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I enjoyed "Midway" today. The historical points looked accurate, with my basic knowledge of WW2 history.
The CGI stuff was OK, not a problem.
Thumbs up for Midway.
This version had Woody Harrelson and Dennis Quaid. Plus a few others, not bad for the age we live in.
Compared to Henry Fonda and Robert Mitchum, although they made their mark before my generation. But there were a lot of future TV lead stars and primary sidekicks playing American aviators in the 1976 version.
I saw the film last night. With the exceptions of superior special effects and the absence of the annoying Heston/Son subplot, it is an inferior film to the 1976 version.
While there are no historical events depicted which conflict with the record, the first film does a vastly superior job of helping the viewers understand how the battle unfolded. As I suspected, because the first hour of this flick is devoted to pre-Pearl Harbor, the Pearl Harbor attack, and a depiction of the Doolittle Raid, only slightly more than an hour is left for the Midway battle itself. The consequence is that everything is rushed and incompletely explained.
I'm a student of military history and have read numerous works on this battle and thus am very familiar with the details and sequences. From that point of view, I don't see how those who aren't familiar with the details of the battle could tell much about what was going on and why.
They also sacrificed some accuracy to the need for cool effects. The Douglas divebombers used at that time dove at a 60 degree angle of attack. In the film the planes arrive directly overhead and dive at what appears to be a nearly 90 degree angle. In real life this would have caused the planes to lose their wings and the pilots to come close to blacking out from the added g forces. They also had planes, ala the Pearl Harbor film, performing acrobatic maneuvers that were beyond the capabilities of the actual aircraft.
As for the story and characters, they are hardly there. No one has enough screentime to get the audience to care about their fates and it is frankly difficult to remember who is who, they all seem the same types.
If you have not seen this and are planning to do so, I would endorse waiting until it comes out on home video, it isn't worth the trip to the theater.
I enjoyed "Midway" today. The historical points looked accurate, with my basic knowledge of WW2 history.
The CGI stuff was OK, not a problem.
Thumbs up for Midway.
Quote:
Originally Posted by loves2read
My husband and son (44) went to see it Saturday—
They enjoyed it
Thought the CGI was very well done
Apparently it smoked Dr. Sleep...
More of the same comments I've seen elsewhere. Positive reviews for the movie. I've seen probably 50 comments on FB and movie sites from people saying it was great... some saying the audience stood up and applauded at the end credits.
Going to see it this weekend.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Grandstander
If you have not seen this and are planning to do so, I would endorse waiting until it comes out on home video, it isn't worth the trip to the theater.
Really? You are literally the first person I've seen with a negative comment on the movie. To each their own eh?
More of the same comments I've seen elsewhere. Positive reviews for the movie. I've seen probably 50 comments on FB and movie sites from people saying it was great... some saying the audience stood up and applauded at the end credits.
Going to see it this weekend.
Really? You are literally the first person I've seen with a negative comment on the movie. To each their own eh?
I'll post back with my thoughts.
You radiate the aura of someone who has already decided to like the film before seeing it.
I saw the film last night. With the exceptions of superior special effects and the absence of the annoying Heston/Son subplot, it is an inferior film to the 1976 version.
While there are no historical events depicted which conflict with the record, the first film does a vastly superior job of helping the viewers understand how the battle unfolded. As I suspected, because the first hour of this flick is devoted to pre-Pearl Harbor, the Pearl Harbor attack, and a depiction of the Doolittle Raid, only slightly more than an hour is left for the Midway battle itself. The consequence is that everything is rushed and incompletely explained.
I'm a student of military history and have read numerous works on this battle and thus am very familiar with the details and sequences. From that point of view, I don't see how those who aren't familiar with the details of the battle could tell much about what was going on and why.
They also sacrificed some accuracy to the need for cool effects. The Douglas divebombers used at that time dove at a 60 degree angle of attack. In the film the planes arrive directly overhead and dive at what appears to be a nearly 90 degree angle. In real life this would have caused the planes to lose their wings and the pilots to come close to blacking out from the added g forces. They also had planes, ala the Pearl Harbor film, performing acrobatic maneuvers that were beyond the capabilities of the actual aircraft.
As for the story and characters, they are hardly there. No one has enough screentime to get the audience to care about their fates and it is frankly difficult to remember who is who, they all seem the same types.
If you have not seen this and are planning to do so, I would endorse waiting until it comes out on home video, it isn't worth the trip to the theater.
I am also a student of military history, with particular emphasis on the very battle that is the subject of this movie. In fact, my interest in the Battle of Midway was sparked 43 years ago -- by seeing the 1976 film in the theater.
In large part, I agree with your assessment. For all its faults, the 1976 film presented more of the actual Battle of Midway, and did it in a way that made it pretty easy to follow the story. I think the problem with the current film is that most of its viewpoint was from the Enterprise, which means that events that did not involve that ship and its pilots were rushed or omitted. Also, the 1976 movie tended to spell things out more for the viewer. Thus, in that film, Rochefort explained in detail how he was going to trick the Japanese into revealing the meaning of "AF" by having Midway falsely claim that its fresh-water condensers had broken down. In the 2019 version, the same story is told, but more obliquely.
On the other hand, it was nice to see some things in the new movie that the old one skipped altogether. Examples include:
Bruno Guido's heroism at the Marshall Islands, and what happened to him during the Battle of Midway.
Admiral Yamamoto's high-handed conduct of the pre-battle war game, when he overruled the move by the officer playing the Americans -- the very move that the Americans ended up making.
