[Shadow-X-]

K, late post, I dunno if anyone has posted stuff on this movie. I saw this movie opening night, 2 weeks ago on a friday night. I must say, it was a really good movie. I don't know about other people, but I am a war buff, especially world war II. I admit, I don't know a whole lot about it despite history class (maybe because I took it in french), but it fulfils the war and action needs of some people. I can understand how a lot of people disliked it, the whole movie was all shooting, the plot was not the best, but pretty good nonetheless. Thumbs up from me. It goes on my list of "DVDs to get" once it comes out, along with Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan and others. It's not like Pear harbour *wretch*, I rented it from Blockbuster, and stopped watching it once the whole love theme came on.
This movie was so good, commandos, APCs, hummers, ahhhhhhhh! It just made me want to play Return to Castle Wolfenstein once I got home. AHHHHHH< such a good movie...
(what a useless post). Umm, so what were your thoughts on the movie? Good/Bad?

[maceface]

fantastic movie....deffinatly a "to buy" movie. I too am a war buff...or maybe its just a gun freak....yeah i think its the second one. Sure the plot wasnt the bst...cuz there wasnt one drop of bullshit through out the whole movie...thats all real...and it is sometimes hard to realize that those were real people going through that crap. but all in all a fantastic movie!

[Shadow-X-]

This is one of the very select few movies that almost bring a tear to my eyes, at the end atleast. The little outro, where it dedicated and recognised the men killed in the mission was it I think. Schindler's List is the ONLY movie that has made me shed a tear (I didn't say cry, I'm a tough guy......er..).
Did it make you want to join the army after watching it though? It did for me and my friends, but we all know we're too inept for that. Haha. Maybe later in life, if I can't get into university after a few times, i might resort to the army (goo canadian forces! haha)

[Awetopsy]

Black Hawk Down was an excellent film.. It wasnt going for plot or big names.. It was trying to tell what happened... they took a few artistic liberties in making it but all were quite understandable.

These kind of movies arent for entertainment (although there are some that do find them entertaining) they are for showing that War really does suck. If a person went to Black Hawk down expecting to be entertained I can see where they would be let down... it wasnt a love story, it wasnt a run and gun rambo movie... It was a film about survival and the real horrors of war.

For that I give it my oscar nomination.

When I got home from watching it, I phoned my Fiance and reminded her (and me) that I love her and dont ever wanna go into war.

[Lunatique]

Garghhhh! I don't get to see it. I don't know if I will. I might have to wait till it comes out on DVD and then go to Hong Kong to buy it.

I read the book last year though. I've been dying for this movie to come out, since the book was fucking intense. When I found out Ridley was doing it, I got up from my chair and danced.

Being an airsoft player, I MUST see this movie. BTW, any airsoft players here at sijun?

[xXxPZxXx]

haven't seen the movie but I have seen exactly the opposite reaction to it.

In my second hour journalism class I overheard kids talking about how the movie really made them want to join the military. How they thought it looked like fun, and how the guys were hero's for killing so many people and getting out with so few casualties.

I thought to myself that I really can't see a day where ANY movie or ANY circumstance would make me want to kill another human. In real life there had to be a lot of innocent civilian casualties? Were they portrayed in the movie? I guess that conversation kind of startled me and I never went to see it.

-PZ-

[Awetopsy]

the opening sequence has a bunch of civilians being gunned down while trying to grab for food...

There is alot of civilian casualty.. but the movie was about how that the entire City turned on the US military and so civilians became the enemy... It showed some very tragic points.

[maceface]

i have to say it is a powerful movie on so many levels...its a great anti-war movie...showing the reality better than any other movie i have seen including saving private ryan. it did start me tossing around the idea to join the military...but come on. you snap back to reality and realize that wouldnt help or solve much if anything. I like how they didnt focus on the characters too much...although well acted i dont think any will get an award for being best actor or supporting actor etc. That isnt what the movie is about. Its trying to tell a real story...and i did that very very realisticly!

[the_monkey]

sure, i understand that the movie was based around a real event, and i understand the point of the film was to show one day in these men's lives. but i wished they would have shown at least a little bit of compassion for the 1000 somolies that they killed that day. everytime a us soldier stubbed his toe they put it into slow-motion and had some dramatic theme playing in the background, while (sure, they wern't innocent) somolies were being mowed down like it was shooting practice.

sigh..i just wish there were more war movies like apocolypse now.

[egerie]

Only here in North America could we make a blockbuster movie out of a blunder......

