Film - Battle of Britain

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As an aside I watched the first ten minutes of Wolf Hound on Netflix this weekend and wished I hadn’t.

Stunning air to air footage but easily the silliest premise ive ever seen. Actually made me angry it was so bad.

You’re not alone. Thak kind of stories are completely ignored in Spain. I leave you an example from a spanish writer about one of the most important battles of our history. It’s google-translated, so I hope you can understand the story:

**It’s not even studied in schools anymore, I think. Moors and Christians cutting each other’s throats, no less. Bloody carnage. That fascist medieval period, etc. But it is possible that, thanks to that, my daughter does not wear a veil today when she goes out. It happened almost eight centuries ago, when three Spanish kings led, shoulder to shoulder, a cavalry charge that changed the history of Europe. Next July 16 marks the 798th anniversary of that Monday in the year 1212 when the Almohad army of Miramamolín Al Nasir, an ultra-radical Islamic man who had sworn to plant the crescent in Rome, was destroyed by Christians near Despeñaperros. After proclaiming jihad - I’m sure the term sounds familiar - against the infidels, Al Nasir had crossed the Strait of Gibraltar with his army, determined to reconquer Christian Spain for Islam and invade a Europe - this also sounds familiar, I imagine - weakened. and indecisive.

They were stopped by a Castilian king, Alfonso VIII. Aware that in Spain you rarely face the enemy, he had the Pope of Rome proclaim that crusade against the Saracens, to prevent, while he was fighting against the Moor, the kings of Navarre and León, his adversaries, from playing tricks on him. of the Chinese, attacking him from behind. Summing things up, we will say that Alfonso of Castile managed to gather around 27,000 men on the battlefield, among whom were some foreign volunteers, especially French, and the tough soldier monks of the Spanish military orders. The main nucleus were the Castilian council militias - popular troops, to understand us - and 8,500 Catalans and Aragonese brought by King Pedro II of Aragon; who, like the gentle gentleman that he was, came to the aid of his neighbor and colleague. At the last minute, reluctantly and in order not to look bad, Sancho VII of Navarra showed up with a small group of two hundred horsemen - Alfonso IX of León stayed at home. For his part, Al Nasir lined up almost 60,000 warriors including North African soldiers, Andalusian troops and a large contingent of fanatical volunteers of little military value and little discipline: a mob to which the Moorish king, determined to facilitate their journey to the longed-for paradise of the houris , placed in the front row so that the first brown one could be eaten, acting there as spear meat.

The escabechina, very typical of that fierce time, made an epoch. On the Olivares hill, near Santa Elena, the Christians attacked up the slope under a shower of arrows from the fearsome Almohad bows, trying to reach the fortified palenque where Al Nasir, who sat on a shield, read the Koran, or did The moment I read it - I imagine he had other things on his mind - he had pitched his famous red tent. The Christian vanguard, commanded by the Basque Diego López de Haro, with Castilian, Aragonese and Navarrese horsemen and infantry, broke up the first enemy line and was stopped in bloody combat with the second. Militias like the one in Madrid were almost annihilated after fighting like lions of Metro Goldwyn Mayer. He then attacked the second wave, with the veteran knights of the military orders as the hard core, without managing to break the Moorish resistance either. The situation was beginning to be critical for our people - because, very sorry, Mr. President, the Christians there were ours -; who, unable to maneuver, were no longer fighting for victory, but for life. Next to López de Haro, who had only forty horsemen left of his five hundred, the Knights Templar, Calatravos and Santiago, mixed with friends and enemies, fought like cats on their bellies. It was then that Alfonso VII, seeing the panorama, drew his sword, waved his banner, stood in front of the reserve line, swallowed and, turning to Archbishop Jiménez de Rada, shouted: “Here, Bishop, we all die.” Then, spurring, he rode toward the enemy. The kings of Aragon and Navarre, seeing his colleague, did the same. With bullfighter shame and a couple of eggs, they waved their banners and charged, sword in hand. The rest is History: three Spanish kings riding together through the hills of Las Navas, with the exhausted infantry shouting with enthusiasm as they opened their ranks to make way for them. And the final combat around the palenque, with the escape of Al Nasir, the slaughter and the victory.

