These things are indeed entertainment.
But I do believe they are valuable, at least things like “Saving Private Ryan” or “Band of Brothers”.
My young nephew who saw “Saving Private Ryan” remarked that “the stuff on the beach never happened” and I told him that, what really happened was far, far worse than what they showed in the movie.
Hollywood cannot relay effectively the atavistic and terrible aspects of violence and war, because there is only the audio and visual in a theater, there is no REAL sound, concussion, pain, overwhelming fear, devastating crushing fatigue, or...smell. From what veterans say, the smell of things is sometimes the worst of it. You can close your eyes or plug your ears, but there is no way to escape the smell.
That, and Hollywood, no matter how hard they try, cannot help themselves by injecting things that are just stupid. I have been somewhat of a student of the naval battles that took place in the Pacific in WWII, and due to my job, have had the opportunity and time to speak over the years with many veterans of it, including several remarkable hours I spent with one of the officers who survived the sinking of the USS Indianapolis.
So when the movie “USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage” came out, even though my expectations were not high, I was looking forward to seeing it.
I watched perhaps 15 minutes of it and shut it off. It was one of the stupidest war movies I had ever seen, they made it all about race relations, at least in the part I watched. Totally worthless Hollywood pap.
My favorite war movie (and favorite movie overall) is “The Best Years of Our Lives” which won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1946. That is a timeless movie, IMO.
One of my favorite quotes of all time is from “Tales of the South Pacific” by James Mitchener:
“These men of the South Pacific...like their victories, will be remembered as long as our generation lives. After that, like the men of the Confederacy, they will become strangers. Longer and longer shadows will obscure them until their Guadalcanal sounds distant on the ear like Shiloh and Valley Forge.”
The time for Guadalcanal to become obscure and sound like Shiloh has already come and gone, and there are now multiple generations of people who have little or no knowledge of Guadalcanal, never mind Shiloh (or even Chosin or Hue City) and movies, if done reasonably well, can provide a pathway to real knowledge. Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers were not perfect, but they are far better than Platoon or Apocalypse Now.
I disliked “ Saving Private Ryan “ because it was another Hollyweird warping of history! I viewed it as typical Hollyweird arrogance our (meaning Hollyweird writers!) fictional drama is better then the actual real drama of history. The actual saving of private Ryan was pretty low key. “...The individual that inspired the Private James Frederick Ryan character, Frederick Niland, wasn’t ever lost and no search party was sent out to find him. ...” https://www.history.com/news/saving-private-ryan-real-life-dday-back-story
The courage, the sacrifice, and yes the horror of D-Day was story enough, they didn’t need to add nonsense!
Too too many people think what Hollyweird portrays is history.
A movie that comes fairly close to reality is “Black Hawk Down”