I'm assuming the book didn't go too far (in detail) beyond him returning home?

The Fox News special focused more on the anger he had towards the Japanese, his PTSD, problems with alcoholism, his wife filing for divorce, and ultimately her being saved and convincing him to go and listen to this young preacher at an evangelical tent service... A little known man named Billy Graham.

My grandfather was a weather recon pilot and his mission was referenced in the book. He flew over Tokyo and due to weather concerns the decisions were made not to bomb the seat of the emperor.

We lost my grandfather last year. It sure would have been neat to share that with him. Afterall, he shared those facts with us for years. Pretty neat to see it in pop culture from a different source.

Pg 299 on the hardback (I think)

DP

It actually covered all of that in the book and epilogue. Pretty extensively at that. The movie omitted everything from college and post war life. That easily made up 7 or so chapters in the book.

For some reason, I thought The Bird was fat or ogre-ish.

Been 2 years since I read the book though.

We saw it last night, and were pretty disappointed. Just lazy, hacky film making in general. There was no reason to use flashback to tell his olympic and youth stories - lazy device when they could have just told the story. Really cut short shrift to the other guys he met along the way (especially Bill Harris), and the utter misery they lived in. She made the camp seem almost clean. The guys were disease-ridden, desperate and starving, but except for the one shot of them stabbing the canvas sack, there was nothing shown of their sabotage and stealing operations.

And to reduce his post-war torment and turnaround to a footnote? C'mon

This deserved a 6 episode band of brothers treatment - to cover the home front, the other guys, and his total odyssey.

Looks like Fox is re-airing the special tonight and then again next week.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/12/24/after-unbroken-remarkable-story-louis-zamperini-faith/

Amazing book. Incredible story. Still want to see the movie.

Saw it today. What an insult to this guy's incredible life. Terrible, lazy film making.

Here might be an interesting little game:

Who would y'all have liked to see do this justice?

I know it's a little out there, but to really tackle the epic scale and stomach churning torture, I would have watched the hell out of a PT Anderson take.

I haven't seen the movie yet but I recently finished the book. The epicness of his story is worthy of the HBO miniseries treatment. What a fantastic story.

POWs are cowards, hiding in their little mud huts without any sunlight. I mean, the only way we know they were there were by the carvings of their names into the walls. What a disgusting passive tolerance of their own horrible treatment. /Michael Moore

There is actually a pretty good interview with Louis on CBN.com. It details his early life, the Torrance Tornado period, time in the war, execution island, prison work camp. Once back home meeting and marrying his wife, the terrible nightly nightmares of the Bird, becoming an alcoholic, becoming a Christian (reciting scripture), getting his life back together. It also talks about his trip to Japan to forgive his tormentors, with the exception of The Bird, who he was unable to see, ending with his being a torch bearer in the a Winter Olympics in Nagano.

If you have 15 minutes, it's worth the watch...


http://www.cbn.com/tv/1422057738001

I thought it was a really good movie, but one that I will never watch again. It got a little dusty in the theater towards the end. It hits home harder being a true story - for me, at least.

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Saw it today. What an insult to this guy's incredible life. Terrible, lazy film making.

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I couldn't disagree more. Of course the book is "better." There's only so much you can fit into 2 hours, but the movie did follow the book pretty accurately (just didn't cover everything in the book).

The movie served its purpose in reaching the masses; those who hadn't read/heard Louis' story. I agree, a 6 part miniseries could have gone into greater detail on his life experiences, but it would not have reached nearly as many people as the movie. Also, I think the movie has encouraged a great number of people to go back and read the book.

Worst thing I could have done is wrapped up the book and see the flick a day later. Even if I hadn't read it, the acting and storytelling would have felt flat to me. Unimpressed and a disservice (though, not an insult), in my opinion. I thought much of his experiences were glossed over for the sake of fitting it all into one feature length film and his POW experience once he was off Tinian was completely pieced together and mixed up to move the story along, which was far less impressive than the book account. Plenty of drama seemed left on the table and unused, unfortunately.