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Dunkirk Summer 2017, directed by Christopher Nolan

Higgins86 said:
Mostly just private owners and fishermen
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Jredbaron96 said:
The subversion of classics war movie tropes is what really makes me love Dunkirk.

There's no cliche "sit around the campfire" and talk about who they have waiting for them back one. The epic battle scenes are usually just intense air-to-air dogfights, while the others are one sided bombing runs. There's no epic dashes to save a fallen comrade, the most heroic moments are against a backdrop of death and loss. The most cliche scene when the little boats arrive isn't even the traditional rescue; it's not the cavalry coming to charge and turn the tide of the battle; it's hey now we can get the **** off this god forsaken beach.

Dunkirk may focus on half a dozen main characters, but the story is about 300,000 men on the brink of annihilation, and Nolan does a great job showing that. I adore this movie; it's one of the best war movies ever made.
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Would you put it above Saving Private Ryan?
 
PeteEU said:
Not really.. dont see the point in trying to glorify one of the biggest cluster****s and defeats in military history.
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It was a evacuation that saved the British army and provided a morale boost for brittish forces who desperately needed one.
 
DA60 said:
A movie about Dunkirk?

What's next?

PQ-17 - The Doomed Convoy?

Sydney and the Kormoran - Fatal Draw?

Titanic - The Comedy?
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PQ-17 and the Sydney-kormoran duel would make plausible films.

And the titanic comedy exists in the form of the animated titanic films.
 
DA60 said:
And I thought those were mostly stupid movies as well.

I am not paying good money to see my side get creamed in a war movie.

You want to...go ahead.

BTW, most of the Vietnam movies denoted Americsn victories and/or were about emotions and the human condition - not historical battles; like Platoon.

And movies like Black Hawk Down told a story that needed to be told to educate Americans about not getting involved in tribal wars.

Dunkirk? Nothing whatsoever to be learned from Dunkirk that everyone does not already know and knew decades ago.

The only people that see it are the same people that saw the last Pearl Harbor movie...idiots/teenagers who go for the action...not historians.

Dunkirk will be an action flick wrapped up as a historical piece...and they will get TONS of historical events wrong to make it more appealing.

You like it...fine. I will pass.

We are done.
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Christopher Nolan is nothing like Michael Bay.
 
Higgins86 said:
Would you put it above Saving Private Ryan?
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You know I tried comparing the two to come up with an answer, but to be honest they're really two different styles of film.

Saving Private Ryan is a very action packed, but also very drama and story oriented. It's got a lot of the hallmarks of a typical military film; you have the squad, the mission, and the pulse pounding battle scenes. It's a very coherent and has a basic linear story line.

Dunkirk is intense, but that's where the similarities end. There is no "squad", the mission is just to survive, and the battle scenes are usually just dive bombers or strafing runs. With the exception of the air battle there's no back and forth, it's one side desperately trying to get away from annihilation. The tone, dimensions, and characters are completely different.

Both films are good and live up to their names; one film is about saving Private Ryan, the other is about surviving Dunkirk. Ultimately I would put Dunkirk above from a cinematic perspective, but from an entertainment value I would rate Saving Private Ryan higher. Both are fantastic movies.
 
Jredbaron96 said:
You know I tried comparing the two to come up with an answer, but to be honest they're really two different styles of film.

Saving Private Ryan is a very action packed, but also very drama and story oriented. It's got a lot of the hallmarks of a typical military film; you have the squad, the mission, and the pulse pounding battle scenes. It's a very coherent and has a basic linear story line.

Dunkirk is intense, but that's where the similarities end. There is no "squad", the mission is just to survive, and the battle scenes are usually just dive bombers or strafing runs. With the exception of the air battle there's no back and forth, it's one side desperately trying to get away from annihilation. The tone, dimensions, and characters are completely different.

Both films are good and live up to their names; one film is about saving Private Ryan, the other is about surviving Dunkirk. Ultimately I would put Dunkirk above from a cinematic perspective, but from an entertainment value I would rate Saving Private Ryan higher. Both are fantastic movies.
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Yeh I agree with that assessment. The last decent war movie for me was black hawk down which I think was massively underrated. That film captured the difficulties of modern warfare and also the arrogance of modern western soldiers which is quickly replaced with fear when it goes south.
 
Higgins86 said:
Would you put it above Saving Private Ryan?
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This is the "fight" at our house.

Of the modern movies both really stand apart from the rest. Saving Private Ryan wins for me.
 
Jredbaron96 said:
The subversion of classics war movie tropes is what really makes me love Dunkirk.

There's no cliche "sit around the campfire" and talk about who they have waiting for them back one. The epic battle scenes are usually just intense air-to-air dogfights, while the others are one sided bombing runs. There's no epic dashes to save a fallen comrade, the most heroic moments are against a backdrop of death and loss. The most cliche scene when the little boats arrive isn't even the traditional rescue; it's not the cavalry coming to charge and turn the tide of the battle; it's hey now we can get the **** off this god forsaken beach.

