User Panel
Posted: 1/9/2002 11:49:11 AM EDT
What is your opinion of this movie? I understood what it was trying to say (sort of)with its "dream type" sequences etc... but I really thought it sucked and I doubt that veterans of Guadalcanal could relate to alot of the points it was trying to make (although they could relate to some of the scenes). Anyway, my friend thinks it was great, and I think it sucked.
|
|
I thought it was an awesome movie. I think the reason many people don't like it is that they come in with the wrong expectations. I think the movie suffered from being released around the same time as Saving Private Ryan and both of them being billed as WWII stories. Saving Private Ryan is a WWII story, and Thin Red Line is a movie about the psychology/ethics/meaning/personality of war. Thin Red Line is not really a story and if you try to view it as one, you will end up frustrated and disappointed. It is a powerful presentation of what war is like--an experience, not a story.
|
|
Dude I'm a big WWII movie fan, so I was pretty pumped when this movie came out. Needless to say this movie was the biggest POS movie I've seen in a long time. The battle sequences were pretty cool but there weren't enough of them. To much Goddamned flashing back to crap no one cared about. Movie opens up and there is no damn shooting for like a half an hour, and thats what I go to see WAR movies for. Private Ryan and Band of Brothers was so bitchin' I about shit myself.
THUMBS DOWN ON A THIN RED LINE! ROCK ON! [50] |
|
I did not really care for the movie, but I understood it as asking a question: "Can one single man (soldier) make a difference in war?" The answer was "yes". Both for good and for bad.
|
|
One of the best ever...
I didn't see it for over a year based on the negative comments I heard from people on boards like this. I then saw a clip on TV which encouraged me to try it out. I bought the thing for $5 on VHS. I was spellbound! I believe it to be better than Saving Private Ryan, for the reasons mentioned in a post above. It's a great movie with excellent cinematography (sp). Saving PR seems to be a filmed re-enactment, which is good in it's own right, but is weak as a movie. Saving PR seems to be made for the art-o-phobe. I agree that Band of Brother was EXTREMELY GOOD! |
|
I recommend the viewer be under the influence of hullucinogens while viewing.
|
|
I am not a war vet, but I cannot imagine that many, if any, soldiers are thinking some of the things portrayed in the movie. Especially the timing of the thoughts. That is my main problem with it.
|
|
Quoted: What is your opinion of this movie? Anyway, my friend thinks it was great, and I think it sucked. View Quote I agree with you and think your friend somehow got garandman's advice and "dropped" some acid![:)] |
|
Some of that was symbolism. Something that SPR didn't have...
|
|
The way I've described the movie to my friends is, take the battle scenes from "Saving Private Ryan" improve them and then stick them in a long boring French art flick. The movie is OK if you fast forward from battle scene to battle scene.
Larry |
|
Quoted: The way I've described the movie to my friends is, take the battle scenes from "Saving Private Ryan" improve them and then stick them in a long boring French art flick. The movie is OK if you fast forward from battle scene to battle scene. Larry View Quote Kinda like a good PORNO eh? |
|
Quoted: I am not a war vet, but I cannot imagine that many, if any, soldiers are thinking some of the things portrayed in the movie. Especially the timing of the thoughts. That is my main problem with it. View Quote I agree with you that the soldiers wouldn't be thinking a lot of the stuff portrayed in the movie. This is movie about philosophy, not a movie about action or a story. You don't get to know the characters. The soldiers philosophize. All sorts of weird stuff goes on. Unless you're pissed off about not getting the nice John Wayne war story you expected, this movie should impact you deeply. Now some people don't like to think deeply or examine their emotions, and this movie isn't for them. |
|
The Thin Red Line is originally a British thing. I don't remember the history of it but I think it took place during the Napoleonic wars. Kenneth Alford wrote a great March with the same title. And no, I won't be seeing it. Private Ryan and Band of Brothers yes, but this one no. John
|
|
Quoted: The way I've described the movie to my friends is, take the battle scenes from "Saving Private Ryan" improve them and then stick them in a long boring French art flick. The movie is OK if you fast forward from battle scene to battle scene. Larry View Quote I sense a theme. Those who came to the movie for the battle scenes or a history of the battle of Guadalcanal left disappointed. If you haven't seen this movie yet, my advice to you is not to expect a movie like Saving Private Ryan (lots of cool battle scenes) or a historical movie. The Thin Red Line has cool battle scenes and a historical basis, but if you try to view it or judge on that basis, you will miss the real point of the movie, which is in all the disturbing hard-to-follow crap that everyone here is griping about. |
|
Quoted: Quoted: I am not a war vet, but I cannot imagine that many, if any, soldiers are thinking some of the things portrayed in the movie. Especially the timing of the thoughts. That is my main problem with it. View Quote I agree with you that the soldiers wouldn't be thinking a lot of the stuff portrayed in the movie. This is movie about philosophy, not a movie about action or a story. You don't get to know the characters. The soldiers philosophize. All sorts of weird stuff goes on. Unless you're pissed off about not getting the nice John Wayne war story you expected, this movie should impact you deeply. Now some people don't like to think deeply or examine their emotions, and this movie isn't for them. View Quote And some people think to deeply, dude maybe they shouldn't have billed it as a war movie then. Maybe they should have billed it as a boring ass feeling movie with a few gun fights. The sences they showed in the trailors were all fight scenes making people think it was this bigass war movie, IT BLEW! |
|
I agree with you that the soldiers wouldn't be thinking a lot of the stuff portrayed in the movie. This is movie about philosophy, not a movie about action or a story. You don't get to know the characters. The soldiers philosophize. All sorts of weird stuff goes on. Unless you're pissed off about not getting the nice John Wayne war story you expected, this movie should impact you deeply. Now some people don't like to think deeply or examine their emotions, and this movie isn't for them. View Quote I like thinking deeply, but why wrap deep thoughts and philosophy into soldiers on Guadalcanal that probably wouldn't be thinking those thoughts? There is a difference between intellectualism and pseudo-intellectualism |
|
READ THE BOOK!!