[Lukiaz]

"I overheard kids talking about how the movie really made them want to join the military. How they thought it looked like fun, and how the guys were hero's for killing so many people and getting out with so few casualties".
Either these kids were attempting to be hard to one another, they actually haven't given it real thought(because anyone who feels they could keep 'cool' whilst in the midst of combat is either lying or retarded...and retards arn't aloud in war) or they're f'ing morons.

Why anyone would want to join the military baffles me.
Why humans feel the need to kill each other baffles me.

Maybe guns are cool. No wait.....there not.

My old man is a Vietnam vet, he's got some fucked up stories.
Anyone who thinks its remotely tough or cool to mame and slaughter fellow human beings and then promote these *manly* actions as heroic are fucking tossers.

Besides does anyone really think that their government/country gives two shits about them?.


Wars are money makers. Wars are scams. Call it conspiracy paranoia, I call it knowing the underlying reality of wars unlike the vast majority who lap up the info provided by media whores. Those who sit in ignorance happy to ride the wave of candy coated crap they get fed instead of digging beneath the easily moved surface to find the readily accessible truth.
What you see and read is selected and edited so much so that you see jack all and end up believing a false war. Our entire knowledge base of each war is provided by way of media. When you get fed shit you end up believing and rooting for a flase cause.
Don't lap it up like little lambs and be fooled into thinking its all about being righteous and fighting for a the cause like some sort of noble paladin.
Your a number in war and that guy you shot is probably a fucking cool dude who would've been your mate in another place and time.
Just THINK is all I'm asking.
Though they say ignorance is bliss..

Sorry for the tone. Touchy subject

SHALOM

EDIT - Oh and sorry for the possibly largest off subject tangent ever.
Cheers

[ January 30, 2002: Message edited by: Lukiaz ]

[christian cox]

Yeah, I saw the film for my birthday last friday. I thought it was a very good film, and really intense. Some of the scenes were just shocking. I dunno about most people, but this does not make me want to join the military. Especially with how bad Washington screwed up with the entire mission (which they probably shouldn't have even been there in the first place, but that's debatable).. but I enjoyed the film.

Now I just need to see The Royal Tenebaums and The Man Who Wasn't There.

[[Shizo]]

I agree with egeria and Lukiaz

and that's it :9

i poo on you

[ January 31, 2002: Message edited by: [Shizo] ]

[OpenCL]

i agree, this was a really groovy movie. Not much of a plot, but who cares when you have blood and gore. Entertaining, even my gf liked it.

[Queezy]

Saying that D-Day was not about heroism is a little short-sighted. Heroism can happen in any situation.

Though I still like SPR way more, BHD is one hell of a movie. I kind of liked how they treated the enemies as faceless, oncoming figures. That's what a gun fight really is like.

Shizo: What the hell are you talking about? Africa? You do know that SPR had no intention of displaying the Desert Campaign? Right?

[ January 31, 2002: Message edited by: Queezy ]

[Tinypansie]

I read an article review of black hawk down that i found interesting. In the movie i get the feeling that we're supposed to feel sorry for these guys, and be rooting for them, not the somalies. Yes i've heard all that hulabaloo about how the somalies aren't supposed to be evil, just the enemy. Whether intentional or not (forgive my spelling) i think audiences felt sorry for the americans more then the somalies.

Anyway the man who wrote the article brought up an intersting question. Imagine if a bunch of soliders from a far more powerful nation halfway across the world landed in your city and just started grabbing people and shooting anyone who resisted. Now they weren't doing that in the movie, they where after specific targets and only fighting back if attacked first. But do you think the somalies knew that? To them it probably did just look like a bunch of guys grabbing people and killing others. If you saw people from some far off nation taking some of your friends, or family, or peers away, wouldn't you try to stop them? I thought that was intersting.

And on another note. I guess they got a copy of black hawk down in Somalia (and only payed 10 cents to see it. Screw that 7.50 crap that they charge here) and i guess many of them loved the movie. Some sayed it portrayed them as brave warriors and such and such. But on the other hand many american-somalians have boycotted the movie because they beleive it to be racist.

I can honestly say black hawk down was the first movie where i felt a little unsafe in a theater (the scene where the somali mob hoisted the body of the two snipers up after beating them to death). My mom and I where the only two black people there, and while working at the theater i did have people give me dirty looks after coming out of it. And some scenes did bring back hurtful memories of old movies where blacks were seen as nothing more then animals who could talk.

But thats only if you look at it from a racial standpoint. Thankfully i don't. And i liked the movie. It had alot to say and was a touchy subject. It may not have been perfect, but i credit Ridley Scott for at least attempting it. Now only of Jerry Bruckheimer <sp> would keep stay out of it, it would have probably been better.

*EDIT* Oh and maybe i just read wrong but it seems like alot of people think this event took place during WWII. Please don't tell me some of you don't know your history that well.


