Midway remake out in cinemas NOV 8

Started by Destraex, June 09, 2019, 04:31:35 AM

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JasonPratt

#120
Our fellow grog Invicta hosts Craig Symonds talking about the strategic and operational situation for the Midway battle.



The movie gets A LOT of this stuff right, btw.


The biggest thing it gets wrong, obviously for dramatic/timing purposes, is the idea that the fight was basically over after Best's attack on the Akagi. The 3rd and 4th carrier fights get compressed into this time period, and the two retaliation attacks on the Yorktown are ignored so far as I recall (which eventually would lead to its sinking but which were reported as two immediate different carrier losses when it stayed operational through heroic efforts).

I suspect, though I haven't been able to confirm yea or nay yet, that the infamous shot of the turtled carrier Yorktown, supposedly set in the aftermath of the Coral Sea battle (when of course had the carrier been that far gone she wouldn't have gotten back to dry dock to arrive to fight at Midway at the last moment), is actually an asset from a sequence acknowledging the eventual loss of the Yorktown which was deleted from the film for pacing purposes.

Maybe there should be an intraquel focusing on the Yorktown's crazy levels of survival during this period, since a good portion of her crew came back later to find she still hadn't sunk and were in the process of attempting a skeleton-crew recovery to sail her into port when she (and the destroyer holding the rest of her crew) were ambushed by the I-168 and finished off.
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airboy

The attack on the Yorktown was not shown. 

The result was briefly on camera (Yorktown in Flames) and back in Pearl they mention losing Yorktown while 3 Jap carriers were sunk.

JasonPratt

Invicta then goes on to review the film. Gives it good historical marks!



"It's like the historical film you or I would produce."
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Destraex

#123
Saw Midway - Recommend it. Overall a good movie. But perhaps a little too slow and confusing for the general public.
There were of course some things to pick on. but much less than most. I think it's a shame that this sort of movie is not popular anymore.
I will want to pick up this movie as a blu ray movie, hopefully an extended edition will be released.

SPOILERS BELOW - a few things that made me wonder:
- The thing most obvious to me was the lack of any footage I saw showing American fighters
- I think the movie covered so much ground and this made me feel a little less invested. But no big deal. Just felt like a giant overview.
- Bombs and Torpedoes at once was strange to me.
- I wondered about the scene where the pilot disables a lot of things to simulate failures while landing The angle and move where the pilot managed to get a tonne of lift just before the back of the carrier... something DCS is about to model is the problem of air coming off the back of the aircraft carrier taking a dive and providing no or little lift. The opposite of what seemed to happen in the stunt landing scene.
- Wonder if the rear gunner finishing off a better trying to kamikaze into the back of the carrier was real
- Also wondered how damned effective the Dauntless was as a fighter. That hammerhead manoever and the shooting down of zeros with forward and rear guns was amazing to me. But probably true. The Dauntless must be an amazing aircraft.
- Some of the scenes famous quotes seem out of order, the one about the "sleeping giant" for instance. Was that more historical than tora tora tora where it happened on a ship?
- A lot of the finance came from china, so the chinese helping the doolittle pilots out was a little protracted for such an "overview" key event focussed film. But cannot complain. It happened and they needed to show more than pearl harbour did I guess.

Over all really happy with this film. No lovey dovey or PC bullcrap seemed to make it in either. Shame wiki says it barely made money.
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besilarius

"Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don't find out until too late that he's been playing with two queens all along".  Terry Pratchett.

During filming of Airplane, Leslie Nielsen used a whoopee cushion to keep the cast off-balance. Hays said that Nielsen "played that thing like a maestro"

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Staggerwing

Quote from: Destraex on February 01, 2020, 08:26:06 PM
- Also wondered how damned effective the Dauntless was as a fighter. That hammerhead manoever and the shooting down of zeros with forward and rear guns was amazing to me. But probably true. The Dauntless must be an amazing aircraft.

