I notice too many complaints about details in the film that have to do with 'the real story' and 'the real tanks'...etc. A film is not like a history book or a board game for baby generals. It's more like a poem if it's any good. I'm really tired of people who claim that the wrong tanks were used. Maybe what you need is a war theme park. (June of JoeJune)
shareI can understand your feelings to a certain extent but some errors in the film really are inexcusable.One that stands out to me are the German Tiger tanks painted in grey when in fact german tanks had been using a combination of yellow,browns and reds for a couple of years prior to the Ardennes battles.This really is poor and lazy researching and to me it is the equivalent of dressing American GIs in pink uniforms!
shareWhy do you feel so strongly about those tanks? Frankly, tanks painted yellow, brown and red...(mixed together.....or like a camouflage?) sound kind of disgusting when it comes to creating a mood. I first saw this film on TV in black and white. I think it was better that way.
shareHow can I put this to you in simple terms...hmm..The movie is complete,unadulterated crap!
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To me the mood of the film is partly set by its adherence to the facts. Ignoring real events creates confusion.
If you complain or question the statement from the poster mentioning color of German tanks as "yellow, brown, green" how can you judge the film? When someone ignores something as basic as the German tank colors makes me question whether that person has any basis to judge or recommend the film. On what is it being done?
Up to 1942, German vehicles including tanks were painted dark bluish gray. As camouflage, in 1941 some vehicles added splotches airbrushed in dark brown and dark green. In 1943, all German vehicles had to be repainted in a base color of dark yellow with splotches of dark brown and dark green airbrushed on the base. This came in pastes that were to be mixed with water or oil, whatever was available.
For vehicles coming from factories, this was very nicely done. From vehicles already at the front, this was done as "maintenance at the front" allowed. So sometimes the dilution of the paste with water or oil was not enough, at times it was too much resulting in browns and greens lighter and darker than ordered. And applied in different ways than ordered, with brushes, brooms, rags, mops and whatever was available. You ended up with splotches, airbrushes, stripes.
During winter, these camouflages were to be covered by white paint airbrushed but again the same problem happened and the white paint was applied with brooms, rags, mops and whatnot. Sometimes these paints were not available at all, as bullets, food, and shells had to take priority.
So the German tanks were just one of a miriad of wrong items in Battle of the Bulge. They were the wrong kind. I would have accepted that considering that no WWII German tanks would be available. They were the wrong color as well. Ruined the mood.
Nobody but tank aficionados cares. Tank aficionados probably make up about 0.000001 of the audience.
shareThe misrepresentation of the vehicles, the non-representation of the effect of air power, and the inaccuracies in uniforms and weaponry annoy me, but I can get past them. What really burns me is the misrepresentation of the battle. How, where, when, and why the Germans failed matters because it involved genuine heroism. Much more poetic than what the movie showed. You won't understand that if you only read poems about Bastogne and don't read the history books.
The preamble to the battle and its aftermath are as important as the battle itself.
We have lots of poetic movies, we don't need movies that pretend to be the true story and then distort the story so much that it cannot be recognized. If you want poetry about the defense of Bastogne, go read the casualty lists and see how many soldiers got trench foot or frostbite.
The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank.
Has there ever been a true-to-life war film ever made?
shareHas there ever been a true-to-life war film ever made?
"Has there ever been a true-to-life war film ever made?"
The TV series Band of Brothers ?
Try The Battle of Britain for a start, the order of battle is pretty much as it was and the makers went to great lengths to obtain aircraft from a similar era, you would need to know the history of the various Mk versions to be critical. Oh also to maintain the truth in depicting WW2 you would also have to acknowledge that the British and the Russians contributed greatly in the final outcome and that only Britain and France went to war to defend their principals.
"Battle of Britain" is a great movie, at least for the aerial and strategy scenes. But somebody will go off for paragraphs and paragraphs about how something painted on a Messerschmitt is five centimeters off.
shareThere is something to be said about our over-expectation for absolute truth in movies...it is an art form after all.
Modern artist Pablo Casals, at a party, had to endure a harangue by a fellow guest that Casals' work did not reflect reality...that his paintings should show things as they really are.
Reportedly, later that evening, when the subject of offspring came up in conversation, the haranguer brandished a photo of his daughter to Picasso. After looking at it for a few seconds he handed the photo back to the man saying "Awful tiny, isn't she."
Pablo Casals was a cellist. I see someone else noticed too.
shareWell if you've heard more complaints than you'd like about this movie's adherence to realism that is because this is one of the least historically accurate WWII film ever made. Considering that much of todays youth only learns about history from the movies I think it is actually quite important to depict, if not the machines, then at least the events SOMEWHAT realistically. I strongly disagree that a film is more like a poem than a history book. Some films may be more like poems, but what is the point in making an historical film if you're just going to ignore history and make the whole thing up?
What you seem to fail to realize is that some of us actually know what a Panzer VI and a Sherman looked like. Once you know what a Tiger looks like it's pretty difficult to watch a bunch of M-47's and imagine they are Tiger II's. For example if you went to see a pirate movie and the boats were all modern fishing boats wouldn't that take you out of the movie a bit?
