*** A&M Football/WWI Film Brainstorm ***

15,158 Views | 203 Replies | Last: 3 yr ago by PatAg
chimpanzee
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JABQ04 said:

Some tense situations a WWI soldier would find himself in:

For an infantryman; a gas attack. Jus minding your own business in your trench when someone yells GAS GAS GAS, starts clanging the warning on an empty artillery shell canister. Having to thrown on your mask as your being enveloped in a cloud of chemicals. Field of vision is suddenly reduced in half.

Being under an artillery barrage. Where the term shell shock comes from. Men just broke under artillery barrages. Their minds cracked and many were left wrecks of their former selves. For a point of reference, the British fired over 1 million artillery shells in a week in preparation of the Somme Offensive in 1916. Continuous shell explosions and the ground rumbling. Trenches collapse, men blown apart or simply vaporized if a direct hit. Men buried alive by debris raining down.

For pilots, constantly looking for enemy fighters. Not like the movies, an enemy swoops in and fires a bird or two and is gone. Hard to see and track. Pilots constantly had to be running their heads and scanning, which is why the WWI pilot is typically pictured with a scarf, to protect his neck from chafing. Weapons malfunctions, damaged planes trying to stay aloft. No parachutes for stricken planes.

I've seen a few movies that have shown the prelude to going over the trench wall in a no-man's-land charge. Super personal and emotional moment with team dynamics, commitment, coaching etc.. The whole "in the trenches" metaphor is kind of slap-you-in-the-face obvious with the football tie in, but could dovetail into the before/after season dynamic.
jeffk
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AG
If you haven't watched Passchendaele, give it a view. Most realistic WWI flick I've ever seen. The German Red Baron film was outstanding visually too.
BigJim49 AustinNowDallas
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AG
Havn't read it all but Bible is one unusual coach ! A&M, Nebraska - Rose Bowl, Texas - winning seasons!

He ,also , coached Basketball and baseball at A&M - several conference champions !
BigJim49AustinnowDallas
'03ag
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BigJim49 AustinNowDallas said:

Havn't read it all but Bible is one unusual coach ! A&M, Nebraska - Rose Bowl, Texas - winning seasons!

He ,also , coached Basketball and baseball at A&M - several conference champions !
Yes and I think he was like 25 years old in 1917.
TCTTS
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AG
All great resources, guys. Exactly what I'll need. Thanks for posting.
TCTTS
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AG
JABQ04 said:

Some tense situations a WWI soldier would find himself in:

For an infantryman; a gas attack. Jus minding your own business in your trench when someone yells GAS GAS GAS, starts clanging the warning on an empty artillery shell canister. Having to thrown on your mask as your being enveloped in a cloud of chemicals. Field of vision is suddenly reduced in half.

Being under an artillery barrage. Where the term shell shock comes from. Men just broke under artillery barrages. Their minds cracked and many were left wrecks of their former selves. For a point of reference, the British fired over 1 million artillery shells in a week in preparation of the Somme Offensive in 1916. Continuous shell explosions and the ground rumbling. Trenches collapse, men blown apart or simply vaporized if a direct hit. Men buried alive by debris raining down.

For pilots, constantly looking for enemy fighters. Not like the movies, an enemy swoops in and fires a bird or two and is gone. Hard to see and track. Pilots constantly had to be running their heads and scanning, which is why the WWI pilot is typically pictured with a scarf, to protect his neck from chafing. Weapons malfunctions, damaged planes trying to stay aloft. No parachutes for stricken planes.

Good stuff. Thanks!
TCTTS
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AG
'03ag said:

rednecked said:

I can't wait for this movie to come out!!! How long do we have to wait? Like a month? Cause I want it now!!
I'll set the over/under at a 2028 premiere.

Even I would probably take the over on that. I simply have no idea when I'm going to be able to get around to this and give it the proper attention it requires. I already have my next two projects lined up after the one I'm currently finishing. Maybe, since this will be so research-intensive, I'll try to start doing like an hour or two of research ever other day for the next year or so. Something like that. Just always be chipping away at the research in the background when I can. Then, maybe in a year or so, truly start outlining it in detail...
HvilleAggie
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AG
TCTTS said:

Maybe, since this will be so research-intensive, I'll try to start doing like an hour or two of research ever other day for the next year or so. Something like that. Just always be chipping away at the research in the background when I can. Then, maybe in a year or so, truly start outlining it in detail...