The book was very good with many more battle scenes dscribed than that of the movie. The book describes things soo well that you can almost taste the foul air of the transport ship as the troops await their landing crafts, or really visualize the two homos getting it on in their little pup tent, and feeling the imense tension of an impending ambush while on patrol. The book also contains some very interesting aspects on combat fatigue and "aquiring" additional weapons like the much prized thompson smg. The movie is only about 1/3 of the book. I liked the book so much that I kept it and have loaned it to friends interested in a good war novel. By the way my other favorite is the "Cruel Sea" about WW2 convoy action. Karl |
|
Quoted: And some people think to deeply, dude maybe they shouldn't have billed it as a war movie then. Maybe they should have billed it as a boring ass feeling movie with a few gun fights. The sences they showed in the trailors were all fight scenes making people think it was this bigass war movie, IT BLEW! View Quote Like I said earlier, I think it was unfortunate how the movie was billed, too. But that doesn't negate it being a great movie. Nonetheless, it was a war movie. It was about why we fight. As for feeling movies being boring, I don't happen to find the emotion of "I'm going to freaking die" to be a boring emotion, but maybe that's just me. The emotions of war are not boring. Thinking about why we fight wars and what that does to people isn't boring either. It's just not the same thing as your typical action movie. IMHO, it's a lot better. I like movies that change my perspective about something and make me think, movies that not only entertain me but also affect me. |
|
I read a review of it once.
They said it was a great art film with the best film ever taken of the native grasses in the area....while in the same moment reminding you just how many grasses there are, with monotonous footage. |
|
Battle scenes surprisingly good. Rest of the movie surprisingly bad.
Battle scenes comprised 25% of the movie. You do the math. |
|
The battle scenes were good as has been stated, just the rest of the movie was...........UTTER BULLSHIT.
|
|
Quoted: The Thin Red Line is originally a British thing. I don't remember the history of it but I think it took place during the Napoleonic wars. View Quote No, it wasn't a Brit thing. [i]Thin Red Line[/i] is James Jones' continuation of an earlier work of his,[i]From Here To Eternity[/i]. The characters are the same but he changed their names. |
|
Quoted: I agree with you that the soldiers wouldn't be thinking a lot of the stuff portrayed in the movie. This is movie about philosophy, not a movie about action or a story. You don't get to know the characters. The soldiers philosophize. All sorts of weird stuff goes on. Unless you're pissed off about not getting the nice John Wayne war story you expected, this movie should impact you deeply. Now some people don't like to think deeply or examine their emotions, and this movie isn't for them. View Quote Give that man a Cigar! Do you look at a Michelangelo painting and say, "that's beautiful", or do you say "man what a loser that guy was spending all that time on a picture"? |
|
Quoted: I thought it was an awesome movie. I think the reason many people don't like it is that they come in with the wrong expectations. I think the movie suffered from being released around the same time as Saving Private Ryan and both of them being billed as WWII stories. Saving Private Ryan is a WWII story, and Thin Red Line is a movie about the psychology/ethics/meaning/personality of war. Thin Red Line is not really a story and if you try to view it as one, you will end up frustrated and disappointed. It is a powerful presentation of what war is like--an experience, not a story. View Quote exactly. trying to explain that to someone who was looking for "sands of iwo jima" is a waste of breath. i loved "thin red line" for what it was: an experience. the more one learns about art, the more one desires only the challenging. imho. |
|
Oh Jesus Christ! If you are the type of person that likes to be bored to DEATH watch this movie. It drags on for like three hours, in these dumbass flashback scenes that bore the absolute piss out of you. If you want a movie that deals with the reality of war and is also a good action movie than Platoon is great, but if you want to take a shit and wipe your ass A Thin Red Line is the movie for you.
