BS: Ten films that got it wrong

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Wesley S
Date: 25 Mar 08 - 03:58 PM

By the way - In Lord Of The Rings they mention elfen bread. One or two bites fills a normal person. It's flat as I recall and compact. Just the thing for a late night dinner when you are avoiding Orcs and don't want to light a fire.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Mar 08 - 04:10 PM

Yes, the Elven bread is called lembas. It is, as you say, very compact and very concentrated, and it's light in weight. A small square of lembas can sustain a person for a day or two, so you could get by with a backpack of lembas and some fresh water, no problem, and no need to even light a fire except if you needed the warmth.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 25 Mar 08 - 04:21 PM

>>>Oh, you want to keep the argument going, eh, Jack? ;-)<<<

No I was just wryly pointing out that your argument referred to the movies while SRS's comments were about the book.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: irishenglish
Date: 25 Mar 08 - 04:22 PM

And let's not forget the scene with Golum disgusting Samwise by eating a raw fish, while Golum is horrified at the taste of cooked fish.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Mar 08 - 04:39 PM

Yes, lots of nice fishes to be caught, yeesssss, my precious!

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Don Firth
Date: 25 Mar 08 - 07:13 PM

No, never met Jack Vance. But at the Norwescons I attended over a period of years, I met such folks as Samuel R. Delaney, Vonda McIntyre, F. M. Busby, Octavia Butler, Anne McAffrey, Orson Scott Card, L. Sprague and Catherine de Camp, and whole bunches of others. More names than I can remember. Once when I was heading into the men's john between workshops, Stanley Schmidt (then, editor of Analog) was just coming out and he held the door for me. Whether any of them would remember me is highly doubtful. I was merely one of many hundreds of people in attendance (dozens of people in Star Trek uniforms, at least five fully costumed Darth Vaders, and one young woman who could not be called "svelte" by any means being Red Sonja or some manner of Amazon warrior, carrying a huge broadsword and wearing a chain mail bikini. Considering her rather generous proportions, a bikini of any sort was not all that flattering, and I've never been able to figure out what sort of battle protection a chain mail bikini would afford. But what the hell! She was having her fantasy weekend, so more power to her!).

Yeah, Maggie, I'm still working on the book. The first draft is getting pretty huge-ish, and I'm going to have to do some heavy-duty editing. My first idea was to write a history of the folk scene in the Pacific Northwest, then when I got into it, I discovered that this would take far more in the way of research and general digging than I felt I wanted to do (blind men and elephants and all that!), so I decided to make it more of a memoir, or collection of personal reminiscences. The first draft has a lot of stuff that probably doesn't really relate all that much to the folk scene (such as when Walt Robertson went to visit Fred Melberg and brought his dog with him.   The dog spotted Fred's pet skunk—fully loaded—got a bit too aggressive with Skyo Grundoon Skunk, and Skyo defended himself by Dropping The Bomb. Doesn't really relate all that much to the folk scene, save that Walt was there at the time. But I'd hate to leave it out).

So I kinda doubt that the evening with Jerry and friends should really be included. But if I were to change my focus and do an autobiography (every detail I can think of), it would wind up being pretty big. I have a copy of Isaac Asimov's autobio—two volumes, both pretty thick—but he's Isaac Asimov. I'm not sure who'd necessarily want to read something that hefty about an obscure Northwest singer of folk songs, no matter how handsome and charming. Too thick to use to prop up the short leg of a table, but it should make a dandy door-stop.

< rant on >
As to Jerry Pournelle's politics, Jerry was always well-informed and he always had the facts and figures right there. Check him out and he's accurate. He's got the data. Arguing politics with him was a bit like trying to argue with William F. Buckley, except, as I mentioned earlier, Jerry's voice tends to go up in pitch when he gets excited. We argued politics a fair amount over many a beer at the Blue Moon, and I must say that, unlike arguing with a lot of hard-charging conservatives, I learned a lot from Jerry.

