New - All Quite On The Western Front


  • Being released in October.

    https://youtu.be/qFqgmaO15x4

    Flammenwerfer.  And what's that in the background?

    It's our old friend St Chamond.

    (Is that WGA French machinegun kit ready yet?)

    German production.  

    This is the Nation that birthed Uwe Boll, but every once in a while Germany pulls it out and produces a decent film.  Fingers crossed.  



  • Yes, it's slated for release October 22nd.  I know that real St. Chamond tanks are few and far between, but these  are built off of the Russian BMP chassis. You can see a close-up of the BMP suspension in the trailer just before it shows the shot of the  2 St. Chamond tanks. I'm looking forward to seeing the movie


  • Looks good to me. A classic story that every soldier should have read or watched before enlisting. 


  • I remember watching either the first version (late '30s), and the modern one, with E. Borgnine & Ian Holm. It was one of the first, realistic movies to show the horrors of WWI, and for its times was really crude, no happy end, pratically of the whole class of students there's only one (mutilated) survivor.


  • @Mark Hoffman 

    Yup, looks about right:

    (Trailer screenshot).

    (BMP)

    Good on them actually making a working mockup instead having a crap CGI tank floating along the battlefield.  

    I believe there is only one St Chamond tank left, and it's not a runner.  

    FT17s are relatively plentiful....  But the filmmakers probably wanted something with a bit more gravitas/something more terrifying.  

     


  • The book is a classic and should be mandatory reading. I honestly really like it.
    The 1979 was a really good adaptation. Let us hope this one will be good too.


  • Been a while since I read that one. And I'm pretty sure it was off my mother's boyfriend's shelves, so I don't actually have a copy floating around now... same with Schwejk I think. Shame, I probably only grasped half of its meaning back then because Austrians are weird. And Austrians written by a Czech are probably even weirder.


  • Something like this reproduction French Schneider tank ,built off of an old tractor, would have looked better. The suspension looks a lot closer to the original than the BMP suspension 


  • Ah the upcoming movie from Edward Berger; mostly known as diretor of episodes of german police procedural tv series -like the legendary Tatort or quite interesting Policezeiruf 110- or Deutchland 83...or the awesome AMC 2018 The Terror to name a few... 

    and Daniel Brühl (who played the german officer of jewish faith in Merry Christmas) is part of the cast.. a must-watch to my mind. 


  • @Steven StGeorges  I loved The Terror. 


  • @Vitor Soares rewatched Hero on the Front or Soldado Milhões for you... quite a great movie about the portuguese expeditionary Corps. 👍


  • @Steven StGeorges it is. The battle of La Lys is  studied in school here, it was the worst defeat of the Portuguese Army since Alcácer-Quibir, in 1578. There were many factors, but the worst was that the British on both our flanks retreated and did not inform us.

    It caused the operational loss of both portuguese divisions, almost 20000 men, but also delayed the Germans, greatly contributing for the failure of the operation.

    The 20000 strong Portuguese Expedicionary Force held the 55000 Germans, 8 divisions, for long enough for the reserves to close the gap behind them.

    Private Milhais held, alone, behind enemy lines, with his Lewis machine gun, for four days. He helped several British and Portuguese soldiers retreat to their lines. Eventually he saved a Scottish doctor from drowning in a swamp and helped him back to the lines.

    That's why he gets a movie, a guy that, in the absolute hell of WWI trench warfare holds for four days behind enemy lines and keeps saving others, deserved that and a lot more.

    Instead he was one of several generations of portuguese that suffered from trauma and PTSD, unsupported, from our many wars.

    Again, a good movie. 


  • Almost every nation only pays lips service to its war veterans. I am sure there must be some nation that takes care of them but I can not think of any off the top of my head. Certainly the US and Uk do not. Recruits need to very aware of that before “taking the King’s Shilling” as they say.


  • @Grumpy Gnome unfortunately, very true. And I come from a family with a lot of people in the military. 


  • @Grumpy Gnome as a former Infantryman I second that


  • @Andreas Mayrhofer 

    You were in the Heer?  What time frame?


  • @Grumpy Gnome 

    "On Saturday I'm willing, if you'll only take the shilling, to make a man of any one of you."

    ... but I do prefer "Dulce et decorum est. Pro patria mori." a poem written by Wilfred Owen during WWI. 

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulce_et_Decorum_est

     



  • @JTam  A humorous event that the care home should not have had to apologize for if the attendees were ok with it. But not proof the nation truly cares for their veterans. If the nation was beyond it, would the care home management need to apologize? 



  • Should be streaming today.

    Someone without small children watch it and tell me if it's good ;)


  • In my humble opinion, the best version remains the 1st one (1930, Lewis Milestone), without a doubt. The characters were fair and sincere, the acting was almost perfect and the butterfly scene remains a must. The 1979 version did not convince me at all...

    The book by Erich Maria Remarque (1929) is excellent : read it, drink from the source. Other good books : War Horse (Cheval de Guerre), by Michael Morpurgo (1982, the movie is very good too) and Les Croix de Bois (the wooden crosses : I don't know the title for you), by Roland Dorgelès (1919)...

    I'm wary of modern movies, full of explosions and special effects : a version that would magnify the war would be a misinterpretation. That said, if you see it, I'm interested in your opinion.


  • @JTam 

    I just finished watching All Quiet on the Western Front on Netflix. It is worth watching,in my opinion. 

    I don't want to give much of the storyline away. It does stray away from the 30's and 1979 versions a bit. But is still worth watching 


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