MOVIES 2017

[Flashman]

Haven’t seen it yet, but do they make the point that Hitler effectively allowed the army to escape because he though it would help to end the war? He never really wanted war with Britain and this was a gesture that he didn’t want the British army destroying.

They could have added some comic relief by having King Arthur leading the men towards the beach shouting “Run away! Run away!”.

The performance of the British army in 1940 was as poor as that of the French, but because they were allowed to run away to fight again while the French had to surrender to stop the fighting they don’t have the same lousy reputation as the French.

[General Veers]

Not spoiling anything but I liked Kenneth Branagh telling James D’Arcy “it’s a good thing for the Army the Navy is here.”

[LHoffman]

@General:

Not spoiling anything but I liked Kenneth Branagh telling James D’Arcy “it’s a good thing for the Army the Navy is here.”

That was the best chuckle of the movie! Branagh is great with those subtle little cracks.

I believe the quote was closer to the effect of “Well its a good thing you are in the army then”… But yeah, great stuff.

[CWO Marc]

@General:

Not spoiling anything but I liked Kenneth Branagh telling James D’Arcy “it’s a good thing for the Army the Navy is here.”

An actual WWII quote of a similiar nature is the one from February 1940 when Philip Vian (at the time a Captain, later in his career an Admiral of the Fleet) either led or sent a boarding party onto the German tanker Altmark (one the Graf Spee’s supply ships), which had taken refuge in a Norwegian fjord.  The German crew denied that there were any POWs aboard.  Vian (or one of his officers) opened a cargo hold hatch and called down, “Any British down there?” Upon hearing an affirmative answer, Vian (or his officer) responded, “Well, come on up – the Navy’s here!”

[LHoffman]

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/12954/rogoways-reviews-christopher-nolans-war-epic-dunkirk

Fair review from a more historical and military-technical perspective. A couple of these details were more noticeable, particularly after my second viewing.

And yes, Tom Hardy definitely gets a diving Stuka well after he is in a glide as I thought.

[General Veers]

One last thing I’ll add to the Dunkirk discussion is yet another fantastic score from Hans Zimmer. What’s great about the Nolan-Zimmer partnership is Nolan will give Zimmer a few concepts (abstract or specific) as a springboard and Zimmer will run from there using his mastery of synth and sounds. In this case, Nolan’s directive of using Lord Elgar’s “Nimrod” was executed perfectly building up to the climax , and the amplification of a pocket watch was the perfect source of tension throughout. Definitely deserving of a Best Score nomination among others. Cinematography should be a slam dunk,

[Imperious Leader]

Yea Zimmer did the score, nothing like Gladiator however. The Battle of Britain had better music.

[General Veers]

OK

[LHoffman]

@Imperious:

Yea Zimmer did the score, nothing like Gladiator however. The Battle of Britain had better music.

Again with the BoB !! IL you are too much man.

[Imperious Leader]

It is the only thing to compare.

[Wolfshanze]

@Flashman:

Haven’t seen it yet, but do they make the point that Hitler effectively allowed the army to escape because he though it would help to end the war? He never really wanted war with Britain and this was a gesture that he didn’t want the British army destroying.

…but because they were allowed to run away to fight again…

This is a very common misconception a lot of people make, but isn’t really true at all.

If Hitler wanted to allow the British BEF to escape, the movie “Dunkirk” would never have been made because Dunkirk would have been a slow, orderly withdrawal from France without any diving Stukas or artillery fire raining down on the British while the withdrew from the continent.

If I told you that you were free to go, because I like you and don’t want any hard feelings, then as you turned around and began to leave, I started throwing rocks and garbage at you as hard as I could, would you then think “well, he’s letting me go because he likes me, otherwise he would have used a machine gun to stop me”. No, I bet you’d think I was a big jerk and a meanie and would not like me anymore for *****pelting you with rocks and garbage.

Simply put, Hitler didn’t “let them go because he liked them and didn’t want to be at war with them”… despite what has often been quoted in books, this just simply isn’t true… certainly not of Dunkirk… Hitler was fully prepared to let the Army finish off the British until Goering’s jealousy got in the way and he convinced Hitler to put the Panzers on hold and let the “Glory of crushing the English” be at the hands of the Luftwaffe while he pummeled them from the sky with waves of bombers… this really doesn’t sound like Hitler “just let them go because he’s a nice guy”… it wouldn’t be the first or the last time Goering caused an enemy to get away with something because the glory of the Luftwaffe was at stake…

Hitler didn’t let them go, he tried to stop them… he just followed really bad advice at how to stop them, so it allowed wiggle room for historical rewriting of motivations and intent. Maybe Hitler let the Russians off the hook at Stalingrad too cuz instead of sending the panzers in and ordering the 6th army out, he just let the Luftwaffe handle things… never know…

***** Big catch phrase in the 80s, everyone was saying it… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV7BD7O1n7w

[taamvan]

Very amusing movie, went and saw it on Sunday.  Brother and Uncle had their own comments; I thought the most nerd-unworthy part of the movie was the same as you guys;

MILD SPOILER ALERT

Dear Spitfire Pilot;

Now hear this;  running out of fuel and feathering your propeller?  You have a good 40-45 minutes of flight time left;  make a few more attack passes with your remaining momentum and another beach pass.  Or two.  Not an emergency, per se–-just look for a good place to land.  On firm sand.  Very Firm.  In fact, why don’t we build airstrips out of wave packed-sand…England’s shores covered in free, indestructible airbases.  Its much safer to land on sand than water, for that matter.