That isn't to say that I wound up agreeing with him. Our different political viewpoints sprang, not from the collection of shallow bumper-sticker slogans that so many people take as Gospel, but from differences in our deeper philosophical positions. An example of this is that I've always believed that humans and human societies can improve (in fact, I've always taken that as a given in science fiction, and much good SF deals with that). It's not guaranteed that we will. But I believe we can. We should strive for perfection, even if we know that "perfection" (however we define it) is unattainable; nevertheless, humanity would be far better for the striving than it would otherwise be

Jerry, on the other hand, seemed to have the viewpoint that humans and human societies may have the capacity to "improve" (whatever that means), but human nature is such that they won't. There will undoubtedly be scientific discoveries and technological improvements, but Man himself and human societies will always have the same negative aspects—as will any alien species we might happen to meet. So we'd better stay on our guard and prepare for the future with this in mind.

Now, I'm not sure that I'm stating Jerry's ideas accurately (he'd have to do that for himself), but that's how they struck me. Thinking back over many conversations, I think I'm quite probably more optimistic about the future than Jerry is.

But—he may be right!

Lemme put it this way:   I may have missed out on a lot of good reading, but I have not read all of Jerry's stuff. Case in point. While browsing the shelves in a favorite bookstore some years ago, I noted that Jerry had compiled an anthology of stories entitled "There Will Be War." I looked at it for a moment, muttered something like, "Oh, crap, Jerry!" and stuck it back on the shelf. He's come out with something like eight volumes of stuff with the same title, same theme.

He seems to accept the idea of the inevitability of war. That "there will be war," and "there will always be war." I ask "Why? If we fancy ourselves to be intelligent beings, can't we do better than that!??"
< rant off >

But getting back to our regular broadcast:

Barbara and I watched "Robin Hood. Prince of Thieves" (NetFlix) last night. They played kind of fast and loose with the Robin Hood legend, but it did have some pretty interesting twists to it. Kevin Costner was Kevin Costner, Morgan Freeman was marvelous, and I'd pay just to watch Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio breathe. Alan Rickman (the Sheriff of Nottingham) can play villains like no other actor, Geraldine MacEwan was a real snort, and Sean Connery makes a cameo appearance (took a second to recognize him!). No mention of the villainous King John, however. Pretty good swashbuckler. Fun!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Mar 08 - 08:09 PM

I think the same way you do about that, Don, and yes, I think that is the fundamental difference.

There are really 2 basic philosophies out there when you get to the very bottom of it.

One is based on the presumption that people are basically rotten, and one must plan around that...and it will always be that way.

The other is based on the presumption that people are basically good, and that we are moving always toward attaining perfection...and that we will someday.

I subscribe to the latter.

Religious groups also tend to focus on either one or the other of those viewpoints. They either assume we're all miserable "sinners" or they assume we're shining angels who have temporarily lost our way.

Again, I subscribe to the latter viewpoint. I think humanity is basically good. This doesn't mean I don't expect bad behaviour from people....I do...because I know that most people are afraid. To the extent that they are afraid, their essential goodness tends to get crushed and blocked from expressing itself or reaching its potential.

A conservative takes that as normal, I guess. I take it as an abberation. A temporary malfunction in consciousness. If I didn't think there was a soul and an afterlife, however, I would have a pretty dark view of humanity.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Mar 08 - 09:58 PM

Don, set up a blog and start publishing some every day. Do it in the order you want, and one of these days someone will approach you about putting it into a book. Happens fairly often now, from what I hear when I listen to radio interviews with people who got books out that way.