*EDIT EDIT* If there was one scene in the movie that really made me feel sorry for the americans, it was at the end. After all that they had been through...they still had to run to safety. That shot of the APC's pulling away out of view just as the Rangers enter the view almost made me cry. Thats always a soft spot for me when people get left behind. I cried for the first time watching a movie when Elias got left behind in "Platoon". Plus i think that scene was one of a very small number where you see american soliders running for their lives. I'm glad they showed that. It kind of says even our best soliders aren't unbeatable. Even our best soilders can be afraid.

[ February 02, 2002: Message edited by: Tinypansie ]

[CleMinski]

How could it be racist? There was at least one african american soldier (can't remember if he was delta or rangers) and it wasn't like they portrayed him as any less than the white soldiers. How can a movie be racist if it follows history (as in, it took place in Africa for God's sake, what, do they want them to rewrite the script so it takes place in Europe, just because at least then it'd be whites against whites? It was based on a true event, do they want the screenwriter to rewrite history so it doesn't offend people?

Sorry if this posts seems racist. I'm far from it. I hate it when other white people judge people just on their color (now if a person proves to be a dumbass, and happens to be of another color, then that's a little different). But I also hate it when people like you're talking about do something stupid like thinking a story based on when in real life African natives attacked American soldiers (like you said, they couldn't of really known what we were doing there, that we were trying to help get food to them) is racist. It's just so retarded to think that the movie was portraying the Somali natives as enemies because they were black instead of the real reason: they were the enemies because they shot at americans.

I'm done rambling, I just had to vent myself to someone else besides my best friend.

[Tinypansie]

CleMenski you misunderstood me. Don't worry i think it was my fault. I didnt mean to say that i personally thought the movie was racist. I said i can understand why some people felt that it was.
I agree with you though. Its not the movies thought that the event took place in Somali, which just happens the be filled with black people. And it wasn't the movies fault that that the rangers just happen to be made up of mostly white guys. Thats all fact.
But alot of people dont know that (of course they could just look it up) and so might not see it as fact.
While i was talking to a co-worker about it, he pretty much said it was racist because he always has to see black people as being primal or evil or stupid or something, and got off into the whole rant about how the man is keeping him down. And i understand what he's saying. I dont agree with it, but i can understand it.
But the way i see it, before somebody starts judging something, they should at least attempt to find out if their judgement is valid

[kantide]

Let's not forget that this is a Hollywood movie we're talking about, not a documentary. Just because they had one black person on their team doesn't mean they weren't racist.

[maceface]

tinypansie lets not forget that somalia was allready screwe to hell with theior civil war...if there was one going on here i would encourage other countries to put an end to the pointless war. thats all we were trying to do. im not defending the US's position in sticking our nose in everyones business...but i think we say what was going on over there and said "enough of this". eh just my current thoughts and viewpoints

[jome]

Yesterday I saw Jerry Bruckheimer, the producer, and director Ridley Scott trying to defend the film in a conversation with a Dutch journalist.
Critics in Europe say the film is a recruitment tool, reflecting the American's view on foreign policy. A view without much room for interpretation, or so they say.
Questions were being asked about the ties with the Pentagon. They delivered the Black Hawk and Little Bird helicopters, including 135 crew. The journalist thought that would incite at least a form of self-censorship.
Other relevant questions were: why the film didn't try to offer an explanation for some deluded people hating Americans, and why the film didn't sketch the political situation you ought to know when watching the product.
Jerry Bruckheimer: "Hey, this is showbizz."
Ridley Scott: "I don't see the Netherlands doing this."
No real answers, honestly.
And a Somali warlord is considering sueing the makers, because he was being portrayed as a bloodthirsty caricature, after seeing a pirated copy of the movie.
Except for that final anecdote, I think the questions asked are well-founded, and food for thought. It's entertainment, you say? It's war, I say. The oldest trick in the book, and we still don't want to know how it works.

[Tinypansie]

maceface i see what your saying but i cant agree. if that was the case why did we let the massacres in rowanda occur without lifting a finger. Not to mention the low support for our troops in bosnia. Im not saying that they're werent willing to help people. But i doubt that was why they were there.
And from what i've heard, Ridley Scott chose not to give much backgroun because he wanted to keep the movie very tight and very specific, dealing with the US solider's experiences. I guess it was a good idea, but from what people have been saying, it may not have been a bad idea to give a little more history

[Jucas]

Well... I didn't like it. Maybe I am the only one?

SO on that note; in my opinion BHD was NOT well done. Not just for one or to reasons, but for many that I will try and explain here.