Dunkirk may focus on half a dozen main characters, but the story is about 300,000 men on the brink of annihilation, and Nolan does a great job showing that. I adore this movie; it's one of the best war movies ever made.
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I thought it was okay, but now looking back at it there were some weaknesses. Tom Hardy shoots down like 5-6 planes by himself in a single hour, and even shoots down another while he's gliding. From the way it was photographed it didnt seem like there were 400K men on the beach either, more like just a few thousand. And the German bombers werent that accurate or would fly that low to bomb a ship. In fact the dogfights were unrealistic.
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
It was a evacuation that saved the British army and provided a morale boost for brittish forces who desperately needed one.
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It saved people yea, and the defeat was later used as a moral boost. However when what was left of the British Army landed back home, it was demoralized and without any equipment. Had Hitler invaded the UK a few months later, then there would have been nothing to stop him. The UK lost almost all of its armour in France and most of its "higher tech" weaponry. Only thing that the UK had left was the RAF and that was only because they sent back the RAF to the UK weeks before the defeat (and one could argue helped spur on the defeat). Dunkirk was a massive military defeat that has been glorified by the eventual victors of the war, as some sort of miracle. The reality is, Hitler for some idiotic reason, let the 400k men go and it came back to bite him the ass. He could have bombed the crap out of the men on the beaches, but did nothing of the sort. He could have sent in his tanks and men and crushed the pocket, but decided against it for whatever stupid reason. The British were lucky, not brave, not skillful, but lucky.

Now saying that, the civilians that aided the evacuation.. those were heroes and the brave ones and should be remembered, and I hope the movie (which I will most likely see next week), promotes their bravery and the reality of the utter fiasco of the British Expeditionary Forces at the time.
 
Jredbaron96 said:
No, that's not accurate at all. German defeat in the East came the moment they decided to push on towards Moscow after seizing Kiev, instead of making the smart decision and consolidating their gains and preparing for the inevitable Soviet winter counter offensive. They had reached the culmination point but pressed on, dooming them to defeat outside Moscow. The Germans lost the war in the latter half of 1941.
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Err okay back to school with you. The Russians were all but defeated in the latter half of 41, with no materials. Without resupply by the Allies, the Russians would have been defeated in early 42. It is a historical fact.. so dunno what school books you have been reading. With the help of American Sherman tanks, the Germans were slowed down and the Russians were able to move their factories to the other side of the Urals, and ramp up production, so that when Stalingrad happened.. and that winter, the Russians were ready with fresh troops and their own materials including the T34 tank. By Kursk in 43, the Russians were pushing more than enough war materials that any allied help was symbolic.

Operation Sea lion was never going to happen.
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As I stated... IF he had done it fast enough, and gotten it done, then the UK would have fallen easily and the resupply of the Russians would never have happened.
 
PeteEU said:
The Generals wanted to do it, but Hitler stopped them.
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That has been proven to be BS. Von Runstedt ordered the panzers to halt, not Hitler. He endorsed the order after the fact. This is very much accepted by the vast majority of historians. You're just trotting out old, discredited theories, Pete. Quelle surprise!

The Luftwaffe was held back.
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That's true.

The French and RAF were defeated over France, so the Luftwaffe ruled the air. They could have sent wave after wave of bombers in over the allies and killed them all. They did not. Hell the Luftwaffe could have easily sunk most ships trying to get people off.. yes they did sink some, but come on.. with no real air cover, the ships were sitting ducks.
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The RAF flew hundreds of sorties in support of the evacuation. They were outnumbered, sure, but 'no real air cover' is a gross exaggeration.
 
I'm very much looking forward to seeing the film. Nolan's a great film-maker and it's an incredibly dramatic story. It doesn't need to be fictionalised for the narrative to have heft, even though past dramatisations of the story have mythologised it somewhat.

As a British person, it's especially important and more difficult to deal with this story since it's very much a central part of the national mythology and defines a fairly central plank of the national identity. People, when faced with any kind of adversity and banding together to address it, refer to the 'Dunkirk spirit'. Like the Alamo, Thermopylae and the like, it's an exemplar for finding a sense of victory out of a defeat.

I'm going to be very interested to see how Nolan balances historical accuracy with dramatic story-telling and the tricky siren calls for patriotic rather than actual truth.
 
Andalublue said:
That has been proven to be BS. Von Runstedt ordered the panzers to halt, not Hitler. He endorsed the order after the fact. This is very much accepted by the vast majority of historians. You're just trotting out old, discredited theories, Pete. Quelle surprise!
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It has? Did not know that.. so the orders have been found? Of course Von Runstedt ordered the panzers to halt.. he was in command. Now was he influenced by Hitlers views... or someone elses? Well that is the real question that we will never get answered, because tactically it was a brain dead move, one that I can not see Von Runstedt or any seasoned general making. Add to that, the lack of air attacks (relatively speaking) and one has to question who really gave the order... Hitler, a corporal that made bad strategic decisions over and over, or seasoned generals who tried to stop him?

