Frownland

Saving Private Ryan took something as exciting as war and made it into a boring and pointless film.

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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

Machine

Yeah agreed

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boost my ego

listen to me stroke my delay pedal

ever wanted to hear death grips songs... but they're acoustic? me neither.

The Batlord

If you can get through the scene in the church, it's all good. That's the only part that ever felt like you had to "get through".

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Urban Hat€monger ?

But then it also made it into an awesome TV series called Band Of Brothers.

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DeadChannel

Agree, I can name dozens of war movies that I liked better, but saving private ryan gets all the credit.

James

I'm not sure I like the idea of framing war as 'exciting'. The best war films are the ones that display just how futile and cruel the whole concept is. As for Saving Private Ryan, it doesn't have much to say, but that opening scene is beautifully shot. One of Spielberg's nicest sequences in his whole filmography.

The Batlord

Agreed. As much as I like most of the rest of the movie, it's just not on the same level as the first ten minutes. And while it might be sketchy to find a war film "exciting", it's just human nature. We, or at least men, are hard-wired to want to be warriors, so whether people want to admit it or not, war movies are as much about vicarious glory-seeking as they are about making actual statements about war. I mean it's not really that universal an experience for most people these days, and yet war movies are still very popular. Just like Call of Duty is the biggest franchise in gaming right now.

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James

Are they that popular? How often do war movies get released? Other than the work of Kathryn Bigelow and that Fury film that just came out, I struggle to think of many recent war films.

The Batlord

Just looking at IMBD there were apparently a lot in 2013. How many of them were big name I don't know though.


IMDb: Most Popular War Feature Films Released In 2013

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James

Other than the top one, Zero Dark Thirty, and some of the more obscure ones, hardly any of them are chest pounding action based accounts of war. The Book Thief and The Railway Man are slow and sad, The Wind Rises is Studio Ghibli. I just don't think there's much of a market for that type of film any more. Previous wars have ran dry and the ones we're involved in these days are too technology based to provide great story opportunities. How can you make a good film about drone strikes?