As expected, but now official, full trailer next week...

I've never been so uninterested in a Nolan movie. Hope the next trailer changes my mind.

Im with Cinco, I'm into anything WWII related, but I'm not still not convinced their is a full movie in this story.

Very hopeful though, Nolan is brilliant.

Depends on how early they start the story. If it's right in the beach then maybe, but the days and weeks leading up to the evacuation then I'm pretty confident there's enough for a movie.

Isn't the story:
1 hour for the fighter pilot
1 day for the seaman
1 week for the soldiers trapped on the beech

That seems like plenty of story for me.

If anything Intersellar's weakness was it covered too much time. We essentially saw Murph's life flash before our eyes, the time dilation was extreme that it killed much of the suspension of disbelief.

As for the general uninterest in Dunkirk so far, I get it. Nothing in the trailers so far has wowed me, and even having watched the prologue in IMAX I still have no idea what happened. It was really disjointed and confusing. But because it's Nolan, obviously, I can't help but get excited simply because it's another movie from one of the best in the business. But yeah, admittedly, just based on the footage itself so far - and the lack of any central character or seemingly traditional narrative - I'm not as excited as I usually am for a Nolan movie.

"Survive" is such a weird premise for a movie in this setting. Traditionally in a survival movie a character has to get from point A (in which they are lost or trapped) to point B (their freedom), and there's at least a tangible journey that has a sense of forward momentum. Or, if not, there's a mystery element as to why they're trapped (think 10 Cloverfield Lane). But here, it's basically just stay in one place and "endure," with no real mystery, which, at least on paper, is somewhat uncinematic and lacking in narrative thrust. And that definitely comes across in the trailers so far.

Still, I have faith, and am almost certain Nolan will be able to pull it off. I'm really interested to see if this final trailer pulls it all together in a kind of "hook" we haven't seen yet.

I don't keep track of these things, but I wonder how the British are reacting to this film. Dunkirk was one of their prouder moments of the war and I'll argue in their history. They pulled off a miracle which exceeded their own conservative estimates by a hundred fold. Between Dunkirk and Churchill proclaiming "they would fight in the beaches ..." etc the Brits had a new resolve to face Hitler and win. And for almost two years they faced the Germans in their own.

As Americans I can see how a story like this won't garner a huge amount of interest. We've never really experienced a "back to the wall" moment in which our national survival.

I am excited for this movie. I hope it far exceeds expectations and tells one of the most under appreciated stories of WWII. But I don't think it will be a major blockbuster like they hope.

The thing is... the British survived Dunkirk because the Germans inexplicably didn't attack with their ground force. They thought the air force could do the job, or some speculate Hitler might have let the army live (thinking he had it trapped) because he wanted peace with England and thought could use the army's survival as a bargaining chip.

Dunkirk isn't really even a story of surviving. It's a story of waiting, and then being evacuated by a mixed military and civilian fleet.

Like... imagine Empire Strikes back, the battle of Hoth, if the empire never send its ground forces. That's kind of what you get with Dunkirk.

It's one of the least-interesting episodes of the war in terms of its movie potential.

Hopefully they at least open with a sequence showing the German blitz of France that sent the brits running.

Interesting - I ought to read more about this. I never knew it was considered such a success by the Brits. I (not really having looked into it more than a reading through wikipedia) looked at it as the climax to an embarrassment: having to cede all of mainland Europe to the Nazis.

JABQ04 said:

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I'll disagree with it being uninteresting. It is woefully under appreciated and if the BEF isn't evacuated at Dunkirk then WWII essentially ends in June 1940.
True, the Germans ****ed that one up, but to the entire British nation and the troops in the each they didn't know that. Every second of that time waiting to be evacuated was like having your head in the chopping block waiting for the axe to drop. Survival wasn't guaranteed. There was still heavy contact on the perimeter between the divisions tasked with holding the perimeter at all costs all the while knowing that they had zero chance of escaping, yet continued to hold out to buy time for their comrades.

Their is also plenty of human drama by throwing in civilians who answered the call and volunteered for to take yachts, fishing boats, anything that could float to help. Old men, Boy Scouts, random civilians all went to help.

I think this is a great story and am excited to see how it is told on the big screen

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Agree with this.

Quote:

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"Survive" is such a weird premise for a movie in this setting.

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This actually feels quite accurate to me, given the history here.

There were some 300K soldiers trapped on that beach by the German Wehrmacht. If the Germans simply go in and do what they should have done (not advocating such, just seems an obvious military thing here), the Brits and French are denied troops to continue the war. France at the time was in the process of being defeated; a "Free French" force did spring up but after June 1940 France was done as an active combatant. I don't know off-hand what the population of England was in June 1940, but I would surmise to guess that losing that large a number of soldiers would have taken a mighty toll on their ability to continue the war. Yes, they still had the RAF and the Royal Navy, but that's an awful lot of men who are suddenly unavailable for the North African campaign, for instance.

So yes, "survive" seems appropriate, as this is exactly what happened. They survived to fight another day.

