Well I will tell you why they did this. First of all Harrison Ford did not want to do another movie in this series. Second Hollywood always knows how to make a better movie than the book.

My personal opinion is that Clancy has gotten old and slow.

The last one of his books I read was written with someone else.  Very much formula writing.

I'm imagining a Clancy-bot program that only requires this input:

skeleton plot

names & personal profile

weapons names and link to Janes and other resources


By the way, did I mention that I think Clancy's books have performed an important function for foreign intelligence services?

I too saw the movie tonight.

Lets see.

the Israel's loose a tactical nuke ad don't go looking for it.

Ryan goes into Baltimore after it has been nuked and suffers no radiation effects

The russian plane launch a strike against the carrier and hits her with no difficulty.
Where are the destroyers and cruiser ???

this movie is so unbelivable it funny.

I enjoyed it though[:D]

I just saw some clips of the movie, Somebody tell me that they DID NOT have Backfires launching FROM LOW ALTITUDE ON THE DECK, tell me I did not see that in a Clancy movie.

My wife and I just saw it this afternoon.  She liked it.  I thought it was really lacking.  I just finished the book and the movie isn't even close.  I guess if I hadn't read the book it would be OK.

I really didn't like it that Ryan was single, they dropped several of the main characters, that it was neo-nazis instead of Islamic extremists, that the SPINNAKER connection wasn't more developed, the attack on the carrier... basically the movie sucks compared to the book.

Okay, bear with me now as I was a USAF SP type puke not a squid.  I believe carriers travel in a Battle Group.  After a US city gets nuked I'd expect a destroyer to be running active radars at full power and the carrier to be running a CAP (combat air patrol) I don't believe that the bombers would get within strike range before the Hornets could splash them.  Failing that the destroyers would pop all kinds of SAM's and their phalanx systems would also be active.  I'm an active Clancy reader and besides a few small arms related screwups they are usually pretty good.  I didnt read this particular book but I'll say it could have been better.  Still hoping for a Rainbow Six movie tho!

I didn't read the book, but my understanding was that this was sort of a "prequel" to the other Ryan books-turned-movies.  This is why is sort of makes sense that Ryan is played by a younger actor, is single, etc. in this one.

Rocko

I read all of Clancy's books (except the latest one) but won't bother with this movie (sure, I'll watch it if it's shown on TV and I have nothing else to do).  Just can't remember the last time a movie outdid the book.  

Well, after reading the appropriate threads here you should have been warned.

Clancey Movies have always been lacking in the detail and truth that the books portray, what was that last movie that they changed around also to satisfy the arabs ?

notice they have no qualms about using Irish or german people and making thier society look bad.....

poop on the movies, if you haven't read the book then you haven't got the whole story.

Am I to understand that in the movie they tried to "bomb" a carrier?  What, did they hire Rosie O'Donnell as the technical expert?  I've not seen the movie so I don't know precisely what you're talking about.

In the book, they do what they always do, put up a radar observation plane and a bunch of Tomcats.  The Tomcats splash about 4 Mig-29s that are heading generally for the carrier.  And in the book they are not actually attacking the carrier.  If they had they would probably use some kind of anti-ship missle.

Also, in the book, Ryan is middle aged and is Deputy Director of the CIA, and married with 2 kids.  The long and the short of it is that the only part of the book that appeared in the movie was the title.  And the book is excellent, BTW.  I could hardly put it down.

One last question-- did they use the POS Super Hornet or did they employ Tomcat Ds in the movie?

On entertainment and acting values alone, I thought the movie was pretty good.  The aircraft carrier was really pathetic, especially after the nuke.  I was hoping for more reality about muslim extremists, but I guess the retaliation wouldn't have been anything significant.  I mean really, think about it...watching the F16's hit some sand piles with rag heads screaming in a bunker....not to interesting considering their kind is a dime a dozen.  (Hence all of the sui-homicide bombers!)

Good book.
Guess I'll see the movie on Home Box.  (Cause based on this and other threads it is not worth theater prices.)

Hay don't worry Black Hawk Down comes out next week on DVD, it is pretty cool up until the last scenes, where hollywood had to go to extremes to give the audience a denoumont.

Ben

Gotta get the public primed up for going after those "Neo-Nazi" terrorists, (read Christian Patriots), next. Why do you think they are passing all these new "Anti-terror" laws?? The history of hollywood demonstrates that it is a very effective arm of the propaganda machine in this country......

It wasn't as good as the book but the guy  who played John Clark was better than William Defoe(sp).

Considering the fact that I am German American (well, really [b]AMERICAN[/b]) I am highly offended that to this day, the Germans are made out to be the "bad guys".

Fact: Not all folks that come from the middle east are terrorists.

Fact: Not all Germans are Nazis.


I would be happy to settle for 50 million and an apology.

Where is our lawyer - EricThe(German)Hun? [;)]

Kinda funny how things work out...

We went and saw this movie last night.  It was OK but not great.  All military folks are bad people that just want to blow up the world.  Most government folks are bad people that just want to blow up the world and look good at the same time.  The spies are really the only good and decent people in the world.  Much about the movie was unreal.  The Russians attack our aircraft carrier with little defense on our part.  We attack their land base and they don't defend it.  Plus the other items already talked about.

Agreed. Much better than Defoe.

I think that he was credited as the Executive Producer.  I read an article a few years ago that said that the Executive Producer title is largely ceremonial & has no power or functions.

Well...for not being a squid, your assumptions about Fleet air defense are pretty close.  I was a "squid" for 28 years.  I spent most of my time on SAM ships.  The layered missile and aircraft defense set up by the escorts is damn near impregnable...note I didn't say absolutely...just damn near.  In ANY type of even semi-hot environment, the carrier would have at least one E-2C Hawkeye early warning plane up along the threat axis, along with a few sections of F-14 and F/A-18 CAP.  On her catapults would be stationed another section at alert five.

At the first sign of trouble, the carrier launches the ready CAP and begins to cycle more off the cats as fast as they can move them up.  (That is really something to see too!) the fighters should begin to thin the bad guys out while they are still hundreds of miles out.  Then the AEGIS cruisers and destroyers begin taking the leakers, firing their long range STANDARD missiles, then finally the carrier's own self defense missile systems and her MK-15 CIWS guns.

By the way...any of the missile ships can and probably would tell their AEGIS computer system to designate the carrier as the one to protect at all costs...then put the weapons system into the full auto mode.  At that point, the men just sit back and watch the missiles fly.  Each escort can shoot at each incoming threat so that may mean lots of our missils going for each bad guy.  You do the numbers.

You are right about the Backfires.  Tu-22M Backfires can NOT fly at low altitude for very long, since they burn gas at a prodigious rate down low.  If they fly at their normal high altitude, then they are easy to see and easy to whack.  As far as I know, they also can not launch at low altitude either.  They old tactic during the cold war was for them to approach behind the Tu-95 Bears seeking the battle group with their snooping radars and electronic warfare gear...then sprint like hell to a suitable launch position, possibly flying through their own jamming Tu-16 Badgers.  They depended upon numbers...which is exactly why the Navy put the damn AEGIS system on all of its major combatants.  A successful attack like the one portrayed in the flic takes one hell of a lot of training and coordination and luck to carry off successfully.  The BS meter is one full blast here...

I read Clancy's book years ago...it was one of his best.  I thought at the time it ought to be a move.  Too bad they screwed it up with technical flaws and PC bullshit.

... That was a damned mediocre movie by any standards.

- Predicable
- Sorry Effects
- The "be nice to the Arabs shvt".

Morgan Freeman is a great actor thats about it