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Band of Brothers Real Facts.

I posted this because Band of Brothers was potrayed as if Easy Company were the only one's fighting in World War II, they totally blowed off any other regiments or companys, and made it seem Easy Company was the great.
Hello, it's directed by Spielberg, did you expect any different?

Not even to mention the portrait of the Wehrmacht soldiers...
 
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Seen it before but most of Band Of Brothers was definitely historically accurate.

I posted this because Band of Brothers was potrayed as if Easy Company were the only one's fighting in World War II, they totally blowed off any other regiments or companys, and made it seem Easy Company was the great.

They just choose to follow Easy, they could've followed Able company and then you would've said that they make it look like Able was the only ones who fought. It's just a matter of choice. :)
 
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I have to raise my hat for the guy for doing nice research, but let's face the facts:

A. Band of Brothers is just entertaiment. I have noticed lots of "suspension of disbelief" or actually some historical inaccurate crap, but I keep them as my information usually. It is entertaiment we are talking about.

B. Let's face the fact. It IS impossible to re-create 100% accurate displayment of what happened before.

C. Using point B. as a fact, let's face another fact. As using point B. as a base, we notice that we are lacking lots of relaistic stuff in RO, but still it is praised being one of the most realistic FPS games out there.

D. Using both B and C as bases, it is also impossible to create 100% accurate, realistic nor even close game or another form of entertaiment. Good example is Brothers in Arms: It is based quite accurately on real life data and historical events and in some points it has some very nice overall accuracy by the idea, but still it is a game. It is a game, player can do whatever he wants according to the rules of the game and therefore cannot simulate 100% accurate displayment of what REALLY happened back there.

E. If we wouldn't have wargames and movies at the first place, we wouldn't nitpick about it or pay attension for small realism details. So, should we blame the creators of entertaiment for that or ourselves, the customers?

F. Combining all these points from A to E, we are facing the fact that there is no such thing as "historically accurate" when it comes to diffrent forms of entertaiment.


As I said before, nicely done research, but what is the point? Hell, should we make nitpick list about how much RO lacks realistic stuff or is historically inaccurate or something like that since it is claimed to be one of the most realistic FPS games (if not the most realistic) out there? :rolleyes:
 
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I have to raise my hat for the guy for doing nice research, but let's face the facts:

A. Band of Brothers is just entertaiment. I have noticed lots of "suspension of disbelief" or actually some historical inaccurate crap, but I keep them as my information usually. It is entertaiment we are talking about.

B. Let's face the fact. It IS impossible to re-create 100% accurate displayment of what happened before.
A main thing that I personally dislike about Speilbergs "war movies" is that it's all about entertainment as the bottom line it seems. I see it as disrespectful to use specific real events (that are highly documented and backed up by various people/sources) and then pick and choose or leave out or switch around into situations that did not occur whatsoever. All seemingly for the benefit of remaining "entertaining". What about accurate storytelling? Is that not interesting to ANYBODY anymore? Does the general public demand "something going on" constantly to pacify their hamster sized attention span? What really agitates me is these movie makers almost never attempt to portray battles as they occured (or likely occured). How do they know the movie would be boring by depicting everything realisticly? Maybe the reverse would happen and the realism of it all would be so overwelming and powerful and be 100 times more captivating than resorting to "hollywood" battles. I agree it's impossible to recreate something 100% but IF you have known information about a certain event it's disrespectful and insulting IMO to portray it any other way.
 
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What really agitates me is these movie makers almost never attempt to portray battles as they occured

Sad but true. Word "entertaiment" is rather weird to use in this case.

One good example would be some action movies. They might have very bad plot and other enviromental stuff, while some specific scenes, special effects and such are what makes it 'great' by the mind of the most viewers.
 
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Ya, but one thing they made it seem like Easy Company went through the hell in Bastogne, except they had the lowest casaulty count of all the companys in the 101st. 1st Battalion got the worst from being put into Noville where they had to face the German army in that hellish city. They lost 199 men in that 2 day fight. I would have rather seen the 1st Battalion fight for Noville and their withdrawl from it. Most of those men, the last thing they ever saw were tanks firing point blank into their foxholes.
 
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There are plenty of Documentaries about the 101st Airborne, why must every facking movie made have to be as accurate as a Documentary? If they were they would not be movies they would be documentaries. JHC. :mad:

I want to see Spielberg make a BoB type series on a Russian Clown Car Crew. Then all the doubters could see the pwnage capabilities of my beloved bucket.
 
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There are plenty of Documentaries about the 101st Airborne, why must every facking movie made have to be as accurate as a Documentary? If they were they would not be movies they would be documentaries. JHC. :mad:
What's the point of watching a largely inaccurate war movie? Just an adrenaline jackoff? See a bunch of gore? Cry a little tear when mama gets the visit she's been dreading? Can we have something else with a little more substance other than activating our base feelings that everybody has? That's the easy way out. Make people think and use their brain a little bit for a change.
 
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What's the point of watching a largely inaccurate war movie? Just an adrenaline jackoff? See a bunch of gore? Cry a little tear when mama gets the visit she's been dreading? Can we have something else with a little more substance other than activating our base feelings that everybody has? That's the easy way out. Make people think and use their brain a little bit for a change.
Because Movies are ART.

Why make a movie like The Godfather? when you can just make a biography of Lucky Luciano... :rolleyes:
 
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Because Movies are ART.