The Dauntless was the only dedicated bomber in WW2 to have a positive kills-to-deaths ratio. On a few occasions it was even used in combat air patrols if no dedicated fighters were available.
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airboy

Quote from: Staggerwing on February 01, 2020, 09:13:47 PM
Quote from: Destraex on February 01, 2020, 08:26:06 PM
- Also wondered how damned effective the Dauntless was as a fighter. That hammerhead manoever and the shooting down of zeros with forward and rear guns was amazing to me. But probably true. The Dauntless must be an amazing aircraft.

The Dauntless was the only dedicated bomber in WW2 to have a positive kills-to-deaths ratio. On a few occasions it was even used in combat air patrols if no dedicated fighters were available.

That is amazing.

Tripoli

The Dauntless had a 3.2:1 Kill ratio in air to air combat, and was frequently used on anti-torpedo aircraft patrol. https://www.pearlharboraviationmuseum.org/pearl-harbor-blog/douglas-sbd-dauntless-scout-dive-bomber/    Watch this video of the TV show "DogFights" starting at the 1:25 mark for a classic SBD v. Zero encounter https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3qhcjy
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JasonPratt

Re the sleeping giant scene: it was more historical in the sense that Yamamoto wasn't with the strike fleet at Pearl Harbor. That was Admiral Nagumo. This is why Yamamoto famously lamented that Nagumo hadn't been able to catch and hit the American carriers, and hadn't been able to launch the originally planned third strike against the oil facilities (although in hindsight this wouldn't have affected the strategic outcome much because, as Nagumo was well aware, the facilities had been highly entrenched to resist such bombardment and the carrier planes would not have carried enough firepower to make a real difference there.)

So they have Yamamoto saying the famous Toho line back in Japan upon hearing the news. But the line itself isn't historical anyway: it was created by Toho Studios for their side of the plot in their co-production of Tora Tora Tora -- probably with a tacit nod to the idea that their most famous international film star by then, Godzilla, originally represented the United States: a sleeping nuclear giant awakened and filled with a terrible resolve, which burns Tokyo to the ground in retaliation for being disturbed.

...yep, I didn't know the line was fictional either until a year or two ago! Naturally I thought Honda and his production and writing crew had borrowed Yamamoto's famous warning as one of their basis points for Godzilla, but the famous phrase postdates them by at least ten years.
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JasonPratt

#129
For more on the sleeping giant quote (though this suggests the American side of the writing team on TTT came up with it): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isoroku_Yamamoto%27s_sleeping_giant_quote

It does colorfully encapsulate several angles of Yamamoto's beliefs and sayings about what happened, however.

1.) He had previously warned that while he could run wild for six months in the Pacific, he could not guarantee what would happen afterward -- and this was despite him being the architect for the Pearl strike! (Which aside from missing the carriers did succeed in its limited strategic goal of providing a window of time for Japan to act.)

2.) He declared to another officer in 1942, referencing the attack, that there was no honor in striking a sleeping enemy, though the only dishonor was for the one caught sleeping who should have been on guard.

3.) Back at staff HQ, while his staff was celebrating, he himself spent protracted time in a depression afterward (something the film also shows, if I recall correctly). The reason was that due to various errors his goal of alerting the White House of a declaration of war 30 minutes before the attack, had only arrived substantially afterward; thus losing the moral ground and adding a special moral rage as a factor to the United States' response.

4.) He had warned fellow high command that the only way to beat the United States would be to dictate terms in the White House itself, i.e. as long as we were willing to fight the only way the Japanese would win would be to invade the west coast all the way to the east coast and destroy us as a nation, this being impossible. This was generally accepted, with the provision that the goal should therefore be to make us (and Great Britain) unwilling to fight any longer in their theater as soon as possible. But the moral outrage of Pearl Harbor would hamper their only geopolitical hope of victory against us in the Pacific.
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Destraex

#130
Amazing insights above. The dauntless may become a fav aircraft of mine.

