Yeah, but that wasn’t explained in the movie. Sure it’s possible that he was taking the train to the harbor… but then you have to explain that’s what he’s doing: “Kate, I gotta catch the train to the harbor.” But that didn’t happen.
Regardless, movie-wise if he’s boarding a train to get on a boat… instead of explaining what’s happening, just film the same scene with him, this time boarding a boat. That way you don’t have to worry about confused audience-members… or snarky posts on internet message boards.
I think that’s the difference between a “documentary” and a “historical drama”.
Movies like Titanic, Saving Private Ryan, Pearl Harbor, The Last Samurai and so on tell a story with some major event as the setting or backdrop. They aren’t meant to be historically accurate. Just historically exciting.
A four-bladed Supermarine Spitfire is shown during the Battle of Britain in the film; a Spitfire model that was not available until 1942, though the Battle of Britain takes place during 1940 (specifically May through October).
Ben Affleck’s character flies with a Royal Air Force squadron (which used Supermarine Spitfires), but the planes actually featured in the movie bear the RF code letters of the No. 303 Polish Fighter Squadron and are, in fact, Hawker Hurricanes.
During the Battle of Britain flight sequences, the British spitfires are shown flying in the standard American four-ship formation. The British actually flew in the three-ship or “VIC” formation.
The USS Arizona Memorial, which straddles the USS Arizona sunk during the battle, can be briefly seen in a pan shot. The Memorial was dedicated in the 1960’s.
In the movie, the USS Arizona was sunk by a Aichi D3A Val, using a single bomb but the real-life Arizona was sunk by a “special bomb” from the B5N Kate utility bomber.
Admiral Kimmel was not on a golf course on the morning of the attack, nor was he notified of the Japanese embassy leaving Washington, D.C. prior to the attack. The first official notification of the attack was received by General Short several hours after the attack had ended.
At the time of the attack, the battleships in “Battleship Row” were tied directly together, not spaced 50 yards apart as they were in the movie.
Some shots of the USS Hornet show an angle-decked carrier (USS Constellation) instead of a straight-decked carrier. The angled deck was a post-WWII invention.
In the movie, in excess of eleven Mitsubishi A6M “Zero” fighters were destroyed or downed. In reality, only nine Zero fighters were destroyed by any means (i.e. anti-aircraft guns, planes) in the real bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Japanese aircraft of that period were painted light grey, not green.
Navy Nurse Betty dies during the Pearl Harbor attack, but no Navy Nurses died as a result of enemy action during the entirety of World War II, including the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The ward dresses of the nurses have a different style than the ones Navy Nurses actually wore during WWII and no nurse would have worked with long hair falling freely about her shoulders.
Some of the bombed ships are actually mothballed Knox-class frigates and Spruance-class destroyers, with the box launchers for anti-submarine rockets, known as ASROCs, visible. That technology wasn’t available until the 1960s.
One of the intelligence photos taken by the Japanese Spies shows a North Carolina class battleship none of which were in Pearl Harbor at that time. Two of each battleship class (Nevada class battleships (Nevada and Oklahoma), Pennsylvania class battleships (Arizona and Pennsyvania), Colorado class battleships (Maryland and West Virginia), and Tennessee class battleships (Tennessee and California) were moored at Pearl Harbor on that fateful day.
A retired Iowa class battleship was used to represent the USS West Virginia for Doris Miller’s boxing match. However, the main gun barrels are corked, which is unusual during wartime or training exercises. Furthermore, Iowa battleships have a 3x3 main gun configuration versus the 4x2 layout of the West Virginia. Lastly, the West Virginia did not have the WWII-era bridge and masts found on newer US battleships until reconstruction was finished in 1943.
During the attack on Pearl Harbor in the movie, the P-40N model of the P-40 Warhawk U.S. fighter aircraft is shown. However, the ‘N’ model of the P-40 was not available to the United States until 1943 though the Pearl Harbor attack takes place during 1941.
At the Airfield where the pilots are composing themselves and trying to take action against the strafing Japanese planes, Ben Affleck’s character erroneously says “P-40s can’t outrun Zeroes, we’ll just have to outfly them.” In fact, the standard tactic for American and Allied pilots, from the AVG (Flying Tigers) in late-1940 through 1941 and throught the Pacific War, was basic “hit-and-run.” They would dive on Zeroes, get what “hits” they could, and then outrun them.
During the boxing scene onboard the battleship USS Arizona, the USS Whipple is shown for a brief moment. The USS Whipple which at the time was a mothballed Knox-Class Frigate.
In reality, Yamamoto Isoroku did not participate in the attack.
