The Truth About ‘Pearl Harbor’: An In-Depth Analysis (1 Viewer)

[Carlo_M]

Jeff, I too feel that Bay was out of his element. It seems that when he tries to infuse "love" subplots in his movies, they tend to not come off so well. The Rock, for me, was an awesome action movie. Then came Armaggeddon, and the beginnings of a failed love circle with Affleck & Tyler and the father on the outside looking in. Didn't do it for me in a convincing manner, but I liked the rest of the film. PH had way too much time spent on what I thought to be a weak love triangle at best. Yes the attack itself was visceral (cheesy dialog from the principles notwithstanding), but there was altogether too much of the love subplot which Bay cannot convincingly pull off.

Just my view.

 

[TheLongshot]

The attack sequence was certainly NOT fun viewing from my perspective nor was it a visual feast to my eyes. It is a shame that someone was focusing on the technical details between battleships including whether a certain battleship was hit either early on in the attack or later as I certainly could care less. No, I did not focus on the spacing of the battleships between each other nor did I concentrate on the effectiveness of the CGI. That’s because the destruction of human lives portrayed onscreen was far more moving and compelling to me.

But that is the problem. When you see a technical gaffe that takes you right out of the movie. For example, seeing the same set of battleships being bombed by the same planes from different angles really took me out of the reality of the film (Not that it developed much of a reality by that point.) To tell you the truth, the Attack segment lasted a little too long and had too many repetitive shots. It left me cold and didn't have the effect that a SPR did on me.

Little details are important to the people who know them. I know my dad, a former Navy aviator, was a little annoyed at Top Gun, because no one was wearing their medals correctly. I know, that is a little thing, but the fact that he noticed that took him out of the film. It happens, but you want to do that as little as possible.

Jason

 

[Edwin Pereyra]

But that is the problem. When you see a technical gaffe that takes you right out of the movie.

Similarly, I can make this argument. By concentrating and getting consumed more on the technical details of the attack, the human element that is being conveyed go by the wayside.

~Edwin

 

[Mark Pfeiffer]

I've found that if a movie is entertaining me, I'm either less likely to notice gaffes or more willing to overlook them. If a movie isn't doing it for me, I tend to notice even more problems, especially the tiny ones.

 

[Chuck Mayer]

But these "gaffes" are in ALL movies. My father was a Navy man, and loved Top Gun. He noticed the medals, etc, but didn't let it distract him. I myself spent several years on submarines. I had to listen to my cohorts giggle at Godzilla, when submarines are in the New York Harbor. Who cares? They are chasing a HUGE LIZARD! Onto a much more realistic movie, Hunt for Red October, plenty of minor to medium mistakes there, but it's a great story...who cares!

When I saw Swordfish, a few computer techs sat a few rows in front of me. They laughed out loud during the scene where Hugh Jackman does his hacker thing. Was it unrealistic? Yes. Were they dorks to laugh? Yes. Hackers don't look like Hugh Jackman either, but they weren't laughing when he was doing well with the ladies.

Now Pearl does require more authenticity than that. It's a real event. Does it get enough right for the average viewer. I think so. But that's a judgement. Mr. Suid (and I started that mess, sorry) is a historian. Good for him. I am not. I can tolerate the minor changes in PH made for dramatic purposes. When I want the factual truth, I'll read At Dawn We Slept. As Edwin said, the bulk of the veterans were pleased. Their story was told...the message was there. That was the intent. I consider it met.

As for the love triangle, I agree Bay failed there completely. But that's not why I went to the film.

Take care,

Chuck

Edited for grammar.

 

[DaveF]

But I have addressed his concerns. Dave, you must have been composing your comments above when I posted this:

Yes -- I didn't see that before I started writing. Reading your subsequent posts and specific response to me, I see better what you're saying. Just in the middle, there, it seemed you were unexpectedly dismissing Suid for critiquing the factual accuracy of PH, instead of e.g. arguing why his points were quite minor issues.

But, using Suid's language, he pointed out many Ants but few Elephants. Perhaps I'm just too historically ignorant, but his thesis, in the end, seemed to support your claims that PH is fairly accurate.

 

[TheLongshot]

Now Pearl does require more authenticity than that. It's a real event. Does it get enough right for the average viewer. I think so. But that's a judgement. Mr. Suid (and I started that mess, sorry) is a historian. Good for him. I am not. I can tolerate the minor changes in PH made for dramatic purposes. When I want the factual truth, I'll read At Dawn We Slept. As Edwin said, the bulk of the veterans were pleased. Their story was told...the message was there. That was the intent. I consider it met.

Which I will agree with with Pearl Harbor. For the most part, there weren't any gross historical inaccuracies. It is about all I will give this film.

Course, there are some highly entertaining films that throw history out the window. Braveheart, for example, which twists the subject matter so that Mel Gibson can feed his ego. Or Disney's Pocahontas, which makes one believe that John Smith and Pocahontas were of similar ages and lovers. This is where film does a disservice. There are enough historical inaccuracies out there without having Hollywood creating more.