I thought that's why you brought us into this mess, to do the heavy lifting? Between the movie and history buffs on here you'll be premiering at Cannes in no time!
TCTTS
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AG
Ha. I still know next to nothing about WWI. But this thread so far has showed me that...

- This is a viable idea.

- The structure is essentially "correct."

- The thematic elements are more than solid.

- The Hurt Locker comp is the way to approach the war angles.

... among many other things. But since it doesn't look like we're going to uncover the exact missions these guys went on - or, rather, I don't know that I even want to uncover their exact missions now - I need to immerse myself in WWI knowledge, situations, battles, skirmishes, etc to figure out the two or three war threads throughout, and how to make those personal and intimate. And that's definitely going to take some time.
InternetFan02
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AG
Can you make Bible female or transgendered? That would be a great story and might help with getting it financed.

"Undefeated on the field...undefeated in fighting gender discrimination on the the front lines"
Arkyd
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AG
In terms a view from College Station during 1918, rather than a wife/girlfriend/professor as the view from the home front in the movie, if the theme is going to have something to do with comparing the viewpoint of the pre-war/innocent/US-isolationist players with the post-war mentality, I wonder if perhaps having someone on (or associated with) the team in 1917 who was unable to go to war, but was able to participate with the team again in 1919, might be something workable?

Imagine a player who deeply cared about the undefeated 1917 season, but gets injured and can't join his friends in going to war. Maybe he heals up enough in time for the 1918 season and is unsatisfied with not going unbeaten/unscored upon again, and thinks it is a big deal (contrasted with what those on the front are going through and what they think is a big deal at the time). Then his friends come back in 1919 and he is excited because they can help the team go unbeaten/unscored upon again, but this allows his pre-war innocent motivations to get tested against his friends' post-war motivations on the field? Maybe he starts to see things the other way in the end, or maybe everyone comes together to learn a lesson somewhere in the middle? Seems like it would provide an opportunity for a more direct foil to highlight the differences the two mindsets, if that is the theme. He could even be writing to his friends on the front in 1918 talking about the team, and allow those in the war to talk to each other in the trench about where their minds used to be versus how they are changing at war (is it an "oh, how naive" or "I miss the simple times" or both? Who knows...). Wouldn't even necessarily need to be a player, just someone more directly linked to participation in the team; someone with a stronger stake in playing the game directly.

I have no idea if any such person actually existed that would be suitable for the role (wives and girlfriends are certainly safer bets to have actually existed), but just a thought for the thought experiment here.

Overall this does sounds like it could be an interesting movie, and I would also throw my support into the personal conflict in small acts over big war spectacle-type focus. Early Game of Thrones character over late Game of Thrones spectacle, if you will (since that seems to be the hot topic lately). At least, I would be more interested in seeing it.

Really interesting experiment, TCTTS, will be interested in seeing what might come out of it!
TCTTS
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AG
I think something along those lines could definitely work. I like it. However, for something like this to get financed, you simply have to have some kind of relatively prominent female role. Even if just one, and even if it's just like four or five scenes. But there has to be that point of view. It can't just be 100% testosterone-driven or you increase the level of difficulty in it getting made. But maybe this injured character could exist alongside her - something like that.
Malachi Constant
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AG
Make sure the opening scene is a sunrise either over Kyle Field or the battlefield in Europe while "Recall" is played on the bugle.
Malachi Constant
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'03ag said:

Deranged horn fan who rants all over various boards about how awful A&M is. One of his favorite ramblings is about how A&M's 12th Man trademark is fraudulent and the bulk of the story is made up. Has threatened all sorts of legal action.

He'll legit lose his mind if this movie gains any traction and so much as one bootlace isn't perfectly accurate.
This is reason enough for this film to be made.
JABQ04
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AG
Another thing to keep in mind ( and it may have been said already) is that the kids who played in 1917 and then went to war will not be kids in 1919. There will be a huge divide between those that went and those that didn't. From a personal standpoint it's hard to talk or describe what going to war is like with someone who doesn't know. Nothing I experienced is anywhere on the same scale as WWI, I mean I had WiFi for crying out loud and could FaceTime my family. But It can serve as a point of contention for the players who return in 1919 and having to assimilate back to civilian life. There would have probably been some flare ups between the kids and veterans during the season. No doubt PTSD would affect returning players. Maybe a whistle at a game could trigger a players memory back to the whistle signaling the attack is starting and going "over the top" against the Germans. A player getting hit hard and having his bell rung could flashback to a near miss from An artillery shell that knocks him on his ass.
Arkyd
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AG
Perhaps the injured guy is the best friend of the non-Bible protagonist, and the female role is the protagonist's girlfriend? Protagonist tells him to watch after his girl, and compare and contrast their responses to his letters home. Girlfriend just wants him home safely, friend wants him home to win the game. Girlfriend accuses him of only caring about the game. I don't know, something like that.

