How many milsurp nuts have seen Passchendaele?

skirsons

skirsons

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Rating - 99.4%
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I saw it last night. I was not going to go on opening night.

Great milsurp content. Lewis Guns, Enfields, C96s, Gew98s! One thing I noticed is that the gun shots actually sounded like real gunshots and not like .22LR like on most war movies. That was very satisfying!


Any opinions on the movie?

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It would have been nice to see some more of the battle laid out in detail on exactlly what happened, to meet some more of the soldiers characters rather then the glimpse you got. The love story had a little too much to it. Her being a moaphine addict really felt pointless.
 
One hell of a fine movie

As I said in a different post "Passchendaele was one hell of a fine movie, a little to much of a love story for me."

I would be nice to have a longer movie on this subject including battles from the first push in 31 July to the last on 6 Nov 1917.

In all really well done.
 
It was not intended to please those who were just looking for battlefeild action, that's for sure. The recruitment drives struck me as particularly historically accurate. The love story reminded me of Atonement, with Atonement being the stronger movie. It was a little happier than Atonement, however!
 
I went to the opening matinee with the better half. She was disturbed by it which tells me that it was good, as stuff like this should be disturbing.

I liked the movie, but that's what it was a movie, not a historically documentation on the battle, which so many people seem to think it should of been and have trash talked it ( check out the other threads on this topic ).

I was really happy with the Canadian content, it was great to see our history being talked about. All too often our impression of history has been over powered by the American giant.

Nope great movie and I hope that it makes lots of money because that's what movies are meant to do.

KTK
 
I really, really wanted to like this movie, but I came out of it with mixed feelings. The first 15 minutes had me excited. It was a thrill to see Canadians fighting on screen for once - God knows we've seen John Wayne up there often enough. But it didn't take me long to realize that the movie Passchendaele wasn't going to be about Passchendaele the way Gettysburg was about Gettysburg, and that it was just using the war as a frame for this love story. They could have cut about 70 minutes out of the middle of the film and I wouldn't have been disappointed.

When they finally got to the front lines, it was pretty spectacular. It makes you wonder how anyone could have lived under those conditions. But, again, we don't get to see enough of the war and the day-to-day life in the trenches, or get a larger view of the battle. Everything was focused on this one minor action that the major characters were involved in. And then some of the things that happened on the battlefield stretched credibility to the breaking point.

It also seemed to me that the director couldn't resist using every hackneyed cliche in the book. As soon as Sgt. Dunne got knocked down and dazed by a shell and then looked up and got captivated by a lovely CGI bird soaring overhead, I knew what I would be in for for the rest of the movie. Sometimes it felt like the whole thing was going to collapse under the weight of its own symbolism. Whenever the director wanted to say "See, this is IMPORTANT" a blind man couldn't have missed it.

I'll probably buy it when it comes out on video. At least I'll have a fast forward button.
 
as far as the gunshots go, they were real, as we were firing blanks from the live enfield rifles. they would give us a handful of blanks between takes, which we were to load into our rifles only on the instruction of the armourer. we were also given earplugs meant for movie sets. during one of the battle scenes, i positioned myself right next to the lewis gun and took my plugs out. it was very authentic. to those who have seen the movie, i'll tell you where i am. during the scene in the trench with the young guy and the german seargent with the c96 mauser, i'm the german soldier sitting in the corner looking afraid.
 
I quite liked it, right up until the scene at the end where he's carrying the kid on the cross. That felt really heavy handed.
 
I was wondering if anyone noticed that Paul Gross was wearing what looked to be high top logging boots,..not the usual ammo boots and puttees as the rest of the Canadian Corps wore....:confused:
 
archerynut, that's pretty cool! The 2 TV movies that I extra-ed in 15 years ago aren't on anymore, even on late night. It sure was neat to see myself in that one scene. :)
Looking forward to seeing the film myself. From what I hear, I should take my wife to it. Earn brownie points seeing a war flick? Sounds good to me!
 
