What is the worst war movie ever made?

My Brain | 6/25/02 | Burkeman1

[Skooz]

"Pearl Harbor" was a disaster, but I think "The Boys in Company C" was even worse. That scene where the Marines went into convulsions because the CO had ordered them to lose the soccer game to the South Vietnamese was so bad I was embarrassed to watch.

[weegee]

Fantasy Mission Force with Jackie Chan is hard to take. I can't figure out what era that mess is supposed to be happening in.

The cars are 1970s clunkers but they are painted up with swastikas and it purports to be WWII.

[Non-Sequitur]

I can't remember the name and I don't know if this counts but about 12 years ago my wife dragged me to this STUPID film. Michael Douglas played an American intelligence officer and Melanie Griffin played his spy behind German lines, and he went and rescued her only he didn't speak German and got around it by faking a throat wound, and it was just about the dumbest, lame-ass movie I've ever seen.

[PhilDragoo]

And that end---very moving.

In the unforgettable final moments of the film, just before the "all quiet on the western front" armistice and with all of his comrades gone, soldiers are bailing water out of a dilapidated trench. The faint sound of a harmonica can be heard. Paul is sitting alone, daydreaming inside the trench on a seemingly peaceful, bright day. He is exhausted by terror and boredom. Through the gunhole of his trench, he sees a beautiful lone butterfly that has landed just beyond his reach next to a discarded tin can outside the parapet. He begins to carefully reach out over the protection of his bunker with his hand to grasp it, momentarily forgetting the danger that is ever-present. As he stretches his hand out yearning for its beauty, a distant French sniper prepares to take careful aim through a scope on a rifle. As he leans out closer to the butterfly and extends his hand, suddenly the sharp whining sound of a shot is heard. Paul's hand jerks back [it was actually the hand of director Lewis Milestone], twitches for a moment and then goes limp in death. All is silent and quiet. The harmonica tune stops.

In the film's grim epilogue, there is the haunting image of a dark, battle-scarred hillside covered with a sea of white crosses. Across the corpse-strewn fields, a super-imposed ghostly view emerges of Paul and his comrade soldiers in a column marching obliquely away from the camera toward a void. They are ghostly soldiers who, one by one, look back with bitterness, sadness and accusation in their eyes.

[Zack Nguyen]

Plan 9 From Outer Space is one of the most enjoyable movies ever made. I mean "enjoyable", not "good." The alien's lecture at the end concerning nuclear war is priceless. He screams in the face of the human, "STUPID! STUPID! STUPID" and is rewarded with a hardy pistol whip across the face. This is enough to knock out a highly advanced alien.

[Skooz]

LOL! Man, I love that movie! That is one of the all-time greats.

[Zack Nguyen]

Anything with Don Rickles should be illegal.

[meyer]

ditto on the French national anthem. what did they do to merit such a great tune?

Maybe they stole it from the British during some crazy war.

[dougherty]

Born on the 4th of July.. Horrible real horrible..

Ditto.

[Drumbo]

Pearl Harbor was terrible, but compared to The Thin Red Line about Guadalcanal, PH gets five, er, four, er, three stars. Pearl Harbor was around long enough for more people to see how bad it was.

[Jonah Hex]

That scene with yoda in the light sabre fight was quite humorous!

I cracked up my wife during that scene when I leaned over and whispered "Never piss off a Muppet."

[Paulus Invictus]

During WW II, most of the war movies were terrible! Later, along came dogs like "Green Berets' and others of the genre. Well past bad.

[bvw]

Yeah, baby, that unmentionable sucks the big egg of rottendum maximus.

[mamelukesabre]

Yoda is kermit the frog. I'm serious. THe only difference is yoda doesn't speak english quite as well.

[Jonah Hex]

Hey, it's not easy being green ..........

[dsutah]

This is a little bit off-topic, but there was a movie I saw, with J. Wayne when he was still quite young. The story took place about 16 years before the Revolutionary War. In fact it was in the period after the French and Indian War was over. It was called "Allegheny Uprising". It also starred actor George Sanders as a British officer. It was a story that had a few similarities to "The Patriot".

John Wayne played a rebel colonial leader. I don't know if anyone has seen it, or remembers it. I thought it was quite good, for its time. I don't know how factual it was. At the first part of there is paragraph leading into the story, that describes it. I couldn't find anything on the story on the internet, or the lead character, specifically. Maybe it was a composite, of a few people, as in "The Patriot".

I know there were still some incidents between Indians and colonists, and there was some growing discontent with the British leadership. But if you or anyone else has seen it, tell me what you think. If not, do rent it, or see it if it is on t.v. if you can find it. It's rather old, like I said, but it has an interesting story to it.

[Sword_of_Gideon]

I've been wanting to read the book for some time now, just haven't gotten around to it. I love the movie (& yes I too hear it was difficult to make... everybody kind of weirded out). So you would recommend the book?

[Irene Adler]

I can remember seeing Barry Lyndon, many years ago, a seemingly endless and truly boooooooooring movie. I actually believe it's the only movie I have ever walked out on.

[sneakypete]

Acyplopse Now. I've never seen a movie so wrong in EVERY area it goes into,and never seen such ham acting on such a collossal scale. Sheen and Brando should have backed up to take their paychecks. I can honestly say I have seen both better plots AND more life-like acting in Sgt Rock comic books.

[mamelukesabre]

I've never walked out on a movie.

I fell asleep midway through robocop II THat was a terrible movie, but not a war movie.

I nearly walked out of bravehart during the scene where they cut out william wallace's guts. I couldn't handle that scene. THe only reason I didn't walk out was I thought this was the final scene and I thought the credits would be rolling any second.