Watched Gallipoli (1981) for the first time in years; no recent war movie comes close

Most WWI films tend to nail it. And this is somewhat counter-intuitive because, while the war in Europe was dynamic for a few months in 1914, it quickly settled down to a relatively undramatic trench warfare environment with little change and few decisive battles for years.

Sergeant York, All Quiet on the Western Front, Paths of Glory, Lawrence of Arabia, and Gallipoli are some of the very few (compared to WWII movies, for example) and they are all excellent. Even the more recent A&E production, The Lost Battalion (starring Rick Schroeder) is pretty good.

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Most WWI films tend to nail it. And this is somewhat counter-intuitive because, while the war in Europe was dynamic for a few months in 1914, it quickly settled down to a relatively undramatic trench warfare environment with little change and few decisive battles for years.

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I think that is why these movies tend to nail it. When you are making a movie about the futility and horror of war nothing quite strikes that home like showing a barren hellish landscape where one side spent 6 months and a hundred thousand lives to advance as far as a stroll to the neighborhood convenience store.

It was also the last hurrah of the Old World that had held sway since the Colonial period and the first big war since 1812. As someone said, "The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time."

World War II, on other hand, was a more wide open war. Things happened, armies advanced. The real horror of the war is usually only captured by the concentration camps.

It is why there really aren't any great World War I movies about the Eastern front, which was, for the most part, a mobile war because the sheer distance involved prevented one side from digging in.

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but I think a great movie could be made about it.

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Oh I agree whole heartedly. The Eastern Front is a fascinating period of warfare during World War I. You could also make a great movie about the German campaign in Sub-Saharan Africa or Von Spee's desperate attempt to sail from East Asia back to Germany (also, how odd is it that the vessel named after Spee also met its end in the South Atlantic far from home?).

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A movie like Dunkirk has a lot of pew pews

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Dunkirk is a weird movie to make for this comparison I think, considering it's pretty low on the pew pew pew scale for war movies

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sticks with you in a way that no recently made 21st century war movie has done

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While I agree about it's impact, I have to disagree with the "no recently made" part. You have include the beach landing in the opening of Saving Private Ryan.

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it but that was made in the 20th century.

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Apologies. I still fumble with the centuries.

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Major Barton.

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My favorite character, such a father figure to the rest of them. And he was the perfect commander all the way to the end.

I used to watch it on pirated cable in the early 80's. I never knew until years after while reading the credits that Rupert Murdoch was an executive producer.

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My favorite character, such a father figure to the rest of them. And he was the perfect commander all the way to the end.

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I loved the fact that this soft-looking, pudgy middle-aged guy was a man's man throughout. Which is probably much more true-to-life than the more stereotypical portrayal.