The biggest "LIES" the movies ever told me.

[kexodusc]

Great thread Worfster!!!

Pearl Harbor was pretty terrible. What a let down.
My only real beef with the movies is everything World War II related. I did my (first) Master's degree (not to sound like snob, because lord help me, I ain't smart) on the subject. Most historical evidence, and the generally accepted facts in the rest of the world, is that Hitler was on his way to losing before we got involved, we merely accelerated the process a bit. I was always taught in school that we were the deciding factor. I spent a summer in London, and most British people I met are very offended by claims that the good ol' USA won the war for the Allies. Can't say I blame them, really.
But, seriously, who isn't victim of a little self-glorification every now and then? Makes for good movies, as long as Ben Affleck isn't in them.

[mtrycraft]

Great thread Worfster!!!

Pearl Harbor was pretty terrible. What a let down.
My only real beef with the movies is everything World War II related. I did my (first) Master's degree (not to sound like snob, because lord help me, I ain't smart) on the subject. Most historical evidence, and the generally accepted facts in the rest of the world, is that Hitler was on his way to losing before we got involved, we merely accelerated the process a bit. I was always taught in school that we were the deciding factor. I spent a summer in London, and most British people I met are very offended by claims that the good ol' USA won the war for the Allies. Can't say I blame them, really.
But, seriously, who isn't victim of a little self-glorification every now and then? Makes for good movies, as long as Ben Affleck isn't in them.

I am no historian, far from it, but didn't we enter WWII after Dec 7 41? If I understand you, Germany was on its way out by then? Then why did it take so long to end it with an invasion in Normandy?

[skeptic]

kexodusc, I think your historical account and those of Europeans who say the same are dead wrong. Had the US not entered World War II, the Germans would have won in Europe. They occupied ALL of western and southern Europe from Iberia, through the Balkans, northern Africa, Eastern Europe, and Scandanavia except for Sweden which was neutral. Only the British Isles had held out by December 7, 1941 and then only barely and on American material being shipped to them. Even as late as the Battle of the Bulge, it was not clear that there would be an Allied victory. America was the main force on the western and southern front, and was the supplier of nearly one billion dollars of arms and other material to Stalin without which he would not have been able to fight nearly as effectively. America's entry into the war also took a lot of pressure off the eastern front where the Soviets were fighting. Without America's entry the Germans would have likely overrun them. BTW, that money sent to the USSR was never repaid. And who else was there to fight the Japanese? Did America win the war all by it self? NO. But it played THE major role, 22 million dead Russians notwithstanding. Would the Allies have won without American entry? It's highly doubtful. BTW, Montgommery was a highly overrated and mediocre general. (The French of course as an organized fighting force were useless and their armies collapsed in the blitzkreig very quickly. De Gaulle was a useless windbag. The resistance did contribute however.) As for the Soviets, they were led by the second most incompetent strategist in the entire war, Stalin. It was Stalin who left his country wide open to attack never believing his friend Adolf Hitler with whom he had a treaty would ever stab him in the back. He was lucky to have General Zukov or the Russians would have been defeated. Hitler was of course the absolute worst and the Germans would have done far better had he listened to his Generals who were professional soldiers.. Saddam Hussein made the same mistake in 1991.

[kexodusc]

Read up on the "Battle of Britain" in 1940, and its significance. Most historians consider this the beginning of the end, two years before the US mounted significant offence.
I'm not downplaying our role...just don't for one minute believe that Hitler hadn't spread himself too thin before we got involved.

On the other hand, we aren't given enough credit for our role in the Pacific.

[skeptic]

As I recall from about 10,000 programs about the Battle of Britain (more guys died in movies about World War II than died in the actual war itself) it seems to me that Hitler tried to break Britain by bombing it with V1 buzz bombs (early crude cruise missiles) and V2 rockets. These were crude terror weapons which could not be accurately targeted. They just blew up buildings at random. The British people showed their mettle by surviving this attack and demonstrating their will to fight on. What this has to do with the actual military progress of the war or how it could even conceivably be called a turning point is beyond me. Please explain what this had to do with Britain actually winning the military battles which eventually defeated Hitler. I'm sure you'd agree that Britain could not have pulled off the D-Day invasion without America. They hardly had much of an air force until America showed up. They were not only not winning the Battle of the Atlantic, but their lifeline was the shipping from America which kept them alive at all. Then how would they have defeated the Germans? We bailed them out just as we did in World War I and in the Cold War. At least they stood by us in Iraq. Well at least Tony Blair did. I don't think most of the rest of them were happy about it.

