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Greyhound - Tom Hanks

evernoob

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Spoilers: like most modern trailers, it shows some of the best scenes but in mixed context. But, it's what we've got.

I thought it was good. I was the best opening film on Apple+ apparently.

It's just an action movie, taken from a CS Forster novel "The Good Shepherd".

Plot: First-time sea commander shepherds a convoy through the Atlantic wolfpacks soon after America enters WWII.

That's it, that''s the plot. The film concentrates on things like how the Navy communicates, which is a unique thing that only shipboard Navy people understand. I think they do a good job showing this and how it affects battles and how a ship is maneuvered and fought in the context of WWII.

The CGI wasn't that great, I always knew I was watching CGI. But then it was better than the other terrible Chinese movies like Midway. So not distracting, just not totally great. Maybe it would better in a theater? Still, didn't take away from the film at all.




So, it's the best Navy-related war film for a long time, and maybe the best since In Harm's Way in 1965 at showing a surface combatant fight. I won't say that all of the details about how Hanks commands his ship were perfect, but I will say they are the best ever depicted on screen. The only equivalent would be Das Boot.

Greyhound lacks a lot of the character and dramatic development of Das Boot, so it's not as good a film, but then Greyhound is not a character film. It's about a Fletcher-class destroyer protecting a convoy. And it's very good at depicting that. 4/5.

What is building is a demand for a depiction of the Battle off Samar. And with the Navy commissioning 20 new FFGs, this would be a good time to have it. A popular book was written a few years back, 'Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors', which has about reached critical mass. And, there's a popular set of video games which depict warfare from this era, Warthunder, World of Warships, and a few more.

The Battle off Samar is probably the most heroic battle ever fought by the US Navy and one of the most heroic battles ever fought period. It's basically Thermopylae but with ships. Not as much was at stack, we were definitely going to win the overall Battle of Leyte Gulf, which was actually 4 separate battles, and we were going to win WWII. But taken alone, Samar is... pretty remarkable.

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

I'd like to see this turned into a 2-3 hour epic, and so would a lot of other people. Maybe with Hanks bringing a super-rare surface battle to prominence, some momentum would get built.
 
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Here's SecState Pompeo charting the new course with China.

52:00

Watch the questions and answers at the end.

 
My father in law R.I.P. was on a Fletcher class ship in WW2 and later in life he would tell us storys of the things that they did.
Crazy shit them guys did to advance the U.S. position in the war. I have been and will always be proud of him.
If you know a WW2 vet i encourage you to talk to him/her and learn. That was the greatest time in our history imo as we all pulled together and won on both fronts. Nowdays it's hard to get any of us to pull together without hurting someones feelers.
 
Yeah watched it last night. I had to turn of my brain and just watch. Doesn't explain much about the German subs, the tactics, development of Hanks or any of the others. Lots of assumptions on the viewers part of what's going on. Such as his first maneuver raised alot of eyebrows with the crew but it was never explained very well and viewer has to guess what actually happened.

Really should have been longer as mentioned above.
 
Looking forward to watching it. Too bad CG isn't around to see it. He probably would have enjoyed it.
 
Yeah watched it last night. I had to turn of my brain and just watch. Doesn't explain much about the German subs, the tactics, development of Hanks or any of the others. Lots of assumptions on the viewers part of what's going on. Such as his first maneuver raised alot of eyebrows with the crew but it was never explained very well and viewer has to guess what actually happened.

Really should have been longer as mentioned above.

So war films have to condense and dramatize events otherwise it won't fit into a commercial vehicle.

Take Saving Private Ryan: Why did they frontal-assault a German machine gun position with less than 10 guys? What Hanks explains, forcing the Krauts to change their mg barrels, is totally legit. Just not with a small group of guys. They would surround the position and alternate advances on it, probably in 2-man teams. That way you force the gunner to widely change his arcs of fire, and he would never be able to settle down into the smaller arcs that German machine guns were designed to be accurate in. Spielberg chose not to show that. Instead he used the scene as a convenient way to kill Doc and have him call for his mother.

That's a great scene. I don't like military pedantry when it comes to film, Spielberg was appealing to the largest possible audience with dramatics.

Spielberg is famous for Exposition: giving all needed details to explain each and every scene in his films. I want to be clear: he is CRITICIZED for it. He leaves NOTHING to chance with the viewer, and that is a known weakness. But, he's a commercial Director.