Jason

 

[Terrell]

I'm not sure Braveheart was about Gibson's ego. Braveheart was a fantastic movie, and I never got the sense that he made this movie or changed subject matter simply for his ego.

As for Pocahontas, that's a Disney animated movie. I would have never expected that movie to be historically accurate. However, Pocahontas was my least favorite Disney animated movie.

I think PH got the major facts correct.

 

[Seth Paxton]

Edwin, I just got to this thread (avoided it before) and I would have to disagree on one point.
I do NOT think that the romance was a device to tell the "real" story as it clearly was with Titanic.
Why? Well, because the film spends so much time before even getting to Pearl Harbor, adds a plotline of Affleck being thought dead (unneccessary if this plot is just a device), and DOES NOT HAVE RESOLUTION with Pearl Harbor.
The very fact that the film must go on to Dolittle's Raid, and more importantly must find resolution with Hartnett's death leading to Affleck and Beckinsale getting back together.
Very little takes place in Titanic BEFORE boarding the ship, just enough to establish the emotional connection in the characters. Then a great deal is spent with the sinking.
Plus even the bookends are about the search for the Titanic.edit - let me add that the FINAL moment is not the search, but instead the resolution of Rose's story. But she is reunited not just with Jack, but with all the victims from the Titanic
Pearl Harbor opens with the friendship. That's what it's about. Not WW2 or Pearl Harbor.
PH is a DEVICE within the film, not the subject.
B&B can say what they will, but based on any standard narrative structure PH is not the subject.
And that would be fine with me if they told it well. But visually it's a bunch of slop and visual cliches. I know we are going to have standard story cliches, that's not the big problem. Instead it's the constant direction like the whole film is a trailer. Sweeping into the shot tracking camera movement for example. Track in, zoom in. Every shot is melodramatic, and that's it's main fault. (and some not so good dialog)
PH AFFECTS their lives, but so do too many other things that happen for the film to be about how PH affected people. In that respect we see how the war for England affected people just as much as Pearl Harbor. So let's call the film the Battle for Britain instead.
At least From Here to Eternity was only about being at Pearl Harbor before the attacks. AND that film was about the romance, although the resolution landed squarely on the aftermath of the attack and how people were suddenly changed from the couple of months before it.
Quickly (like 10 minutes) get the characters to PH (the place not the battle), and don't pursue the Dolittle Raid in detail but rather show it to emphasize the new resolution people had because of PH and THEN you've got a film about PH using a romance/friendship as a device.

 

[Tino]

Seth
It's about frikkin' time you showed up in this thread! Why were you avoiding it?
I'm not surprised by your reaction to Pearl Harbor and you make good points compared to the generic trashing of the film by other members. Even though I liked Pearl Harbor more than you did, it's refreshing to read valid criticisms of the film such as yours and Al Brown's for example, even if I don't really agree with them.
Different strokes and all. But...then I remember that you loved Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back..........Yikes!

 

[TheLongshot]

Well, there are two ways to tell this type of story. Either you focus on the historical events, and the characters are just a vehicle to get from one event to another (Like "Tora, Tora, Tora") or you focus on the characters and make the historical events part of the backround (Like "From Here To Eternity"). It looks to me that Bay wanted it both ways. The characters are there to move the plot, but there is too much time spent on the characters, which were poorly written. If Bay hadn't tried so hard to make Titanic 2, it might have worked. Part of the problem is the amount of money involved in a project like this leads to attempts to make it appeal to everyone (which includes love subplots to bring in the female population) Because of this, the movie becomes unfocused and overal weakens the film.

Jason

 

[Charles Bober]

Quote:

Always go with your first instinct Michael I wonder why he quit 4 times and what got him back?
Historical inaccuracies galore:

• Randall Wallace portrayed Doolittle as someone who did not recognize a slide rule, although he actually held a Doctor of Science degree in aeronautical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
• Wallace also gave Doolittle command of a fighter base on Long Island before the war, a circumstance that had no basis in fact.
• Bay blows up the Arizona (BB-39) almost immediately with a bomb the audience follows down through the decks, as its mechanism continues to whir for a few seconds before exploding. In fact, the battleship did not receive her mortal wound until almost 20 minutes after the Japanese attack began.
• Bay separated the battleships, which had been tied rail-to-rail, by 50 yards so he could fly the attacking Japanese planes between ships. Acknowledging he did this “to give it a little more visual flair,” Bay maintained he “got the essence right.”
• Bay also fabricates the actions of Dorie Miller, the first black man to receive the Navy Cross. Some critics of the original script pointed out that no record exists to show Miller shot down any Japanese planes during the actual attack as written.
• In perhaps the most ludicrous and false scene in the entire movie, Jon Voight, as Roosevelt, tells the leaders that God put him in his wheelchair for a good reason and then stands up, unaided, apparently to symbolize the will the United States must exhibit to win.
• It is almost completely true that the attack is misrepresented, starting with the fact that the four heroes were fighter pilots who somehow joined the mission. The actual crews were bomber crews, you didn't bring in outsiders. Doolittle said that if his plane was damaged over Japan, he would dive it into a target rather than be captured. But at some early point when he announces their mission, one of the flyers asked if this had ever been done before, and Doolittle said no, and that was untrue.
• Once on board the Hornet (CV-8) on her way to Japan, Baldwin’s Doolittle subverts the truth when he tells one of the fliers that no bomber had ever taken off from an aircraft carrier, clearly intending to heighten the drama. In reality, as soon as planning for the raid began, Army Air Corps pilots flew two B-25s from the Hornet, cruising off Norfolk, Virginia, to ascertain it could be done.
• In contrast to the portrayal in the movie, in which Doolittle’s plane sinks toward the ocean following takeoff, his and 14 of the other bombers actually climbed immediately from the deck. Only the plane of Ted Lawson, author of Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, dipped initially toward the water because of an incorrect control setting.
• In any case, despite the real concerns over fuel when the planes have to take off prematurely, the film shows all the bombers arriving in formation over Japan. In truth, the Navy took one hour to launch the 16 planes, each setting out on its own course. None of the planes flew together before, during, or after the attack. They didn't wait and fly in formation. So, the movie misrepresents the attack, showing them flying in together, when actually they were 50 or so miles apart.
• After Chinese soldiers rescue Rafe and surviving members of the two crashed bombers, Bay dissolves to a scene of some of the fliers returning to an unidentified air base (incorrectly set in Hawaii in the original script), bearing Danny’s coffin. In fact, the ashes of the seven dead fliers did not return to the United States until after the end of the war.
• Also, three of the flyers were captured and executed by the Japanese, and the movie eliminated that from the script, so that the movie could be popular in Japan, too. They didn't want to remind anyone that Japan committed a war crime.
• However inaccurately the film portrays Doolittle’s raid, those errors pale in comparison to a scene set in Hawaii, in which Evelyn talks her way into a communications center to listen to the attack on Japan on short-wave radio. This simply could not have happened. Only a few military leaders and planners knew about the raid, and President Roosevelt himself did not receive a detailed briefing until a few days before the attack. The world learned about it only when Japanese radio broadcast the news.
• But even if she had become a clairvoyant, and even if she could have convinced an officer to breach security and allow her into the communications center, she would not have heard any radio traffic from the attacking planes. Doolittle had had the long-range radios removed from most of the planes to save weight. Even if the bombers had radios, they were technologically incapable of sending messages back to Hawaii.
• Bay also failed to recognize Doolittle’s leadership or that he received the Medal of Honor from President Roosevelt following his return from China. Instead, the film closes with the President pinning a Distinguished Flying Cross on Rafe, a task always performed by a military official—never by the President.
• They didn't even get the geography right. There's an opening sequence on Long Island, and there are hills in the background. There's a scene in Florida with mountains in the background. Even without a good knowledge of history, people will pick up these flaws.
• Also in the movie, you have two planes crash-landing together, and bursting into flames. In fact, there was no fuel left, and no bombs.

While it maybe an entertaining film to some, I think it's a pile of horse manure. And I'm being generous. The story, the attack, the acting, the directing, even the video game CGI was all overdone. They tried to hard to be good. And we all know what happens when you try to hard. You usually fail. Pearl Harbor fails on all accounts. Now if B&B would've been at least tried to be historically accurate, I'd cut them some slack.
Sources:

• Lawerence Suid's Pearl Harbor Review in Naval History Magazine
• Advanced European Review
• Lawrence Suid/CNN Transcript

 

[Seth Paxton]

Tino, I didn't know you didn't like J&B. I have no respect for you now.
Yeah, it's still in my top 10 even. I haven't laughed that much in years. Seriously. I guess I'm a reference junky or something.
You know what Pearl Harbor felt like to me, it felt like somebody shoving Snickers bars down my throat against my will for 3 hours. All those sugary shots, just too much. I need some meat and potatoes man. Not just dessert.
I notice it even in The Rock, which I like. I find that the performances, mainly Connery and Harris, help overcome it in that film.
However, I thought it was subdued in Enemy of the State, so it seems to me that different directors have more or less style control with Bruck. Whether you like it or not, I think you can see that that aspect is true.

 

[Seth Paxton]

BTW, Jason just nailed it exactly regarding the plotlines and this film. I think I said the same thing on page 2, but it took about 400 more words to do so.
Speaking of editing...

 

[Chris Maynard]

Also in the movie, you have two planes crash-landing together, and bursting into flames. In fact, there was no fuel left, and no bombs.

Well, fumes are damn explosive.
But hey, that would be nitpicking if I would point that out.