G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra is a top contender any time worst movie comes up.
The Joes reason that the best way to destroy Cobra’s underwater Antarctic lair is to fire rockets into the glaciers above and sit back as the ice sinks into the ocean and crushes their base. A fool-proof plan, I’m sure you’ll agree.
Mission accomplished!
Anything other than the GI Joes figures, sucks.
Firing in ranks was the result of both the slow rate of fire of muzzle loaders and the inaccuracy of smoothbore fireams; it was necessary to have massed ranks of gunners firing as a group at relatively short ranges in order to have a reasonable chance of getting a significant number of hits on the opposing formation; specialist rifle units traded weight of fire for accuracy, with different tactics based around slower but more accurate fire, but as long as they remained muzzle-loading weapons, they were niche units, rather than the main body of an army. And the writing on the wall was present near the end of the Civil War, with the performance of massed infantry formations against the Gatling gun, but it was employed more in the role of artillery than as a direct infantry-support weapon, so generals didn’t pay attention to the implications of the rate of fire, resulting in the bloodbaths of charges across No-Man’s Land in WWI
I can’t even remember the name of it but it was a 1950s or 60s British film set in the battle of Britain. Not ‘The Battle of Britain’ film.
It started to go wrong when the heroic RAF pilots scrambled to their Bf109s. Actually Spanish Buchons which were obviously borrowed for the movie. I could forgive that. They could pass for Hurricanes if you squint a bit.
But it went to hell when the unrealisticly modeled Luftwaffe attacked in their Spitfires, yes Spitfires.
This at a period most people making the movie had probably being around during the war. Crazy stuff. They really had to know better.
Many other suggestions I agree with too.
There are so many.
Gatling guns in The Last Samurai (at 3:50)
H.P.
It’s funny, I agree with 90% of the best war list but disagree with 70% of the worst movie list.
Ayup. The same methods were used even further back for massed archery attacks. Agincourt comes to mind but archery blocks were used back to prehistoric times.
What I find interesting is that Hollywood directors and writers, especially the kind who make science fiction movies with big battles, regularly leave tactics and technology on the table and go back to Red Coats versus Blue Coats. I suppose they think having a bunch of stuff on the screen all shooting at the same time looks dramatic.
…
For me, a war movie is a movie that attempts to depict events central to a real war. Science fiction nonsense does not count. Saving Private Ryan set the bar very high for realism. After seeing that, most old war movies stopped working for me.
To an extent, yes. The sniper scenes, not so much.
And still employed as artillery, instead of infantry support; it took the carnage of WWI to drive that lesson home. I find it amusing, though, that it perpetuates the misperception about muzzle-loading cannon, with the vertical explosions, when a cannoneer was a skilled position; when firing roundshot, your goal was to fire low, skimming shots, the roundshot bouncing off the ground to carry through the enemy formation at about waist height. A shot that bounced high or went low and dug into the ground was wasted. But, like real explosions, that’s not photogenic enough for movies, since you don’t see the flight of the roundshot, you just see the swathes it cuts through the enemy formation.
That’s why the early light rifled field artillery used in the ACW wasn’t well regarded, no bounce and pointed shell dug in and a lot of the blast/frag went up. On the other hand, the proper use of Shrapnel was well understood.
Cheers,
M
I recently mentioned that I do the same. Like with Interceptor. Voof.
However, Hurt Locker was just ridiculous in many aspects, but the ending really spoke to me.
I don’t know if you’ve seen any of the Afghanistan videos I’ve posted, but I did some really cool things with almost complete autonomy. I had Apache Helicopters do my bidding more than once. I chased bad guys in a high speed chsase in a pickup truck using a river as a road. I learned the language, I had land given to me by a Khan of the Wazir tribe.
And then I came home.
Same in Iraq, only no cool videos from there, just photos.
I led and wrote the CONOPS for over 150 missions. I chose who went and where they sat. Not the team leader. (CPT) He was only there to sign for stuff. If you Google the responsibilities of an 18 Bravo you’ll find I was nothing special - those duties are specified as our purview. Ah, and I learned the language yet again. And was once again given land, this time in a Yezidi village.
And then I came home.
Same thing in the movie - the guy does all these wazzoo things, (unrealistic but wazzoo nonethelss) and then finds himself in the mundane role of shopping for groceries.
Next scene he’s cock of the walk again back in theater.
That’s exactly how I felt.
Oh that part in The Patriot where the cannonball comes bouncing in and decapitates the solder was pretty photogenic… or in Glory during the charge at Antietam
For me, Saving Private Ryan is all about the D-Day scenes. Movies tend to be like that for me. I have always had a very bad memory. I remember one or two scenes and discard the rest.
The experiences you describe in your previous post would make the basis for a very compelling (to me) documentary or mini-series.
His first movie with a big budget and in colour (albeit still a short) was made while he was in the Navy, celebrating the 300th anniversary (1965) of the Dutch Marine Corps. Apparently they were well happy with it… (I believe the Korps Mariniers are the third-oldest Marine force still active, after the British Royal Marines - formed the year before (1664) - and the Spanish Infantería de Marina formed in 1537.)
Verhoeven went on to direct Soldaat van Oranje (Soldier of Orange, 1977) and Zwartboek (Black Book, 2006), both being well-regarded movies about the Dutch Resistance.
If you want a really BAD war movie by Verhoeven try Flesh+Blood (1985), it does what it says on the box…
Cheers,
M
Verhoeven also directed Robocop and Total Recall (1990 version with Arnold), which are certainly better sci fi films than Starship Troopers.
If Verhoeven had those successes he deserves cred. At some point everyone will do something they wish they hadn’t. Has Battlefield Earth made our little list? I mean, Forrest Whitaker, whom I hold in high regard for many of his roles, starred in that. Nuff said.
But wait, there’s more!
Marlon Brando, the Island of Dr. Moreau.
The effect on individual soldiers is certainly graphic enough. James Burbeck writes about the effect of roundshot on its targets:
The cannonballs themselves were subsonic, and lobbed slowly through the air, loudly whistling as they approached. Even at the end of its effective range, rolling shot would bowl men over and cause widespread injury. If flying shot hit a horse, it was not just a matter of the horse falling over; the ball might strike the saddlebags, scattering the contents in every direction as the horse went spinning, splattering pieces of the animal closely behind the chunks of leather and cloth. At close range, artillery fire would punch holes straight through entire sections of units.
Sir John Moore, hit in left breast by a roundshot at the Battle of Corunna in 1809, suffered extreme injuries. The hole in his left shoulder was so deep that his lung was showing. His left ribs and collarbone had been crushed. His chest muscles hung from his body in strips. His left arm dangled from a few strips of flesh. Needless to say, he was mortally wounded. Certainly a visually distinctive enough effect to be photogenic for a shot focused on him, but unless you had good camera lines on a unit receiving fire, incoming roundshot could be unimpressive. Explosions bursting up from the ground are much more visual.
The Sharpe Series of books certainly detailed the effects of round shot on the men and horses
It happend to a german submarine at the US-coast. Can’t remember which boat, but it sinks the Robert E. Lee and then by turn up get destroyed by a nearby operating USN ship. Both wrecks lay nearby on the ground.
It was U166, sunk by USS PC 566, 1942