BHD is an action movie, that’s it. It isn’t a bad action, not by any means, but Ridley Scott should not have tried to tackle an event in history that is horrific as this one. It is not hard to make a gruesome action movie based on war. But for a movie to glorify something so hideous as this incident is, disgusting, and is a disgrace to the book and the men it's about. I understand of course the appeal of the eye-candy violence. But it is unforgivable that character development has taken the backseat to action.

The real story, the story about why we were there gets 3 minutes (give or take) at the beginning of the movie. The exclusion of any Somali perspectives that were sprinkled throughout the book is simply inexcusable. Just a little of that building block of the narrative could have really helped people understand the other sides of that conflict as something other than cannon fodder.

I'm talking about the firsthand accounts of those who lost their families and friends in the battle as well as those who were actively attacking the US convoy. Have all these voices been trashed? BHD does deserve some credit; it does touch on some situations here and there, such as when the Somali Boy shoots his “father”. I felt more emotion in that small bit, than I did for any of the nameless American Soldiers.

Saving Private Ryan. The beginning seen, Omaha, was much, much, much better done action than anything in BHD. It was gripping and the directing was absolutely top notch. There was a clear focus, even within all of the madness (something Spielberg is a master at); the scenes were put in there for a reason. But not only did it master the action, but also Spielberg presented a story with pictures (which is the true test of a directors skill). He didn't try to cover up the emotion with action and lots of explosions.

BHD is just like every other Scott movie. His early films may have shown a certain promise, but he has confused himself. He has clearly sold out to the American box office judging by his thin, poorly characterized dreadfully simplistic Gladiator and his ‘one sided half-assed story telling.’

If you are interested, check out;

"All Quiet On the Western Front,"
"Grand Illusion,"
"Paths of Glory,"
The original 1979 version of "Apocalypse Now"
"The Thin Red Line"
Or even “Zulu”

To see what I'm talking about.

The Rangers and Deltas in Somalia did this country proud, and Mark Bowden's book and coverage were/is brilliant. But the movie… the movie spot-on details and technical razzle-dazzle never made me question, examine, or feel anything.

And there's way too much music! Spielberg was smart enough to leave out of the battle scenes in "Saving Private Ryan."

[SWANY]

Well I cant really comment on this movie, but I know that the main actor is an Australian, and if you guys liked the acting of Auzzie Eric Banner, then I recomend you guys to get the movie Chopper, about an auzzie convicted killer, its pretty full on, but It's damn good.

Hey Awetopsy, I spent jan to april at Big White last year, do you go there? and whats the deal with that mythical sea monster thingy in lake okanagon (is that spelt right?)

[Freddio]

go Eric!! heh

[ February 08, 2002: Message edited by: Freddio ]

[maceface]

i guess what this movie boils down too is an american viewpoint of what happened over there. sure there were screw ups during the OP....but since its an american film....we still have to glorify it. And the fact that its bruckenhimer (or whatever his name is) that doesnt help....it would have been better as a no name director or mark bowden (the author) doing the movie.

war isnt pretty and that movie portayed war very well...

[Dr. Bang]

i saw the movie, i felt aleep. The battle scenes were crappy as hell. I'm not expecting it to be ultra realistic but most of them just doesnt make sense.

Scene#243: 3 Somalian on roof pour down bullets on 10 helpless american soldier. None of them died.

Scene#543: American uses Aimbot! Not fair at all to those Somalian.

[Dr. Bang]

"it does touch on some situations here and there, such as when the Somali Boy shoots his �father�. I felt more emotion in that small bit, than I did for any of the nameless American Soldiers. "

Glad i'm not the only one then, that scene is the most powerful one in the movie. And, isnt this wrong?:

[Strawberrysauce]

i liked it, IMO it was visually stunning, it was an exercise in brilliant and imaginative cinematography, which gave it a great sense of ultra-realism with regard to the combat. After the first 15 minutes i sat in my seat trying to take in the rushed back-story as well as the little character development which was offered, but as the mission began i found myself not giving a shit about the story as sad as that my seem. A smile practically formed on my face on the lead up to the fist helicopter coming down, it was just too perfect (visually). This smile turned to a wince, groan, eek, etc as the action went on...

...but the story (even if true) was a bit shit, but my liking of the film was based on a visual sense, i tend to enjoy film's that are visually and technically stunning, even if the story/event is not...

...after thinking about it though, Scott's treatment of the film is based around the action which is kinda sad considering we are dealing with the loss of real lives. greater justice and respect could have been shown in bringing the event to the big screen.


ach well.

ps. anybody see the trailer to arnie's latest, looks like fun!

[Freddio]

This Friday i'm Seeing a special advance screening of the movie at fox Studios and then there is a question session with Ridely Scott afterwards, should be good