[punk-coder]

My grandfather was a medic and was part of the storm of Normandy beach on D-Day. He never really spoke of it and had a stroke and passed away before Saving Private Ryan came out. We wondered what he would have thought of the beginning of that movie, as someone who was there and was running around helping people the whole time.

[rightbyte]

My take is that Saving Private Ryan is "pro-war" movie like most Hollywood productions on the topic and not about 2WW really.

The give away is how the save Ryan squad seem to have agency and do like cool self-govern manouvers, like the storming of the 80mm AA gun hill, etc. More like a teenage boy fantasy. Band of Brothers is another good example of cool agency.

The opening assualt on the beach is some sort of low point for things to get better and under the protagonists' control.

A true to history version would be soldiers getting shrapnel wounds from indirect fire and being shot at by soldiers they can't see. Then they redo it somewhere else becouse someone said so.

[chiph]

Dad did not land at Normandy, but he was wounded during the Battle of the Bulge. He was hit by a ricochet in the neck. A relatively minor wound that if the bullet had hit him a little further to the left, would have killed him. He never saw his attacker. But as a radio operator he was specifically targeted by enemy soldiers.

> Then they redo it somewhere else becouse someone said so.

Yes. You follow orders when in the military. Freedom of movement is one of the things you give up when you join. Or are drafted.

> The give away is how the save Ryan squad seem to have agency

They had orders direct from General Marshall (Army Chief of Staff at the time) to go get Ryan. That gave them a ton of agency.

[1992spacemovie]

> A true to history version would be soldiers getting shrapnel wounds from indirect fire and being shot at by soldiers they can't see. Then they redo it somewhere else becouse someone said so.

No offense intended, but did you really watch Saving Private Ryan? Both of those things you mention occurred within the first 60 seconds of the start of the beach scene.

[rightbyte]

Ye, but it was a long time ago.

The point I am trying to make is that the opening is the 'low point' and then it becomes an action movie with the heroes in control.

[rangerr]

This take is baffling... in SPR the protagonists lose man after man over the course of the movie, right up until the end. A central theme is the irony and tragedy of how the mission to rescue a single man costs so many lives.

[rightbyte]

Hmm... I might need to rewatch SPR. I might be mixing it up with Band of Brothers.

[hatchoo]

BoB was somewhat like that too. They lost "brothers" along the way. While there are heroic deeds along the way, it shows the sad realities of war as well.

[1992spacemovie]

> The point I am trying to make is that the opening is the 'low point' and then it becomes an action movie with the heroes in control.

To be quite candid, I did not appreciate the brutality of WW2 until I spent a few months a decade ago researching the progression of events from 1939 to 1945. I say this as someone who had a fairly decent exposure to WW2 (Gramps was a B29 bomber pilot). Even now, every time I do a little digging or reading about a certain WW2 event/battle/massacre, I am still left shocked by the absolute brutality that occurred on a large scale. Conflicts since WW2 have not approached the same level of killing intensity, thank god. Perhaps nuclear weapons are indeed proving to be the ultimate moderator of human conquest ambition.

Sorry for rambling a bit: Back to your quote about it being a hero action movie - in my opinion WW2 kinda was an action movie with many stories of heros who sacrificed themselves or risked their lives directly to save their buddies - on all sides. The reason we hear so many of these stories from that time period is due to the massive number of engagements and opportunities presented near daily for men to attempt extraordinary maneuvers (e.g. flank attacking an overwhelming force who has their squad pinned down).

Some of the stories you hear from WW2 are absolutely over the top insane (risky). You will never hear nearly as many "hero" stories these days in my opinion due to all professional militaries employing similar risk-mitigation strategies to avoid unnecessary losses. Times were different back then.

[Andrex]

It's a movie. There has to be a narrative on some level.

[bell-cot]

How about these, instead?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Quiet_on_the_Western_Front...

[jlpom]

The Netflix adaptation is terrible

[ffsm8]

I thought the 2022 remake war great and very close to the original.

At least I got the same feeling of senselessness and morbid callousness from the leadership while watching it.

Watching the remake made it clear that soldiers were literally seen as fodder on all sides and nobody in charge cared how many died.

[wslh]

I wonder what WW2 reality is/was/means and how can you compress that in a movie? The Pianist? Dunkirk?

[nvy]

A lot of the maneuvers in Band of Brothers are realistic, especially the one where Speirs assaults the gun emplacements.