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Saw "Midway" Tonight


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While the Star Wars-esque flight sequences were a bit annoying in some ways, I was happily surprised by how faithful they were to critical points in the story. Overall, recommended. 

 

Cheers,

 

Dave

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I think I'm going to cave and see it.  You can never really expect a movie to be a historical lesson, lets face it, at that point it becomes a documentary and it ends the hopes for producers to achieve the next great blockbuster.  But if a movie can spark interest in at least some people, and spark the desire to buy a book and learn more, that's a small win.  I remember the first time I saw the good old Charlton Heston Midway, my friends and I spent weeks 'dogfighting' on our bikes, 35 years later I own more books than I have room in my house for.   From the few previews I've seen, you can catch a quick glimpse of a ship and recognize it as a Yorktown class, or the Yamato, so there's some hope that it might be worth checking out.  I first caught wind of this being made maybe two years ago, and I honestly had chills thinking how bad they could mess it up (Pearl Harbor).

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15 hours ago, parche said:

While the Star Wars-esque flight sequences were a bit annoying in some ways

 

Bwahahahahahahahahahah! Exactly how I felt watching the trailer, made me cringe. And probably why I won't pay to watch it. I'm not asking for 100% realism when watching a war movie but there's only so much CGI I can stand for.

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2 hours ago, rightwinger26 said:

The Kracken attacks and scatters boats everywhere!

 

Then Aquaman attacks the Japanese Imperial Navy, scattering their forces to the four winds... :whistle:

 

 

Seriously though, it sounds like they managed to avoid the mess they made of Pearl Harbor and, as far as I know, Ben Affleck is not in it.

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I have only watched the trailer....but I am quite impressed they included Pearl Harbor and the Doolittle Raid into this movie.  

Many younger people might not even know this history, so it is good they have laid some good groundwork leading up to the Battle of Midway. 

To only watch the Battle of Midway story would have been a missed opportunity to teach a possibly ignorant younger audience some history from WW2.

 

I will eagerly see this movie.

 

 

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To be fair, as a fan of history, I cringed at the trailers and hadn't intended on going to see it. But, I got some special tickets for a free preview and said "why not give it a chance". I figured I was going to have to tell my kids a bunch of corrections, but I really didn't. And I was extremely happy that they highlighted USS Nautilus' (SS-167) role. It nicely rolled in Pearl Harbor, Doolittle Raid and Coral Sea as a lead up to Midway. The CGI didn't bother me as much as I thought it would.

 

Cheers,

 

Dave

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A lot of Joe Rocheforts efforts in the build up to Midway really started to take form in the aftermath of the intelligence failures leading up to Pearl Harbor, so I'm glad to hear they started the movie to allow for a sort of build up of events.  I'm curious to see how well its done,  your starting to give me hope.  At a minimum, it'll be something fun for the wife and I do on a Friday since I actually have one off from work.

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Yes, but don't expect it to be a big thing. If you are expecting a flight by flight recounting of the battle, you'll be disappointed. 

 

Dave

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12 minutes ago, parche said:

Yes, but don't expect it to be a big thing. If you are expecting a flight by flight recounting of the battle, you'll be disappointed. 

 

Dave

While they made a good go of it I'm glad they weren't overlooked and their sacrifice was aknowleged

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On 11/2/2019 at 11:24 PM, parche said:

While the Star Wars-esque flight sequences were a bit annoying in some ways, I was happily surprised by how faithful they were to critical points in the story. Overall, recommended. 

 

Cheers,

 

Dave

 

Also caught an advanced screening this weekend and concur with this overall positive assessment.  I went into it with some pretty high standards - used to fly off aircraft carriers and my grandfather was a Navy dive bomber pilot who flew in the Pacific and trained under Midway veterans - and feared for the worst.  Yes, the CGI is dialed up pretty high and the film covers a lot of ground in only two hours but the film makers stick (mostly) to actual events and acknowledge the real life heroes.  There are the inevitable CGI mistakes that will likely drive modelers nuts but it's still better than the inconsistent collage of combat footage from the 1976 movie.   Would love to see the same story thoroughly covered in a 10-part HBO mini series but until that happens I can live with this latest depiction.  Already recommended it to my sister so she can take my nephew and he can get an appreciation for the service of the great-grandfather he never knew.  Overall I'd grade it with a B and would watch it again.

