# Why do you never see remakes of war movies nowadays? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 25, 2017, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-see-remakes-of-war-movies-nowadays/802654 "2017-11-25T08:15:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DorkVader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/73ab20/32.png) [@DorkVader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DorkVader)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-see-remakes-of-war-movies-nowadays/802654/21 "2017-11-26T08:04:10Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Liam Neeson could probably manage it – and I don’t know whether Viggo Mortensen or Jeffrey Dean Morgan could pull it off, but I wouldn’t be too surprised. Yanno, I was thinking of him specifically as one of the few who could possibly pull it off when I posted that. ---
**Author:** ![flip-68](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e99b99/32.png) [@flip-68](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flip-68)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-see-remakes-of-war-movies-nowadays/802654/22 "2017-11-26T16:28:56Z")
the classic war movies had a clear sense of being “just” wars and so were very distinct about who were the good guys. i think we have lacked that clarity since Vietnam so any war movie raises questions about the motivations of “our” side. regarding re-makes of old films - the world has moved on, maybe cinema will cycle back to it when the super hero thing has been exhausted (that will happen, right?) ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-see-remakes-of-war-movies-nowadays/802654/23 "2017-11-26T16:30:51Z")
> [@guestchaz](#): > > Yanno, I was thinking of him specifically as one of the few who could possibly pull it off when I posted that. I would love to see a remake of In Harm’s Way. It is a deeply flawed movie but I still love it. Maybe this time they won’t cast a block of wood as Rock’s son. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-see-remakes-of-war-movies-nowadays/802654/24 "2017-11-26T16:39:17Z")
they are too busy making Spiderman 43 and Star Wars 26 and Batman 98 ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-see-remakes-of-war-movies-nowadays/802654/25 "2017-11-26T17:09:47Z")
They could make an update of the veterans-returning-home-to-their-womenfolk, ‘The Best Years of Our Lives’ I suppose, but it wouldn’t be hardly the same. :eek: different times, different veterans and women, too. A strict remake set in dubya dubya two would be a real period piece, like knights in days of old. … no, wouldn’t fly at all. Shooting, blasting, and explosions are still popular things men like to see, but they’re in videogames now. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-see-remakes-of-war-movies-nowadays/802654/26 "2017-11-26T17:41:35Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > They could make an update of the veterans-returning-home-to-their-womenfolk, ‘The Best Years of Our Lives’ I suppose, but it wouldn’t be hardly the same. :eek: different times, different veterans and women, too. A strict remake set in dubya dubya two would be a real period piece, like knights in days of old. … no, wouldn’t fly at all. Shooting, blasting, and explosions are still popular things men like to see, but they’re in videogames now. They did this for TV back in the '70s. It was called _ **Coming Home** _, and it was an unmitigated piece of crap. Billy Dee Williams was the male lead’s co-pilot during the war (pure fantasy; the only blacks to fly then were the Redtails, who were all fighter pilots). The latter got into a fight over his boss’s overt racism, not because an America Firster mocked Homer’s prostheses. The Virginia Mayo role was played by the luscious Sherry Jackson, who was a '70s-sytle “liberated” career woman rather than a golddigging floozy. The original is one of my all-time favorite movies. It deservedly won seven Academy Awards in 1946, including Best Picture. I was amazed at how Hollywood can take something so good and thoroughly fuck it up. ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-see-remakes-of-war-movies-nowadays/802654/27 "2017-11-26T17:55:36Z")
Why remake a movie about an old war when we seem to have an endless supply of new wars? ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-see-remakes-of-war-movies-nowadays/802654/28 "2017-11-26T18:14:35Z")
> [@jasg](#): > > Why remake a movie about an old war when we seem to have an endless supply of new wars? Because the plot is much more convoluted. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-see-remakes-of-war-movies-nowadays/802654/29 "2017-11-26T18:58:29Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > They did this for TV back in the '70s. It was called _ **Coming Home** _, and it was an unmitigated piece of crap. Billy Dee Williams was the male lead’s co-pilot during the war (pure fantasy; the only blacks to fly then were the Redtails, who were all fighter pilots). I think you have the wrong film. [_Coming Home_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coming_Home_(1978_film)) (1978) takes place during the Vietnam War, and stars Jane Fonda, Jon Voight, and Bruce Dern. ---
**Author:** ![DorkVader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/73ab20/32.png) [@DorkVader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DorkVader)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-see-remakes-of-war-movies-nowadays/802654/30 "2017-11-26T19:00:45Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > I would love to see a remake of In Harm’s Way. It is a deeply flawed movie but I still love it. Maybe this time they won’t cast a block of wood as Rock’s son. And Liam Neeson would be the actor to replace John Wayne, but it would be a very different telling of the story indeed. