Corny as hell

Spielberg always wraps his movies up with schmaltzy bookends. In SPR's case it's with the elder Private Ryan revisiting Normandy Beach and the memorial. It would have been more REAL to me if they had portrayed his family as being distant from him and treating their trip with him as some kind of inconvenience. I would have also made him a widower, but instead Spielberg frames the scene like a Hallmark Card commercial with a generic loving family in tow as he seeks out the Sargent's grave site. That's the harsh reality for many veterans of our wars is that they are footnotes in our lives, but on the commercial side we like to prop them up with superficial pomp and circumstance via military parades and national anthem events.

I actually agree about the "earn it" scene, Ryan didn't ask to be rescued and had no idea that the platoon was sent to find him. In fact he wanted to stay and fight. He had nothing to earn. I get that it was the man's dying words and I get that Miller gave his life for his country but the line was just too sanctimonious. The Omaha Beach scene was very well shot, the only complaint I have is that after SPR a bunch of directors were like "wow that opening battle scene was so cool, what is we made an entire movie that was nothing but a battle scene and make it just as cool as the D-Day scene" and then we ended up with Black Hawk Down, We Were Soldiers and Dunkirk.

Other than that I loved the film.