A new batch of war classics

Valmont

Considering the Vietnam war gave us Apocalypse Now, Platoon, and Full Metal Jacket, does anyone think we will see some equally epic films spawned from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? The Hurt Locker was definitely a step in the right direction but do you think the current troubles will match the dizzying cinematic heights inspired by the Vietnam conflict?

mawk

i figure that the wars nowadays are lacking a defined antagonist for films. Nazis? Perfect. Vietcong? Pitiable but scary too. Japanese? Respectable but culturally incompatible..

War on terror? Bit too shady and ill understood imo

I think it might be great for some tense-political-who-is-the-real-villian? Type flicks. But for the open war epics of years gone by? Nah

Kess73

Just trying to think of the bigger films based on the Iraqi wars and the war in Afghanistan or on the effects of those wars.


Black Hawk Down, The Hurt Locker, Three Kings, and Jarheads are probably the most obvious ones and Brothers the most recent one.

Karl Hungus

Apart from The Hurt Locker, I don't think there's any films centered around Iraq that have measured up to the likes of The Deer Hunter or Full Metal Jacket.

mike65

I'm hoping that Inglourious Bastards relative success will inspire a revival in good old fashional 'blow everything up thats not nailed down' WW2 flicks myself.

Whoops did I say relative - Worldwide: $313,597,370

Kess73

When you think about it, the Vietnam war spawned arguable four classic films.

Platoon
Full Metal Jacket
The Deer Hunter
Apocalypse Now.

Some may argue that the Killing Fields should be in there, I have heard Jackknife get called a classic, myself I love R Point (yes it is a horror but it is set during the Vietnam war:))

But there are a hell of a lot of films made about the Vietnam war that are floating between good and awful. Maybe in time a similar amount of films may get made about the conflict in Iraq, and if so, then some classics may emerge.

I remember being a kid in the 80's and there was a spell where there seemed to be a constant stream of Vietnam movies. Hamburger Hill, the Missing In Action series, the Killing Fields, and Odin knows how many straight to dvd action flicks.

So far we have one top notch film based in and around the war in Iraq. Not a bad return when stacked against the number of films so far on the subject.

We also have a number of second tier films in Black Hawk Down, Three Kings etc which would be comparable in quality, imho, to We Were Soldiers, Hamburger Hill and the Killing Fields.


I do think that modern war films will face a problem that older ones did not have to face. That problem is the saturation news coverage that we have in the modern era. I think that some of the mystique of the subject matter has been done away with due to real life footage being on the news on such a regular basis.

Kess73

mike65 wrote: »

I'm hoping that Inglourious Bastards relative success will inspire a revival in good old fashional 'blow everything up thats not nailed down' WW2 flicks myself.

Whoops did I relative - Worldwide: $313,597,370

As much as I enjoyed IG, it came nowhere close, for me anyway, to my favourite WWII film. The Big Red One (the reconstructed version not the original cinematic release) tops my war film list.

mike65

I only ever saw the curtained 1980 print of the Big Red One. I guess WW2 presents some greater logistical problems now, so few real life props that you'd be able to use never mind blow up and the idea of a CGI infested battle makes me shudder. I'll be intersted to see how the new Dambusters works out in that respect if it ever actually arrives.

Karl Hungus

mike65 wrote: »

I'm hoping that Inglourious Bastards relative success will inspire a revival in good old fashional 'blow everything up thats not nailed down' WW2 flicks myself.

Whoops did I relative - Worldwide: $313,597,370

It's a nice thought, but I think that a lot of people saw Inglourious Basterds because it was a Tarantino film, rather than because it was a good old fashioned 'blow everything up that's not nailed down' WW2 flick. It's the same way with Kill Bill, I find that people didn't really flock to see it because it was a throwback to classic martial arts films, but rather that it was Tarantino. Likewise it didn't start any revival of good old martial arts films either, so I don't know if Inglourious Basterds would start any kind of revival either. I don't think many people saw Death Proof because they were fans of Vanishing Point or the like. That said, Basterds was infinitely better than either Kill Bill or Death Proof, so who knows?

11811

Kess73 wrote: »

I do think that modern war films will face a problem that older ones did not have to face. That problem is the saturation news coverage that we have in the modern era. I think that some of the mystique of the subject matter has been done away with due to real life footage being on the news on such a regular basis.

Good point, another thing is that the war in Iraq doesn't quite have the same spectacle compared to Vietnam / WW2. Its definitely not quite as "exciting" nor as controversial as Vietnam.

And Black Hawk Down, while an excellent movie, has nothing to do with Iraq!;)

Kess73

11811 wrote: »

Good point, another thing is that the war in Iraq doesn't quite have the same spectacle compared to Vietnam / WW2. Its definitely not quite as "exciting" nor as controversial as Vietnam.

And Black Hawk Down, while an excellent movie, has nothing to do with Iraq!;)

Damn you are totally right. For some reason when I thought of it I imagined them crashing and fighting with Iraqi soldiers not Somali fighters.

Think I have a mash up of two films going on in my head.:D

RoadRunner

I watched greenzone last night. Not as good as hurtlocker. But it's a decent flick set around the first few days of the iraq way. Well worth a watch im my opinion. (But the GF hated it.)

Kess73

mike65 wrote: »

I only ever saw the curtained 1980 print of the Big Red One. I guess WW2 presents some greater logistical problems now, so few real life props that you'd be able to use never mind blow up and the idea of a CGI infested battle makes me shudder. I'll be intersted to see how the new Dambusters works out in that respect if it ever actually arrives.

Oh you should get your hands on the reconstructed version if the original is the only version you have seen.

The reconstructed version is vastly superior, and clocks in at about 40 minutes longer.

It is as much of a jump in class as there is between the standard version of Kingdom Of Heaven and the Directors cut of KOH.

Karl Hungus

Hmm, I always remember liking The Big Red One, I'll have to check out the reconstructed version so.

Oh, and for another classic WWII film I highly recommend Sam Peckinpah's Cross of Iron.

Kess73

Cross Of Iron is a great watch.


This is the version of The Big Red One To look out for.


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Big-Red-One-Reconstruction-Special/dp/B000803PRM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1268415706&sr=8-1




I am dying for it to come out on Blu ray.

fitz0

I'm glad to see that the films made about the Middle Eastern conflict are of a different sort than the Vietnam and WWII films.

Now I'm only basing this off the Hurt Locker, Jarhead and the Generation Kill series, but Iraq films tend to be less aboout blowing shit up than about the people doing the blowing up of shit, or as in many cases, not blowing anything up and dealing with boredom more than enemies.

I find these films much more engaging than older war films, although some of the Vietnam films are absolute gems, same goes for the WWII ones.

Valmont

Black Hawk Down was set in Somalia so doesn't really fit into the modern War on Terror spectrum.

How could I have forgotten the deerhunter!