I'm about due to start rereading the LOTR one day soon. After I reread Moby Dick. I remember occasional mentions of food, and as has been pointed out, you don't need to spend all of your time taking a meal break. They don't mention a lot of general maintenance things. But for all of the times that they get wet and lost and separated from their stuff, this backpacker always wondered at the state of their possessions after each scrape. :)

My son is 16 now, and over the years I've had a very liberal view of watching movies with the kids. Sex and sophisticated ideas are in there with the comedy and drama. There are a couple of "beginnings" to our movie viewing. When they were about 10 and 13 I checked out a copy of Blazing Saddles from the library, and as it was running realized it was the uncut version. Not that I was looking for the other, but I had to explain a number of gags and references as we watched it. I realized this was a great opening to any number of things that I wanted them to know about. Also years ago, my first DVD player was on a computer I bought in about 1999. I picked up a copy of the animated film Chicken Run, and we watched it with the computer screen turned around to the living room. I realized it had a lot of references to other films so a couple of weeks later I taped Stalag 17 and had them sit down to watch it. They kind of fussed about it, until they saw how bad Peter Graves was. :) Anyway, that movie ended, and before they could think about leaving the room, I popped Chicken Run into the player, and they watched with new understanding the beginning of the movie as it panned over the chicken coops and landed on . . . number 17.

"Oh!" was the answer when they saw this. It clicked.

Dylan was about 12 when we were watching James Garner in Support Your Local Sheriff and as it got to a scene with a view down on the street as he's alone waiting for the gang to come to town, Dylan commented "That's just like in High Noon." Of course it was! And he got it!

There's more to it than just recognizing intertextuality, though that is important (I think.) Understanding the significance of that shot of the man alone in the street is also important.

A few weeks ago I was flipping through the channel guide and Dylan commented "Look--Vertigo, and then Rear Window! Are you going to turn on Vertigo?"

I asked him "Do you want to watch the last 30 minutes of the movie? I've really created a Hitchcock addict!"

"I can stop any time I want," he said.

We read Frankenstein a couple of years ago, the last bedtime book with him (we read out loud around here for years, and I still kind of miss it). Every time the film comes on or is referred to in some way, I see his head pop up, recognizing the reference. This is good. I like cultivating cultural literacy in the kids--they're getting the modern stuff in spades, and I'll contribute a solid background.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Mar 08 - 10:05 PM

That's excellent, Stilly. That's how young people learn to think...rather than just idly absorb whatever new and ephemeral thing the pop culture is throwing in front of them this week.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Slag
Date: 25 Mar 08 - 10:14 PM

Well Don, I am truly jealous and I am NOT a jealous person by nature. I would have loved to have sat down with Mr. Pournelle and chewed the fat a while. I remember in one of his works he mentioned the 'Danes and to beware of them ( the Mundanes, that is). He also mentioned that he would himself like to have sat down with Niels Bohr or Albert Einstein but thought that a lesser light as himself would be inflicting his limited person upon so great a mind and would have wound up wasting the time of the greater intellect. I would have disagreed with him on a couple of levels but I appreciated his sentiment.

It was Pournelle's writing (and I assume a correspondence in his actual life!) that introduced me to Pimm's Cup or Pimm's #1, one of the first cocktails, kind of a gin sling. Up until recently it has been hard to find but worth the hunt.

Oh, you've probably already guessed that I pretty much agree with his politics.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Don Firth
Date: 25 Mar 08 - 11:25 PM

Yeah, Slag, Jerry's pretty good at spotting a cockamamie idea (and I have to admit that liberals—we liberals—are often pretty prolific at coming up with them—uh—but we're not the only one's, of course) and showing you why it won't work. I remember one occasion when the subject was a recent famine in or around India, and someone (not me) cited all the surplus grain that the U. S. had stored away at the time and said, "Why don't we ship all of that to India?" implying that the reason we didn't was some vast capitalistic conspiracy. Jerry took all of this in without saying much, but he pulled out a notebook and pen and made a few notes.

The following evening, he came into the Blue Moon ("And the usual crowd was there…."), and when he got his schooner of beer, he flipped open the same notebook. He'd done a little research and he'd crunched the numbers. He proceeded to inform us that the amount of surplus grain in the U. S. at the time was such that it would take all the merchant ships that the U. S. had some twenty years to ship all that grain to India, and it would be enough to feed the famine-stricken portion of India's population for about three days.