SUX ASS! |
|
Sucked. Read history on Guadacanal.
Guadacanal was a filthy blown up dirty muddy hole. No beautiful beaches and flowing grasses. It was a hard fought filthy battle. Just my .02 cents. I won't even watch the reruns on cable of the POS. |
|
Thin Red Line kicked ass. MUCH better than Saving Private Ryan. The battle scenes in SPR were excellent, but most of the film had way to many cliches from the older WWII movies. It was like they took the cliches from every WWII movie ever and just repackaged it. If it wasn't for the excellence of the invasion & other battle scenes, SPR would have sucked.
|
|
Dude if you want I can take a shit in a bag and sell it to you for the price of a movie ticket. You would get a better value with the turd!
|
|
Quoted: One of the best ever... It's a great movie with excellent cinematography (sp). Saving PR seems to be a filmed re-enactment, which is good in it's own right, but is weak as a movie. Saving PR seems to be made for the art-o-phobe. View Quote Yeah, I think the same way. TRL was a very beautiful movie, really sort of like film poetry. It's more of an art movie than a war movie, which has resulted in a lot of annoyed guys who were hoping for a blood n' guts movie. Nothing wrong with a good war movie though! TRL was kind of a mess with the pacing. Casting Travolta as the general was a big mistake, I think. Veterans said that Nick Nolte's colonel would not behave like he did, but hey; it's in the book and that's the character. But the movie is just beautifully shot. It's worth seeing just for that. |
|
It's the price we pay to get our womenfolk to attend a "war" movie with us.
|
|
It was in my opinion an attempt to put Apocalypse Now-Platoon-All Quiet on the Western
Front and other philosophic war movies in an island setting and allow ilk like Travolta and Harrelson to portray characters that they could never begin to relate to in real life. In other words......IT SUCKED!!! |
|
"If I go first I'll wait for you there,on
the other side of the dark waters..." |
|
I am one of those artfags that loved the movie. As has been mentioned, the cinematography was absolutely beautiful. As odd as this sounds, it was the most beautiful war flick I have ever seen. It was also one of the saddest movies I have ever seen. The one scene that still sticks in my mind, is where the guy gets the dear john letter. Talk about a suckerpunch.
I liked the pacing of the movie, and thought it served the point the director was trying to make. Then again, I like slow movies, it lets me relax and unwind. The Man Who Wasn't There is another great slow paced movie that totally rock my world. |
|
TRL is a good MOVIE. Had it been released when people still had attention spans, the reactions would be much different. I doubt that if Patton were released today, GenX would give that a second look. I will admit that the first time I saw it, I was on a Saving Private Ryan high, and did not like it at all. Then I rented it one evening and watched the movie, instead of watching my hopes for it being "Saving Private Ryan 2" die. It definitely went into to much detail on that guy and his wife. But I enjoyed the "thoughts" of the characters ie. "I just killed a man". And as a Sound lover, this movie is TOPS on the battle sequences. I also enjoyed the leadership clash between Starros and the Nick Nolte's Col. Character.
|
|
TRL bored me up I fall asleep.
Like "The Last Bridge" and for opposite reasons. TRL is intellectual with the will to to show how much intellectuals worked to do it and how deep those intellectuals were. I am a minimalist, and I'd rather to "read" suggestion or symbols that are put in the background of the action. There are reportage of actions during WWI, WWII or Vietnam War made by historians that are full of symbols without being so "high". It's life itself that if symbolic if someone is enough honest and mind-open to see it. I found SPR much better movie than TRL. There was action, there was history (read "The Longest Day" by Cornelius Ryan, especially the the paragraphs and chapters about Omaha Beach) and moment of insight. My opinion... |
|
Look, I like arty crap.
But that movie plain, sucked. Filled with new-age, homoerotic tripe. The quiet, yet oddly beautiful, weird-guy is secretly... Uber-Warrior/Christ. [i]Please.[/i] Those dream sequences were UNBEARABLE. Typical Hollywood bullshit: A twerp of a director trying to put forth the idea that skinny, poetic little weirdos, though picked on in High School, are the REAL stoic, warrior-heros, when push comes to shove. Horseshit. Fact is, however, timidity is timidity. I don't mind a little historical revisionism, in movies, now and then, BUT don't try feed me this crap. |
|
Unfortunately, The Thin Red Line turned into nothing more than a star vehicle for all those has-been actors who couldn't get a role in Saving Private Ryan. When Hollywood jumps to fill (mis-fill) roles so quickly with well-known and proven hacks, the movie has no alternative but to sink into the self-serving paratde of stars.
|
|
I read a book by Jones, that included a lot of WWII art, prior to seeing the Thin Red Line. While it was an ok movie, I just don't see his attitude about the war (as portrayed in the movie and book) reflected in the attitudes of all of the WWII veterans I have known. It's almost as if he had the pessimistic attitude of the stereotyped Vietnam vet-25 years too early. His views on the war seemed out of place to me.
|
|
Quoted: Dude if you want I can take a shit in a bag and sell it to you for the price of a movie ticket. You would get a better value with the turd! View Quote |
|
Good to hear from you Poodle....
