re: The Thin Red Line vs Saving Private Ryan

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I've tried multiple times to like Thin Red Line. Impossible. Its a terrible movie.

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Try Hogan's Heroes...I think you might like it.

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I don’t know why anyone would give half a shite about a war movie being fictional. It’s a great movie.

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I don’t either and that was my point in rebutting that “issue” that people have with SPR. 90% of war movies are fictionalized versions of real events with fictional characters. Not every movie has to be To Hell and Back with Audie Murphy playing himself.

Make it compelling, make me care about the characters, and make it raw and gritty.

1917-fictionalized
All Quiet Along the Western Front - fictionalized
Platoon - fictionalized
Apocalypse Now - fictionalized

Even the true stories based on real accounts with actors playing real soldiers have fictionalization to them

Black Hawk Down has fictional elements
We were Soldiers has fictional elements

Thin Red Line has fictional characters in a fictionalized version of Guadalcanal. The problem for me was I didn’t care about any of the characters, Malick just didn’t make me care, and there’s too many scenes of jungle canopy

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I am a rabid lover of SPR but it has some random cameos. Ted Danson? Vin Diesel?

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Ted Danson was weird to see in SPR, but Vin Diesel was a nobody at the time and his role was not a cameo. Heck, might be the best performance of his career.