http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374463/ Spielberg to develop a "Band of Brothers" of sorts for WWII Pacific Theater. ROCK!!!
I hope there isn't a sad indian who ends up just becoming a hobo. I don't think I could take that. I loved BoB but I am pretty burned out on this WWII brotherhood stuff. We get it. Spielberg needs to quit ********ing around and just do Johnny Quest already.
This has been rumored forever, but if they do it right this could be a damn good thing. Besides, both my grandfathers were Marines in the Pacific (one fought on Iwo Jima, the other was a Raider) so this would be a little closer to home.
The essential story was done and done perfectly in BoB; hard to see what doing it over with new sets would achieve. But what the heck its a free country and it won't be the last WW2 piece done... and probably not the worst.
And you base that on what piece of evidence, exactly?? This miniseries is going to be based on experiences of three Marines during the war. It should be interesting, seeing how different the battles in the Pacific were from the ones in Europe.
Sounds like a good, intuitive idea. You get propaganda when you are trying to raise troops, and suspect you get propaganda when the citizenry is trying to justify their warlike ways. When a factual film serves the purpose of increasing interest in enlistment, someone is going to want it to get out.
Also of note, Ken Burns is just about wrapping up a PBS series on WW2 that should be pretty good. Though...there's currently some political heat underway to make sure that the 500k hispanics that fought in WW2 get "proper credit" in his documentary, and supposedly he has relented. Latinos give PBS a history lesson. I'm definately interested in watching, less so in the political need to apply current standards of immigration debates into historical filmmaking.
Because WWII continues to be the war through which our nation understands military conflict and international affairs. Witness all the comparisons of Saddam to Hitler, lectures on the dangers of appeasement, critiques of the Iraq War not requiring proper sacrifice from the citizenry, comparisons of the broad based military of WWII to the selective military of today. And that's leaked over into popular culture. Even anti-war films like Flags of Our Fathers (which was very under appreciated) are set in WWII. As a nation, we seem incapable of understanding our place in the world without reference to the events of 1937-1945, and it's a problem because it doesn't allow proper consideration of the US role in the world since then. And Burns is right to change his documentary in response to these objections. A responsible documentary about the war wouldn't leave out the Bracero Program, the GI Forum, the zoot suit riots, and the rights claims by Mexican-Americans that came from military service. If he'd bothered to consider the historical scholarship on the war written in the last 10 years, he wouldn't have even run into this problem.
Excellent post, although Flags of our Fathers was overrated, IMO. I thought it was kind of tiresome and boring and forgettable.
How lovely...now, could you answer my original question (which asked for some type evidence to back up your assertion of "The worse Iraq gets, the more films about WWII get made") instead of offering up a clearly subjective rant.
I'm a sucker for good military drama. BoB was perhaps the greatest of it's genre ever made. While SPR doesn't hold up well to repeated viewings (it's flaws come to the fore), BoB does. Quite well, actually. I would get emotional watching BoB. I hope this is going on HBO. I'll definitely watch it.
Clint Eastwood has made two WWII movies since the problems in Iraq starting talking off. Before that, he did not make any. How does it feel to be faced, mofo?
That would be nice. As far as the Marine Corps goes the Battle of Belleau Wood is what made the USMC famous and gave it its "elite" status among the other services. Yet and movie about Marines always revolves around guadalcanal or Iwo Jima.
Nothing about Khe Sanh. Or the Boxer Rebellion. Now that I think about it, it's weird, and you're totally right.
You are a movie producer who is being asked to put up millions of dollars for a feature film, a television mini-series (broadcast or cable), or one for video/dvd. What is the purpose of your investment? Good feelings or profit? If it is profit, the topic has to be one that you and the general overall market has to be interested in. If there is a book on the NY Times best selling list on the same subject, this will help you market this project and get more publicity before it airs. If the subject is something closer to your heart, such as the producer is a Vietnam veteran or a relative of a vet, this may get the financing. Before anyone tries to do something on WWI, they will want to look at the results of the Lost Batallion and it's ratings. If they were poor, then there may not be an financial interest in making another WWI story. Ratings and profit are the ultimate end to a project, not just the reasoning of there hasn't been anything done on a topic, yet.
anything spielberg throws his name on will get ratings, he could do a film on Navy cooks doing KP and people would watch. If he were to make a WWI film or mini series, people would certainly be interested. As for the lost batallion, an A&E origin movie starring Rick Shroeder will not have the same drawing power of a Spielberg production
Well part of why WW2 movies are being made, as well, has to do with a generational thing...first, Eastwood is old enough to remember WW2 as a child; Spielberg grew up with WW2 stories from his dad; Hanks is on record as being a great admirer of that generation of Americans. I think all of them feel as if those men should be honored while they're still around, as so many WW2 vets die every day. My grandfather was a Colonel in the Army Engineers in the pacific in WW2, and apparently was in the thick of some pretty nasty stuff according to my aunt, I know he was at Tarawa. He's 98 years old and has never, to my knowledge or memory, talked about his experience at all. How many of those stories are dissapearing every day. If there's anything political about the motivation to make these films, it's undoubtedly to do with a general anti-war message rather than anything do do with Iraq specifically, though that does make it more relevant in the here and now. And I love this because it will infuriate more Englishmen and make them feel slighted again that no one's making series about their servicemen. That's always pretty fun. Someone in the UK needs to pony up and make a WW2 film about their own soldiers to get them to shut up about it. Remember U-571? Hehehe....
Or they should have done the business themselves and NOT telephoned the USA for help. All WWII stories would've been British.