Pearl Harbor

[Mr Bugg]

The Michael Bay film that has become synonymous with 'failure' and 'terrible' was shown on Saturday night on CBC. Maybe a couple people watched it, one of them being me.

When it first came out, even my 14 year-old brain knew it was shit. All my friends thought it was shit. The critics did. Etc. etc. etc.

But maybe I'm getting softer in my old age. The epic score by Zimmer, the 40-minute battlestravaganza, the schmaltz... I actually found myself enjoying it for streaks.

Convinced I was mad, and confused by my feelings, I turned to Rotten Tomatoes. Surely everyone in the world hated it, and I would too. For the most part, that was true. However, I came across this sliver of a review from a paper in Kalamazoo:

"Wallace and Bay aren't striving for gutsy realism. "Pearl Harbor" isn't so much about the start of WWII as it is about Hollywood perceptions of WWII."

Bam. The light went on. Anyone expecting a doctoral thesis on history from Michael Bay is a fool; we know his resume, and he's built on it in the seven years since. It's overacted, it's bloated, it's expensive. But ultimately, it's a campier Titanic with triple the explosions and double the cheese. As someone who didn't enjoy Titanic for how seriously it took itself, PH was right up my alley.

And besides, I dare someone not to want to throw up their first in a manly display of joy when one of those nips gets shot down in one of the millions of action sequences.

[Donair Mo Dizzle]

I loved the part where Leonardo Retardo starts yelling "I'm the king of the world" just before the chubby girl lets him get drownded.

[znk]

I loved the part where Leonardo Retardo starts yelling "I'm the king of the world" just before the chubby girl lets him get drownded.

Was that before or after the asteroid collision?








Edit: I kinda have the same view as you Bugg

[ArtSexDesign]

It was after Sam Witwicky found the camaro.

[Beaker]

I actually did watch it Saturday Night.

The Pearl Harbor Battle scene is great.... according to historians it is one of the most realistic battle sequences done in any movie ever dealing with Pearl Harbor.

The love story is fucking shit.

The Doolittle Raid... terrible... not historically accurate at all.

How did they manage to get the Pearl Harbor scene so right and the Doolittle scenes so epically wrong.

[znk]

I actually did watch it Saturday Night.

The Pearl Harbor Battle scene is great.... according to historians it is one of the most realistic battle sequences done in any movie ever dealing with Pearl Harbor.

The love story is fucking shit.

The Doolittle Raid... terrible... not historically accurate at all.

How did they manage to get the Pearl Harbor scene so right and the Doolittle scenes so epically wrong.

I dont remember how they did it in the movie. How did they mess it up?

[I have herpes]

Kate Beckinsale is hot. Nothing else about the movie interests me.

[edgar_box]

Casey Affleck should have been in it.

[RTWAP]

Kate Beckinsale is hot. Nothing else about the movie interests me.

On a related note, I watched Catwoman last night. Halle Berry is hot. *purrrr*

[Beaker]

I dont remember how they did it in the movie. How did they mess it up?

1st before takeoff they lower the weight of the b25s so they can fly farther.... one of the things they do is take out the tail gun and replace it with a broomstick (a decoy to make the Japanese think they had a gun there). The reality is that the B25 "B" model used in the raid never had a tailgun. The broomstick idea first used in this raid was an ingenious way of fooling them, but it wasn't done because they were cutting weight.

2nd they fly in formation to Tokyo.... never happened... they flew solo

3rd they are shown facing heavy anti-aircraft fire from the ground and two bombers are even shot down in the film... Some of the B25 crewmen are also shot and killed in the film. In reality the raid was a complete surprise to the Japanese and they didn't face near that much groundfire. Two planes crashed on the japanese coast, however this was due to lack of fuel because the mission was forced to launch earlier than planned. The japanese captured these crews... but they never shot them down.

4th they are shown inflicting heavy damage to an industrial area in tokyo. The fact is that the Doolittle raid was a very small victory. It is more a moral victory for the americans as the first strike back after pearl harbor, and as a strike back in the heart of japan. The actual strategic importance of any of the targets they took out was very minimal... an it militarily it was not an effective mission. It was successful in meeting Roosevelts goals of showing the nation that the Japanese were not invulnerable, and wounding the japanese belief that they were invulnerable... but the actual physical damage down, and the strategic importance of the targets were far more minimal than the movie portrayed them to be.

Now any Hollywood fight scene is gonna have errors. The errors you can find on the Wiki page here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_Harbor_(film) are extensive for both scenes... but the fact is that the errors made in the pearl harbour scene are relatively minor... ie they are shooting the wrong gun, or the boat in the scene isn't the actual boat at pearl harbor but one commissioned later.... whatever on those... sometimes those things are gonna happen and they don't affect the plot....

When it comes to things like the direction the planes attacked from... what order the boats were attacked in... the way the planes were positioned on the ground... the targets of the first raid and the second raid the movie was very well done. When it comes to similar details in the Doolittle raid, they fucked it up royally; to make the raid seem more important then it really was.

[Masterplan]

Kate Beckinsale is hot. Nothing else about the movie interests me.

Yes, she is.

http://www.freshnews.in/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/kate-beckinsale.jpg

[Dr Love]

I haven't seen the movie but it's a piece of shit for two reasons:

They made it into a love story, and Ben Affleck.

And now I want some Diet Coke.

[dempsey_k]

The Pearl Harbor Battle scene is great.... according to historians it is one of the most realistic battle sequences done in any movie ever dealing with Pearl Harbor.

Which would be Tora Tora Tora and Pearl Harbor, and all parodies of Pearl Harbor that came after it (Team America comes to mind). What a horrible movie, a truly awful experience. Worst scene was Cuba Gooding Jr. doing anything on screen.

Kate Beckingsale is indeed one hot semi-azn.

[Beaker]

Which would be Tora Tora Tora and Pearl Harbor, and all parodies of Pearl Harbor that came after it (Team America comes to mind). What a horrible movie, a truly awful experience. Worst scene was Cuba Gooding Jr. doing anything on screen.

Kate Beckingsale is indeed one hot semi-azn.

Many other movies featured the attack on pearl harbor even if they were not the main focus of the film in the way Tora Tora Tora and From Here to Eternity are.

http://www.angelfire.com/film/pearlharbormovies/list.html
=======================================

As i said before that one pearl harbor battlescene is the only redeeming feature of the whole movie.

[Big#D]

However, I came across this sliver of a review from a paper in Kalamazoo:

"Wallace and Bay aren't striving for gutsy realism. "Pearl Harbor" isn't so much about the start of WWII as it is about Hollywood perceptions of WWII."

Wait. What was that part about Pearl Harbour being the start of WWII again?

[strictly commercial]

Wait. What was that part about Pearl Harbour being the start of WWII again?

The article was obviously written by a German.

[Donair Mo Dizzle]

Yes, she is.

http://www.freshnews.in/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/kate-beckinsale.jpg

MO
DIZZLE

[Sawyer]

http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t21/izuma03/PearlHarbor.jpg