Saw this last night with my 11 year old boys, who wanted to see it. They were not traumatized.

Overall I thought it was good, but it didn't live up to the "omg masterpiece" hype I'd be hearing. I don't anticipate multiple re-watches at home like I have with Saving Private Ryan or others.

That said, I fully expect Oscar nominations for Picture, Director, Cinematography, and Score. Maybe Set Direction.

Saw this movie last night. It was fantastic. Yes - there were some issues - there were some technical and historical inaccuracies. I learned a long time ago to put those aside so I can enjoy the story.

Couple of things jumped out even at that.

There was a straight up prop mistake that the guys had bayonets fixed when they went underground and after the blast both their boyonets were gone.

Nazis = Stormtroopers on rifle score, but it'd be a short movie otherwise.

Pilot would not have survived that crash.

Corporal left his helmet behind after he passed out. No WW I soldier would go out without a helmet.

How did a whole pail of fresh milk end up out there?

That whole convoy stops outside a sniper's nest, with a colonel standing right there, but no the sniper waits and tries to take out a corporal.

A raging torrent of water goes over the falls into - a placid pond - full of dead people - and instead of going straight to the bank, he swims over and through all the dead bodies.

And when he sits down to listen to the guy sing - was his dead buddy sitting a few rows ahead of him?

Wow, just wow.

Can't wait to see this picked apart on CinemaSins.

I enjoyed it. Not just the shots but the imagery and story telling. I got to know this character more than and see his growth and development more in two hours than others in six.

As I have said, I thought the movie was very well done, though I don't want to see it again because it is so harrowing.

However, to contribute my own nitpicking, the single most obvious problem to me was the fact that one brother is an obviously well-spoken upper class officer and the other is a very obvious from-the-lower-classes enlisted man. The British army just did not work like that.

Wasnt robb stark the older brother? Maybe he was in the military for longer.

Was that who it was? I thought he looked familiar.

My point is that the WWI British Army reflected the huge class-structure chasm that existed in British society. The officers were often second sons of the elites or were college graduates or college students (almost all of whom were from the upper classes).

When freshman students at Oxford volunteered in 1916, they weren't inducted as buck privates. They were sent to some sort of officer training because they were of the upper class.

Men were promoted from the ranks, especially by 1917 when the original standing army of 1914 had been wiped out, but even if that were supposed to be the case here, that older brother acts and speaks in a genteel, superior way, not as someone from the lower classes would act.

He also looks like he's gained a bit of weight.

I apologize for not reading the whole thread, but did anyone else see blue squiggly lines in the bright backgrounds of the film? Almost always in the sky, but also sometimes in the whiter dirt of the fresh trenches?

Just wondering if it was just my theater

Just got out. Was wowed by it. Technically, that was one of the best movies I've ever seen and the tracking shot really contributed to the overall tension of the movie. You really want to think, "jeez, do these guys ever get a break", and the answer in real life was "no". You kind of feel like you can't breathe and your pucker factor is off the charts and that's exactly what was portrayed, masterfully if I may say so myself.

My dad and I saw it together and incidentally we both had the same "problem" that many of you had. Being that we are both wartime aviation buffs we came out and said the same thing:

knowing what we know about German aviators they had a STRICT code of conduct that they all lived by. The way Blake was killed would have 100% never happened as it was portrayed in the movie. However, he brought up a good point that I didn't think of: the German pilot just had survived a crash and could very likely have been shell shocked and killed Blake in a fit of hysteria. Likely, this wasn't the case Mendes was going for, but it helped me at least accept it a little more. My German is admittedly rusty, but the pilot DOES say something when they pull him out and Id love to know what that is. Could help understand the scene more.

If anyone wants to know more about the German pilots code
I just finished a fantastic book called "A Higher Call" dealing with the code of honor that German pilots live by It's a true story of WWII, but it deals with where the code came from and it's certainly relevant to the Great War.

Either way, I really enjoyed the movie, and even though the plot may have been a little basic, it's still better than 99% of the stuff I've seen lately

A Higher Call is a fantastic book!

