I had a friend who told this story about seeing the 1976 version of Midway, accompanied by a WW2 Navy pilot:
The battle was raging and the theater was throbbing with the sound of it all. In a brief lull, the pilot leaned over and said to my friend: “Charlie, I was at the battle of Midway, and it wasn’t this loud.”
No American pilot-Japanese love interest subplot where Chuck Heston uses up all his favors to…shove it under the rug?? I don’t remember.
Maybe this movie will have Michael B. Jordan sneaking into a Dauntless and secretly being part of a squadron…or Chadwick Boseman guilting Admiral Nimitz into letting him fly an Avenger
“Admiral, I flew a cropduster for 15 years and you’re out of pilots!! You need me!”
We can only hope.
IIRC the first time this movie was revealed it was part of an announcement of a bunch of Chinese movie studios getting together to fund a WW2 based film for the American market.
I half-joked they were going to find someway to shoehorn in a famous Chinese actor playing a pilot who participated in the Battle of Midway but seeing as how part of this film is the Doolittle Raid I now wouldn’t be surprised if the landing in China part was a good chunk of the piece.
Attacking the Japanese fleet ain’t like dusting crops, kid! Without precise skills you could fly right through flak or bounce off the water surface and that’d end your trip real quick, wouldn’t it?
I wonder if that is apocryphal, because I heard the same thing about Dunkirk. Of course, it’s also true for both movies, so who knows? 
I’m pretty sure this one happened - I met the Navy pilot in question, who indeed was at the battle of Midway.
“Welcome to Midway!”
Punches downed Zero pilot
The film is in post production so I’m assuming the cast is known. IMDB lists one actor with a Chinese sounding last name. He’s American, is only listed as “local commander”, and only has one other credit. I’m going to use my crystal ball and say there will be one brief scene on the ground in China with some Chinese extras. All other Asian actors that have been named are either Japanese or of Japanese descent and playing historical Japanese characters. It doesn’t look like it will turn into The Meg.
I wasn’t at the Battle of Midway, but I do remember seeing the movie in 1976. It was freakin’ deafening! As I recall it was one of a handful of movies where they used special speakers called “Sensurround” (or something like that). People in the theater next door watching a different movie complained to the management they could barely focus on the movie because of all the noise and vibration coming from the Midway film.
I’m probably going to hate this movie. It won’t be accurate enough. But I’ll see it, because I think that dive bomber attack at the end of the preview was Dick Best’s fantastic dive on Akagi. I’ll see the movie just for that.
Or, you can wait a few months and stream it at home. It may even end up on YouTube.
I watched the preview again. Typically, CGI fleets consist of just a few ship types repeated many times over. I recall one movie that depicted a vast WW2 US fleet as having a dozen or more Iowa class battleships (only 4 were made). I’m sure it’s cheaper that way, and most viewers are not ship dorks like me, and don’t care. The Midway preview is better; the USN and IJN ships are correct for the period, and for the battle.
They’ll screw it up somehow. Maybe throw a couple of TIE fighters attacking him on the way down.
Since it’s in post production now and not due for several months the CGI may not be set yet.
If that is Ensign Gay that is coming up the water surface with a wave punching “Wooo!” I will demand my money back. Everyone in his squadron is dead, he needs to hide from the rest of the Japanese fleet, and this is what he’s doing?
Punching the water in excitement after seeing the Japanese fleet get bombed makes more sense, and happened In The 1976 movie IIRC.
If I see it, I want to watch it on the big screen. I think the last time I did that was with The Hateful Eight (or maybe Fury).
0:21, enjoyed seeing the zeroes strafing city streets from an altitude of ten feet, with inches of clearance on either wingtip. Looks like it’ll be straight out of the Michael Bay School of Film-making.
“Thankfully, the U.S. Navy needed less than an hour to shift the winds of war in the Pacific. Around 10:20 a.m., three squadrons of dive bombers from Enterprise and Yorktown arrived at the battle site, perfectly positioned to attack the Japanese carriers. With a grandstand seat for the ensuing action, *Gay watched and cheered *as the Kaga, Akagi, and Sōryū all sustained fatal bomb hits and turned into floating cauldrons of searing flames and secondary explosion”
https://usnhistory.navylive.dodlive.mil/2017/05/25/ensign-george-h-gays-fateful-day-june-4-1942/
I’ll have to try and find his own words but that’s how I remember the accounts. He cheered.
Ok here is an interview. At around 5:45 he says he was “Cheering like at a football game.” I’m not sure if that means “Woo” but close enough.
Cheering when the attack succeed is expected. Cheering when you just resurfaced after seeing all your friends die around you? Not so much.