Can you imagine the movie? Can you imagine that material in the hands of the English or North Americans? I guess so. But rest assured that, in this imbecile, self-conscious country, no television will film it, nor will any Ministry of Education or Culture ever subsidize it.**

So sad…

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Is that the one about a POW escaping in a B17 ? or something similar ?

I couldn’t agree more, I’m with you 100%. :+1:

Repeat please!

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the woke generation X alphabet people are only concerned with their own self indulgent interests, so films about our past are deemed irrelevant.

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That’s more or less my point - though I haven’t really made it: if you don’t study history, your own history (or have it taught properly - eg the abysmal Brit education system for at least the past couple of decades) then you don’t really know where you come form, or indeed, where, or what you belong to; this might explain the rather shallow approach to just about everything these days by said generation (and the bloody teachers!)

Sorry blokes, this thread was meant to be a relatively light observation on the non-acknowledgement of the B of B; it wasn’t meant to fan the flames at all - though I’m sure we all recognize the sorry state we’re in.

Probably time to get back to the modelling table perhaps, where funnily enough, my Spitfire languishes.

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It’s capitalism at work.
Any service (whatever it is) will bring “products” to the “market” which they
believe that the “customer” will buy.
This can be in politics: Tell’em what they want to hear and they’ll vote for ya!
Selling food: Fill it with sugar and artificial flavourings, add fat and sell it as cheaply as possible.
Streaming services: Server space costs money, films that they believe will only attract a few viewers
will not be allowed to waste server space.

Battle of Britain had more viewers when the generation who participated was still around.
Simple maths, 2023 - 1943 = 80 years. A pilot who was 19 in 1940 would be over a 100 now …
That pilots children could be in their 70’ies, approaching 80, on their way to the hereafter and
presumably not watching streamed media, maybe not even TV.

For every day that passes our years as young get further and further away …

Oh well, it is what it is, no point in being gloomy.

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Gentlemen: Try to keep down the politics, we have the Off-Topic Shenanigans for that.

Some posts have already been flagged, one more flag and the whole topic get’s moved to the Shenanigans area (lots of fun stuff over there …)

Are you threatening us with a good time? :wink:

Win-win ya’know
Taking the opportunity to advertise the Off-Topic Shenanigans :grin:

It is your private department? :wink:

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Not quite :grin:
there are some others …
:rofl:

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Doing a bit of Googling and it’s available to watch through MGM’s service on Amazon. I think this might have something more to do with online streaming services fleecing viewers than anything else. Disney do exactly that and I’ve noticed it with a few others. I don’t know if MGM’s included in the Amazon subscription or you have to pay extra as I don’t use it myself.
It’s also fallen across the weekend of several matches in the Rugby World Cup and that’s taken up a big chunk of TV.
BBC 2 had Judgement at Nuremberg on Sunday afternoon and a new documentary about the Nazis tonight (oooh another one) and Film 4 are showing several old war movies this week. I think there’s still a healthy viewing appetite in Britain at least.

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Yeah. Germans flying a Battle of Britain RAF livery Hurricane Mk2 and a 42 livery Spit Mk IX against a B-17G and two P-51Ds.

So much wrong with that I don’t know where to start. Crap acting, crap premise, stupid story and total disregard for detail.

And the tiny swas tikas in the RAF roundels… FFS

Battle of Britain available free to view on Youtube last time I looked.

Glad I took it off my watch list a while ago lol

Its so bad it is something to watch the first ten mins of just to be outraged at what a waste it is to have a2a footage that beautiful for a film that bad.

The midair footage is breathtaking. It am getting angry just writing this.

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lol … STOP right now … and relax …

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