Northern and eastern Ontario played heavily in the movie. Both the Maxim 08 and the Lewis came from there..... Too bad they got the wrong sling on the lewis, but "them's the brakes"
 
archerynut said:
as far as the gunshots go, they were real, as we were firing blanks from the live enfield rifles. they would give us a handful of blanks between takes, which we were to load into our rifles only on the instruction of the armourer. we were also given earplugs meant for movie sets. during one of the battle scenes, i positioned myself right next to the lewis gun and took my plugs out. it was very authentic. to those who have seen the movie, i'll tell you where i am. during the scene in the trench with the young guy and the german seargent with the c96 mauser, i'm the german soldier sitting in the corner looking afraid.
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I'm sure they use blanks in most movies, but the microphone is a peculiar device and I have the feeling that it doesn't properly capture gunfire. I think they may have enhanced the gunshot sounds during editing because they sound more like "booms" than "pops." It was partly the movie theater quality sound but I have a feeling that it will come through in the eventual DVD.

Another great World War I movie is coming out soon. It is called "Guards of Riga" and will be available with English subtitles!
 
I saw it last night, and I actually didn't mind the non-combat parts. Part of that is due to the fact that I'm a history buff and the "home front" of 1917 Calgary was interesting. Also, I saw it in the town that stood in for Calgary, so it was neat to see, in the movie, the theatre I was sitting in.

For a Canadian movie, it was fantastic, a little heavy on the symbolism, but it was certainly not the CBC "we were the bad guys" anti war crap. Our soldiers were portrayed as competent.

My only complaints were the battlefield was too 'sunny' and Paul Gross absolutely buries his muzzle in a shell hole wall just before an attack while helping Mann.

In spite of a few warts, I urge all milsurp fans too see it and support it. If it's successful, perhaps Mr. Gross will bring us a Vimy Ridge, Juno Beach or an Ortona film in the future.
 
Spoilers

Didn't like it. Sorry, but a Canadian movie about Passchendaele should be about, I don't know, Passchendaele? The movie started well, and I really believed it was going to a realistic movie when the German kid got the bayonet. Then we're in Calgary for a frickin' hour and a half with every cliche character possible! The overbearing, warmongering British officer, the snotty patrician doctor, the "ensign deadmeat" kid and his beautiful sister, the drunk one armed bar tough, the mean townies. Then, we get to the salient and what do we get? The proud First Nation soldier and the French guy! One short skirmish, one rat, some mud and more cliches in the dug out and we're done the act. And the grand finale? Heavily foreshadowed throughout the movie: A Canadian soldier on the cross. The denouement is the final "tragedy" of the hero dying and his friends in Calgary over his grave marker. Never mind that he's probably buried in Tyne Cot and we don't see a single shot of a present day cemetery.

The opening of Saving Private Ryan, where the older Ryan is among his fallen friends in the cemetery was very moving and framed the movie for what it was. Where was that framing, where was the structure or theme to this movie? It certainly wasn't an homage to the fallen, the Canadians. At best it was a heavy-handed anti-war movie that USED Passchendaele as a backdrop to a sappy love story. Thank god it wasn't Vimy.
 
At best it was a heavy-handed anti-war movie that USED Passchendaele as a backdrop to a sappy love story.
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I didn't get the sense that it was anti war in the usual CBC sense. The First World War wasn't exactly a great cause to begin with, and I'm not sure how many veterans would have been pro-war after 1918. I felt our soldiers were portrayed in a competent positive manner. Even the Germans were human.

This movie was made as a tribute to that generation, which included more than soldiers. I'm sure viewers whose relatives served in the nursing service found those scenes just as interesting as we found the battle scenes.

One hour of some of the best WWI combat put to film is better than nothing. It's certainly better that CBC's Dieppe bash with the wrong SMLE's and our untrained, ill-lead cannon fodder.

It wasn't perfect, but then again it didn't take 25 minutes to get off the real Omaha Beach either.
 
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