TresPuertas said:

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My dad and I saw it together and incidentally we both had the same "problem" that many of you had. Being that we are both wartime aviation buffs we came out and said the same thing:

knowing what we know about German aviators they had a STRICT code of conduct that they all lived by. The way Blake was killed would have 100% never happened as it was portrayed in the movie. However, he brought up a good point that I didn't think of: the German pilot just had survived a crash and could very likely have been shell shocked and killed Blake in a fit of hysteria. Likely, this wasn't the case Mendes was going for, but it helped me at least accept it a little more. My German is admittedly rusty, but the pilot DOES say something when they pull him out and Id love to know what that is. Could help understand the scene more.

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Yea, maybe a shot of Blake pulling out his knife to help aid the pilot somehow, pilot sees the knife and freaks out. Alas, I don't think Mendes was purposefully trying to paint a "Germans are bad" with the scene, as his focus was on Blake's friend getting water, turning around and seeing what had just transpired (not knowing what actually transpired).

Loved it. You did feel like you were in the trenches with them. Found myself covering my eyes - like a horror movie - because just like war there was possible danger around every corner and every step in open fields. Like everyone else said cinematography was brilliant but also the sound - the planes, the bullets ricocheting off metal bridges, walking through the mud etc.

Only question I had - the officer in the convoy that helped him out - why wouldn't he have one or two of his guys join him - knowing it was an important mission? To let him finish his mission on his own seemed careless.

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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I got a kick out of Robb Stark being Tommen Baratheon's brother.

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My wife never got over Robb Stark seducing Elton in Rocketman.

TCTTS said:

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Holy sh*t, I kept trying to place Blake - I knew I'd seen him before - but Tommen didn't even cross my mind. He seems way older now, which obviously makes sense.

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Saw it last night and immediately looked up the actors on imdb. I was floored that the brother was Tommen.

And that isn't the half of it. Great sets, camera work, OK acting but an absolutely preposterous plot. I resent history and the past being given the Indiana Jones, Star Wars, action hero movie treatment. Movie makers who make movies with an historical background have an obligation to honor history to some extent without resorting to the latest action movie tricks. Grandfather Mendes sounds like he was freer with his war stories than my Dad, also a WWI vet who talked little about it and advised me before I left for overseas during the Vietnam era --"just don't volunteer."

Why did not the general pass along his written"stand down" order, tie it to a rock, give it to a pilot and have him drop it on the Colonel in charge of the battalions about to be sacrificed? Either no movie or a different plot I guess.

G Martin 87 said:

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matureag said:

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Why did not the general pass along his written"stand down" order, tie it to a rock, give it to a pilot and have him drop it on the Colonel in charge of the battalions about to be sacrificed? Either no movie or a different plot I guess.

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Come on now. It's a written order to a specific officer, who could be anywhere along a trench line, and dropping a "call off the attack" order tied to a rock would be exactly the kind of sneaky, dastardly trick the Huns might pull. It's not as easy as dropping the One Ring into Mount Doom while riding an Eagle.

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It would have been that easy in this movie.

matureag said:

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Why did not the general pass along his written"stand down" order, tie it to a rock, give it to a pilot and have him drop it on the Colonel in charge of the battalions about to be sacrificed? Either no movie or a different plot I guess.

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What if the rock bonked the Colonel on the head and made him grab a top hat and cane and go up over the top of the trench and dance around while singing Tin Pan Alley songs?

matureag said:

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And that isn't the half of it. Great sets, camera work, OK acting but an absolutely preposterous plot. I resent history and the past being given the Indiana Jones, Star Wars, action hero movie treatment. Movie makers who make movies with an historical background have an obligation to honor history to some extent without resorting to the latest action movie tricks. Grandfather Mendes sounds like he was freer with his war stories than my Dad, also a WWI vet who talked little about it and advised me before I left for overseas during the Vietnam era --"just don't volunteer."

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Runners were used all the time.
For this long of a run? No. But if the intelligence DID verify the enemy movement like in the plot, then it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility. In fact, that situation wouldn't allow for other safer modes of communication like carrier pidgeons.