How did Ben Afflek manage to join the RAF, get shot down in the English Channel, recover, come back to the USA, get transferred to the USAAF, and sent to Hawaii!man, that guy got around!
Here’s my Dad’s take on the action that day from Wheeler Field:
"I was on Guard duty on the morning of 7 December 1941 that the Japanese chose to attack us. My guard post was the Communication Shack at Wheeler, next door to the base chapel, then a wooden structure, now a modern brick and cement structure. I was able to see the Japanese planes approach at about two or three thousand feet of altitude.
"They formed a Lufberry Circle above Wheeler Field and then peeled off, one by one. They commenced their initial bomb run without causing much concern to those of us who were awake as it was not unusual for US Naval or Army Air Forces to practice attacking each other. Only when the 1st aircraft had dropped its bomb on our Base Engineering Hanger and commenced its low altitude strafing run on our flight line was I able to distinguish the Rising Sun insignia of the Japanese Air Forces, commonly known as the “Meat Ball” on the attacking aircraft and realize we were in real shooting war.
"The time was about 20 minutes before 0800, Honolulu time. In about fifteen minutes, most of our front line aircraft were damaged or on fire so we could not launch a retaliation strike from Wheeler. (Our planes had to be neutralized by the Japanese to insure their success since we had all the fighter aircraft available in the Islands.) Had they failed in their mission, the outcome of that attack would have been drastically different.
"However, we did have some dispersed aircraft stationed at Halieva Air Strip that were armed and ready for combat. Three of those became airborne and were flown by Lieutenants Welch, Taylor and one other officer. They accounted for 9 of the attacking Japanese planes that day. One officer with a Browning Automatic Rifle accounted for one Japanese aircraft from the ground. This aircraft crashed in the Wahiawa Laundry.
"During this attack, very few personnel had access to weapons such as rifles, pistols or machine guns as the weapons were locked up in supply rooms. Some Supply NCO’s were reluctant to release weapons and ammunition on their own authority in spite of the situation so our response to the Japanese attacking aircraft was limited, uncoordinated and sporadic. Personnel on guard duty were armed with a .45 automatic pistol and 5 rounds of ammunition plus a 12 gauge riot gun (shot gun) with about 5 rounds of ammunition.
"During the course of the attack, I noticed a couple of officers fall to the ground right next to my guard post so I went over to assist them. They were uninjured, having ducked some strafing by the Japanese aircraft. The three of us sought shelter in the open garages behind the Officers Mess Hall and next to my guard post. I decided to take a chance and shoot my pistol at one of the aircraft overhead as it passed by us in the odd chance that I’d get lucky and hit a critical part of the engine and so had my pistol out and was just ready to press the trigger when one of the officers grabbed my arm, saying “Don’t shoot, you’ll give away our position!” I obeyed the order, thinking “what position do we have to give away?” Regardless, my chance to shoot passed and I didn’t get to fire a shot.
“Later on, a young man approached me at my post and asked me if I knew how to load his rifle, a Springfield 30.06. He apparently didn’t get any instruction about the rifle. I asked him ifhe could use a shot gun and his response was “Sure”. I suggested we trade weapons to which he was agreeable. I thus got a good rifle and 120 rounds of ammunition and felt that I could then give a good accounting of myself if the Japanese launched another attack. Months later I was in a little trouble for trading away that shot gun, but nothing came of it. Under Geneva Convention rules, shot guns were prohibited weapons in military combat but I guess that young man did not know that either.”
There’s been some awesome PBS stuff about WWII. If you haven’t seen the Dunkirk episode of the BBC History of WWII, do yourself a favor and rent it. It’s just as entertaining and compelling as any fictional treatment of WWII.
Most of msmith537’s list didn’t bother me.
What tore me totally out of the movie:
[ul]
[li]The sharply raked bow of of modern warships[/li][li]The box launchers on the above[/li][li]The fact that the same pilot volunteers for the RAF, gets shot down, gets assigned to Ohau, (with his old buddy and GF), shots down Japanese plane on 12/7, AND flys a bomber on the Doolittle raid. I mean come on get fucking real. Fighter pilots on flying the Doolittle raid?[/li][li]The dreaded dry land torpedo, the landpedo.[/li][li]The sailor looking at the hole left by the bomb that hit the Arizona before it detonated.[/li][li]Angled flight deck on a carrier.[/li][/ul]
Compared to PH the Final Countdown is a documentary.
Pretty much all the stuff in msmith537’s list ruined the movie for me in varying degrees.
Look, I’ll let things like getting the registration numbers of aircraft wrong pass, since there are only a finite number of WWII aircraft remaining and you’ve really, really got to be paying attention to notice that the aircraft shown is actually from a Polish Squadron.
