[JLS]

I too have seen all but Uprising. They are good movies for learning about the sacrifices of war. They are not very good at learning about the broader historical themes associated with the Revolutionary War, WWII, or Vietnam.

[vetvetdoug]

“Glory” is close to being accurate. However, the assault upon Ft. Wagner was from the South instead of the North as portrayed in the movie. Otherwise, pretty accurate.

[Continental Soldier]

“The Patriot” while exaggerated and glorified, was, still, a very patriotic movie that revived interest in the Revolutionary War.

“Saving Private Ryan” was a great movie! Not only realistic and convincing, but, also, a real window into the honor and sacrifices of American soldiers in WWII.

[SZonian]

If you want a true story from WWII, Band of Brothers is an excellent choice. It’s long, but outstanding. Has cursing, violence, etc.

As for the others, great entertainment, but way too many liberties taken for accurate portrayal of history.

Regards,
SZ

[FlingWingFlyer]

IMHO, these are all outstanding movies although I'm not familiar with "Uprising."

As for being historically accurate, I'm not really sure if any movie coming out of Hollywood is historically accurate. These movies all contain a message though and it's the right message for Americans. Since most "history" being taught in our "schools" no longer covers the events portrayed in these movies, anything is better than nothing.

[R. Scott]

I’ve seen The Patriot, We Were Soldiers, Glory, and Saving Private Ryan. All are pretty good and more history than Hollywood. I’d recommend them.
I haven’t seen Uprising and can’t comment on it.

[Excellence]

http://www.godmanandhollywood.com/

Politically incorrect movies from ISI.

[WildcatClan]

I think it is okay to show some movies in class. “Glory” is the only one of those you listed I would recommend. I saw 1776, the musical, and despite its silliness, it did manage to teach the students a bit about the American Revolution. If the children were High School students I would show Patton and The Outlaw Josey Wales in addition to 1776 and Glory. All very good movies in which students will learn something of the history, get a feel for it, without actually realizing they are learning.

[groanup]

The Patriot is gory at times but it received its R rating because of a scene where a young child shoots a gun. Oh the humanity!!

Great movie.

[BenLurkin]

The Patriot - No Recommendation. Violent. Entertaining to a point. Questionable as history

We Were Soldiers - Recommend highly. Violent. Entertaining. Good history

Glory - Recommend. Violent. Entertaining. Okay as history,

Uprising - Never heard of it

Saving Private Ryan - No recommendation. Violent. Tom Hanks is annoying, IMO. Okay as history.

[Bommer]

I've seen them all, and all are quite excellent and quite violent. The Patriot is not historically accurate, and neither for that is Saving Private Ryan (with the exception of the D-Day landing, but very very good) Uprising is quite good about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising against the Nazi’s and We We're Soldiers is based on Col. Hal Moores book on the Da Nang valley battle. (Aloha Ronnie would be a better person here on this forum to account for the accuracy of the movie, since he fought in the battle with Col. Moore) If your looking for a 1940’s mie where theres bang band no blood, none of these movies are for you. If you want to instill patriotism and to show that freedom is payed with blood, then all these movies are quite superior most of the Hollywood crap out there. The R rating is for violence, there is no sexual content in these films.

[BobbyT]

How bout just watch all of the Band of Brothers series with him?

[CodeToad]

“The Patriot, We Were Soldiers” are both excellent movies. They both have a basis in history with some creative writing to include/exclude historical events as needed to make a better movie. Neither are a documentary, but both give the viewer a real sense of interest in those historical events. I’d let an 8th grader see them as your son is about 12 or 13 years old. Neither are horrible films with adult content. Certainly they have tons of violence and political viewpoints but hopefully you’d fill in the gaps for him.

[The Klingon]

I would recommend that you watch these movies with him, seems like a good list to me.

[TexanToTheCore]

The Patriot is not historically accurate but it may lead your son to read more on Francis Marion, a truly fascinating man and substantially more interesting than the movie lets on. He rean the British into the ground in the swamps.

Get him a book to read after the movie.

[mass55th]

Well, anything made in Hollywood should be taken with a grain of salt. There are truths and half-truths, and if shown, the instructors should point out the difference from fact and fiction in the movies.

Glory is the story of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts. The movie is based on the book "One Gallant Rush" by Peter Burchard. Having thoroughly researched both the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry units, there are several parts of the movie which are questionable.

The movie shows Shaw accepting the Colonelcy of the 54th immediately. In fact, he turned it down originally. A week or so later he changed his mind, but that was only after his mother pushed him into it. In real life, Shaw had just married, but the movie doesn't include that information.

When the unit is first organized, they are shown without the proper uniforms or weapons. The movie shows Shaw berating a white Quartermaster, and helping himself to the storehouse inventory to clothe his troops. That never happened. In reality, the 54th was Governor Andrews's baby. Andrews was the Governor of Massachusetts, and he played an active role in the organizing of the unit. He made sure the 54th had everything they needed from the beginning.

In the movie, the black troops are shown turning down their pay vouchers while still in Boston. The men refused their pay for approximately 18 months because although they had been promised the same pay as their white counterparts, they didn't receive it. In the movie, Colonel Shaw, played by Matthew Broderick tears up his pay voucher along with the black soldiers. The problem was, that they were never paid until they were already in South Carolina. So even if they wanted to leave, they couldn't. The black soldiers in both the 54th and 55th Mass. refused their pay, but the white officers actually took theirs. This did cause a problem in the unit, and there was an instance when some of the enlisted men refused to report for duty, and were charged and tried. But this incident was never depicted in the film. The State Legislature of Mass. passed a Bill that would pay the black soldiers the difference between what they were getting from the government, and what they were promised, but the black soldiers refused to accept that as well. They were willing to wait until the federal government gave them what they were entitled to.