Or you know, it could just devolve into a full Pearl Harbor style love triangle, because who wouldn't love that?
Malachi Constant
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AG
MW03 said:

TCTTS, I know you're a Dan Carlin fan, so I'm sure this is done already. But on the off chance you haven't got this on your radar, his series on WW1 (Blueprint for Armageddon) is must listen to research material for what the war was actually like. That series lit my hair on fire.

https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-50-blueprint-for-armageddon-i/


I am listening to this podcast right now and I was going to make this same suggestion.

I can see the opening scene be a montage of football practice and Gavrilo Princip's crew getting ready to assassinate Franz Ferdinand. They were all the same age at the time (Gavrilo was 19 when he shot Ferdinand, and his co-conspirators were all around the same age). I'm not sure that event has ever been depicted on film.

A scene with 11 teenage/early 20s conspirators meeting in a coffee shop and then lining the streets getting ready to assassinate someone intermixed with a group of 11 football players practicing might be hard to pull off.
TCTTS
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JABQ04 said:

Another thing to keep in mind ( and it may have been said already) is that the kids who played in 1917 and then went to war will not be kids in 1919. There will be a huge divide between those that went and those that didn't. From a personal standpoint it's hard to talk or describe what going to war is like with someone who doesn't know. Nothing I experienced is anywhere on the same scale as WWI, I mean I had WiFi for crying out loud and could FaceTime my family. But It can serve as a point of contention for the players who return in 1919 and having to assimilate back to civilian life. There would have probably been some flare ups between the kids and veterans during the season. No doubt PTSD would affect returning players. Maybe a whistle at a game could trigger a players memory back to the whistle signaling the attack is starting and going "over the top" against the Germans. A player getting hit hard and having his bell rung could flashback to a near miss from An artillery shell that knocks him on his ass.

This is a great point, and something like this definitely needs to be in there, I just don't know how much of the 1919 season we're going to see. Right now, everything is telling me that the climaxes of the respective war threads need to be the act three climax. Then, when they return home, it's like a 10-minute epilogue almost, where we get that they're changed men. I don't know that the contention between the non-soldier players and the soldier players is the stuff of third acts, but I could be wrong. I'm feeling highly confident in act one and act two right now. It's act three that's giving me the most trouble.
TCTTS
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AG
That could be interesting.
TCTTS
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AG
Love this.
JABQ04
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AG
I guess one thing to keep in mind in regards to winning the war is that they fought right up until 11:11 AM on 11-11-18. The last American died at 11:00 AM. Commanders were still ordering attacks that morning to gain as much ground as they could. Guns going off, cannons booming, shells exploding then...silence.

I think a good ending would be going from the trenches in France in the silence to the main characters now suited up and walking onto the field to play football. Maybe the film stars with a group shot of the players walking in in a group shot youthful and carefree in 1917 , and then end with the same players walking on in 1919 but aged 10-20 years due to the war.
Malachi Constant
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AG
The more I think about it, the more I like it too.

A good way to highlight the American Isolationism of the 1910s is to show what 19-year-old American kids are doing versus what 19-year-old Bosnian Serbs are doing.

