[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Dunkirk (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 8/6/2017 9:22:31 AM EDT
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Smallish Spoilers, just observations better suited for those who watched the movie.
Saw Dunkirk last night due to the great reviews online. This is my pick-apart (of the movie, not the history) to compare to your experience. The little dialogue in the beginning set kinda a dry tone for me, but it may have been the films way of showing the desperation and dire situation the troops were in. There were a few moments in the movie I actually felt like covering my ears it was so loud, and after googling the movie, apparently others found it to be a very loud movie too. I'm not sure how they set the sound in theaters for these movies, but perhaps they compensate to make up for the quiet moments so the loud scenes may be a bit high? Not a stranger to the theater, so was a bit of a surprise when I found myself actually thinking...wow, my ears hurt.... Timeline changes made the movie a bit goofy. Day in one characters scene, night in the others. Not very smooth flowing. The special effects were great minus the closing scene of the airplane on fire. Sorta something big at the front of the plane missing....they couldn't have made a dummy engine? The gliding scene of the spitfire bugged the heck out of me. Just how long can a spitfire glide engine out at 500-800ft AGL? Was he the one that shot that last attack plane too? The bomber scene made it look like he ran out of ammo? Why did he not just land near the troops insead of landing far by the Germans? Surely if he can glide that thing so good he could have, lol Biggest annoyance of the whole movie was the watch ticking. From the beginning I though surely this is working up to an action scene or revelation then it will stop. Nope. Nearly the whole movie. Found it distracting as heck. I'd like to slap whoever thought that was a good idea. If your movie is good enough you shouldn't need a sound that created urgency or anxiety to keep viewers glued. I thought it was good, but not great. I'd give 7.8/10 on my precise rating scale 
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How many threads do we have on Dunkirk now? 
Saw it last night an loved every minute of it.  Full of suspense, horror, beauty, and bravery.  The mutuple timeline's of the air, sea, and land battles challenged me just a little but it all paid off and I applaud that artistic direction. You are supposed to be slightly confused and challenged by the non-linear storytelling. |
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Yeah that final bit with the spitfire was weird. I don't buy he had enough airspeed to pull a 180, engage, then drift for that long. And WTF wouldn't you jump out over the beach where you could walk to rescue instead of getting captured?
The movie was decent. I wouldn't watch it again. The fighter scenes were the only ones I really liked, he should make a Battle of Britain movie. Before seeing it I heard people bitching about lack of diversity and French. Well I saw at least one black guy on the pier and the French were clearly shown holding the line behind the beach. |
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I guess you missed the on screen titles at the start of the film:
One hour One day One week It pretty much tells you that there are three different timelines that the film will be following. How the timelines synchronize at various points in the film are to expose the theme of the film and to articulate the desperation/conflict of the various characters no matter what path they are taking. |
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Quoted:
All I came away from that movie with was troops in water, fishing boats, a couple of fighter plane scenes and a plane that glides so well it could take out a plane that was under power and keep on gliding past the troops and into enemy territory. 2/10 I thought "Dunkirk" 1958, starring Bernard Lee and Richard Attenborough, was better. |
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I've said before, the movie's biggest failing (IMO) was that it did a poor job of telling the story of the Dunkirk evacuation. I thought "Dunkirk" 1958, starring Bernard Lee and Richard Attenborough, was better. Nothing about the rescue fleet, other than a dozen small boats. They got off 300k men? No massive logistics, getting stuck in the harbor, nothing? And wtf with the fighter? Couldn't land by friendlies?? |
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I thought it was different, and that's a big part of what made it great. I don't need a bunch of dialogue to know what was going on, as I've read about it extensively and spent some time with a Dunkirk survivor back in the early 90's and had the chance to hear some stories. It was refreshing to have a movie that assumed you knew something, instead of having dumb dialoge to pander to the masses.
