MovieChat Forums > U-571 (2000) Discussion > Embarrasing to me as an American

Embarrasing to me as an American


I enjoy history. Stretching the truth is one thing but passing garbage off as history shouldn't be taken lightly. First off, the Polish were the first to get an Enigma machine. It was then handed off to British intelligence. Secondly, shortly thereafter another wheel was added to the machine once the Germans figured out the codes were being deciphered. Thirdly, the Germans were really portrayed badly here for no good reason except that a villain was needed. Though a submarine commanders job was to sink merchant ships I doubt a very high percentage were bloodthirsty killers of helpless people on lifeboats. That scene just wasn't needed. It added nothing to this movie. I just want to mention to people who say "its only a movie". That is correct. But after the producers were called out for the inaccuracies in the movie they added a disclaimer giving credit to the British in the closing credits. I like movies like The Great Escape, Cross of Iron where a more even handed approach is used. That all German soldiers weren't bad people. Just like men in the British or American armies. Men who wanted to be home with their families. Not on the eastern front or in the north Atlantic or North Africa etc...

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[deleted]

Same here!

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All good points if your initial supposition were true.

But since all your points are based on a falsehood to begin with, then all your points are moot.

Stretching the truth is one thing but passing garbage off as history shouldn't be taken lightly.

You are right in that it should not be taken lightly. but you are wrong in that U-571 IS NOT ATTEMPTING to pass their fictional plot off as historical fact.

What the frak is the problem with grasping the concept of "Historical fiction"
What is embarrassing to me as an American is that you cannot grasp that simple concept.


I joined the Navy to see the world, only to discover the world is 2/3 water!

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I generally expect even historical fiction to have the basic facts right and then to just add a few made up characters or a new storyline. If you change almost everything surely it is fantasy or science fiction? Having since this rather awful film I make the first poster right to feel embarrassed. It could have been written by a 10 year old who had gleaned a basic understanding of the war from his grandfather at a drunken family Christmas party.

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[deleted]

Wendi,
I told you before on the other board... seek help. You are mentally disturbed. You have no grasp on reality.

If anyone is brainwashed it's you and your fellow "truther" conspiracy freaks.

I joined the Navy to see the world, only to discover the world is 2/3 water!

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At no point did the Germans believe that Enigma was being broken. Donitz added the fourth wheel just to make sure. If they belived that Enigma was broken they had other cipher machines they could use (also broken without their knowledge by Bletchley).

Enigmas were commercially available in the 20's. The security lay in the complexity of the encoding, not in the secrecy of the method. The Poles did prototype decoding, the first designs for a bombe and unpicked most of the secrets but couldn't decode reliably or quickly. The Brits did all that.

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[deleted]

Historically. Us British, the American Navy and Russian navy were the only navy's to machine-gun survivers in the water after a attack...

The Germans never did this... This is one of many things portrayed in this movie that is BS...

The thing that hacks off us British about this movie is the fact that in this day and age in which people watch TV and are so stupid they think what they say is factual. Making up such history in a timeline so short (ie the war) just makes a joke out of the people that worked and died so hard to save our way of life (such as it is!)

How would you Yanks like it if a film was made where by you didn't win the American War of Independence and the French did. Then at the end of the film the French proclaimed America independent and that is how your country was claimed to have come into being?

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[deleted]

I am talking about Nations navy's idiot... There was only one recorded case of a u-boat crew firing on civilians in the water and that was a Greek merchantman crew. The 3 sailors involved were either executed or inpriosoned for their actions.

Us (British) and American Navy's attacked survivors in the water on several occasions...

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Before you get too excited labeling others as idiots, please note that the plural of "navy" is "navies." An apostrophe indicates a possessive. Accordingly, you ought to have one after the 's' in "nations'" (which does not require a capital), since it is both possessive and plural.

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Ah the punctuation reply, the last vestige of an argument lost...

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