, the voice of Boris Badanov!!!! He's everywhere!!! He's everywhere!!!![:)]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

Oh I think the movie clearly fictionalized it to represent the larger internments in California. It was funny that they had her being OK in California but interned in Hawaii after traveling home, when IRL the chances were far greater for it to be the other way around! But the movie story had no way for the visitations to take place in California, so they made it Hawaii.

There were internments in Hawaii, about 1200. At Sand Island. Most of them had been moved to the mainland by summer of 1942. These internemnts were for significant security risks, not simply Japanese ancestry. In the movie, the girlfriend's father had visited the Japanese consulate many times, and subscribed to Japanese patriotic magazines. A bit thin, but enough to pass the historical smell test.

ORIGINAL: Commander Cody
Your memory of that movie is a lot better than mine. Still, it was a great movie to a guy in junior high when it came to the big screen, continuous footage of the same Hellcat cartwheeling in the ocean notwithstanding.

I saw the movie in high school, in a real Sensurround-equipped theater. Also saw "Earthquake" there, also staring Mr. Heston. I read that only four Sensurround movies were ever made, so I'm 2-for-4.

ORIGINAL: Panther Bait


Pilot Rafe is eventually discovered in Morrocco during the Operation Torch landings having been captured by the French. He eventually makes his way stateside and into the USN. He tries to reconnect with Kate but she explains that she is married now. He never meets her husband.

Fast forward to May 1942.

He's got a Wayback Machine? No. Only Mr. Peabody has a Wayback Machine.[:)]

ORIGINAL: Onime No Kyo

Question, hypothetical, one....why has no one ever made a movie about the battles in The Slot ...

At least one such battle was incorporated -- for lack of a better word -- in a movie abt Adm Halsey called "The Gallant Hours"; it starred Jimmy Cagney in the title role.

There wasn't a lot of on-screen action, but IMO it was a thoughtful, well-made flic.

Poor Chuck Heston. Good guy; some decent movies; but plagued by roles in some of the worst movies known to man. Omega Man, anybody?

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Poor Chuck Heston. Good guy; some decent movies; but plagued by roles in some of the worst movies known to man. Omega Man, anybody?

Seen it, unfortunatley. Will Smith did it slightly better in "I Am Legend."

OTOH, a whole career can be rehabilitated with just one "Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!"[:)]

...as opposed to the terrible "damned dirty human!"

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

...as opposed to the terrible "damned dirty human!"

No, not the same shock factor.[;)]

"Planet" was the very first time I was stunned by a movie. I was 11-YO, watching it in the balcony of the NAS Oceana theater. Admission was $.25 (up from pre-1968's dime in those draft-era sailor's payscale days.) When that final scene came on I literally stood up and leaned over the railing with my mouth hanging open. My mother had to drag me back into my seat. I had no idea. None. The only other movie moment that comes close is the ending of "The Sting."

Bullwinkle, I was the same way: just totally, completely shocked. That's an unforgettable moment.

Concur. My wife had never watched the original and was shocked with the revelation at the end. This is partially why she then became SOOOOOOO angry with the new version. Leave the classics be!!!

ORIGINAL: Charbroiled

ORIGINAL: Panther Bait

I've started to hear rumors that Warner Bros. is thinking about making a new Battle of Midway movie. I'm feeling a few butterflys in my stomach, but I'm not sure if those are the beginnings of fanboy excitement or nausea at how badly Hollyweird could screw this up.

My only hope for something decent is that one of the writers for The Pacific is supposedly involved.

My chief dread is that they are already boasting about it being in 3D.

Mike

P.S. Instead of retreading Midway, why couldn't they try something new, like Leyte Gulf.

Knowing Hollywood, it will probably be a story about 2 young Ensigns who were boyhood friend and both falling in love with a Japanese girl who was put into an internment camp. One night the Ensigns realized that they were more then just "friends". The movie will have 1-1/2 hours about how the Ensigns deal with their personal issues, 15 minutes explaining the significants of "Midway", and 30 minutes of things blowing up.

Yeah. It'll be titled "Broke Back Bunk."

ORIGINAL: Joe D.

ORIGINAL: Onime No Kyo

Question, hypothetical, one....why has no one ever made a movie about the battles in The Slot ...

At least one such battle was incorporated -- for lack of a better word -- in a movie abt Adm Halsey called "The Gallant Hours"; it starred Jimmy Cagney in the title role.

There wasn't a lot of on-screen action, but IMO it was a thoughtful, well-made flic.

I was lucky enough to see that movie 2 or 3 years ago. Excellent.

And the coverage of 1st Guadalcanal that you refer to was the best off-screen portrayal of a battle I have ever seen. The two admirals - killed within 48 hrs - meeting with Halsey prior to leaving for battle (probably a theatrical device but it worked in spades). Halsey's tortured sleep during the battle to the sound (for the audience) of one or more talkers giving a vague and desperate account of the battle. Superbly done.

Any of you who have not seen it are missing a great one that you will appreciate on many levels.

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: Panther Bait


Pilot Rafe is eventually discovered in Morrocco during the Operation Torch landings having been captured by the French. He eventually makes his way stateside and into the USN. He tries to reconnect with Kate but she explains that she is married now. He never meets her husband.

Fast forward to May 1942.

He's got a Wayback Machine? No. Only Mr. Peabody has a Wayback Machine.[:)]

I've been reading "An Army at Dawn" lately, so I had Torch on the brain. Another example of the golden rule of internet forums - Never post before your first cup of coffee (or other caffeinated drink of choice).