[kexodusc]

Those 10,000 programs are pretty vague recollections at best, then. Battle of Britain was Hitler's first defeat. It crippled his air force, and resulted in numerous counter-attacks on Germany from the U.K. It was hardly civilians surving bombs.
Granted, Britain probably wouldn't have won a full fledged invasion of Germany without the rest of the world's help, especially ours, but that comes down to the definition of victory then.

Skeptic, why are you so pissed off at France? Since our intelligence, military, and leaders have basically admitted incompetence and started the blame game with the whole Iraq thing, wouldn't that justify France sitting out? Seems to me if anything, we owe them an apology for not trusting their clearly superior intelligence and threat assessments.

[skeptic]

"Seems to me if anything, we owe them an apology for not trusting their clearly superior intelligence and threat assessments."

What the hell are you talking about kexodusc? Their intelligence believed the same thing ours did. They didn't want to go to war with Saddam Hussein because they were making a tens of billions off of the graft and illegal deals they were making around the UN trade restrictions. The bribes went all the way up to Chirac's inner circle of cronies. Furthermore, they will do anything to challenge the US because their inferior civilization has waned to the point of near insignificance. They still have dreams of the way it was a couple of hundred years ago. I lived in France. I know France. France is no friend of the United States.

As for Britain winning the war aginst Germany you must be joking? It took the American submarine fleet a couple of years after we entered in the Battle of the Atlantic to kill off enough U-boats just to keep the supply lines going. Montgommery was bailed out by American troops again and again and again. On his own he probably would have been killed or captured sooner or later. Even with the vast American Air Force combining with The RAF to pound Germany day and night, losses of aircraft were immense. Had the RAF had to go it alone against German air defences, they would have been completely anhillated. At one point, it got so bad that the life expectancy of an RAF pilot in active combat was 11 days. They were running out of pilots even faster than they were running out of planes. No they could not have defeated Hitler on the ground or in the air themselves in continental Europe and were it not for the American navy and merchant marine, the U boats would have strangled them. Without America's help they could not win and Germany could not lose.

[datarush]

Gladiator is a great movie to watch and has some interesting historical details. The premise is totally wrong, however, in that Commodus only lasted 8-9 months as emperor. He was around for 12 years before they got rid of him. It'd be like having Clinton around for another term! It's weird that for all the 7-800 years of Roman history they can't come up with another story. Gladiator is a rehash of the old Fall of the Roman Empire movie, which had its own set of inaccuracies.

[Crunchyriff]

Truly, if the USA hadn't entered WWII, the entire European continent would be eating sauerkraut, speaking German, and shouting "Zieg Hiel!" to this very day.

[Crunchyriff]

Personally, I think (just as Moore does) all politicians are scumbags that are only in it for the $. Moore's films have always been about the fact that people that run our country and our country's industry (oh, same thing, sorry) only care about the money, not about their constituents.

Don't kid yourself. Moore's a shill, and he's a bigger part of the problem than the politicians themselves. BTW, you don't think Moore is making movies just to make a buck? Moore is in fact a politician himself, he just hides behind the moniker "film maker".

The biggest joke about his new "documentary" movie is the uttter fabrications and severe twistings that he passes off as "facts"; and when recently confronted by a news agency about them, he said this: " yeah, I made most of that up. SO WHAT?"

What a gem.

As far as GW's alleged "freezing" for 7 minutes- I think he displayed proper composure in that setting. What on earth was dropping everything, running off and scaring a bunch of kids in the process going to accomplish? Both towers were already doomed.

The same people who complain about the alleged " GW freeezing at school" are the same ones who didn't have a problem with Clinton continuing his golf game when interrupted with serious news on the green; nor do they have a problem that Clinton lied his fanny off to save his bacon. At least the American Bar Association had enough courage and character to revoke his license to practice law.....

What I really wish is that all those leftist whackos (Streisand, Sheen, etc) that promised to leave the US if GW got elected, would have really meant what they said. We, as a nation, would be much better off without those of their ilk.

"now back to our regularly scheduled topic."