The great director John Ford filming the attack on Midway as it happened.
Midway-based planes attacking the Japanese fleet.
The Japanese scout plane seeing only "surface ships" without noticing right away that a carrier was among them. (However, the 1976 version identified the scout as being No. 4 from the cruiser Tone; the new movie did not give this information.)
The attack by the submarine Nautilus, and her subsequent tangle with the Arashi; all of which nicely explained how the Arashi ended up being in the perfect position to give crucial help to the Enterprise's dive bombers as they searched for the Japanese fleet.
The Enterprise's planes all swarming down on the same target, until Dick Best managed to extricate himself and his wingmen from the crowd so they could dive on another target.
Without giving any plot points away, I'll mention the speech that Admiral Yamaguchi made on the deck of the Hiryu.
Last, but certainly not least, it was really nice to see the various ships and planes that actually looked like the real ones looked like. I really can't fault the 1976 movie for using ships and planes that looked almost nothing like the ones involved at Midway. After all, this was before the CGI era, and I think they did the best they could with what they had available. But it's so vastly much better in the new movie.
If the new movie had started with the Doolittle Raid (as the 1976 one did), it would have had enough time to tell the story of the Battle of Midway in full detail. If they had done this, I think that the new version would have been vastly better than it was.
All that said, I enjoyed the new version. I've seen it twice already, and I'll certainly buy it when it comes out on DVD. But I had hoped that this one would have supplanted the 1976 version as a way of telling the (mostly) complete story of how the Battle of Midway played out. Alas, it did not.
I am also a student of military history, with particular emphasis on the very battle that is the subject of this movie. In fact, my interest in the Battle of Midway was sparked 43 years ago -- by seeing the 1976 film in the theater.
In large part, I agree with your assessment. For all its faults, the 1976 film presented more of the actual Battle of Midway, and did it in a way that made it pretty easy to follow the story. I think the problem with the current film is that most of its viewpoint was from the Enterprise, which means that events that did not involve that ship and its pilots were rushed or omitted. Also, the 1976 movie tended to spell things out more for the viewer. Thus, in that film, Rochefort explained in detail how he was going to trick the Japanese into revealing the meaning of "AF" by having Midway falsely claim that its fresh-water condensers had broken down. In the 2019 version, the same story is told, but more obliquely.
On the other hand, it was nice to see some things in the new movie that the old one skipped altogether. Examples include:
Bruno Guido's heroism at the Marshall Islands, and what happened to him during the Battle of Midway.
Admiral Yamamoto's high-handed conduct of the pre-battle war game, when he overruled the move by the officer playing the Americans -- the very move that the Americans ended up making.
The great director John Ford filming the attack on Midway as it happened.
Midway-based planes attacking the Japanese fleet.
The Japanese scout plane seeing only "surface ships" without noticing right away that a carrier was among them. (However, the 1976 version identified the scout as being No. 4 from the cruiser Tone; the new movie did not give this information.)
The attack by the submarine Nautilus, and her subsequent tangle with the Arashi; all of which nicely explained how the Arashi ended up being in the perfect position to give crucial help to the Enterprise's dive bombers as they searched for the Japanese fleet.
The Enterprise's planes all swarming down on the same target, until Dick Best managed to extricate himself and his wingmen from the crowd so they could dive on another target.
Without giving any plot points away, I'll mention the speech that Admiral Yamaguchi made on the deck of the Hiryu.
Last, but certainly not least, it was really nice to see the various ships and planes that actually looked like the real ones looked like. I really can't fault the 1976 movie for using ships and planes that looked almost nothing like the ones involved at Midway. After all, this was before the CGI era, and I think they did the best they could with what they had available. But it's so vastly much better in the new movie.
If the new movie had started with the Doolittle Raid (as the 1976 one did), it would have had enough time to tell the story of the Battle of Midway in full detail. If they had done this, I think that the new version would have been vastly better than it was.
All that said, I enjoyed the new version. I've seen it twice already, and I'll certainly buy it when it comes out on DVD. But I had hoped that this one would have supplanted the 1976 version as a way of telling the (mostly) complete story of how the Battle of Midway played out. Alas, it did not.
Yours was a thoughtful post. Among the things you cite that were included in the newer film, folks such as us who have a familiarity with the way the battle unfolded, recognized what was going on. However, simultaneously I was thinking "How could someone not familiar with the battle understand what just happened based on the quick and incomplete presentation we were given?" The code breaking confirmation moment of "AF" being Midway didn't make it clear what had actually happened, the deliberate sending of a false message in the hopes of it being picked up and passed along by the Japanese.
You mention the division of attacks, where only three planes wound up diving on one of the enemy carriers, but I don't think anyone who didn't already know what happened could have possibly gotten all this from the swirling, confused scene presented.
You're right about the over focus on the Enterprise The fate of the Yorktown was handled in one quickly passing scene where we see a smoking carrier in the background and someone says "The Yorktown was hit." That was all.
Critical to understanding why the battle was lost by the Japanese was the sequence of events which caused Admiral Nagumo to order the planes taken below and rearmed with contact bombs for a second strike on Midway, only to have to reverse that order a bit later when the American carrier was sighted. The new movie rushed through this so rapidly I don't think anyone who didn't already know what happened, would have been enlightened by what was presented. I had thought that they were going to present this in a better manner because they had foreshadowed it earlier when the Japanese were criticizing Nagumo's failures at Pearl Harbor and anticipating that he would make another mistake.
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