New Midway Movie

[Stumpnov]

Strange that they cared enough about accuracy to show a 1.1 inch AA gun but still had it full of gasoline explosions.

 

[tlawler]

Kate was pretty. But the way they butchered the whole Pearl Harbor deal and especially the latter part of the movie where they showed the flyboys from Pearl going on the Doolittle Raid just ticked me off to no end. That is a great insult to the real Doolittle Raiders. I much rather Tora Tora Tora over this abortion of a movie (Pearl Harbor).

Anyone else notice all the Knox Class Frigates and Spruance Class Destroyers in the harbor during the attack? You’d think to be more accurate, they could have put them to sea while the harbor attack scenes were filmed. I know there was a lot of CGI, but those ships turned up a few times so there had to be some live action flying and filming. And wasn’t the movie postponed for awhile because of all the technical problems they had to overcome?

 

[SC_Mike]

Like others have said, I wonder if it will stay true to history...

 

[Absalom]

If you want to get into lack of accuracy, not much can beat the famous jet that replaced Charlton Heston’s plane at the moment of impact, at the end of the 1976 “Midway”.

Amazingly, the pilot in the footage, Cdr. George Duncan USN, was only lightly injured, so at least nobody had his death repurposed to make Heston’s look more spectacular and less realistic.

[ame]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QVbis75-Fh0[/ame]

 

[Dave_n]

Be interesting to see if they give the cryptographers any credit as Rocheford had the Midway island garrison send in clear that they were low on water. This way they were able to identify which island was the target of the main Japanese fleets by reading the Japanese codes. Dave_n

 

[bgrafsr]

Admiral Woody?? That’s some type casting...

An environmental/anti-war activist with constant legal problems. I can see it now:
Carriers and aircraft running on hemp biodiesel
No meat, sugar or flour on the mess deck
An oxygen bar on every ship

Chester Nimitz must be rolling over in his grave.

Yep, anything with Woody Harrelson in it means I don't watch it. He's a jerk.

 

[GaryS]

If I watch it, it will be when it's available on cable or Amazon.

I very rarely go to the movies these days because that lady that sits behind me and talks through the whole movie seems to know when I'm going to go and ruins it for me.

I'll just give a "LIKE" to the people who commented about Woody Harrelson.

I'll watch the John Ford documentary if I want to watch a movie about Midway. As a bonus, I'll watch "Torpedo Eight" by Ford as well.

 

[Valmet]

Don't be so sure. It could be like the Pearl Harbor movie of a few years ago. That was painful.

Yes, PH with Ben Affleck was absolutely awful. I don’t have much hope for big budget “historical” Hollywood films these days but may give this one a look.

 

[HOUSTON RICK]

For my money, the remake will portray the Japanese as misunderstood and forced to war by harsh US policies.

 

[Rule3]

Yep, anything with Woody Harrelson in it means I don't watch it. He's a jerk.

Larry Potterfield would make a better Admiral!

"And that's the way it is"

 

[oddshooter]

I served on the Coral Sea aircraft carrier. A truly great experience in my life. So the story of aircraft carriers winning the war is awesome.
I still watch the original regularly.

I do skip the Japanese romance part. It just seems so out of place in a war movie. And the actor that played Matt Garth's son was just an awful whiner. We all know we lost a lot of the high moral ground over our handling of the American Japanese.

I believe this is the battle that changed the war.
I also think it was based on an amazing series of lucky events.

Beautiful example of cryptography intelligence being actually used to save lives and win wars. As opposed to Pearl Harbor and 911.


Prescut

 

[glenncal1]

I have a $5 bet with myself that this movie will be much more like the bad revisionist "The Thin Red Line". Than any quality new telling of the story of Midway. Maybe I will be wrong.

 

[muddocktor]

Anyone else notice all the Knox Class Frigates and Spruance Class Destroyers in the harbor during the attack? You’d think to be more accurate, they could have put them to sea while the harbor attack scenes were filmed. I know there was a lot of CGI, but those ships turned up a few times so there had to be some live action flying and filming. And wasn’t the movie postponed for awhile because of all the technical problems they had to overcome?