Why make a movie like The Godfather? when you can just make a biography of Lucky Luciano... :rolleyes:
Well I would say they edge more toward entertainment than art (nowadays at least). Are entertainment and art the same thing? Sometimes, but other times it's more like a "bag of tired tricks" than inspired art IMO. I don't like Spielbergs "bag of tricks" they are completely predictable and tired to me. I'm just getting too old to be OMFG WOWED! by badass special effects & 7.1 dolby smashing through my ear drums. I need some substance not a collection of effects and a sappy moralistic storyline with cliched characters going over the same **** they always do.
 
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You have a bone to pick then go did up the corpse of Stephen Ambrose because he wrote the book. Ambrose chose to do a book about ONE COMPANY. It was done from THEIR perspective. If the book and the movie make it out to look like they were the best it was because that was what many of them felt.

Movies are business and if you want to have movies to watch you need to understand that. They did a great job depicting as much as possible accurately while also fitting in as much information as possible and keeping the series interesting to anyone but those who like to put on OD uniforms and roll around in the dirt at re-enactments. Watch historical movies and series for a LOOK at what you find interesting and then go read a couple books for a more accurate and less commercially influenced version. Just don't be angry if some of those books are rather dry.

If you want to see what happens when a movie maker focus's on realism over entertainment (with some horrible dialogue written to boot) then go watch God's and Generals... what an awful piece of film making due to the director and producers when it could have been great. That movie alone almost killed the entire genre of Civil War movies single handidly after Gettysburg did so much for it.
 
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There are ways to have a movie follow real life events exactly and not be boring but since it's more difficult to acheive that vision most movie makers opt for the far easier tested and proven method of OMFG WOW! sight & sound to absorb (or rather distract) you. The way you make a realistic war movie that's not boring is you develop characters that have substance and carry the movie during the lulls so you care about the characters more than everything else. Spielbergs "characters" are all 1 dimensional and cliched. None of them are particularly interesting or evoke sympathy or caring because they are generic caricatures. Another main problem why I don't like hollywood war movies because they generally reinforce the old standby self righteous (we're good/they're evil) mindset which I hate.
 
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I think you guys are being a little harsh. Well, actually, a lot harsh. ;)

First, I would say, you CANNOT actually get an accurate recounting of a battle. It cannot be done. Period.

Actually, this should be obvious. I mean, if the people who fought it found it chaotic and confusing, what hope do we have of forming an accurate picture? They don't call it the fog of war for nothing.

What are all the factors working against us in creating the perfect record of a battle?

1. Human memory
2. The chaotic and confusing nature of battle itself
3. The natural desire of humans to cast themselves in the most flattering light possible
4. The biases of the historians who research and write our history books

Sure, BoB portrayed the men in E Co in a good light. But I suspect the results would have been similiar if they'd have written about Charlie Co or Foxtrot Co instead. You'd probably get the same results if they'd have written about a company in British 1st Airborne, or a panzergrenadier company from the 1st Panzer division, or a company of tank riders from a Guards armored division.
 
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There are ways to have a movie follow real life events exactly and not be boring but since it's more difficult to acheive that vision most movie makers opt for the far easier tested and proven method of OMFG WOW! sight & sound to absorb (or rather distract) you. The way you make a realistic war movie that's not boring is you develop characters that have substance and carry the movie during the lulls so you care about the characters more than everything else. Spielbergs "characters" are all 1 dimensional and cliched. None of them are particularly interesting or evoke sympathy or caring because they are generic caricatures. Another main problem why I don't like hollywood war movies because they generally reinforce the old standby self righteous (we're good/they're evil) mindset which I hate.
One dimensional? Care to expand? I found the characters quite compelling, especially that hysterical Irish Bigot guy. That is one funny bastard. :D
 
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You have a bone to pick then go did up the corpse of Stephen Ambrose because he wrote the book. Ambrose chose to do a book about ONE COMPANY. It was done from THEIR perspective. If the book and the movie make it out to look like they were the best it was because that was what many of them felt.

Movies are business and if you want to have movies to watch you need to understand that. They did a great job depicting as much as possible accurately while also fitting in as much information as possible and keeping the series interesting to anyone but those who like to put on OD uniforms and roll around in the dirt at re-enactments. Watch historical movies and series for a LOOK at what you find interesting and then go read a couple books for a more accurate and less commercially influenced version. Just don't be angry if some of those books are rather dry.

If you want to see what happens when a movie maker focus's on realism over entertainment (with some horrible dialogue written to boot) then go watch God's and Generals... what an awful piece of film making due to the director and producers when it could have been great. That movie alone almost killed the entire genre of Civil War movies single handidly after Gettysburg did so much for it.

nothing else to add
 
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You have a bone to pick then go did up the corpse of Stephen Ambrose because he wrote the book. Ambrose chose to do a book about ONE COMPANY. It was done from THEIR perspective. If the book and the movie make it out to look like they were the best it was because that was what many of them felt.

Movies are business and if you want to have movies to watch you need to understand that. They did a great job depicting as much as possible accurately while also fitting in as much information as possible and keeping the series interesting to anyone but those who like to put on OD uniforms and roll around in the dirt at re-enactments. Watch historical movies and series for a LOOK at what you find interesting and then go read a couple books for a more accurate and less commercially influenced version. Just don't be angry if some of those books are rather dry.

If you want to see what happens when a movie maker focus's on realism over entertainment (with some horrible dialogue written to boot) then go watch God's and Generals... what an awful piece of film making due to the director and producers when it could have been great. That movie alone almost killed the entire genre of Civil War movies single handidly after Gettysburg did so much for it.

nothing else to add

I agree. I think some people are being a bit harsh on the realism and on their perception that Easy wasn't the 'best company' to choose in their eyes.
 
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