I will also add that like most movies these days. It felt like one giant 1.5hr trailer.
I have to watch it again when I get it on blu ray and settle down to really absorb it properly. As it was I went with my wife - who had a coughing fit laughing at me which resulted in her breathing in popcorn - and my son who kept looking at me meaningfully when quotes or carriers from WOWS came up. This was on top of doing the lawn in 40 degree heat here in Australia. It got to something like 48 degrees Celsius. I was exhausted and distracted. So need to really sit down and enjoy.

I am very happy though that I have already got so much out of the movie just talking about it.
Shame it was a flop at the movies.
"They only asked the Light Brigade to do it once"

The_Admiral

Jason is right - if there's any fault, it lies in the willingness of others to quote a movie so much that it ended up being seen as a historical source (to the point of forgetting where the quote itself came from) but in terms of artistic license, I can't really blame Tora Tora Tora.

This topic contains other quotes from Yamamoto, taken from his personal correspondence. Clearly the said quote, as apocryphal as it gets, is not out of character.
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=72131

As a related topic, just check how many of Napoleon's famous quotes are completely made up and still absolutely mentioned to this day, it's scary  :hide:

besilarius

Jason, very nice information.
One other tidbit that came out of the postwar interviews of Japanese leaders.
The army was very insular and near sighted.  China was the big thing in their view, followed by Russia.  The US was far away and only marginally of interest.
A number of generals viewed america through the lens of fragmented china.  Each provincial leader/warlord might be a part of Nationalist China, but they mostly did what they wanted.  The national government was not able to get these local leaders to mobilise in a truly national military movement.
When these generals read, "United States of America", they interpreted that to mean a looser confederation in which the individual states would follow their own policy.
Some army leaders believed that war with the United States would probably only include California, Washington, and Oregon.  Maybe Nevada, Idaho.  The eastern states would not be interested in a war on the other side of the world.
"Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don't find out until too late that he's been playing with two queens all along".  Terry Pratchett.

During filming of Airplane, Leslie Nielsen used a whoopee cushion to keep the cast off-balance. Hays said that Nielsen "played that thing like a maestro"

Tallulah Bankhead: "I'll come and make love to you at five o'clock. If I'm late, start without me."

"When all other trusts fail, turn to Flashman." — Abraham Lincoln.

"I have enjoyed very warm relations with my two husbands."
"With your eyes closed?"
"That helped."  Lauren Bacall

Master Chiefs are sneaky, dastardly, and snarky miscreants who thrive on the tears of Ensigns and belly dancers.   Admiral Gerry Bogan.

JasonPratt

Oh, they thought we were a confederation! -- that makes a lot of sense to their attitude. I guess the naval leaders benefited from having come to the US for college?
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
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besilarius

Yamamoto surely recognized the difference.  His infighting with the army actually led to his becoming CinC of the Combined Fleet.
As Deputy Navy Minister he fought with the army nationalists about everything.  At one point, the army put guards around his house and to accompany him.  Ostensibly, they were to prevent any assasination attempts but within the navy it was accepted that the guards would make it simpler, when Tojo and the nationalists decided to remove him.
Naval Minister Yonai sent him to the fleet as the only way to protect yamamoto.
Pearl Harbor attack came about because he recognized the vast difference in resources between Japan and the US.  Striking the first blow, to even up the forces, seemed to him the only way to have a chance to win.

As a curious footnote, while in america, he toured the US.  Supposedly, he so impressed a Texas oilman, that he offered Yamamoto a job with an incredible salary.
His sense of duty and obligation to the emperor would not allow him to leave his service to the empire.
"Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don't find out until too late that he's been playing with two queens all along".  Terry Pratchett.

During filming of Airplane, Leslie Nielsen used a whoopee cushion to keep the cast off-balance. Hays said that Nielsen "played that thing like a maestro"

Tallulah Bankhead: "I'll come and make love to you at five o'clock. If I'm late, start without me."

"When all other trusts fail, turn to Flashman." — Abraham Lincoln.

"I have enjoyed very warm relations with my two husbands."
"With your eyes closed?"
"That helped."  Lauren Bacall

Master Chiefs are sneaky, dastardly, and snarky miscreants who thrive on the tears of Ensigns and belly dancers.   Admiral Gerry Bogan.