Greyhound drops everyone into an esoteric world of unknowns, and I think that was deliberate.

See, the Capt of the Greyhound just got dropped into not only command of a Fletcher, but command of a convoy's screening ships. He's somehow the Flotilla Commander (which could happen if he was a Reservist, which would also explain Hanks' very, very advanced age). I mean, he knows the book rules, but he's got to understand why those rules are there, make guesses about things not in the book, make guesses about motivations...

It's a bewildering, confusing thing. And the film lets the viewer make guesses, and for non-Navy people who don't have the barest understanding of Bridge commands, a good 1/4 of the movie is completely blank. WHY does the Captain relay orders through sound-powered phone handlers who sometimes sneeze? WHY are there 12 guys crammed into the Bridge with half of them doing nothing but passing on instructions?

And as far as character devlepment, when Weaps comes in and says he brought up the depth charges, then basically questions the Captain's judgement, Hank's just hangs his head and sends him on his way, with his own misconceptions about how things should go. He doesn't have time, and Hanks is great at that type of acting, conveying all of that information in less than 3 seconds. That is classic Navy Command literature right there. Captain just doesn't have time for it right now, like he didn't have time for Mast at the beginning. Captain can't put guys in the brig on a Destroyer, he needs them. He also can't have them disabling themselves by fighting. Wat do?

I just watched it again and now I like the film more.

World of Warships players will definitely get off on the torpedo scenes. Combing the wakes is half of that game, I had a huge amount of anxiety as he threads between those two fish.

Ok this is too long, but I think this film is better than I first suspected.
 
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Im guilty of watching and enjoying hollywood films and working in the special effects industry in and around hollyweird in the 80's and 90's but try to stay true to my picked intelligent political leaning so

Big reason why I don't watch his or really many movies any more.
 
It seems baffling that the allies lost 3500 ships during battle of the Atlantic and they only got 7 of the German subs. Hell 3-4 were in that movie alone
 
Im guilty of watching and enjoying hollywood films and working in the special effects industry in and around hollyweird in the 80's and 90's but try to stay true to my picked intelligent political leaning so

There are at least 2 members here who currently work SPFX in the film industry. Most Actors are nuckin futs, it just goes with the territory. So I am told:flipoff2:
 
I was disappointed. The movie needed to be longer and it needed to develop some characters and a real story line. Doing some reading after the fact, I see it was based on a novel. I guess I need to read that, might be the same way.

I am OK with the idea that Hanks has different ideas than I.
 
My father in law R.I.P. was on a Fletcher class ship in WW2 and later in life he would tell us storys of the things that they did.
Crazy shit them guys did to advance the U.S. position in the war. I have been and will always be proud of him.
If you know a WW2 vet i encourage you to talk to him/her and learn. That was the greatest time in our history imo as we all pulled together and won on both fronts. Nowdays it's hard to get any of us to pull together without hurting someones feelers.

Looking forward to watching it. Too bad CG isn't around to see it. He probably would have enjoyed it.

It seems baffling that the allies lost 3500 ships during battle of the Atlantic and they only got 7 of the German subs. Hell 3-4 were in that movie alone

You don't say.......

I was disappointed. The movie needed to be longer and it needed to develop some characters and a real story line. Doing some reading after the fact, I see it was based on a novel. I guess I need to read that, might be the same way.

I am OK with the idea that Hanks has different ideas than I.

which is weird because they sure dont like when people share their movies...

All bullshit accounts.
 
That movie sucked...the content was fine just the movie plain sucked... the movie "Hunter Killer" Gerard Butler, was a better submarine movie....
 
I've seen movies with similar story lines done better.

It wasn't compelling enough for me to leave my phone alone.
 
I've seen movies with similar story lines done better.

It wasn't compelling enough for me to leave my phone alone.

Yeah but a lot of you guys are retards though. I mean if you don't understand what's going on, you're going to be bored.
 
Or if it is not explodey enough. Modern movie pacing generally caters to the short attention span.

Yeah, michael bay.

I mean, the film is super fast-paced so the only way people can be playing on their phones is if they are not interested in the subject matter.

Bay films are boring, not because they're too fast, but because they're lazy and don't provide a coherent visual picture, just lots of flashes and movement.

Greyhound is, well, it's grey colored, and I think less-sophisticated people are used to seeing moving colors.
 
watched the movie. RIP to all who died and tragic events, but the movie sucked, big disappointment.
 
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