The burning spitfire was a major gaffe, but outside of that, it was excellent with the detail, including real 109's (sans Diamler-Benz engines) and a real Heinkel. I thought the footage of the aircraft was gorgeous, especially when the Spitfires first appeared. I did think the aerial combat maneuvering wasn't as aggressive as it would have really been, probably because they didn't want to overstress those old airframes. Overall, GREAT movie, IMHO. |
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honestly the movie was a disappointment, not a bad movie but given the magnitude of this historical event I felt the director dropped the ball on this story telling. one does not need a huge budget to tell a story well (Breaker Morant is a great example of this) but when you have that budget you should be able to trigger all senses in your audience (panic, fear, desperation, Hope & compassion) - I never felt like they were in a hurry to get off that beach & tom hardy needs to talk and change his facial expressions if he's going to be in more than 5 minutes of a show (he used his silent card up in Mad Max)
to see it once sure but that father not giving a shit about his son was painful to watch. |
| The movie's big failure was that it failed to show the magnitude of the operation. Except for one of the last lines in the movie, if your knowledge of history was based upon that movie, you wouldn't know whether the boats transported 30 troops or 300,000. The spectacular aspect of Dunkirk was the number of troops moved, and the number of boats involved. None of that was depicted, except in very oblique ways. |
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The staggered timelines created a little bit of mental engagement with the "oh, that's that guy doing that thing we saw him do 10 minutes ago." It was a bit confusing, but I didn't mind it. Created some "aha!" moments that made it kind of fun.
The soldier characters all kinda looked alike, which made for some "wait, which guy was that?" Didn't really matter, because at the end of the day their individual identities were irrelevant to the story, but it would have been nice to have them be more distinguishable. They were all 5'9", 175lbs with dirty faces, dark hair and wearing the same clothes. The one dude had curlier hair, and when that other group met up, the one was taller and might have been a former child actor from the Harry Potter movies. Otherwise it was tough to tell them apart. |
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I thought it sucked. First and foremost I can no longer stand war movies that sanitize the violence. There was not a single drop of blood visible.
The CGI was obvious and bad. There are plenty of flying spitfires they should have hired a few for some flyby footage. They showed 3 plane flight flying almost literally wingtip to wingtip and banking as a single unit. The entire story hinged around a couple of cowards that cheated in order to get off the beach. Right off the bat I lost sympathy for them and never regained it. The heinkel was depicted as having a larger caliber, slower firing tail gun when in fact it used a very rapid firing machine gun. |
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I liked it...Best "in theatre" experience I've had in awhile and I was tempted to try and catch a second showing of it before it left the theatre.
Yeah, the gliding spitfire scene was retarded I thought, but what the hell..no movie is every going to be 100% perfect or 100% accurate and at the end of the day what you are seeing is the artists/directors interpretation of a script or of a series of events and thats it. |
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Quoted:
The movie's big failure was that it failed to show the magnitude of the operation. Except for one of the last lines in the movie, if your knowledge of history was based upon that movie, you wouldn't know whether the boats transported 30 troops or 300,000. The spectacular aspect of Dunkirk was the number of troops moved, and the number of boats involved. None of that was depicted, except in very oblique ways. I just don't understand why you would take the time to make this movie and then not even pay any attention to what really took place. 
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Quoted:
The movie's big failure was that it failed to show the magnitude of the operation. Except for one of the last lines in the movie, if your knowledge of history was based upon that movie, you wouldn't know whether the boats transported 30 troops or 300,000. The spectacular aspect of Dunkirk was the number of troops moved, and the number of boats involved. None of that was depicted, except in very oblique ways. |
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I have seen it twice now in IMAX, it is not perfect but it was great.
There are some things just not right but I would not let them get in my way of enjoying the movie. Some guys just like to bitch about anything they can, I am just glad to see a decent movie. I dont complain about stuff to make me seem superior to others. But then, I guess I am just a Red-Neck simpleton compared to these other Arfcomers. It will loose a lot if not seen in IMAX, anyone that has not gone, go see it in IMAX while it is around. |
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It's a movie and only a movie . Don't get your history lessons from movies . Read and do some research if you really want to know the events .
If you tried to turn in a research paper on Dunkirk for a college class based on this movie it would be a mistake . Any half assed professor would hand you your head . Along with a failing grade . gd |
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Quoted:
I thought it sucked. First and foremost I can no longer stand war movies that sanitize the violence. There was not a single drop of blood visible. The CGI was obvious and bad. There are plenty of flying spitfires they should have hired a few for some flyby footage. They showed 3 plane flight flying almost literally wingtip to wingtip and banking as a single unit. The entire story hinged around a couple of cowards that cheated in order to get off the beach. Right off the bat I lost sympathy for them and never regained it. The heinkel was depicted as having a larger caliber, slower firing tail gun when in fact it used a very rapid firing machine gun. They used a mix of original aircraft, models, and modified non-original aircraft (one had two cockpits for filming purposes). Cockpit scenes were either filmed using the two-cockpit plane or a simulated cockpit with a gimbal at the studio. I'm wondering if the Spitfire at the end was a model glider, as it would explain a lot, including the lack of an engine. Â |
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I picked to see this one yesterday. It was either Dunkirk or Spiderman. And I think I chose wisely and we saw the movie with the better value.