[Wolfshanze]

@taamvan:

just look for a good place to land.  On firm sand.   Very Firm.   In fact, why don’t we build airstrips out of wave packed-sand…England’s shores covered in free, indestructible airbases.   Its much safer to land on sand than water, for that matter.

Or how about a giant floating iceberg as an unsinkable carrier? Britain came “this close” to making fully operational aircraft carriers made from special non-melting ice…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Habakkuk

[CWO Marc]

Alternately, they might have developed amphibious Spitfires with retractable floats that could land on water as well as on a runway.  Perfectly realistic for a plane that apparently could apparently fly without fuel.  In the movie The Great Dictator, the Mussolini parody-character asks the Hitler parody-character whether his army has any of “the new amphibious tanks that can roll on land, swim in the water and fly through the air.”  The Goebbels parody-character dismissively answers no, adding that “they were made obsolete by our new flying battleships.”  (All joking aside, the PBY Catalina seaplane could fly, could land on (and take off from) water, and had retractable wheels that allowed it to land on (and take off from) a runway.  Though it was hardly a tank.)

[taamvan]

Wolf, I read about that story when I was a teenager and I’ve always wondered…who thought this was a good idea??  Pre-global warming I can see the argument that the ship would remain intact at least in the north Atlantic but in the med!!!  Its like 80 degrees in the winter…

“Perutz pointed out that natural icebergs have too small a surface above water for an airstrip, and are prone to suddenly rolling over”

So, it melts AND its dynamically unstable.  Those are the first two characteristics I want as a shipbuilding material!  I realize that steel is heavier than water and subject to oxidation, but it doesn’t evaporate.

Some ideas are both ahead of and behind the times, such as the turret fighter, the bicycle brigade, gliders, the schnellbomber, the floating pipeline, the small-scale continental invasion…ideas whose time will never come.

[CWO Marc]

Natural icebergs have all the flaws you mention, but project Habakkuk aimed to build highly unnatural icebergs.  They were to be made of a water/sawdust mixture called, I think, pykete which melted much more slowly than normal ice, and they would presumably have been shaped like flat slabs rather than rounded blobs.  And I think they were meant to protect the Atlantic convoy routes, not for service in the Med.

[Wolfshanze]

@taamvan:

Wolf, I read about that story when I was a teenager and I’ve always wondered…who thought this was a good idea?? Pre-global warming I can see the argument that the ship would remain intact at least in the north Atlantic but in the med!!! Its like 80 degrees in the winter…

“Perutz pointed out that natural icebergs have too small a surface above water for an airstrip, and are prone to suddenly rolling over”

So, it melts AND its dynamically unstable. Those are the first two characteristics I want as a shipbuilding material! I realize that steel is heavier than water and subject to oxidation, but it doesn’t evaporate.

Some ideas are both ahead of and behind the times, such as the turret fighter, the bicycle brigade, gliders, the schnellbomber, the floating pipeline, the small-scale continental invasion…ideas whose time will never come.

Ya, I provided the link (on page 9) if you want to refresh your memory…

While I mentioned “Iceberg” it wasn’t using real icebergs from the Atlantic, but rather a special man-made ice that was a special combination of natural ice and wood pulp that made a much stronger shatter-proof ice that could be kept from melting with small generators (read the story)… the idea was to make large slab-like platforms with engines attached to become essentially “unsinkable carriers” because the special ice couldn’t be destroyed by normal means (or at least was much more resistant to damage)… like CWO Marc mentioned, the primary purpose of these ice carriers was to protect the convoy routes of the North Atlantic (via a base for airpower), not for patrolling the Med or Pacific.

While the idea was novel, it was functional… however a bit costly… there were small scale carrier platforms tested in Canada, but the full scale ships never made it to construction, as bases in the Azores and longer range aircraft made the need for these costly carriers a moot point.

Mythbusters even did an episode on the subject, making their own “special ice” ship… they were successful and were able to make a much stronger ice ship, but they agreed that while it was definitely “Plausible” it was also a bit “Ludicrous”.

[CWO Marc]

On a related note, Arthur C. Clarke’s short story collection Tales from the White Hart includes a humourous story called “Cold War” in which agents working for California hatch a plot to create an artificial iceberg (by having a submarine spray sea water on a giant bag filled with super-cooled air) and strand it on Miami Beach in order to discredit Florida’s claim that is has more sunshine than California.

[Wolfshanze]

@CWO:

…agents working for California hatch a plot to create an artificial iceberg and strand it on Miami Beach in order to discredit Florida’s claim that is has more sunshine than California.

While I’m not exactly sure what an Iceberg on Miami beach would have to do with a sunshine claim, as a native Floridian (who also lived in California for several years), I will admit California gets more sunshine than Florida… primarily because it rains often in Florida (bringing thunderstorms that can blot out the sun), and California is nothing but a giant irrigated desert that more resembles DUNE, where no single drop of rain ever falls.

[CWO Marc]

As I vaguely recall from the story, which I read a long time ago, the iceberg was meant to create a media sensation (“Iceberg Off Miami Beach!”) which would make the general public think that Florida is a cold place.  The sunshine element is part of the story set-up, which claims (and I have no idea if there’s any basis in truth for this) that Florida’s “The Sunshine State” nickname annoys California.  The set-up depicts a squabble in which California protests to Florida that California is even sunnier than California, to which Florida replies “Yes, but what about all those earthquakes you get?”, to which California replies “If ever you need relief after one of your hurricanes, just let us know,” and so forth.  Some wealthy Hollywood-connected Californians then get into the fray by proposing the iceberg scheme, which is inspired by the fact that buildings which are constructed in outdoor locations for movie shoots are typically just empty shells.  Like many Clarke stories, it’s written in a tongue-firmly-in-cheek tone.