 

-Scoobs

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I think after reading what some of you guys have posted I may catch an afternoon showing with my Son. He loves watching old war movies with me so I think he would probably enjoy it.

 

Good stuff fellas :thumbsup:.

 

Happy modeling!

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Saw this tonight and I would have to say that it was not hollywoodized or romanticized.  It was a good accounting of the way things happened, but only from the point of view of the Enterprise squadrons and specifically the SBD squadrons.  I would liked to have seen a bigger part played by the torpedo squadrons (especially VT-8) that made the biggest sacrifice and created the scenario that allowed the bombers to attack without much fighter resistance.  The fighting scenes were intense.  Maybe a little over the top but what do I know I wasn't there.  I really liked it and would recommend it.  So many brave men!

 

Geoff M

Edited by Geoff M
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Concur with everyone so far, the flying was pretty Star Warsy, but nothing that made me feel like I wasted my money, they stuck with the chain of events pretty well, I was even happy with small things, like the B-26’s getting some screen time, the Pearl Harbor layout looked pretty good as far as ships, even Joe Rocheforts dungeon looked pretty good, hell, even John Ford was In it. And nobody took their girl for a joy ride in a P-40, lol.  I feel it was a Good Friday night.

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Saw it last night with my girlfriend, all decked out in my USS Arizona jacket/cap etc.  

Usually I'm fairly disgusted with Hollywood stuff, but I'd give it a B.

I think it would have helped had they more carefully crafted the story of how they used the false-water-system-report from Midway to determine Midway as the actual target....really about got lost in the narrative, and it was the pivotal bit of info that allowed us to set the trap.

 

Regarding the USS Arizona scenes (my specialty), generally good....they failed to show the 600 ft fire that totally engulfed the forward half of the ship; instead, after the magazines blew, there were only "aftermath fires."

The scene of the guys escaping across the line to the USS Vestal MUST have been based on the experience of my friends, USS Arizona survivors Don Stratton and Lauren Bruner; they and four others made it across that way, except it was WAY more amazing in reality....they did it from five stories above the main deck, across 70 ft or so of distance, and after being burned 3rd degree over about 60-70% of their bodies, including their hands down to the bone.  This, in the movie, while horrific, was relatively minor compared to the actual event.

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I just saw it.  I have no complaints.  The CGI was good....overwhelming and perhaps not 100% accurate....but I do think it showed the horrors well and I do think it is impossible to get everything accurate.

 

I do think including the Attack on Pearl Harbor helped to set the tone for the movie and introduce the reason for the events that followed.

 

But lets face it......the Pearl Harbor attack, Doolittle Raid, Coral Sea and Midway was just too much for one movie to accurately pull all the stories together and to offer the level of detail these epic battles deserve.

 

It would be nice to have a TV Series that re-enacts each story from WW2 with CGI and gets into the finer detail of each battle.  This has been done for the Vietnam War with one or 2 well done TV shows.

 

I am a WW2 geek and did enjoy seeing the battle scenes in this movie.  I am like a hungry dog for WW2 stuff and history in general, so I enjoyed this movie.

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Just a curious question from a German Guy: Do you US guys applaud in movies a lot? Never experienced that in Germany, propably because we know the actors can´t hear the applause and - in typical german efficiency fashion - just go home.  (Of course we do applaud in a real theater with a stage, where the cast comes out for applause after the play).

 

 

HAJO

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4 hours ago, Hajo L. said:

Never experienced that in Germany, propably because we know the actors can´t hear the applause and - in typical german efficiency fashion - just go home.

For the ultimate contrast to that, come to the US and go to a showing of the movie The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

It is not merely going to see a movie, it is participating in an experience!

😄
But, back to the question, I expect american audiences applauding, or booing, a move is a function of what I'd call our culture's innate need to express.

Be it thoughts, feelings, opinions, observations, experiences, it seems we Americans are driven to express, to share, and sometimes we do so no matter whether anyone is listening or not.
It is our need for us.
If someone else can gain from it, that is okay too.

Along with that, I find it logical that major social media is based here.

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