I didn't mind the lack of dialogue. Really in a situation like that, people aren't going to be chatting constantly. The one thing I kinda disliked-ish, was that it took me a while to figure out they were jumping back and fourth on the timeline. I was like, "Wait wasn't his fuel at 15? Now it's 50 again... Ahhh, ok." But my overall view of it... It was a good movie. And it was horrifying. Horror movies don't scare me, other than cheap jump scares. Imagining being trapped on a flooded ship with no hope of escape scares the shit out of me. 
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Quoted:
That wasn't CGI. They did use real aircraft. CGI was not used to create any aircraft, ship, or body of persons in the movie, only for enhancement of certain effects in a few scenes, which is why all three categories lacked the numbers present at Dunkirk. They used a mix of original aircraft, models, and modified non-original aircraft (one had two cockpits for filming purposes). Cockpit scenes were either filmed using the two-cockpit plane or a simulated cockpit with a gimbal at the studio. I'm wondering if the Spitfire at the end was a model glider, as it would explain a lot, including the lack of an engine. Â Ridiculously portrayed. |
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I saw it yesterday and the inflight scenes with the Spitfires were the best part. Other than that, the movie was only OK.
I agree with the OP on the Spitfire ending. He was able to glide WAY too long, and pumping his gear down while gliding was goofy at best. And landing away from friendly troops made no sense at all. ETA: IMAX was way too loud. |
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Quoted:
Debris and stuff all over that beach IRL, scattered troops in chaos, dirty, rumpled, disheveled, many German planes bombing and strafing, 100's of thousands of men on the beach, 100's of boats somehow rescuing these guys who by the way had mostly chucked their gear away...the REALITY would have made for an incredible movie IMO that could have taken a place next to SPR as one of the great ww2 films. I just don't understand why you would take the time to make this movie and then not even pay any attention to what really took place. |
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Quoted:
I saw it yesterday and the inflight scenes with the Spitfires were the best part. Other than that, the movie was only OK. I agree with the OP on the Spitfire ending. He was able to glide WAY too long, and pumping his gear down while gliding was goofy at best. And landing away from friendly troops made no sense at all. ETA: IMAX was way too loud. |
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Quoted:
I thought it was different, and that's a big part of what made it great. I don't need a bunch of dialogue to know what was going on, as I've read about it extensively and spent some time with a Dunkirk survivor back in the early 90's and had the chance to hear some stories. It was refreshing to have a movie that assumed you knew something, instead of having dumb dialoge to pander to the masses. The burning spitfire was a major gaffe, but outside of that, it was excellent with the detail, including real 109's (sans Diamler-Benz engines) and a real Heinkel. I thought the footage of the aircraft was gorgeous, especially when the Spitfires first appeared. I did think the aerial combat maneuvering wasn't as aggressive as it would have really been, probably because they didn't want to overstress those old airframes. Overall, GREAT movie, IMHO. It should be noted that it's not all novel, though; Nolan studied and utilized techniques used in silent film in making this movie. I heard someone call it "the loudest silent film ever made." if you've ever seen one of the more epic silent films, you'd notice certain similarities in how the scenes are shot, how the actors express themselves, etc. The story is told using such methods so that you can understand what's going on without having to rely heavily on dialogue. You can understand the stresses, the natures of the choices the characters have to make, without verbal exposition. |
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Quoted:
Exactly. One or two panoramic shots of the beach and the Channel could have made this spectacular. A low drone shot of the beach, going for what seems like miles, like a fighter strafing the beach. And then a tight shot of a few of the boats, pulling back to show hundreds or thousands of boats. Quoted:
Quoted:
Debris and stuff all over that beach IRL, scattered troops in chaos, dirty, rumpled, disheveled, many German planes bombing and strafing, 100's of thousands of men on the beach, 100's of boats somehow rescuing these guys who by the way had mostly chucked their gear away...the REALITY would have made for an incredible movie IMO that could have taken a place next to SPR as one of the great ww2 films. I just don't understand why you would take the time to make this movie and then not even pay any attention to what really took place. I did appreciate that they used 12 of the boats involved in the actual evacuation. I also had thought that I had recognized one of the ships mocked up to portray a couple of British destroyers and sure enough I was right; it was a French destroyer, with its towed sonar array still on the quarterdeck. |
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Quoted:
I thought it sucked. First and foremost I can no longer stand war movies that sanitize the violence. There was not a single drop of blood visible. The CGI was obvious and bad. There are plenty of flying spitfires they should have hired a few for some flyby footage. They showed 3 plane flight flying almost literally wingtip to wingtip and banking as a single unit. The entire story hinged around a couple of cowards that cheated in order to get off the beach. Right off the bat I lost sympathy for them and never regained it. The heinkel was depicted as having a larger caliber, slower firing tail gun when in fact it used a very rapid firing machine gun. 