Keep in mind that TRL isn't attempting to be a history of or about WWII. It is simply set in WWII. The same cast of characters and attitudes can be transplanted to nearly every war. I believe that to be part of the intended impact... I also like the movie "Breaker Morant", which is set in the Boer War, and has a similar artistic intent. But, if you thought TRL was boring, DO NOT SEE "Breaker Morant". |
|
The Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders (Princess Louise's)
The Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders were formed by union in 1881 of the 91st (princess Louise's) Argyllshire Highlanders and the 93rd Sutherland Highlanders. the Regiment has many battle honours and performed great feats of arms but perhaps their most famous battle honour is Balaclave. Here about 500 Highlanders of the 93d stood firm and hurled back nine charging Russian cavalry squadrons. The "Thin Red Line" on that cannon and bullet-swept hill in the Crimea on the 25th October, 1854, vies with the great battles of Greek and Roman mythology. That would make it the Crimean war. Lisen to Alford's march, it is a good one. John |
|
WHAT THE FUCK IS THE MATTER WITH SOME OF YOU PEOPLE, THIS MOVIE WASN'T WORTH THE FILM IT WAS PRINTED ON. THIS MOVIE SUCKED MORE DICK THAN MONICA. I WOULDN"T WIPE THE ASS OF MY WORST ENEMY WITH THIS MOVIE. THEY SHOULD HAVE CALLED IT "THE THIN RED PEICE OF SHIT THAT NO ONE WOULD PAY A FUCKING PESO TO WATCH BECAUSE IT SUCKED SO MUCH ASS THAT I ALMOST DID NOT FALL ASLEEP AND CAN NEVER REGAIN THE PRECIOUS THREE HOURS OF MY LIFE I WASTED WATCHING THIS FILM, LINE" I COULD HAVE BEEN TAKING A SHIT OR JERKING OFF OR SOMETHING MORE PRODUCTIVE, BUT THOSE THREE HOURS ARE GONE NEVER TO RETURN. DAMN YOU YOU SORRY ASS DIRECTOR OF "A THIN RED LINE."
|
|
It looks like about a third of us think the movie was great, and about two thirds think it sucked. Not too many in between.
Good movie: BostonTeaParty DriftPunch pbrstreetgang LongIslandShooter raven jason_h MrGlory Okay movie: Poodleshooter Bad movie: ar15bubba 7_62Gunner KBaker EdAvilaSr JBear LarryinCA RikWriter Wobblin-Goblin Tuukka Coz_45-age-caliber CPL_Punishment ursus PaoloAR15 Major-Murphy SJSAMPLE |
|
Quoted: It looks like about a third of us think the movie was great, and about two thirds think it sucked. Not too many in between. Good movie: BostonTeaParty DriftPunch pbrstreetgang LongIslandShooter raven jason_h MrGlory Okay movie: Poodleshooter Bad movie: ar15bubba 7_62Gunner KBaker EdAvilaSr JBear LarryinCA RikWriter Wobblin-Goblin Tuukka Coz_45-age-caliber CPL_Punishment ursus PaoloAR15 Major-Murphy SJSAMPLE View Quote I think this list accuratly dipicts the overall veiw of the movie going public, thats why it bombed in the theaters. |
|
Sign up for the ARFCOM weekly newsletter and be entered to win a free ARFCOM membership. One new winner* is announced every week!
You will receive an email every Friday morning featuring the latest chatter from the hottest topics, breaking news surrounding legislation, as well as exclusive deals only available to ARFCOM email subscribers.
AR15.COM is the world's largest firearm community and is a gathering place for firearm enthusiasts of all types.
From hunters and military members, to competition shooters and general firearm enthusiasts, we welcome anyone who values and respects the way of the firearm.
Subscribe to our monthly Newsletter to receive firearm news, product discounts from your favorite Industry Partners, and more.
Copyright © 1996-2024 AR15.COM LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Any use of this content without express written consent is prohibited.
AR15.Com reserves the right to overwrite or replace any affiliate, commercial, or monetizable links, posted by users, with our own.