I didn't know much about Dunkirk other than it was a successful large scale extraction before hearing about this movie last year and read up.

Them being able to get that many men off the beach had much larger implications for the war than not losing men. Fascinating to read about.

I'm pumped.

ETA: while this was an allied "defeat," from my understanding Germany felt they had conquered everything in Western Europe soon after this. They then focused on Russia which lead to a two front war and their eventual undoing. Losing Dunkirk and saving that many soldiers for Britain was a godsend in retrospect. Just my .02

I get that. I'm not questioning the actual events. I'm saying there's a chance that "survival" in that type of setting - without any kind of journey or mystery - might feel stagnant from a movie-watching/cinematic/narrative standpoint. "Stay alive, endure, and don't go anywhere" could potentially end up being an inherently uncinematic situation. Again, I'm sure the final product will be phenomenal and I hope I end up laughing at the idea that I ever questioned the potential of the movie at all. I'm just saying that after two trailers and a prologue I'm a tiny bit worried.

I believe Nolan will have a compelling story to tell here, so I'm not even going to question it until I see it.

I would hope there is a build up to the beaches. Whether chronological or though flashbacks we could see how they ended up there. The situation deteriorating slowly at first and then just collapsing as Allied troops try to fall back with the Germans on their heels and eventually ending up at Dunkirk and getting a reprieve from the Panzers. Be cool to see the RAF pilots fly mission after mission. Fly, fight, land and refuel, grab a spot o tea and then back to the skies over and over. Already seems like their will be some focus on civilians performing rescues.

Over all I will remain cautiousness optimistic about Dunkirk. I'm a huge history nerd and have been burned in what was supposed to be great movies with great potential.

TCTTS said:

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and a prologue

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Don't understand this. I thought that prologue was nothing short of amazing and had me on the edge of my seat during the air stuff. It felt so visceral, and somehow felt new even though there was nothing inherently new or clever about it. (hell even Pearl Harbor might've had better dogfight scenes that the prologue). but the prologue made me feel better about the movie, than the underwhelming trailers.

somehow it was riveting. a lot of it was the sound/music i believe, which i think will play a big part in this movie.

I literally could not follow the action. I LOVE it when a movie just drops the audience into an action scene and you have to kind of figure it out as you go from context clues (think opening scenes from the Mission: Impossible movies). But for wherever reason, the prologue was just too disorienting to me. I didn't understand which planes were good and which were bad, or what they were trying to do, I didn't understand what the boats were doing, and then I remember something happening on the beach that I couldn't follow (I remember something about a stretcher, but I didn't get where they were taking it). None of it felt like it was connected, and there wasn't really any context. Granted, I was at a weird angle, and people were walking in front of me, but still. Maybe I just need to watch it again.

Cinco Ranch Aggie said:

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Regarding the aircraft, if it is painted green and brown on the upper surfaces, that will be a Spitfire and therefore British. If it has a yellow nose, that should be a Bf109, German.

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But how is a non history buff supposed to know that? They did a good job of making it apparent in something like Top Gun or Pearl Harbor, but here, I had no clue.

Btw, does anyone have a link to a bootleg of the prologue? I looked a couple months back and couldn't find anything.

TCTTS said:

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Cinco Ranch Aggie said:

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Regarding the aircraft, if it is painted green and brown on the upper surfaces, that will be a Spitfire and therefore British. If it has a yellow nose, that should be a Bf109, German.

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But how is a non history buff supposed to know that? They did a good job of making it apparent in something like Top Gun or Pearl Harbor, but here, I had no clue.

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Not really sure. That has always been my complaint about movies like this, Midway, Pearl Harbor, etc, in that the filmmakers don't typically have to be completely accurate since most people have no idea and probably don't care.

Another thing to look for - British aircraft will have a large blue and red rounded on wings and fuselage. Germans will have a black and white cross, actually more like a plus sign, as well as a swastika on the tail rudder unless the filmmakers go all politically correct.

JABQ04 said:

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Planes with swastikas = bad
Non swastika = good

I also never looked at it that way. Which sort of makes a point of how much Americans will enjoy/understand the movie. The Brits on the other hand will know exactly the situation and what was at stake (similar to us and a movie about the Alamo). That being said I'm still excited to see it and hope they do it justice.

For the record I thought the teaser trailer with the clock ticking and showing men lined up on the beach waiting for their turn was excellent. Then add the Jericho trumpet from a Stuka and man, looked intense

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Agree with all of that. And yeah, that Jericho trumpet is chilling.

Is the prologue a part from the movie or a unique thing?

It's part of the movie, but no one knows if it's the exact opening five minutes, or more of an edited down version of the first 10 minutes or so. It definitely felt like the latter, but I'm not sure.

New countdown on the official site. Looks like the full trailer is hitting tomorrow, most likely...

http://www.dunkirkmovie.com

July 21? For some reason I was thinking this was a fall release.

Nope. Back to Nolan's/WB's go-to blockbuster weekend. Same as TDK, TDKR, and a couple of the Harry Potter movies, etc.