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Quoted:
Smallish Spoilers, just observations better suited for those who watched the movie. Saw Dunkirk last night due to the great reviews online. This is my pick-apart (of the movie, not the history) to compare to your experience. The little dialogue in the beginning set kinda a dry tone for me, but it may have been the films way of showing the desperation and dire situation the troops were in. There were a few moments in the movie I actually felt like covering my ears it was so loud, and after googling the movie, apparently others found it to be a very loud movie too. I'm not sure how they set the sound in theaters for these movies, but perhaps they compensate to make up for the quiet moments so the loud scenes may be a bit high? Not a stranger to the theater, so was a bit of a surprise when I found myself actually thinking...wow, my ears hurt.... Timeline changes made the movie a bit goofy. Day in one characters scene, night in the others. Not very smooth flowing. The special effects were great minus the closing scene of the airplane on fire. Sorta something big at the front of the plane missing....they couldn't have made a dummy engine? The gliding scene of the spitfire bugged the heck out of me. Just how long can a spitfire glide engine out at 500-800ft AGL? Was he the one that shot that last attack plane too? The bomber scene made it look like he ran out of ammo? Why did he not just land near the troops insead of landing far by the Germans? Surely if he can glide that thing so good he could have, lol Biggest annoyance of the whole movie was the watch ticking. From the beginning I though surely this is working up to an action scene or revelation then it will stop. Nope. Nearly the whole movie. Found it distracting as heck. I'd like to slap whoever thought that was a good idea. If your movie is good enough you shouldn't need a sound that created urgency or anxiety to keep viewers glued. I thought it was good, but not great. I'd give 7.8/10 on my precise rating scale Alan Christopher Deere of New Zealand managed to glide his knocked out Mk1 Spitfire 15 miles to crash on a Belgian beach during Dunkirk. He escaped back to England with British troops. He was attacking a Do 17 near Dunkirk when hit and he had already shot down 3 Me109s and a 110 in the days prior as well as escorted in a rescue plane to bring back his downed squadron commander. |
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Alan Christopher Deere of New Zealand managed to glide his knocked out Mk1 Spitfire 15 miles to crash on a Belgian beach during Dunkirk. He escaped back to England with British troops. He was attacking a Do 17 near Dunkirk when hit and he had already shot down 3 Me109s and a 110 in the days prior as well as escorted in a rescue plane to bring back his downed squadron commander. |
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I'm not a pilot and I haven't seen the movie, but wouldn't he want to land wheels up on a beach? Quoted:
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I saw it yesterday and the inflight scenes with the Spitfires were the best part. Other than that, the movie was only OK. I agree with the OP on the Spitfire ending. He was able to glide WAY too long, and pumping his gear down while gliding was goofy at best. And landing away from friendly troops made no sense at all. ETA: IMAX was way too loud. What was goofy was that he was low, had been gliding for a loooong time, yet managed to pump his gear down. |
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Yeah, he actually got to fly a captured ME109 once and declared the Spitfire to be a superior aircraft.
I believe he may be the real life source of the "Where the hell were you?" Comment from the movie. |
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Yep, that spitfire glide scene was just terrible, as well as the fire at the end.
Movie should have shown an almost packed beach of soldiers, as well has hundreds of small craft instead of dozens. This is where some CGI should have helped. I'm also not sure a U-boat would have been that relatively close to the beach. |