Matrix Games Forums

Hey wargamers.

Are there any movies (good ones) out there that would help with understanding the game.

These could be about the war in the Pacific or about operations in general.

"Tora Tora Tora" is a good one....classic in fact....then there is the "Battle of Midway" I remember seeing that in the seventys when they used that "senseround" thing where the seat shook.
Both are good movies considering how long ago they were made. It is time that Tom Hanks paid some attention to this part of WW2 and produced a good film on the pacific war.

'In Harms Way' staring John Wayne....

Can't go wrong with learning about skyhook and applying those lessons here =)

Reiryc

See "MacArthur." Not only does Greg Peck do a great job of making Mac feel creepy and distant like Captain Ahab, he delivers the classic line, "No, no. I won't preside over another disaster. I propose to fight the battle of Australia up here - in New Guinea." His "For a moment, I thought I saw our flag go down" during the meeting with Roosevelt is camp not to be missed.

"Dammmmmned whale," indeed.

If anyone posts that POS called Pearl Harbor, they will be run out on the yardarm with a noose around their neck and after that is done, keel hauled until the rope breaks.

Also, if you have opportunity to park yourself in front of the History Channel, there's always a documentary on about the Pacific war.

A seriers that may be available for rent, is the old "Victory At Sea" (c1960). It's kinda hokey, as in, very "Rah! Rah!" kind of stuff (the narrator even sounds like hes doing a newsreel), but it does a fair job of at least telling quick stories of the various battles (Pacific, Atlantic and Med).

Unfortunatly, accurate war movies usually pretty rare, and have only bee cropping up in quantity and quality recently. As far as quality, I'd recommend "Wind Talkers". It's not really accurate from a purely factual stand-point, but it does accurately portray atmosphere and attitude.

Essentially, the US Pacific forces used Navajo indians to transmit coded messages in the Pacific theater (the were actually called code talkers, but that sounded boring to HollyWood, so they changed it to Wind Talkers). Many Japanese officers had been could speak English (unlike most Americans who couldn't make anything out of Japanese). So US radio intercepts by the Japanese (who could understand them if in English) would certainly be bad thing. The solution was to tap the Navajos whose language even has it's own roots (it's not based on Latin or Germanic or Slavic). And considering that that there were so few Navajos anyways, the Japanese had no chance of understanding what the code talkers were saying.

-F-

"Bah Bah Black Sheep"?



How in the world did that show ever make it?! And it was a freakin hour long too! I used to hang with a guy that loved that show...when it came on we went our separate ways.

Tora Tora Tora

C,mon man... any weekly show that allowed you to watch Corsairs in flight was worth watching. It was no worse than any of the other schlock the networks were throwing at us. IIRC, there was the occaisional real battle footage used in the show (not of the battles portrayed, but from inflight films later in the war). The History Channel often shows it, including interviews with survivors of the squadron.

(added later)the following post reminds me that The Thin Red Line is a pretty good film about this theatre...

Guadlcanal Diary is pretty good.

Well....I am off to the video store.

I am ashamed to say it, but I know very little about the pacific war.

Except for Baa Baa Black Sheep. LOL
That show was good for one thing, it made me fall in love with flying. I love that plane.

(* chuckle *)

Remember "Bah Bah Black Sheep" bro...? Of course you do.

When Knavey and I were kids (I guess I was about 6, he was 8), we'd crouch down in front of this little 13" black-n-white TV that was on the floor of the living room. Our mother had this thing about the TV being the tool of the devil and rotting our brains, but after years of pleading we were finally were allowed to have this little black-n-white. That poor TV litterally got kicked out the back door on more than one occasion, but the d_mn thing just wouldn't die (hm... maybe it was posessed of the devil then?). It ended up where all the knobs were broken off, and we hat to change the channels with a pair of pliers, but we could still watch "Bah Bah Black Sheep".

Gawd, I started laughing just thinking about that.

Another classic was "The Rat Patrol". Funny how it never occurred to us that Jeeps w/ 50cals could somehow take out Tiger tanks...

Ah childhood...

And to make up for his depraved TV watching when he was a kid, Knavey now has one of the biggest effing TVs on the planet (or so it seems). Definately good to watch the Bucs on tho.

-F-

If you opponent is as skilled (**** lucky!) as mine, the Final Countdown will do nicely. The USS Nimitz (yes, the nuclear one) goes back in time to just before the attack on Pearl. Who cares about Zero's versus B-17s when they are facing F/A-18s!

Pretty sure this movie used F14s, not 18s. I'm not sure 18s were even in service when this movie was made. Speaking of this movie the old Pacwar had a final countdown scenario where you get one Nimitz like CV loaded out with planes with 12x the ability of the the normal planes of the time. Painful for the IJN.

Hi all,

There are two movies from period also worth seeing:

"Thin Red Line"

"Naked and the Dead, The"


Although they deal with ground combat they are very good.


BTW, as always, the books (with same title that those films are based upon) are MUST read.


Leo "Apollo11"

To get ready for WITP...you might look into the most excellent BBC serial "A Town Like Alice", based on Neville Schute's novel. It deals with the beastial treatment of British and Australian POW's in Malaysia.

Or try the "Victory at Sea" serials with actual combat footage..it has a propaganda feel to it but I defy you not to be swept up by it. The announcer alone will make you want to stand up and salute. I recall one episode that deals with the Allied attacks in New Guinea and the Kokoda Trail and I think there is a film of the Lexington listing badly after being hit.


I hadn't thought about it, but Pasternaski is right....Peck's portrayal of MacArthur is reminiscent of his Ahab...always sticking out his jaw and staring into the distance

Originally posted by estaban
Guadlcanal Diary is pretty good.

Hi, I you refering to that old William Bendix movie?
Where all the fighting is in daylight, the Japanese are dug in caves
and bloody ridge is never mentioned?

Well aside from those minor details the movie is pretty funny.

I just saw a "History versus Hollywood" feature on Guadacanal Diary.

They went through the entire film and compared it to history, with veterans adding their two cents along the way.

It was quite enjoyable.

Just turn on the History Channel. Every day it seems it will have a decent story on WW2. Not all will be in the Pacific, but recent attempts at getting the story right have made for good 1 hour shows. Also, the Discovery Wings channel will highlight aircraft from WW2 which is a good source of information also.

Movies are good (I always liked the classic movies 'Midway' and 'Tora, Tora, Tora') but for the best knowledge of the period I really suggest some books. I'm a historian by training and I know many books are quite bad and out of range of the average interested person, but there's three books in my collection I highly suggest that anyone can understand:

"The Pacific War, 1941-1945" by John Costello
"The Pacific Campaign" by Dan van der Vat
"Delivered from Evil: The Saga of World War II" by Robert Leckie