Ah, yes ... historical documents ...
Movies are, in the end, almost always focused on entertainment, not history, though when they can do both well, that is a good combination.
I never liked the original Midway movie shot a few decades ago, because I have a thing about visuals REALLY not matching, such as using the Texans as Japanese planes, or modern day ships as WWII era ships.
When they don’t outright lie and make things up out of whole cloth.
That said, I just re-watched the movie “Darkest Hour” about one of my heroes, Winston Churchill, and I was ashamed to admit that I absolutely loved a part of the movie they just fabricated out of thin air, the scene of Churchill riding the Underground.
Normally, that kind of thing would make me just turn the thing off, but I found it so fun and charming a fantasy that I actually accepted and enjoyed it. But it isn’t history, no doubt about that.
But if someone didn’t know history, and accepts it as such, well...it is like the time when my wife and I went to a theater to see “Apollo 13”, and as we were walking out, I heard a teenage girl in front of us say to her boyfriend “I was glad the movie ended the way it did...”
I still get a rueful chuckle about that, but it is a problem that people blindly accept movies as historical documents.
I still want to see a sweeping movie made about the Battle of Leyte Gulf. I think that would be a great movie, now that they know how to leverage CGI in a meaningful way. Never happen, but...I can always hope.
Maybe one day someone will write a screenplay based upon the CA-30 USS Houston. Her story is in the highest degree tragic. Which is also the title of a pretty good book related in part the circumstances of her end. Bascially she and her entire brave crew were part of a sacrifice DC made on the alter of geopolitics.
“.....still want to see a sweeping movie made about the Battle of Leyte Gulf”
I would like to see that...my father was a 17 yr old navy guy in the middle of that battle...he never talked about it, tho.
They also reused a lot of footage from Tora Tora Tora. Cheapskates...
For me the wort part of the first movie was the stupid japanese girlfriend morality play included in the story line. Absolutely irrelevant and just a bunch of PC tripe.
Ah, yes ... historical documents ...
Me too! October 25th 1944 will always be an astounding saga of over-the-top heroism and sacrifice by our naval men. Hornfischer's book and the Men of Gambier Bay would be solid starting points.
Two other stories I'd like to see made into quality movies, are the battle between the Stephen Hopkins and the HSK Steier and the Tannefels (the Liberty ship sank the German raider). and Wake Island (not the corny wartime propaganda version).