The lame tanks are made more infuriating by an interview with the producer of the film, Milton Sperling, found on the DVD in which he claims they 'scoured Europe' to find all of the authentic equipment and that all of the tanks we see in the film are the real tank types that fought in the battle of the bulge. This just goes to show how poor the research on the film was, as the producer didn't ever realize they had American tanks playing German ones in the film!!
The only defense I can make on behalf of the ultra-lame tanks in this movie is that there were far bigger problems with this movie. The dialogue is terrible and some of the acting is atrocious. Anyone else notice Robert Shaw's German accent disappearing in several scenes?
The important thing for today's youth to learn is what WWII was all about, why it happened, how it unfolded, and the strategies and importance of various operations and engagements. The color of this or that tank is trivia for enthusiasts, but doesn't mean a thing in the context of the history of the twentieth century.
shareWhile they could have done simple things to comply with reality, like paint the tanks the correct colors, finding 20-or-so Tiger IIs and Shermans would have been difficult. Disguising available US tanks with fiberglass really doesn't work well, since the German wheel and track design was so different from the American one and there is nothing that would have been available to the film makers that is really shaped anything like a Sherman.
Young men who spend much of their time researching wars have little tolerance of the inaccuracy of weapons in films. But to most of the audience, who will no nothing of what an actual WWII tank looked like, this is no problem. The Chaffees look small and weak; the M-47s look large and formidable. That's all that's needed.
The worst problems, in my eyes, are the inaccurate events, but even this is not so bad. I see the story as more symbolic (the importance of fuel represnted by the depot, for instance) than a documentary film.
I agree that having weak-looking american tanks vs strong-looking german ones was enough this storyline work, at least for me. But then I barely can tell apart a WWII tank from a present day one, so...
For most films, you have to know what to expect to enjoy them, and here I think the idea is take the suspense and the story, put your suspension of disbelief on high and watch the show!
That said, on of the remaining problems I have concerning the inaccuracies has to do with the settings. I feel the film contradicts itself there, especially with the crucial point of the weather - it's supposed to be horrible, and we keep seeing a wonderful, clear blue sky and melting (if any) snow. Also, I'm certainly more sensible to landscapes than to tanks as landscapes and environments are my line of work, and I have a really hard time believing that some of those dried-up, Mediterranean landscapes could look like the Ardennes forest!
It's not just some film, the makers claim to depict a certain historic event called "Battle of the Bulge", why do you think they've called it that way??
They didn't even properly try and were lying about it on top of it all!
Prob. already mentioned but actually getting working genuine replicas of the German Tanks would probably have been virtually impossible at the time or extremely expensive.
Even today on big budget films like Saving Private Ryan they went to great pains to disguise a Soviet? tank and even then there was only a couple (3?) of them in the final battle.
Band of Brothers also only showed a few tanks, and very, very briefly during one episode concerned with this battle.
This movie tried to show several, and a full tank battle.
As for the terrain
I would imagine it would be extremely difficult to actually film a relatively large scale tank battle in heavy snow. Perhaps thats why I've never seen a film about the great tank battles of the Eastern front...
They could/should have used fake snow then but once again I will attribute that to budget constraints.
Still since the film caused some offence apparently I think they should have called the movie something else maybe...
The Battle of the Bulge is, I think, the largest battle the US Army has ever fought in terms of men and materials committed - so it makes a good subject to make a war movie about.
Trouble was the ambition of the producers to make a movie about the whole battle was far in excess of their means.
It meant they used post war tanks from the US and Spanish armies as well as other incorrect tanks.
They didn't bother with the right camouflage schemes and decided to stage a tank battle in open arid desert with clear blue skies (wrong terrain, wrong climate, wrong season).
The end to the movie is laughable too. Indeed it suffers from the Hollywood ideal of one man's actions making the difference - for me this cheats the thousands of heroes who died fighting the battle.
It would've been fairly easy to mock up some Tiger II tanks and get a few other authentic US army and German army vehicles.
If they'd filmed in Winter, in a forested area, then they wouldn't have needed dozens of tanks either.
Basically BOTB is a typical lazy Hollywood mavie factory product, made as cheap as possible, as fast as possible...before making the next movie.
In the movie The Night of the Generals, they create some Tiger tanks for the Warsaw scene and from a distance, they sure look like Tiger tanks.
shareSorry, but even ignoring the tanks the overall story is silly and almost completely inaccurate in every way. Since the movie is basing itself on an actual event/place the fact that it is so wildly inaccurate in every facet (location, weapons, story, events, etc.) it deserves the criticism it gets.
shareAgree, this is the worst WW2 film from the 1960s-70s. Its laughable, I would never show this to kids, it would 'mis-educate' them.
shareI can accept a certain level of "poetic freedom" in a film. And with this movie I did not mind the lack of realism with regard to the tanks and the exact events. But thinking that the middle of Spain looks even remotely like the Ardennes was just silly. That very often took me out of the movie.
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