1917 (2019)

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if you think 100 people stood around for 20min to debate and argue about whether they should kill 20 germans in the midst of a battle front push is more realistic. it's not. allegory, not realism.
I figured that the Russians wanted to interrogate them first. I don't think that's so implausible as to render that particular sequence (and by extension the film) "unrealistic" (and that's without referring to your earlier post about there being many mistakes in war as a means of justifying the milk bucket scene in 1917).

80% of those people died anyway as i mentioned earlier. Scofield probably died thanks tso hand in rotting corpse infection. majority of people who died in ww1 were sickness in disease, not bullets.

long takes are distracting because, imo it's different than what you're used to seeing. For me, it sucked me in to the movie. the average take in 1917 was much longer than your average movie. longer takes was extremely appropriate for this story. Just like in dunkirk, where the editing was important to time dilation of different perspectives in the story.
The issue with 1917 isn't that it uses long takes at all but that it stitches them together in an attempt to create the illusion of the film consisting of a single take, but this just ends up drawing even more attention to the inherent artifice and being more distracting than usual (not least when it does a smash-to-black halfway through the film anyway so it can't even stick to its real-time premise for the whole film).
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That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
I forgot to reply to this in that the quotes weren't technically quoted.

the bridge shooter was not a "sniper". also, look at the quality of the in movie described "stragglers" left behind by the germans (truck scene). Who would the germans leave in the town? in a trap to draw in the Brits? we saw an evidence of a drunkard and a very young (read inexperienced) soldier. these were below average soldiers, probably left to bait the brits in. also, it's possible he was already wounded before the engagement started.

I know a lot of movie watchers have problems with this scene because we've been fed a regular fantasy diet of super soldiers snipers landing bull**** shots. there are tons of youtube review from actual snipers who debunk these movies all the time. The german, nor sco was an elite soldier, just an average dude, its the point.
Yes, my original post your response partially quoted addressed this before making the criticism. Perhaps not in as much detail as your text, but I figured my meaning would be taken for what it was intended as. And I had other issues with the movie, so felt any more details from me would be wasted on my points overall.

"I did question myself to recognize the likelihood of these "boys" just not being able to perform under the extreme burdens that war places on them; but, like I noted, it was just so frequent."

As to the bridge shooter not being a "sniper," I meant a shooter firing from a concealed location. Sniping. I don't think I suggested training or marksmanship, or of super soldiers landing bull*** shots and, given my comment (quoted above) regarding that these "boys" dealing with the extreme burdens of warfare (whatever that may include), I took it for granted that that would be understood without defining nuances of exactly what I meant in response to what I watched. Still, that scene, in and of itself, was not necessarily the criticism I was making. That was only an example to highlight out of several encounters throughout the film that translated, for me, as plot armor. That was what I had a problem with.

the milk left behind and sole cow survivor was intentional. in war, may mistakes are made. maybe a german soldier refused to kill the one cow, or it hid. life was still happening, even in the war zone. some civ milked the one cow left and fled and hid when they saw soldiers.

not every bucket of milk is a rigged grenade, every dead soldier is just pretend sleeping to ambush the heroes. this is tropes that have been used too many times; this movie went with a more realistic and better approach imo.
Fair, somewhat. Mistakes and life happens. Agreed. My issue was in how we were specifically told that German soldiers leave behind traps (for whatever exposition was given to imply the danger our two heroes risk) only a bit earlier in the movie within the bunker/cave. Both nearly died from such a trap. I felt that if that point needed to be made for both the characters and audience to be mindful of this risk, and seeing the consequence of ignoring that risk, then that lesson was illogically ignored a few scenes later (unless that lesson was presented only to create a false sense of suspense once the milk was presented as a luring temptation. If that's the case, then I like this movie even less now!). Present a rule? follow a rule. Else, don't place so much focus on the rule only to arbitrarily (seemingly) dismiss that rule moments later. I'm only reading what I'm given to read by the writing and directing---using the lesson example provided to move the action of the story forward rather than projecting what might have happened in a fictional off-screen character's motivation (or, worse, a sinisterly deceptive moo-cow) that I know nothing about. If it is a trope, it is one this movie exploited earlier setting that precedent, and not what I brought into it as a viewer. I'm only going by what I'm given, first.

And to nail my personal view a bit harder, each of these scenes, in a vacuum, isn't necessarily a problem for me. It was the cumulative effect these (and many others) held in breaking my suspension of disbelief.



... a sinisterly deceptive moo-cow ...
Nothing worse in warfare.
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Did you ever see this amazing documentary? One dreadful scene shows British soldiers about to go “over the top” & the look on the faces of the soldiers is horrendous. As the narrator grimly points out, this most likely was the final 30 minutes of their lives.


Yes indeed. The look on some of those guys' faces told the story. My grandfather, a recent immigrant at the time of the war who got sent back to the Europe he had left, survived, but never said anything. When I was a kid I asked about it, all he'd ever say was that nobody wants to hear an old man's silly war stories. The fact that he had a minor gas injury suggests that he saw some seriously bad moments.

In my reading on that war, I'd comment that, like most war movies, an audience could not stand too much reality and that dry accountings of forces, tactics or weapons don't really convey much of the reality experienced by the soldiers. The scenes of those weary, terrified teen aged boys was worth far more than any intellectual commentary.

That movie is about the only colorized film I've ever liked. The color and sound made it seem believable in a way that old, jerky, grainy, monochrome footage could never do.



Yes indeed. The look on some of those guys' faces told the story. My grandfather, a recent immigrant at the time of the war who got sent back to the Europe he had left, survived, but never said anything. When I was a kid I asked about it, all he'd ever say was that nobody wants to hear an old man's silly war stories. The fact that he had a minor gas injury suggests that he saw some seriously bad moments.
When I think back to my family members - civilians or enlisteds - who survived WWI & II, they barely said anything. They hardly mentioned the wars at all. British reticence, I suppose.