Yes, I definitely noticed the ships being way too new for the period. They couldn't move them though, as they were in the mothball fleet at Pearl at the time and decommissioned.

And I want to know one thing about this movie and Dennis Quaid. He is supposed to be Bull Halsey, right? Well in real life, Halsey was back at Pearl Harbor sick with severe dermatitis and not with either task force. If Quaid has more than a 5 minute walk on in this movie it is total BS. The commanders of the 2 American task forces were Raymond A. Spruance and Jack Fletcher. Looking at what they show on Wikipedia for the cast, I don't see anyone playing the part of Jack Fletcher.

I feel a case of severe suckage coming with this movie already.

 

[Farmer17]

There is rarely a movie on the big screen that is very accurate historically because most people aren't history buffs they are buying a ticket for entertainment purposes and if you want accurate data you'll have to watch a documentary on the history channel, military channel, PBS, etc. I liked Pearl Harbor, Saving Private Ryan, Hacksaw Ridge, Fury, and a few other recent war movies and it would nice if they were more historically correct but I'm not sure that would sell many more tickets or bring in more revenue for the producer and investors. I try to sit back and enjoy the movie and not look for guns, weapons, vehicles, equipment etc. that are not period correct because if I start looking and finding flaws then it ruins the show for me.

 

[jtcarm]

With the revisionist history now being pushed by the Hollywood supported educational system today it wouldn't surprise me if the movie portrayed the US as the aggressor and cause of WWII. Reparations now owed to the poor oppressed Japanese military.

Don’t forget the racist Americans.

Even the first “Midway” had to have a little race drama.

BTW, the screen writers had to create fictional characters for that part.

 

[walnutred]

When the first Midway movie came out I remember thinking "I've seen some of this footage before". A good friend of my dads was a Navy photographer on the Yorktown during that battle. He had quite an interesting collection of home movies. Some he took and some he traded for with his fellow photographers.

 

[CCantu357]

Larry Potterfield would make a better Admiral!

"And that's the way it is"

I mean no disrespect to either the actual Battle of Midway or the classic war film, but upon reading the thread title I thought this would be a movie about Larry Potterfield!

 

[muddocktor]

First of all, yes, I drug this thread back from the dead.

Last night I ran across this movie on one of the premium channels on the satellite receiver while out here on the rig and I watched probably the last 3/4 of the movie. I started watching right as Jimmy Doolittle and his crew bailed out over China and watched until the end. And I wasn't very impressed with it. While it wasn't as stupid as that movie "Pearl Harbor" that came out around 2001, I found the characters to be shallow, the cgi looked like a video game and the action and bombing especially to look unrealistic. But I will say I rate it better than Pearl Harbor though.

So, I am totally glad that I didn't waste the money to go see this at the theater.

 

[Donn]

Midway's been on HBO for a while. With the exception of Woody Harrelson, (Nimitz), and Dennis Quaid, (Halsey), the rest of the cast was unfamiliar, to me anyway. While there is a he & she sub story, it was nothing like the unbelievable, (again, to me), "I love a Japanese girl" sub plot from the Charlton Heston film. The emphasis is on action, but if you're not a fan of CGI, give it a pass.

 

[6518John]

We thought the movie was outstanding and in fact purchased a copy. I was doubly impressed to read the Director (and retired Admiral) of The Naval History and Heritage Command say it is the most realistic movie ever made about naval combat.

The film went for accuracy in nearly every aspect, from faithfully recreating ships and planes that were long out of production to securing script input from Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC) historians. "Despite some of the 'Hollywood' aspects, this is still the most realistic movie about naval combat ever made," NHHC director and retired Navy Rear Adm. Sam Cox told the U.S. Department of Defense's website. "It does real credit to the courage and sacrifice of those who fought in the battle on both sides."

How Accurate Is ‘Midway’? Don’t Compare It To ‘Pearl Harbor’