We certainly didn't disagree on everything, but we did tend to look at things quite differently. We were good friends, though, and I knew that if I ever got into a bind, I could pretty well count on him for help. And he, me.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Don Firth
Date: 25 Mar 08 - 11:27 PM

Maggie, I will definitely look into the blog thing. That's a good idea. Thanks!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Mar 08 - 11:36 PM

Google bought the blogspot site, so if you have G-Mail you can set up a blog with very liberal space and design features. Your G-mail address doesn't need to be your blog name. I've heard about several books that came from blog origins (now that blogs are more than just the lunatic fringe).

I was at a web conference meeting today about writing for the web and using blogs. The one thing that doesn't fit my ideas of good writing is what they suggest for web writing--chopping everything into little one and two sentence "paragraphs" because people who are looking at the web scan in such a way that dense paragraphs drive them off, unless it is exactly what they were looking for. So if you can manage a few short sentences or a bulleted list to describe the contents of your blog, then those who are interested will wade in, and those who aren't interested won't. But at lease those who are interested will know from your introduction that the material is more dense than one commonly finds online (where five to eight lines is plenty for a "paragraph," thank you very much!)

Good luck!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Escapee
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 12:56 AM

" Bambi" was the worst. Deer can't even talk. Usually.
SKP

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 01:25 AM

Don

I've read a few of Jerry's space war books, seven or eight books at least and I would say that the philosophy you describe carries into the books. The empire in "A Mote in God's Eye." Is a traditional monarchy. I've read Pournelle describe such as a good system of government, better than most.

One of my complaints about Pournelle's science fiction, is that he has his armies using conventional, chemical powered guns mortors and RPG's
rather than something more high tech. But he spun good yarns so I read them anyway.

Apparently he believes the British Empire was the height of human civilization never to be surpassed. He has a point. I hope he is wrong.

My philosophy is more like Niven's vision. I think that technology and the expansion of knowledge can relieve man of many of the problems that human nature creates.

From a science fiction author's perspective especially one that creates a series of works in the future, it is probably best to believe that man will not evolve too much. The present day reader needs to be able to identify and supermen do not make for good protagonists.

___

I agree with pretty much every thing you said. Though I must point out that Gary Oldman gives Rickman a challenge for the best actor in the villainous roles category.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 07:51 AM

Thanks Don for some interesting thoughts. You couldn't have summed up my feelings about Jerry Pournelle's fiction any better (and I'm sure that he's the nice, dependable person you say he is).

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Grab
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 08:23 AM

SRS, that's only relevant for "Fellowship". The extended version actually shows Aragorn coming back with a deer one night (can't remember if it got included in the cinema version). And after "Fellowship" they're either with armies (which have baggage trains), on long rides/runs somewhere (so carrying little/no food), or it's Frodo and Sam living off lembas bread in Mordor where there's nothing else to eat anyway.

There's no mention of them digging camp toilets either, but I don't consider that spoils the books or the films. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: GUEST,The black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 08:53 AM

To turn a documentary into a fantasy just include a scene with a steam locomotive!

I've seen some that were less authentic than Jack the Ripper driving a Morris Minor about.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: A Wandering Minstrel
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 09:03 AM

Its only a minor niggle but in the otherwise excellent Discovering Neverland, Johnny Depp (with quite a convincing scottish accent ) appears clean shaven. Unfortunately, contemporary pictures of J.M. Barrie reveal he had a handsome handlebar moustache.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: GUEST,Dazbo at work
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 09:43 AM

I was going to mention Das Boot but others got there first.

Band of Brothers supposedly was very accurate (compared to the book) but there's been plenty of controversy about how accurate the book was (and others by Stephen Ambrose too).

It's a long time since I saw it (30 years) but The Duelists struck me as being accurate sword play - at least they were using proper heavy swords.