Some of the main characters in the movie never existed, and some of the characters' names are a combination of one or two real-life people. The character played by Denzel Washington never existed, nor did the incident they created about his refusal to carry the flag into battle.

The movie shows a skirmish between the 54th and Confederate troops on James Island, S.C. shortly after their arrival in S.C. It shows Col. Shaw present at that skirmish, but in actuality, Shaw wasn't there.

The burning of Darien by Colonel James Montgomery and his contraband troops (2nd S.C.) is factual, and Shaw was very unhappy he was forced to be a part of it. Montgomery however was his superior, so his options of refusing were zero. Not mentioned in the movie is the fact that Shaw's mother later sent money to help build a church there in an attempt to clear her son's name.

The final attack that takes place in the movie is more or less factual. There are some minor movie set errors, but not enough to be worried about. The 54th's attack took place on July 18, 1863 against the Confederates at Fort Wagner, on Morris Island, S.C. In real life, Colonel Shaw was killed as he mounted the parapet of the fort and he fell into the fort dead. Hollywood changed this part, and had him getting shot climbing the parapet, but showed him sliding down the side of the fort. In real life, Shaw's body was retrieved by the Confederates. He was stripped of his uniform and belongings, and placed on display within the fort. He was later buried at the bottom of a pit, with his black troops piled on top of him. His body was never recovered. In the movie, they of course don't show him being put on display, but he is shown being tossed into a burial pit with his black comrades.

If your child has to see these movies, I would certainly encourage him to read other source material so that fact will be part of the fiction shown on screen.

Sorry if I rambled on too long.

[adopt4Christ]

The Patriot is an incredible movie, and when my children get older, I will definitely let them watch it (mostly for historical value). I homeschool, and we don’t have cable TV. I am extremely careful what my children are exposed to, and although The Patriot is very gory and violent in places, as teenagers they should definitely see the reality of what war is really like, and the human toll on families and sons and mothers and fathers, due to the sacrifice of many for our freedom. Mel Gibson and the actors who play his children are incredible on the screen.

The others I have not seen.

[thefrankbaum]

The best way to describe The Patriot is Braveheart II. Mel Gibson really hates the English apparently :-P

[Caramelgal]

We do not let our kids watch R rated movies but would like to know if they are historically accurate.

I was way younger than being in the 8th grade (4th grade) when my father, a WWII veteran of the SPT took me to see the movie Patton. Back then it had an “M” rating which today is somewhere between a PG-13 and R.

Before the movie my dad explained to me that I might hear some bad language (actually the bad words in that movie was nothing all that bad and not anything I hadn’t heard before even at that tender age, even sometimes from my dad on occasion) and scenes depicting war and violence and death.

He explained that it was just a Hollywood movie but that it fairly accurately portrayed a very real person, one who he greatly admired and a time in history in which he lived.

After the movie my dad told me he thought the movie was pretty good and we spent a lot of time talking about the “real” General Patton and WWII history and my father’s experiences during the war and that a movie could not accurately depict the real horrors and brutality of war or the great scarifies that American soldiers made in order to protect our freedoms. Keep in mind that that movie came out during the Vietnam War and my dad thought it was important for me to understand and counter balance the anti-war movement, things I might see on the TV news or heard in my school from teachers or other kids and the bad rap that Vietnam soldiers were getting at the time.

My dad used the movie, not as a complete factual record of history, but more as a teaching opportunity and a discussion point for me to learn more.

My dad was very protective of me, his only daughter, but he never believed in sheltering me from the truth. And I’m very grateful to him for that.

Shortly before he died, we watched two movies together, one was Saving Private Ryan and the other was Schindler's List.

My dad told me that Saving Private Ryan was the most realistic war movie that he had ever seen, and that Schindler's List reminded him of what we were fighting against.

I think you should watch these movies for yourself then decide, first if you think your child is mature enough to understand (and being that he is in a Charter School he’s probably pretty bright) and secondly you should do the additional research to determine for yourself whether you think these movies are historically accurate or not and then provide him with books or other materials that might do a better job in teaching history.

In either case I say let your 8th grader watch all these movies and then discuss them with him and use it as an opportunity for him to learn more than what he might learn in a classroom alone and to impart on him your values.

By the 8th grade, no matter how you have tried to shelter him, I would bet he’s already heard just about every bad word there is and a whole lot of other stuff you would prefer he would have never heard about. Like my dad, I think an overly sheltered child is a child who will grow up to be an ignorant and impressionable adult. I think you’d be a great parent for being open and honest with him and letting him know he can come to you with any question about whatever he might have heard or leaned about outside your home and that he can count on you to give him the facts and good guidance.

The Patriot, We Were Soldiers, Glory, Uprising and Saving Private Ryan are all pretty good movies as far as movies go and many of them have a somewhat conservative bent so I’m surprised your kid’s teacher would show them to his class. You might want to contact his teacher and ask him (or her) why they are being shown and how they are fitting into a lesson plan and what other materials are being provided and taught in conjunction with the movies.

[MarkL]

The only movie I haven't seen is "The Uprising." I've heard that "The Patriot" isn't all that historically accurate, but IMHO, it's a great movie. All of the movies I've seen in the list were at the very least, brutal in the combat scenes. All of the movies I've seen in the list make important statements, though. Especially "Saving Private Ryan" and "Glory." Unfortunately, both of those movies are also extremely brutal and gory at times.

Mark