I mean, Lawrence of Arabia shows Lawrence waving a Webley Mk VI revolver around (it’s quite an important gun in the film), but Lawrence never used a Webley Mk VI IRL; he carried (at various points) a Mauser C96 “Broomhandle”, a Colt Peacemaker, and a Colt M1911 semi-auto. Does that ruin the film? No, because the Webley serves as more than “A Gun” in the film (I’m not going to bore you with a dissertation of The Symbolism of British Firearms In Cinema, so don’t panic.)
But the mistakes made in Pearl Harbour, however, are made out of laziness or ignorance, and that (along with the terrible acting, shitty plot, and general overall crappiness) is what makes the film so incredibly full of Suck, IMHO.
I don’t mind “Historical Dramas” taking a few minor liberties for purposes of expediency (I won’t bore you with more examples), but Pearl Harbour could hardly have taken any more liberties if Tie Fighters with Swastikas shot up Pearl Harbour while the King’s African Rifles fought them off whilst wearing Power Armour and armed with Pulse Rifles.
The way I see it, if you’re going to set a movie in the past, about a well-documented historical event, Make sure it is as close to 100% accurate as possible.
A “period piece” doesn’t have to be quite so accurate- if Pearl Harbour was simply called “After D-Day” and was set at some unspecified point during WWII, then it would get a lot more lee-way than a movie set at/around a specific, well-known event IMHO.
I watched the extras on the Pearl Harbor disc (don’t ask). One of the things that struck me the most was how Bay made use of his consultants. There was a lot of footage of him asking them for advice on what to put on the screen. But his questions were almost always in the nature of, “Could we make the explosion even bigger?” rather than, “Is this the way the planes actually looked?” or whatever. He was almost entirely concerned with screen effect, and didn’t appear to give random shit about accuracy.
One of the extra features on Kingdom of Heaven was an interview with a historian and the screenwriter discussing what’s Hollywood and what’s history. During a scene from the movie in which Saladin attacks Jerusalem at night with Greek fire and flaming arrows, and had the following exchange:
1: It’s not really accurate of course. Saladin would likely not have used inflammables in a desert that far from a source of petroleum, plus for obvious reasons he preferred to attack in daytime.
2: True, but Hollywood loves fire, always has, always will. If it burns it earns.
3: Mmm. I’m surprised they didn’t have Titanic explode and catch fire.
4: Probably in the deleted scenes.
I think Bay’s king of the “if it burns it earns” producers.
msmith547, a foolish dedication to historical details at the cost of the story is a formula for making a stinker. Likewise, a foolish dedication to whiz-bangs at the cost of the story is also a formula for making a stinker.
I’ll admit my hopes for Pearl Harbor were a bit unusual, though far from unique. But I could have forgiven a lot had the story that was chosen to be told actually distracted me from the nit-picky stuff you’re complaining about from my post.
I disagree with you about the degree of leeway that is required to make a historical movie. Combining people into composite characters, even making up new characters to provide view points for a story are all legitimate. Likewise the level of detail such as incorrect hull numbers for ships of the era, or squadrons, are also going to be so esoteric that only a few history geeks will catch them during the film.
Having said all that, some attention to the historical details matter. Wildly anachronistic weapons, however, such as box launchers for ASROCs, are not things that I think are legitimate errors made in an effort to tell the story, but simple ignorance of the differences between the periods involved. Just for example, if you want to do a film about the Battle of Agincourt, having blocks of crossbowmen would not be acceptable.
Similarly, I don’t believe that you’ve addressed what I called my artistic or philosphical objections to this film: to wit, a movie titled Pearl Harbor really should not be written so that if one edits out all the time the film spends on the attack and its direct aftermath (to say, a simple news report telling the main characters about the attack) the story would be unaffected. Similarly, I stand by my assertion that at least one of the main characters of the story should have been Naval personnel.
Finally, do you really think that the story of Warrant Officer Ross that I outlined above couldn’t make a good and entertaining movie? While it would be a challenge to film, and certain necessary compromises would be necessary to incorporate - it would be possible. The USS Texas is not an Nevada-class ship, and has a very different turret arrangement, but AIUI the engineering plants are fairly similar.
Sorry for not getting back to you sooner. Not exactly sure, but the rumor was “a lot”. I do know that our… party-running group (been a long time) had a pretty hefty budget that year and the next so that was probably part of it. The ship got painted (twice - once to blue and then back to grey) and some structural work got done (Rick take note - they had to hide the angle deck, put AA guns back in the tubs, etc). The film company paid for all of that.
On the really cool side, I have watched a WWII era fighter do an unassisted (no catapult) takeoff from an aircraft carrier. They only let one guy do it one time, but it was AWESOME.