I believe Cromwell and Waterloo were pretty accurate too, and The Battle of Britain ("Repeat Please" a great moment!!)

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: alanabit
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 10:43 AM

"Waterloo" was was excellent, particularly bearing in mind that Rod Steiger had less physical similarity to Napoleon than I have to Dougls Fairbanks Junior. Apparently a lot of the dialogue came from the historical records.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: GUEST,dazbo at work
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 11:05 AM

Reading that again it isn't quite what I intended to say which was: Band of Brothers (tv) is faithful to the book; however, there is argument over the accuracy of the book.

Hope that clears it up (well it does for me!!!)

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 11:30 AM

The Other in film is more often than not locked in historic pockets that don't faithfully represent their experiences. History is told by the winners, and how they characterize those they defeated is usually the problematic reason for this. Case in point, you probably won't often see the photo that exists of Sitting Bull (b. ca. 1831) and his wives in an automobile. His history and that of commercial autos barely overlap (prototype cars had been around since the mid 1850s, but the year of his death, (Dec. 15) 1890, is about when they started appearing around the countryside). Another example, it has been generally accepted that in transcribing his notes from interviews with Black Elk, John Neihardt removed Black Elk's reference to "radio" because it didn't suit to have that modern concept of broadcasting voices mentioned in the discussion. These are small examples from a scholarly world, but they illustrate that if it can happen in the academy where the attempt to teach history is generally based upon "facts," that what is out there in popular culture is all the more compromised. The Indian adoption of western technology, clothing, and practices just isn't shown in many films because the filmmakers prefer their Indians as either hostile savages or childlike tribes about to be chucked out of an American Eden.

List members have mentioned Mel Gibson's problematic portrayal of "history" in Braveheart and Oliver Stone's Kennedy re-imagining. My point in this commentary is to suggest that there are degrees of other and Other when it comes to story-telling in film. People don't have to work too hard to find out about the chronology of Kennedy's last day, but you have to work a lot harder, and you have to have a good guess to even know to look, to find what is left out of the story of American Indians and other indigenous people in Hollywood films. This is just one category of an underclass in Hollywood history. Immigrant populations are another group that for a long time were rarely depicted favorably (the darker the more negative--Social Darwinism at work). Population critical mass is changing that for representation of Spanish-speaking immigrants.

I have to get to work so I'll stop here. Some of this has been discussed already, but something brought it to mind so I thought I'd put this idea into play.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: GUEST,Chicken Charlie
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 12:44 PM

Sorry, but the "it's just entertainment" argument doesn't work for me. Regardless of WHY a film is made the way it is, people who see it will have their perception of reality shaped by it. Evidently no one in Hollywood understands a damn thing about geography, chemistry, mathematics or logic. I have my own list of anti-favorites, but I seem to foggily recall doing this before on another thread, so I'll go back to work now.

Except to say that while Pearl Harbor (it's entertainment, right?) was to my mind just a sappy movie, it was the Military Channel/History Channel "expert" guru/shooter dudes who approved the statement that NO American planes got airborne during the attack, thereby dissing the guys who did get off the ground and the ones who were killed or wounded trying to.

It may seem hyper-something to slam "Glory" for racism, but they did conveniently kill off the Denzel Washington character, who in reality won a medal (Medal of Honor, I think ...) for bringing the flag back. Did we omit that so Matthew Broderick/Col. Shaw would look even better? Oh, surely not, and if we did, it was just entertainment.

CC

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 01:19 PM

Who the heck says that no American pilots got airborne at Pearl Harbor???? It's been common knowledge as far as I know for the last 67 years that a few American fighter pilots did get airborne during the attack and they shot down a few Japanese planes. (not that they necessarily managed quite the sort of extraordinary and impossible aerobatics you see in the film "Peal Harbor" where the fighters do things in some scenes that were aerodynamically impossible, such as flying in a sustained 90 degree bank between some buildings without losing any altitude).