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-see-remakes-of-war-movies-nowadays/802654/31 "2017-11-26T19:37:34Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > I think you have the wrong film. [_Coming Home_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coming_Home_(1978_film)) (1978) takes place during the Vietnam War, and stars Jane Fonda, Jon Voight, and Bruce Dern. My mistake. It was _ **Returning Home** _ (1975). I saw it a year or so later, when I was living in England. > **[Returning Home (TV Movie 1975) ⭐ 6.4 | Drama](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073625/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_24)** > > 1h 14m Hah! Look at that: Tom Selleck \*\*and \*\*Dabney Coleman were both in it, as was Whitney Blake, from \*\*\*Hazel \*\*\*and _ **One Day at a Time** _. And the black guy wasn’t Billy Dee, he just kind of looked like him with the 'stache and all. Cut me some slack here, it’s been more than 40 freakin’ years! ☹ ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-see-remakes-of-war-movies-nowadays/802654/32 "2017-11-26T20:55:54Z")
“Saving Private Ryan” dramatically changed the audience’s expectation of war films. There had been brutal and uncompromising war films before that, but “Saving Private Ryan” elevated brutal and uncompromising to new levels of horrible realism. It’s been almost twenty years so it’s easy to forget how stomach churning the movie was; it’s still sickening to watch at times, deliberately so. Such war movies as have been critically successful since then, like “Letters from Iwo Jima” or “The Hurt Locker” have been those that consciously imitated the attention to visual realism SPR started. War movies, to be great movies, have been kind of reset, if you will. If you wanted to redo a lot of war movies you’d have to really amp up the violence and terror, to the point that you’d be making a substantially different movie, and at some risk, because war movies won’t make the kind of dough another comic book movie will - but they are expensive. ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-see-remakes-of-war-movies-nowadays/802654/33 "2017-11-26T21:18:44Z")
There’s always Game of Thrones. spoiler: The Americans don’t win ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-see-remakes-of-war-movies-nowadays/802654/34 "2017-11-26T22:19:03Z")
> [@Sefton](#): > > I think movie studios are more concerned about the international market than they used to be. A movie that vilifies the Japanese or Vietnamese will be harder to sell than a movie that vilifies killer robots. I don’t think a movie that vilifies the Japanese would be hard to sell in China. “Hey China, remember when we helped you kick Japan’s ass? Yeah, that was awesome.” ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-see-remakes-of-war-movies-nowadays/802654/35 "2017-11-26T23:34:02Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > “Saving Private Ryan” dramatically changed the audience’s expectation of war films. > > There had been brutal and uncompromising war films before that, but “Saving Private Ryan” elevated brutal and uncompromising to new levels of horrible realism. It’s been almost twenty years so it’s easy to forget how stomach churning the movie was; it’s still sickening too watch at times, deliberately so. > > Such war movies as have been critically successful since then, like “Letters from Iwo Jima” or “The Hurt Locker” have been those that consciously imitated the attention to visual realism SPR started. War movies, to be great movies, have been kind of reset, if you will. If you wanted to redo a lot of war movies you’d have to really amp up the violence and terror, to the point that you’d be making a substantially different movie, and at some risk, because war movies won’t make the kind of dough another comic book movie will - but they are expensive. Windtalkers was a bad movie on its own. When you compare it’s cartoon violence and action to Saving Private Ryan it looks even worse. You are absolutely right about the bar being raised ---
**Author:** ![TwoCarrotSnowman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/twocarrotsnowman/32/15879_2.png) [@TwoCarrotSnowman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwoCarrotSnowman)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2017, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-see-remakes-of-war-movies-nowadays/802654/36 "2017-11-27T08:11:19Z")
I’ve occasionally wondered whether you could make a decent big-budget war movie out of the Falklands war. It had everything from bayonet fighting to submarines, and the only (I think) combat deployment of Harrier jump jets. I’m not sure if it would be globally popular, but the raw material is there. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2017, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-see-remakes-of-war-movies-nowadays/802654/37 "2017-11-27T09:20:08Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > The dog is keeping [The Dam Busters] from being made. I’m only partially joking. Didn’t they already decide to go with “Trigger”? ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2017, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-see-remakes-of-war-movies-nowadays/802654/38 "2017-11-27T11:39:22Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > Windtalkers was a bad movie on its own. When you compare it’s cartoon violence and action to Saving Private Ryan it looks even worse. You are absolutely right about the bar being raised I saw approximately two minutes of that movie and found it comically terrible. Two minutes was all I needed to see. I found “Hacksaw Ridge” closer to “Windtalkers,” to be honest. I understood Gibson was trying to make a serious war film but the battle scenes still had a cartoonish element to them, even though they were very gory and violent. Eastwood did a much better job with his Iwo Jima films. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2017, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-see-remakes-of-war-movies-nowadays/802654/39 "2017-11-27T15:40:39Z")
> [@TwoCarrotSnowman](#): > > the only (I think) combat deployment of Harrier jump jets. USMC AV-8B Harrier IIs were used in the Gulf War. ---
**Author:** ![Mavic\_Chen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e56c9b/32.png) [@Mavic\_Chen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mavic_Chen)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2017, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-see-remakes-of-war-movies-nowadays/802654/40 "2017-11-27T15:46:14Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#): > > Didn’t they already decide to go with “Trigger”? Wouldn’t “Digger” be a better name for a dog 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-see-remakes-of-war-movies-nowadays/802654.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-see-remakes-of-war-movies-nowadays/802654.md?page=3)