One group focused on winning football games, the other is group focused on assassinating an Austro-Hungarian royal.
TCTTS
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AG
That's good to know. After the last war scene, I think you just cut to black and throw up a "NINE MONTHS LATER" title and we're back in College Station. I don't know that we actually need to SEE them coming home. I think it's actually more interesting to catch up with them after they've been home for a few months, see what their lives are like, how they're adjusting (or not adjusting), etc. Then maybe there's like 10-15 minutes of Bible having to convince some of these guys to care about football again. Once they're all back on the team, we get a sense of the line between the soldiers and non soldier players. And then the movie ends as they all take the field for the first game. Something like that.
jeffk
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AG
Fantastic contrast.
jeffk
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AG
Also, TCTTS - can we get at least a passing mention to the Influenza Pandemic of 1918? One of the scariest disease outbreaks of recorded history and it never gets any mention.
Ulrich
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New title idea: Eleven
TCTTS
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AG
It's briefly mentioned in the OP under the questions section.
TCTTS
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AG
I like it as a title but then you're beholden to justifying it and the only way to do that is essentially follow all eleven guys...
Wife of Chas Satterfield
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Charles is so pissed that you will name the movie Twelve.
bobinator
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AG
I dunno, I think the third act has to be more than just an epilogue because if you're framing the whole movie around the fact that they came back as different men but then achieved a perfect season again, then achieving that perfect season has to be a significant part of the movie right?

I go back to what I said a few pages ago about how to me the feeling of the middle part of the movie, the various war threads, is almost a sense of overwhelming inability to make a difference. Like, they're heroic in their efforts, but they have no idea what these efforts were for, or why this war is even really happening.

I kind of like the idea that all of a sudden the war part of the movie just stops, and you're asking yourself 'what was the point of all of this.'

So coming back home and into the next year, they're all struggling with this kind of sense of a lack of purpose. Did we even make a difference? What's the point of football practice now when all of this is happening?

And you kind of connect that into basically them realizing the only thing you can do, the only thing anyone can ever do, is just try to do improve themselves. They find meaning in trying to be a little bit better today than they were yesterday. Not because they want to smash the opponent, but because they just want to be better. And that's how they find motivation for that 1919 season.

I do agree that this part isn't very long, but it's still significant. It's going to be cheesy, but this is a sports/war movie we're talking about so it's bound to have a cheesy moment or two, but they could be having a meeting or something and one of the players that wasn't in the war says something about how their goal should be to go undefeated or something, but Bible says something like, 'maybe, but we won't know if we've gone undefeated until November. The only goal we have right now is just to be better than we were yesterday.' or something along those lines.
bobinator
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AG
I will say that thinking about this for a couple of days has made me realize that what I really want is a Christopher Nolan style movie just about the assassination of Franz Ferdinand.
AEK
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AG
We can always contact NARA to try and get service files. Assuming they survived the fire.

A google search may also turn up some info that could then be used to look further into the military service and try to determine where they fought over there and what battles they may have participated in.
CoachRTM
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bobinator said:

I will say that thinking about this for a couple of days has made me realize that what I really want is a Christopher Nolan style movie just about the assassination of Franz Ferdinand.


Damn.
TCTTS
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AG
"Epilogue" was probably be the wrong word. I might be conveying this poorly...

Let me go back to my Braveheart comparison. That movie was essentially about the Scots fighting for their freedom. Yet, in the end, we never actually saw them win their freedom. Instead, we saw everything we possibly needed to see to get them to that moment, then we saw them charging the field - and at that moment the movie ends in Wallace's voice over telling us they finally did what they set out to do without seeing them fight yet another battle. That's basically the vibe I'm thinking here. Watching people literally *be perfect* on the football field just isn't all that compelling in terms of drama, especially in a third act. That stuff is more fun in an act one setting, as we're getting to know everyone. And yes, there would be "conflict" in the soldiers/non-soldier players trying to get along in 1919, but I don't know that that has to happen in-season. It can happen before.

So, yes, I think we should absolutely see the struggle in 1919 - that lack of purpose, wondering if they made a difference, etc. THAT'S the drama of, let's say, the final 2/3 of act three, maybe the final half of act three. But I think that's all just before the season starts. Once they finally figure out their purpose, that all they can ever do is just improve themselves, etc. the movie doesn't need to go on anymore. Maybe Bible convinces guys to come back (which we see a bit of), we're with with them in a practice or something, and there's just a general sense of friction and aimlessness. But then you end on something like that Bible locker room speech you're talking about, except it's pre-game, before the first game. Then, Braveheart style, as their charging the field for that first 1919 game, there's some voice over or post-script text telling us they went undefeated and un-scored upon again, only this time, because of Bible's speech, we know it means something different for them now. Pad in a couple more scenes around that stuff, and that's basically what I'm talking about.

Is that making sense? I think we're saying basically the same thing, and want the same feelings/scenes portrayed, I'm just saying you do all that before the first game, we get just a tease of that first game, and then we're out.
TCTTS
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AG
Good to know.
 
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