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Bee
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 02:47 PM

Don, if I may make a suggestion: you could combine your memoirs with a bit of your folk knowledge by footnoting copiously. Whenever an anecdote includes a person you already know something interesting about, or who connects to someone or something interesting, you include a brief mention as a footnote. Of course,
I'm a person who loves footnotes and appendices and annotations.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Don Firth
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 03:54 PM

Yeah, good suggestion, Bee. I am footnoting and endnoting a lot in the first draft and it's getting a little chaotic. I'm thinking that the thing is going to have to have an index and possibly even an appendix. I've even flirted with the idea of including a CD.

Sometimes I have disturbing dreams about trying to play the guitar, juggle, and type on my computer all at the same time. I wake up exhausted!

Movies:   A few weeks ago, I got the Platinum Series Special Extended Edition set of all three "Lord of the Rings" movies, complete with all kinds of extra features (sitting across the room, still in its shrink-wrap), and I'm waiting for a time when I can lock the doors, board up the windows, take the phone off the hook, then stoke up the computer and poke the first DVD into the drive, and not emerge until I've watched all three of them, along with the special features.

####

I haven't stayed in touch with Jerry all that much since that evening at Ivar's Salmon House that I described above, but I do check into his web site (Chaos Manor) from time to time. I just did this morning and read the rather disturbing news that he is undergoing radiation therapy for some manner of brain tumor. It doesn't stop him from taking long walks, and he seems to be writing a lot despite this.

Jerry has been into computers for a long time, has written a couple of books on the subject, and was a regular columnist in Byte magazine for years. Right now, he seems to be having computer problems—missing .dll files. I'm having the same problems and my computer is currently running at the pace of continental drift—click on something, then pick up a crossword puzzle book to amuse myself until the computer decides to respond. I'm still using Windows XP. Jerry is using Vista and is considering switching to a Mac. He makes the following comment:

"Vista really sucks!"

On the health issue, let's keep a good thought for Jerry, okay?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Bee
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 05:27 PM

Good thoughts from me.

I was never able to 'get into' Pournelle's writing much, except when he was writing with Niven. Although, I could almost tell where Larry left off and Jerry kicked in.

And good luck with the memoir and the time to watch LOTR. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 05:35 PM

Niven is a lot more fun. What an imagination!!

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 05:47 PM

Do you recall the scene, Jack, in "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" where David Niven and some American guy (can't remember who) drive each other slowly around the bend over a day or so and finally get into a hilarious fistfight out in the boondocks somewhere...hilarious because they are both so utterly incompetent at engaging in fisticuffs! The battle of the supernerds, you could call it. :-) At one point they both haul back to deliver a mighty roundhouse punch and end up punching each other's fists, like a man punching his own reflection in the mirror...which causes them both to recoil, howl in agony, and dance around clutching their hurt right hands....

This is followed by further incompetent efforts to maim one another. Much panting and puffing, very little result. Even the Three Stooges were better at fistfighting than these two guys were.

It makes for a nice antidote to the kind of thing you usually see in the action movies.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 05:59 PM

No doubt LH that that one was good.

But...

The best ever "non action" scene in a movie.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 06:21 PM

True. But that sort of thing can only be praised in a society that has lost all concept of honor. And that's sad.

However, it's still a great scene. Perfect for an Indiana Jones movie.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 06:45 PM

Do you recall the scene, Jack, in "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" where David Niven and some American guy (can't remember who) drive each other slowly around the bend over a day or so and finally get into a hilarious fistfight out in the boondocks somewhere

Just about everyone else in the world was in that film except David Niven. Maybe you're thinking of Terry Thomas? Wasn't he stuck with Milton Berle? (Been a long time since I watched that one.)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 06:50 PM

You are absolutely right, it was Terry Thomas I was thinking of.

That movie had its moments, but it gets hard after awhile to listen to people yelling at each other in a frenzy, which is what most of the characters do most of the time.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 06:54 PM

What concept of honor would compel a man to go up against an expert swordsman armed only with a whip when there is a perfectly good gun at his hip?

