re: Thoughts on The Thin Red Line?

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they are really different films and are not that comparable

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They're totally different. Didn't even seek to do the same thing. It just so happens they're set against the backdrop of the same war. That's the extent of the similarity.

A lot of the hate for TRL comes from people going to see it thinking it was the "other SPR" out that year without looking into the director at all. When they got a philosophical think-piece instead of the "'Merica Movie" they expected they were not pleased.

Not a huge fan of TRL, but at least Malick nailed the Call For Fire scene with Cusack when assaulting the hill. That and the actual 105mm time on target/preparatory fires special effects are spot on. Although there's a scene with Nolte barking on the radio at Elias Koteas and the howitzers in the background "recoil"; I say "recoil" because it looked pretty bad. I think the closest someone has gotten it right in terms of artillery looking like they're actually firing is the 155 pigs in "We Were Soldier"s. To do it right means the barrel recoiling back to the equilibrator and the spades and trails digging in hard; aiming poles, collimeters and the like.

Apologies for the tangent. It's the gun bunny in me

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Simple the movie is not an accurate portrayal of WW II combat especially on Guadalcanal. It is artsy and pretentious. I understand how those that love cinema can appreciate the cinematography or the psychological aspects. I prefer my war films to not frick around with scenes of tigers stalking jungles and guys chilling with natives. I mean my good they make the Japanese soldiers look like wimps, crying and surrendering on that hill while the mean Americans knock their teeth out for the gold. The Japanese were tough as hell and in 1942 were not surrendering in droves crying to the GI's.

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The Pacific is a far superior depiction of the War in the Pacific in every way feasible.

I felt like this movie could've been set in Vietnam and they literally wouldn't have had to change anything but the weapons and uniforms. To me, with what they were trying to say, the backdrop of Vietnam would've been much better.

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I felt like this movie could've been set in Vietnam and they literally wouldn't have had to change anything but the weapons and uniforms. To me, with what they were trying to say, the backdrop of Vietnam would've been much better.

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It's based on the book by James Jones. Obviously Malick took some liberties with it and made it his own, but from what I understand the book was similar in tone to the movie in regard to it's psychological depiction of the individual mindset in the broader war.

I think people try to read too much into "what they are trying to say" with The Thin Red Line. It fits perfectly into the Pacific Theater of WWII. That fighting was brutal, savage, and psychological taxing. The philosophical musings are valid for any war of this type. I don't see the political undertones that others seem to be seeing in this film.

Read the book, James Jones actually fought at Guadalcanal.

Gonna re watch the movie tonight.

watched it with my parents as a kid...I only remember it as a long, boring war movie that I slept through. Haven't given it another chance since.

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At least we can all agree that both Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line deservedly lost out on best picture to Shakespeare In Love. The Academy got that one right for sure.

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Life Is Beautiful should have won.

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I don't see the political undertones that others seem to be seeing in this film.

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The book was written in 1960 I think and it lays out reality that people were not ready for, homosexuality, cowardice, senseless loss of life, military impotence at every level etc etc.

At least 3 times reading the book I had to go back to see the year it was written! In the 60's America wanted the Audie Murphy movie version of WW2 not the reality of TRL.

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The book was written in 1960 I think and it lays out reality that people were not ready for, homosexuality, cowardice, senseless loss of life, military impotence at every level etc etc.

At least 3 times reading the book I had to go back to see the year it was written! In the 60's America wanted the Audie Murphy movie version of WW2 not the reality of TRL.

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In 1968 "Green Berets" came out with Wayne and it was viewed as cornball at the time and out of touch with reality.

America yearned for and needed to rewrite and retell those old WWII movies and all war movies from a human angle - and Malick helped in that efforts.

"The Green Berets" simply will not do as a film about the war in Vietnam. It is offensive not only to those who oppose American policy but even to those who support it. At this moment in our history, locked in the longest and one of the most controversial wars we have ever fought, what we certainly do not need is a movie depicting Vietnam in terms of cowboys and Indians. That is cruel and dishonest and unworthy of the thousands who have died there.

It is not a simple war. We all know it is not simple. Perhaps we could have believed this film in 1962 or 1963, when most of us didn't much care what was happening in Vietnam. But we cannot believe it today. Not after television has brought the reality of the war to us. Not after the Fulbright hearings and the congressional debates and the primaries. Not after 23,000 Americans have been killed.

Americans hunger for: a film that will tell it like it is. We need no more propaganda.

If I were a soldier in Vietnam, I would not want to be represented by "The Green Berets." I would not want my fellow citizens to think I was as stupid and simple-minded as the Americans in this film. I would prefer a more realistic film, in which I was seen not as a hero but as an individual human being trying to act ethically in a difficult position.

For what we desperately need are not heroics and bugle calls, and clichés and atrocity stories, but honesty and compassion. - Roger Ebert, 1968

I'm sorry that Malick is the greatest filmmaker alive.