Suggestions for good war movies

[Marduk]

I saw them both. Letters are about Japanese soldiers, Flags-about Americans. IMO that first one is better, one of the rare films telling about Japaneses. Altough both are worth to see.

[Weasel]

The second one was horrible (flags from our fathers). Letters was much better, although I admit I cannot understand the rationale of blowing yourself up instead of going into combat and killing the enemy. Your bayonet never runs out of bullets.

[seabolt]

I admit I cannot understand the rationale of blowing yourself up instead of going into combat and killing the enemy. Your bayonet never runs out of bullets.

The No. 1 rule for (the twisted de-evolution that in 1945 passed for) Bushido was don't get captured. Not kill the enemy.

This is an ancient, elementary psychological principle that we moderns have somewhat forgotten. Captives are a huge coup for the other side. They demystify the enemy. Look at this wretched, huddling thing! He's no warrior! Give him a good kick! There's nothing here to be afraid of. These guys aren't the 8-foot fire-breathing gods of war that you thought they were. They've got snot running down their face and they flinch every time you raise your fist.

Now, go kick the asses of the rest of them.

Compare to this the prospect of facing an enemy who will slit his own abdomen---and the throats of his own children---before admitting defeat. Who in their right mind wants to face *that* guy? In defeat he's managed to make his brethren 9 feet tall and added laser vision to their fire breath.

A good Japanese soldier wasn't expected to drag his half-dead, dysenteric bones back into battle with a bayonent and take the risk of being taken alive. Killing yourself did more damage than that blade ever could.

-- 30 --

[zeiss]

Letters is quite good but feels very Western in its portrayal of the Japanese. It would've been different and I think better, if it had been made in Japan.
An odd circumstance is that all the "good" (competent, brave, honourable) Japanese officers have visited America and are positive about the Western ways.

Flags isn't really a war war movie.

I admit I cannot understand the rationale of blowing yourself up instead of going into combat and killing the enemy. Your bayonet never runs out of bullets.

It's safer to take matters in your own hands. You can suffer a long lingering death on the battlefield or the ultimate shame of being taken prisoner.

Why trust some nervous GI to get the job done right? :kill:

Killing yourself did more damage than that blade ever could.

Other factors were also in play. It wasn't uncommon for Germans to commit suicide when faced with the prospect of becoming a Soviet POW. The Imperial propaganda had instilled similar fears in the Japanese soldiers. Torture and death supposedly awaited them in Allied hands.

[Weasel]

I don't know, and I still don't see it that way. If I am charging a soldier he is going to plug me, not capture me. If wounded you can always use the grenade to kill yourself and the enemy coming to capture/aid you. If you are so wounded you cannot use the grenade then you are probably mortally wounded anyway.

[seabolt]

Other factors were also in play. It wasn't uncommon for Germans to commit suicide when faced with the prospect of becoming a Soviet POW. The Imperial propaganda had instilled similar fears in the Japanese soldiers. Torture and death supposedly awaited them in Allied hands.

Oh, most certainly. The Bushido guys were extremists; you have to be an extremist (ala the Roman Stoic fringe or the Zealots at Masada) to advocate suicide psy ops. Most Japanese were not, of course. So the militants resorted to all sorts of cheap tricks to persuade average, rational citizens to follow their game plan, propaganda being foremost among them.

Still, Bushido was at the core of the decision process, even for the Saipan mothers who dropped their babies off cliffs. The moms of Warsaw didn't do that when the Germans arrived; the moms of Berlin didn't do it when the Soviets arrived. Propaganda only gilded the extremist Bushido lily.

I don't know, and I still don't see it that way. If I am charging a soldier he is going to plug me, not capture me. If wounded you can always use the grenade to kill yourself and the enemy coming to capture/aid you. If you are so wounded you cannot use the grenade then you are probably mortally wounded anyway.

I don't think you're considering the dreadful condition that the Japanese soldiers were in at the time of their decisions portrayed in "Letters" and "Thin Red Line." Guadalcanal was the Japanese Stalingrad and Iwo was Götterdämmerung: privation and disease had transformed soldiers into ragged wretches. Charge? They could barely muster a stagger, and probably would pass out if they tried to go too far in one go. They couldn't know that they'd be conscious to pull a grenade pin. What they did know was that they were going to look pathetic if they tried to act like soldiers.

It was their foremost duty to *never* make Nippon look pathetic.

-- 30 --

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

Besides authentic looking equipment, even if it is just a tank shell mounted on a car chassis, if it looks and performs authentically, I'm good. The movie also has to be entertaining enough to keep me interested through the whole thing........

I don't care for Tom Cruise, but The Last Samurai was an entertaining movie. That's just an example.

For Blackhawk Down, it was entertaining, but full of Hollywood compared to the book. Two things I didn't like were because they were Rangers, Bronze Stars were handed out like Halloween candy and the portrayal of LTC Danny McKnight. The movie protrayed him as being somewhat cool and indifferent under fire, the book described him as walking around in a daze most of the time. I would tend to agree with the book. When I first got posted to Hawaii, McKnight was my Bn Cdr. A very sneaky and political kind of commander. Didn't like him then, don't like him now. His replacement was LTC William B. Caldwell, IMO one of the best, if not the best officer I had ever gotten to work for/with. Most recently, I saw him on tv in 2007 as a two star in Iraq, he seemd to be stuck with being the buffer between the military and the media, he was good, but IMO a very HUGE waste of military command talent.