3-Disc Black Hawk Down R4 just announced...when is R1 due? (1 Viewer)

[Mark H]

Specs can be found here

http://www.dvddebate.com/r4news.php#...wn - 3 Disk CE

Any ideas when the R1 version will be announced?

 

[Jeff Kleist]

No, but it's coming in or around June

 

[John Simon]

Wow. I don't know what else to say. I mean, I knew there was an SE coming, but I had no idea it would be this packed. Looks to me like it has a good shot of being in the running for DVD Of The Year.

 

[Joshua_Y]

Whoa! Cant wait!

 

[Kyle McKnight]

Disc three certainly has my attention.

 

[RobertW]

excellent. i never saw this in theaters simply because of the "bruckheimer big-action, stupid plot" reputation, but caught it on cable recently and was just enthralled. watched it about six times in a week, bought the book, everything.

i did see the history channel thing a while ago, and have been waiting to catch a repeat of it again, now that i know more about the entire action. and while after reading the book i was bothered by some of the changes they made in characters and action for the movie, it didn't detract from the movie experience at all. i just felt they could have been more faithful to the actual events and still made a terrific movie.

like why make eversman the central character? he was not present for most of the battle, but they could have used the name of another character who was, and acheived the same results. similarly, they took a lot of men who were from different groups, and stuck them all in eversman's unit, guys whose original group's actions were shown in the film.

 

[Matt Stone]

Yes! It's got the History Channel special.

Please announce it for R1 already!

 

[Alex Spindler]

I had seen it in the theater and enjoyed it a great deal. But, like you, it was only on later viewings on cable that I really came to appreciate how good it really was.

Not having read the book or much source material outside of the movie, I would have to guess that they chose Eversman because he was a good sounding board for a lot of the themes in the movie. As a person newly given a command decision, they could have those great discussions with Eric Bana's character about how to lead them in battle and how his casualties were affecting him. And consolidating characters into one unit probably helped us to identify and follow them. In a sense, I guess it would allow them to include all of the color from the book without introducing all of the individual teams present.

It is interesting that you mention that he wasn't in most of the battle. What was his role in the real life battle(in summary)?

 

[JeremySt]

No mention of DTS. I wonder why this didnt get Superbit treatment the first go around.

 

[RobertW]

eversman was the leader of chalk four, but by the time the delta guys first rounded up their prisoners, they were under so much fire that they weren't going to be able to get to the crash site by foot as ordered,, so they were picked up by the vehicle convoy, which was supposed to drive over, rescue the copter crew, and get out, but got turned around, misdirected, and so shot up they had to forget that plan and just get out. and "hoot" never went back on the first group of three humvees that took blackburn out, but was with the delta group the whole time, eventually setting up the perimeter around the first copter crash site.

interestingly, the reason the film gave for chalk four to head to the copter crash was that they were closest, when in fact, they were one of the farthest groups from the crash site.

i agree that they put those guys into eversman's chalk four unit to group them all together so you could recognize them and follow. but they also followed the delta squad, and captain steele's chalk one, which eventually picked up chalks 2 and 3 as they tried to get to the crash site.

i guess the major difficulty would have been following four different chalk groups, the delta team, and the ranger transport group, and try to get the audience to figure who was in what group. but this could have been done by focusing on the men in chalk 2 or 3, instead of chalk 4, who weren't really there, and many of the men they put in chalk 4 were actually in those other three chalks.

 

[RobertW]

oh, and i recommend the book very highly. i found myself continually going back and referring to the few map sketches in the book to figure out exactly where each of the men were and how they were placed; what direction they were firing, and taking fire from. sometimes it was difficult to figure out, as i think a few directions got wrong, and were not caught in editing(saying something was to the east, when it was actually the west, etc.), but i got a good picture of what was really going on from the book. a really nice look at young men and what they experience in combat.

 

[Alex Spindler]

Very interesting. I suppose the writers were attached to Eversman as a whole and then warped the situation around him. So instead of moving him to a chalk that was more involved in the fight, they replaced the other chalks with his.

I guess that it was one of two evils. Without being historically accurate (which would have made for a more confusing storyline), they either had to attribute actions to the wrong chalk or move Eversman to the lead of a different chalk. Narratively, I think I support the change, but it is very good to note how it differs from reality.

I wonder if they will include some of the nice documentaries that have been made about the event? I think they've made the rounds on the History channel around the time of release.

Given the enthusiasm for the movie, I think I'll pick up the book right away. Thanks for the recommendation.

 

[RobertW]

actually, i think they could hgave dumped eversman entirely, and done away with the "young, idealistic kid thrown into a position of leadership" angle, and built the movie around another guy, probably the leader of chalk 2, ditommasso.

but i guess this was the easiest way of getting blackburn's fall into the story without jumping around too much more. otherwise, that's all we would have really needed to see of chalk 4: intoduce blackburn like they did, show him falling from the copter, and then no more chalk four for the rest of the movie. it would have been a complete group introduced, and audiences have to figure who they are, for about five minutes of screentime.

but stebbins(the man the grimesy character was based on), and smith, the kid who bled to death, were in captain steele's chalk, who the movie followed; yurek, nelson, and twombley were in ditommasso's chalk 2. most of the action involving these guys happened when they were pretty much all together, heading toward, and then establishing perimeter around the first crash site. they could have just as easily put blackburn into ditommasso's chalk 2 instead of building the whole story around chalk four, and it would have been only a slight change to actual events. and have josh hartnett portray ditommasso instead of eversman.

 

[Tom_Bechet]

So this is the same set that was already available in Belgium and France since last October. Oh well glad I bought it then and there is no DTS on the R4

 

[jeff lam]

Where's the superbit columbia??? I have held off buying the original release for far too long already.

 

[Alex Spindler]

That would make some sense, but I don't know if Hoot's words of encouragement would have been as effective if Hartnett was a more established leader. It seemed to really work while thinking of Eversman as freshly in a command position.

Keeping on topic, the specs for the R4 release really have my mouth watering. Everything from the History channel doc to the wealth of commentaries (director's, writer's, as well a veteran's) seem too good to be true. I sure hope this is a preview of what we get this summer.

 

[Tom_Bechet]

I sure hope this is a preview of what we get this summer.

To be honest I wouldn't know what else they could put on there. I have the belgium disc and I haven't managed to go through of it all yet.
I think the R1 will be equal especially as Columbia keep the differences between regions to a minimum.

 

[Bill J]

I'm very pleased to see that R1 could be getting the awesome History Channel documentary.

like why make eversman the central character?

In my opinion the film doesn't really have any central characters, and that is to its advantage.

 

[Ray H]

Sounds great. Very extensive too.

 

[Kris Coffin]

Damn, I have been waiting for this realese for quite a while, and have even held off watching it because it was romoured that it was to have a DTS track, guess I will just have to wait for the Superbit, grrrrr.

KC