Mike

As someone with a reasonably decent understanding of the Battle of Midway in the mid-70s when they made the movie I have to say that I was glad someone took the time but it sure seemed they mucked it up with that love interest. I guess that they needed it to lure in the "other half" (but mine didn't bother; she figured it was a man flick).

I think one reason that "A real Friday the 13th", the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal might make it is that nobody knows all that much about how we won the war...that particular moment in time was when the Japanese strategy of making the war too hard to win had the greatest chance of success. The two sides were locked in a life or death struggle for the island. They'd fought over it for 3+ months and the losses to each had been heavy. Both sides were attempting to reinforce and were basically committing their last reserves. With an appropriate (group of) lead in scenes one could set the stage for a major confrontation where the collective memory is pretty hazy and possibly generate a good deal of interest. And you could have a survivor drifting around Ironbottom Sound while dreaming of Kate Blanchette to boot.

ORIGINAL: Charbroiled
Knowing Hollywood, it will probably be a story about 2 young Ensigns who were boyhood friend and both falling in love with a Japanese girl who was put into an internment camp. One night the Ensigns realized that they were more then just "friends". The movie will have 1-1/2 hours about how the Ensigns deal with their personal issues, 15 minutes explaining the significants of "Midway", and 30 minutes of things blowing up.

Sonds like my take on things. Just been watching Josie Wales and every now and then Clint hocks a chaw lugie at Stand Watie's dog. Now, ok, it's a movie, but when Josie gets it in the end, I wouldn'ta minded a 5 second cut away so the dog could have lifted his leg on Bro Clint; you know, canine rights and all that.

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58
The story-telling problem with historical movies is that the history is iron-bound in macro terms. Midway = huge US win. Pearl Harbor = huge steaming pile of US loss. The general audience knows this, at least about these two events. (Not so much Leyte.) So, if Midway has to follow history, and it's fiction and thus must have conflict, or, said another way, something at stake, how does a poor screenwritter handle that? Same way as Shakespeare did. Introduce family strife. To anyone who has read The Bard, either Heston or his son was toast the moment both walked on stage. Just as either Affleck or the other guy was; we just didn't know which one. That movie could have gone either way, which is why I give it a C- and not an F.

But Midway is "easier" to write because it has a triumphant end. Yes, people will die, and you'll know some of them well when they do. That's drama. But with Midway the creators can send the audience home happy, and they'lll tell their friends. The creators of "Pearl Harbor" felt they had to add that abortion of a Doolittle Raid because if they'd ended with smoke and death and destruction at Pearl Harbor--you know, history---they'd have torqued off their US audience, especially the female portion who got an aborted love arc AND death and destruction with no redemption. Pearl Harbor is prehaps the most difficult modern US wartime subject matter. To volunteer to make a movie of it is . . . odd, from a moviemaker's career standpoint.

Leyte is hard too, for different reasons. It recalls that classic movie "Bambi vs. Godzilla." No matter how you portray Taffy 3, the Japanese were going to get creamed. There's no doubt of that, and that's hard to do from a storytelling POV. What every fiction writer wants is a fair fight between credible opponents. That's one reason the technothriller genre in novels fell on hard times after the USSR fell apart. The might of the USA vs. Colombian drug cartels is Bambi Vs. the lizard.

Leyte could be written in a "The Pacific" manner. focusing on a few, tight character arcs, and showing the battle through their very narrow, local lens, but I doubt that would satisfy many of this forum's denizens. They want a god's-eye POV of maneuvering fleets and grand strategy, and that just isn't what Hollywood is good at. Or what modern audiences will pay for.

Agree. It is probably related to the recent war on terror as well, which doesn't allow for big, epic battles or stories with a triumphant end that has 'good' defeat 'evil', like you can portray in WW2 films. The studios would be looking to make wartime films, in part to uplift or give the American audience hope, but a war on terror story would revolve around religion, politics and threats to civilians, which too often than not, would only reinforce the audiences fears and be too sensitive a subject. Hollywood generally goes into propaganda mode whenever America is at war and would help explain why the original Midway film was made in 1976, despite the Vietnam War having just come to an end, as it provides a story of American redemption, triumph and an obvious victory during wartime.

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Joe D.

ORIGINAL: Onime No Kyo

Question, hypothetical, one....why has no one ever made a movie about the battles in The Slot ...

At least one such battle was incorporated -- for lack of a better word -- in a movie abt Adm Halsey called "The Gallant Hours"; it starred Jimmy Cagney in the title role.

There wasn't a lot of on-screen action, but IMO it was a thoughtful, well-made flic.

I was lucky enough to see that movie 2 or 3 years ago. Excellent.

And the coverage of 1st Guadalcanal that you refer to was the best off-screen portrayal of a battle I have ever seen ...

Yes, it was the best movie battle we've never seen!

ORIGINAL: noguaranteeofsanity

Hollywood generally goes into propaganda mode whenever America is at war and would help explain why the original Midway film was made in 1976, despite the Vietnam War having just come to an end, as it provides a story of American redemption, triumph and an obvious victory during wartime.

Looking around the Web today I found a reviewer's words about "Midway", to the effect that it was the last of the great triumphalist American war movies.

What came next? "The Deer Hunter" and "Apocalypse Now", then in the next decade "Platoon." "Midway" was the end of an era.

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58


the great triumphalist American war movies.

Does Starship Troopers count?