(The Dam Busters was one of the movies Lucas used, I’m told, to get the editing right for Star Wars. The Chewbacca reference was an attempt at drollery.)
Yes; he lifted the climactic sequence–Luke in the canyons of the deathstar trying to hit a very small target–practically frame for frame from The Dambusters.
It was U-571, starring Matthew McCant’spellhisfuckingnamehey. Of the two submarine movies released after 2000, I really preferred K-19: The Widowmaker. Despite it getting a lot of flack for Harrison Ford’s lousy Russian accent, I thought K-19 was amazingly tense and thrilling, and I also think it was great and fairly revolutionary to see an American movie with Soviets as the heroes - because there was a lot of true Soviet military heroism that’s gone unsung because of American anti-communism.
I was going to suggest Blacky but you just won the Internet.
Change it. Otherwise it’s throwing a spanner in the works.
Change it to Nico, say, or Mica – close but not kneejerk offensive.
I read somewhere that Peter Jackson does not intend to change the name of “Nigger”. In fact, I suspect that his remake will be more historically accurate than the original, which glossed over several elements of the story.
I read “The Dambusters” as a kid. Nigger, and his interaction with Guy Gibson and the crews of 617 squadron, helps create the picture of what things were like for crews in Bomber Command at that time. They were hard drinking, hard playing young men (who would buy beer for the dog) who didn’t get attached to each other or anyone else because they were all pretty likely to die. And Niggers death just before the mission prefigures the loss of crews over Germany, and adds depth to Gibsons character. It adds pressure to him just before the most difficult and important mission of his life. Interestingly, I heard an interview with a war journalist yesterday who pointed out that Gibson was actually not really liked by his crews - not something that shows up in the book.
And the scene near the end where Barnes Wallace realises that no more crews are returning and that they are probably dead gets me every time - he was a stubborn genius who had to fight to get his ideas accepted, but maybe never really thought through the risks that young men had to go through to deliver his weapons to target, and the costs in human life involved.
I hope PJ does the movie, and makes it good. The Dambusters deserve the recognition. But I like the original movie, as well
Si
Change the dog to a golden retriever named “Coolie”. Gets the point across without the gut-level knee-jerk reaction of the N-Word.
Seriously, this is a tough one. With any other director I’d be comfortable with a name change, but P. Jackson I’ve always admired for his honest treatment of the source material. (Yes, I know…elves at Helm’s Deep and all that…)
I wonder if they’ll use a stunt-dog as well as the “actor” dog, and if so will they have the disclaimer in the credits “No Niggers were harmed during the making of this film”.
Cool thread, lissener- more interesting than most race themed Great Debates.
While it’s true that the dog’s name is of no great historical significance, otoh it’s cleaning up history for modern sensibilities but at the expense of accuracy. It also tells you a lot about the men and the times that* the good guys* used the name openly for a dog- that’s more than trivia really. The dog’s name could also highlight the moral/amoral ambiguity of war- that the good guys are working to develop and drop a bomb that is more apt to kill civilians than Nazis in a war that few would deny the complete necessity of-
I’d keep the dog’s name but downplay it. But with Jackson working for big-money distribution companies I’ll put 10 chips on the Red (they’ll change its name rather than deal with the negative publicity) and I’ll even put 1 chip on Red-22 (that the dog’s new name will be an homage to a previous Jackson film- I can totally see the dog now being King Kong or Wizard).
If the intent is to portray historical events as truthfully as possible, then it would be wrong to change the name - it would be like remaking Spartacus with Nerf weapons.
Introduce a scene at the beginning where a passing African-American serviceman who has somehow become involved hears the dog being called “Nigger”, and work in his admonishment to the British air crews about the significance of the word, but that he’ll let it pass because their work is so important and that us Euros aren’t enlightened yet.
Then have him die in an early scene.
Fair points. In fairness, though, do you not think that if the film were to address these issues, it ought also to make reference to the high-level negotiations that were necessary to accommodate the US’s insistence that its forces stationed in Britain be racially segregated? This way they could also illustrate the cultural arrogance of the Americans in exporting their own variety of racism to a country to which it was alien. Interesting contrasts could be drawn between, on the one hand, the casual and thoughtless use of a racial epithet, and on the other, the institutionalised discrimination against thousands of servicemen because of the colour of their skin.
I think this could make a cracking film, and ask some important questions about the social and political history of our respective nations, our motives for fighting the Second World War, and our attitudes today.
I also think it might have to be a different film, though, because treating all these issues fairly would leave very little screen-time for the whole business of developing an experimental weapon to blow up some dams, causing a huge amount of damage and loss of civilian while failing to make as much impact on German industry as had been hoped.
Which is more the direction I’m expecting the film to be taking, if I’m honest.
And played by Cuba Gooding, Jr. as Doris Miller. (It’d be as much screen time as he got in Pearl Harbor and just as seamlessly added to the plot.)
Curse you, Sampiro! I was fighting so hard to keep from making comparisons to that film, and dragging it into this thread.
And now all my good intentions are for naught! 
Certainly, changing the name of the dog is important. Otherwise, people might know that there are and, perhaps more particularly, were, people who use casually offensive terms.
/Quick hijack
Do you really think so? I actually saw that movie about a hundred times, and I saw it as his fury over the bathetic treatment of the death of a dog in the war in which 50 million people died, and “the high command/ took my daddy from me.” The dog’s name was just a little absurdist icing on the cake. /
Anyway, I feel like changing the dog’s name would be sanitizing history, and specifically the character. I would rather the name were bleeped out than changed. Aside from being a historical fact, it uses two syllables to show that this hero is also kind of a dick. I don’t think Jackson will have to worry about the word taking over the movie, since it will take over the pre-release publicity. By the time the film comes out, everything will have been said.
For different reasons, it would also be bizarre to make the film historically accurate w.r.t. the name and the way it was used.
Bit of a double bind here. But then, I guess that’s what the OP is pointing out.
-FrL-
I say take it out unless there is a special reason why the dog was named “Nigger” that the audience needs to know to really appreciate the story. I’m not familiar with it, but the feeling I’m getting is the only reason to include it is out of reluctance to sanitize history. Maybe that would be a valid argument if we were talking about something central to the event or the characters, but a dog’s name is not that important. Even if the dog itself was.
Unless Jackson wants the hero of the story to look like a jackass, he should change the dog’s name to something less provocative. If that’s not his intent but that’s the impression he gives by keeping the name in, then he will have proven himself to be a poor storyteller who has no business making the money that he does.
Not that the historical figure in question is necessarily racist, but would it really be so bad to have a racist hero?
It would be bad if the story of good guys overcoming Nazi evil is any way eclipsed by the unintentional irony associated with the hero’s dog being named after a racial slur used to dehumanize another race of people. It wouldn’t be a problem if the story being told was portrayed in a dispassionate relaying of facts like a documentary, with no “good guys” and “bad guys”. But that doesn’t appear to be the case.
So unless that dog’s name was chosen for some kind of anti-racist purpose that is explained in the movie, it can only cause problems by leaving it in I think. Unless we’re not supposed to think the story’s hero is really hero, but rather a kind of assholey guy that happened to contribute to a good cause. Which is possible, I guess.
I, on the other hand, think he will have proven himself to be a poor storyteller who has no business making the money that he does if he makes one more God damn “Good War” “Greatest Generation” propaganda piece. The guy was an asshole and his own men didn’t really like him. He was a racist prick fighting the Nazis. As I said, if it’s too offensive to have in the movie, it can be bleeped.