Will Hollywood focus on WW2 movies in 2005?

Interesting. WWII was an era where everyone was behind the President and the troops. Therefore, many of the movies glorified the heroism during the war. Hollywood took a sad time, and turned itself into a cheering section.

The tone in Hollywood today is different. Since Vietnam, what we have seen mostly, with some exceptions, is anti-war, or "war is hell" sorts of movies. I don't think that we are going to see the types of films today that we saw in the 1940's. Too bad. I think that our service people, in harm's way, need an emotional boost from Hollywood!

You mean a new "Green Beret" for this generation? NOT. Please NOT.

Personally, I am glad that Hollywood supported FDR and Truman's fight against the Axis powers, instead of declaring the war lost every time a battle was lost or an error made. I wonder what FDR's "exit strategy" was.

And I wish people would stop comparing WWII to the failed military adventures that have transpired since then and due to an almost total misconception of how the world works coupled with failed diplomacies and poor intelligence. There isn't much to praise there.

My point is only that battles were lost, and huge errors made in WW2, without a cacophany of voices declaring the war an unwinnable disaster each time. I would guess that there were even abuses in prisoner interrogation. Had there been a continuing outcry every time one of these events transpired, it would undoubtedly have made WW2 harder to prosecute successfully.

I was comparing these specific points alone, and not really discussing whether the two wars are similar in a more general way.

Not so. There was many a voice in the Congress and the Senate as well as many journalists and pundits of the time who declared the war a travesty. The war, however, historically revealed a unified purpose despite even with the final bungling of dealing with Stalin (which created a schism between Churchill and Roosevelt). We did not go to a foreign country and stir up a civil war with questionable conviction of purpose and with a coalition that holds about as much water as a sieve. Nobody is going to make a film about how noble our motives are in this present conflict.

(You are now comitted to watch "Green Berets" and/or listen to the soundtrack 100 times).

Oh, yeah? Well I know General Eisenhower's entire family personally, and they say that WW2 and Iraq are so similar as to be virtually indistinguishable.

What asylum are they staying in?

Okay guys, simmer down.
More WW2? Yes indeedy! But let's make them in a country that actually went the full 6 years. The Pianist was bloody good and really brought it home. I've been to Auschwitz and it chills you to the bone. Can't say ?'Private Ryan' gave me that feel. Oh yeah, listen Mr Hanks, how do you shoot an entire film about the Normandy landings and there isn't one Brit in the entire film. My gramps was really confused by that one coz he swears he was there running past a bunch of yanks smoking cigarettes. ?'Gonna find that Private Ryan, soonza finish this pack of luckies!'
Seriously though, Hitlers last week would be a great flick. The panic, the desertion, the outbursts, the wedding and the final honeymoon scene, Adolph and Eva, in a ditch, covered in petrol on fire. Who says romance is dead. Oh, and John Wayne saying "He surely was the son of satan!"

Hitler's last days? Been done ad nauseum, including TV movies.

It was "Saving Private Ryan," not "Saving Mr. Chips" and the British landed on a neighboring beach although they were smart enough to have used mine clearing vehicles that we refused even though they offered them. Also very controversial was the fact that most of the US tanks sunk without any enemy fire before reaching land costing many more American lives. Speaking of criticism of that war, Eisenhower should have been ashamed of that screw up. What British films on the war featured American soldiers?

I do like the borrowing of John Wayne from "The Greatest Story Every Told" to make a proclamation over Hitler's burnt carcass.

Anyway, welcome to A2K and the film forum.

I seem to remember every war film produced in the UK had americans in it. Which would of course be very true to life. ?'The Longest Day' pisses on Private Ryan. Was Daniel F Zanuck american? Not sure. Lots of Brits in that one. If not on the same beaches, they sure met up somewhere at the axis of a pincer movement. Plus they had lots of top German actors (every Bond baddie was in it!)
Only war film I can think of without Yanks (closest was a Canadian I think) was the Dambusters. But that is very typically English. Possibly every other film starring Kenneth Moore.
Still, I must insist Hitlers burning corpse would be a crowd puller. None of the Nazis had polaroids at the time otherwise you think one of them would have taken a snap for old times sake. If indeed that is what happened. Who knows, could he have slapped on a Russian uniform and fled the scene screaming ?'Onward comrades!'. Now there's a story line for Robert Harris!

remarkable :wink:

I'd have to review "The Longest Day" (and American film) for Brits as I don't remember any but it's a moot point. Spielberg decided not to concentrate in this storyline on meeting up with British soldiers, especially not on Omaha Beach where there were no British soldiers. Not to make any claim that most American war movies are about American soldiers. "The Dam Busters" the only British WWII movie without Americans? Don't think so -- I can't come upwith any British WWII movie with any featured American soldiers. I can think of other British movies that have no American references, "Sink the Bismark" for one. "U-571" give this impression that the American first captured an Enigma but the British had also captured a Nazi sub many years earlier and got hold of the Enigma machine. Is there nationalism in Hollywood movies and due to the output, does it seem egotistical? Yes. Bollywood makes more movies than Hollywood but they don't make movies about Americans.

Then there are UK films like "The Eagle Has Landed" where the American solidiers are introduced as the Keystone Kops.

I had a vaguely similar conversation in A2K about Star Trek - why do 99% of the crew & the aliens they meet speak with American accents? Because it was made in America by American producers with American money primarily for an American audience. And for the same reasons, there were very few Americans in Doctor Who!

Hollywood's nationalism is annoying at times (when it spoils a story), but is just about justified when it's their money.

Well, that 1% is pretty dominate in the screen personas of Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing as if we would be asked to believe there were suppose to be Brits in another time and space!

(We're asked to believe that there were African Americans in "Empire Strikes Back," after all).

I guess that if George Lucas had been British and the money had come from a British studio (I don't think we have any though!) then the majority of the actors would have been British. "He who pays the piper picks the tune"?

British actors seem (in my hazy recollection of the films I've seen) to be cast into fairly narrow roles - uber-villian, random henchman "for effect" (eg the big guy in Cliffhanger), and, err, where necessary (eg. to play Winston Churchill). I know you to be a knowledgable, LW - can you comment/disagree/agree? Interested to hear what you think.