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Greg B
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 07:00 PM

I found Pearl Harbor annoying because WW2 piston-powered aircraft
just didn't FLY that way. The CGI creations behaved like spacecraft
in Star Wars flying in a vacuum, not like aircraft flying in the
air. The angles of attack were all wrong, they went WAY too fast,
and they wouldn't know what an accelerated stall was if it (or
the ground) smacked 'em in the face.

The real aircraft, using real pilots, were few and far between.

I have flown in (and flown) one of the ACTUAL aircraft used in
that film, in Tora Tora Tora, and in Midway. A replica of a 'Kate'
torpedo-bomber, built from a bastardized North American AT6 (on
which, in fact, the Zero was based).

Pretty effective at stopping the games at the local soccer fields
when flown down the railroad tracks at a few hundred feet on
a Saturday morning, torpedo and all.

At the other end of the spectrum you have movies like 'The Blue
Max' where real good pilots risked everything.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 07:03 PM

In a society with a strong concept of honor, both men would use similar weapons. If one was lacking such a weapon, the other would provide it before the fight started. That's what 2 Samurai would do. And why? Mutual respect, that's why.

But I am talking in very idealistic terms here, so feel free to raise your eyebrows in disbelief, as I realize the present age of human development is completely unfamiliar and out of sympathy with such concepts. The only thing that counts now is "winning"...and that's an ethic that at heart I despise. It's completely unworthy of the warrior credo.

Within the context OF an Indiana Jones tale, though, it worked fine for him to shoot his opponent and I have no objection to the scene. It fits the movie perfectly.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 07:13 PM

The flying scenes in "The Blue Max" were wonderful. It's a delight to see the real airplanes doing the real stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Big Mick
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 07:30 PM

What concept of honor would compel a man to go up against an expert swordsman armed only with a whip when there is a perfectly good gun at his hip?

***laughing like hell!!*** Yep, Jack, that is my philosophy exactly!

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 07:54 PM

>>>In a society with a strong concept of honor, both men would use similar weapons. If one was lacking such a weapon, the other would provide it before the fight started. That's what 2 Samurai would do. And why? Mutual respect, that's why<<<

I think that's where most movies get it wrong. I think that type of "honor" has been pretty rare through history. Every storied battle I can think of pitted a stronger foe against a weaker one. But in a lot of cases it was better weapons and "sneaky tactics" that won out. I'll bet the French say that Henry V "cheated at Agincourt.

Doc Holiday was not only faster than most. But he had the best guns available at the time and he cared for them like children. Should he have limited himself to using only the weapons he was faced with?

In WWI the brits beat the Germans by inventing the tank.

In WWII the Germans gained the advantage by building better weapons and having better soldiers. The allies countered with superior weapons and better and better pilots and other specialized soldiers.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 09:05 PM

All correct, Jack, and I am not arguing the point with you. If I were conducting warfare in a modern war, I would do exactly as the Germans, the Japanese, the British, the Americans, and all the rest of them did...I would use the most effective weapons possible at the time, and I would attempt to minimize my own losses and maximize those of the enemy by every means possible.

I simply made a philosophical comment about chivalry, that's all. I like it as a concept. I prefer societies, few though they have been, which embrace the concept of chivalry seriously, and make an effort to live up to it. The notion appeals to me.

In the west of the 1800s, for example, it was thought to be cowardly cold-blooded murder to shoot a man in the back...any man...and people were despised for doing it, even if they did it on behalf of the law. Robert Ford, the killer of Jesse James, was despised for it, even though Jesse James was a notorious outlaw. Now if Robert Ford had shot Jesse face to face, with Jesse armed and fighting back...then people would have admired him greatly for it. People in the west still had some sense of honor about stuff like that.

I can relate to that. Just winning is not as good as winning with courage and honor. People in the 1800s knew that, and that's why they did not like Robert Ford one bit for shooting Jesse in the back of the head while he was unarmed and dusting off a picture.

