Yep, that made the movie. They actually had some pretty good computer animations of the Arizona and such, but they ruined it with a LOT of shots of pyrotechnics going off on the bows of real Spruance class Destroyers (and also Knox-class Frigates were EASILY identifiable...must have been done at one of the mothball sites. I think there may have been some OH Perrys, too.) COMPLETELY ruined the whole attack sequence for anyone who has ever seen any modern naval vessels or has the foggiest knowledge about the Navy. They should have CGIed the whole thing.
Absolutely everything about PH was execrable...easily the worst of the recent war movies with a large budget.
Simply unbelievable that a guy who stutters was played for laughs..with no jokes, the fact he stuttered was supposed to be inherently funny. It's not that it was offensive (I love dirty and un-PC humor) it's just my amazement that that was supposed to just be funny in and of itself. Incredibly, the brain dead audience laughed at it.
Windtalkers and "Thin Red Line" were both horrible as well, but for exactly the opposite reasons. I hated TRL but I honestly think I'd rather watch that again than Windtalkers. At least with TRL you could see the director had talent and it had the POTENTIAL to be a good movie...but was ruined with the incessant, laughable shots of parrots in trees and dead baby birds (to hit people over the head with the "peaceful nature" vs. the violence of war), and the incessant use of voiceovers of the ridiculous supposed "inner thoughts" of every character.
Windtalkers was just painful to watch...cliched, nothing about the combat rang true, guy who played Yahzee was a miserable actor (but, interestingly, the guy who played the older codetalker, who isn't even an ACTOR and was a real Navajo, as opposed to the guy who played Yahzee, was far better.) I honestly couldn't look at the screen for parts, it was so painful.
Incredibly weak effort in comparison to Saving Private Ryan, Blackhawn Down, and We Were Soldiers.
Whatever bashing of SPR you see is solely because people are blinded by hatred of Spielberg; a heck of a lot of people are incapable of being objective about the film.