The RAF flew hundreds of sorties in support of the evacuation. They were outnumbered, sure, but 'no real air cover' is a gross exaggeration.
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Come on.. the RAF had the same problem that the Germans would have later on when bombing the UK.... the fighters did not have enough fuel to stay very long over the beaches. They were easy targets for the Germans, and the British were preparing for invasion, where the only defence they had (other than the channel) was the RAF.. so the planes that were sent over, were at best token moral boosters.

So yes the RAF flew sorties over the beaches, but lets be clear here... the Germans controlled the airspace and could have bombed the 400k troops to death if they wanted too and the RAF could have done nothing about it.
 
PeteEU said:
Err okay back to school with you. The Russians were all but defeated in the latter half of 41, with no materials. Without resupply by the Allies, the Russians would have been defeated in early 42. It is a historical fact.. so dunno what school books you have been reading. With the help of American Sherman tanks, the Germans were slowed down and the Russians were able to move their factories to the other side of the Urals, and ramp up production, so that when Stalingrad happened.. and that winter, the Russians were ready with fresh troops and their own materials including the T34 tank. By Kursk in 43, the Russians were pushing more than enough war materials that any allied help was symbolic.
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You have no idea what the **** you're talking about.

American Sherman tanks never at any point constituted the bulk of Soviet armor on the Eastern front. In Barbarossa their numbers were insignificant. The Soviets were already evacuating factories after the first few weeks of the invasion; the Kharkov industries had been moved east before October. The Germans lost because they overran their own logistics and stuck their necks out during Operation Typhoon, which is why despite outnumbering the Red Army at Moscow, the Germans were defeated.

You must have only studied WWII at school, because you've demonstrated nothing more than a passing knowledge of the entire war, rife with myths and misconceptions. I'm sure you think the Nazis were also incredibly efficient, had the best weapons, would have won if only Hitler had listed to his generals, and the Wehrmacht didn't commit any war crimes.


As I stated... IF he had done it fast enough, and gotten it done, then the UK would have fallen easily and the resupply of the Russians would never have happened.
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No, it would never have happened because it relied on 1) Air superiority the Luftwaffe couldn't achieve, 2) Naval dominance the Kriegsmarine couldn't secure, and 3) Transportation abilities Nazi Germany did not posses. Sea Lion was quite literally an impossibility.
 
PeteEU said:
It has? Did not know that.. so the orders have been found? Of course Von Runstedt ordered the panzers to halt.. he was in command. Now was he influenced by Hitlers views... or someone elses? Well that is the real question that we will never get answered, because tactically it was a brain dead move, one that I can not see Von Runstedt or any seasoned general making. Add to that, the lack of air attacks (relatively speaking) and one has to question who really gave the order... Hitler, a corporal that made bad strategic decisions over and over, or seasoned generals who tried to stop him?
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No, and once again you are showing just how little you know on the subject.

It was not a brain dead move like you have claimed, you are speaking from the position of hindsight and ignoring the realities of the situation.

When the Allied counterattack at Arras on May 21st occurred, it caught the lead German Panzer formations off guard. They had outrun their own infantry support (since the vast majority of German infantry were not mechanized, so they had to walk and have horses carry their supplies), and operating tanks without infantry is a cardinal sin. Rommel himself claimed he had been attacked by "hundreds of tanks", even though the actual number was 74. It never the less highlighted the exposure of the German armor, and their precarious situation; having advanced far faster than expected, they were running out of fuel and ammunition, some units had suffered 50% losses, and after two weeks of non-stop fighting the Panzer crews were exhausted.

It was General Ewald von Kleist, commanding Panzer Group Kleist, who originally requested the halt and it was approved by Rundstedt, who in his own personal journal at the time wrote his agreement, and later explained to Hitler the justification of the decision; the land around Dunkirk was marshy and full of canals, poor terrain for tanks anyway, and Hitler, having fought there during WWI, confirmed this and agreed to the halt. It was in fact little more than a rubber stamp.



Come on.. the RAF had the same problem that the Germans would have later on when bombing the UK.... the fighters did not have enough fuel to stay very long over the beaches. They were easy targets for the Germans, and the British were preparing for invasion, where the only defence they had (other than the channel) was the RAF.. so the planes that were sent over, were at best token moral boosters.

So yes the RAF flew sorties over the beaches, but lets be clear here... the Germans controlled the airspace and could have bombed the 400k troops to death if they wanted too and the RAF could have done nothing about it.
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You are once again showing how little you know. Over the nine days of Operation Dynamo, the RAF flew 171 reconnaissance, 651 bombing and 2,739 fighter sorties, shooting down 206 Luftwaffe aircraft. The RAF sharply contested the Luftwaffe over Dunkirk.
 


A veteran of Dunkirk speaks after watching the film.
 
Jredbaron96 said:
Anyone else super exited for this? I love the trailers and have enjoyed all of Nolan's recent films. Needless to say I'm pumped.


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Waiting at the theater right now to watch it. Heard good things.
 
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