You follow? I'm not talking about how to win a war here nor am I attacking the Indiana Jones film, which was great. I'm talking about matters of personal honor in one-to-one combat, and I am simply expressing some philosophical ideas about it. I'm saying that we live in a very cynical age, and we do. People's lack of idealism now is just tragic. People act like they don't believe in anything anymore, and I'm thinking maybe they don't.

To imagine that I am suggesting, however, that we use the old chivalrous notions to fight a modern war campaign is to misconstrue what I am talking about. Given the nature of our weapons now, it's impossible to be chivalrous in the larger scale of modern war...except when it comes to how you treat a defeated enemy after the battle...and that's still quite important.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 09:06 PM

By the way, I saw the new film about Jesse James and Robert Ford just last week, and I think it's absolutely great.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Mar 08 - 11:51 PM

You should read the book, LH, it's one of the best I've ever read. Ron Hansen is a great writer.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Mar 08 - 01:16 AM

Thanks for the tip.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Grab
Date: 27 Mar 08 - 06:54 AM

Re the Indiana Jones scene, Spielberg originally *did* have him taking on the swordsman with whip and fisticuffs - the film still exists. But Ford called bullshit on it and suggested doing it how the now-iconic scene plays it. Which was the right thing to do for the film and the character, incidentally.

Harrison Ford, saviour of crap scriptwriters and half-assed directors. Sometimes in the one body, in the case of George Lucas - as HF is supposed to have said, "You can write this shit, George, but I can't say it."

Since things have drifted onto the Western scene, I loved the Costner and Kilmer version of Tombstone. I've no idea how historically accurate it is, but I can't imagine anyone doing Holliday better than Val Kilmer - a borderline psycho who doesn't much care about risks because he knows he's dead anyway, and who just happens to be on the right side because of who/what his friends are. Mind you, I'd watch anything with Val Kilmer - the guy even nearly made that Batman film OK (although not quite).

I'm not sure about your assertion about backshooting, LH. Although the concept of the showdown on Main Street is baked into the Western genre, I understood that most folks shot with handguns *were* shot in the back or side, not the face-to-face showdown we'd like to imagine. More likely still would be the "Unforgiven" scenario of ambushing them with rifles.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: GUEST,Dazbo at work
Date: 27 Mar 08 - 10:56 AM

The story I heard about the indiana jones fight (one of those TV making of shows if memory serves) was that on the day of the shoot Harrison Ford had Delhi Belly (the shits) and didn't want to do anything too energetic or lengthy so opted to shoot the guy serendipitously making a classic scene.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 27 Mar 08 - 01:14 PM

Graham,

Tombstone with Val Kilmer and Kurt Russell is one of my favorite movies the acting was brilliant.

In WYATT EARP, Costner played Costner with a gun.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Grab
Date: 27 Mar 08 - 01:22 PM

Sorry Jack, I should have remembered that it wasn't Costner in that one. I could see Kurt Russell's face as well! Ah well.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Mar 08 - 01:54 PM

Tombstone was a lively piece of entertainment and Val Kilmer made a great Doc Holiday...again from the entertainment point of view.

"Wyatt Earp" with Kevin Costner was a far more realistic and accurate story of Wyatt Earp's life, and I think it's a very underrated movie...precisely because it went more for reality instead of for Hollywood action entertainment. My compliments to Mr Costner for that.

Either movie (Wyatt Earp or Tombstone) is just fine if you take it on its obvious merits and don't expect it to deliver exactly what the other one does.

People are so fond of picking on Kevin Costner unnecessarily, in my opinion, that I think they ought to form a national club of nitpickers and award gold stars to the people who come up with the nastiest critique of him at meetings, then all go out in the parking lot and have a circle jerk together afterward.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten films that got it wrong
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Mar 08 - 01:57 PM

Well, well. I just got the 200th post there without even meaning to.