Reading reviews of Troy in the Random forum several people complained about the movies story being changed for the movie, it made me think about actual historical events being changed for Hollywood.
U-961 was a movie out a few years ago about an American unit who stole a German enigma machine and their dangerous trip home in a German sub with the german army chasing them and their own ships firing on them. With this Enigma machine the Allies were able to break the German code and play a big part in winning WW2. In real life however it was a British unit who stole the enigma machine and British soliders who died in the mission.
Don’t get me started on Braveheart which has multiple changes, not small ones either but pretty big changes to actual historical events to suit the movie.
Do you think Hollywood is right to do this to make a more entertaining movie or do you think people will take it for granted that this is how it actually happened?
The problem is that real life or real events are usually too boring. Movies are forms of entertainment, and they should be taken as such. How many people would watch a war movie if it were scripted like something you would see on the History Channel?
I still don’t think that movies need to change around information such as the nationality of the troops in one scene that would not play such a large role in the plot
In Enemy at the Gates two snipers, the best from Russia and the best from Germany, hunt each other down across war torn Leningrad. The movie is based on a true story.
As a side plot the Russian sniper is in love with the same girl as his best friend and they each try to win her heart. This part of the movie is fabricated…I have no problem with this. They decided to try and lighten up what is a dark bleak tale with this romantic sub plot, thats understandable and as long as the main plot remains intact, I’m happy.
The main story is an intresting & fascinating story of cat and mouse and the movie makers decided to leave it as it is. They’ve probably exagarrated some bits but thats fine as long as they haven’t moved the story to Paris and made it an American and a German as they usually would.
I’m not saying movies must be 100% accurate but as long as they’re near the truth (say 80%) then thats fine. I would have preffered “Enemy at the gate” to perhaps have a message at the end stating that the girl didn’t exist but it would have ruined the end of the movie and I can see why they left it out.
That’s Stalingrad, not Leningrad I think…
And I’m not even sure there has ever been any kind of “duel” between super-snipers… I think that what is relevent in any historical-based plot is the background. For example, one of the first scene in “Enemy At the Gates”, there’s a scene where Russian troops are sent forward by the officers to attack German forces, but the strength of the Germans forces the Red Army to retreat, at which point the Russians fire at their own troops to force them to attack more. That part is true (not especially during THIS attack in Stalingrad, but Russians were often fired upon by their own artillery). This just underlines the fact that Russians were just cannonmeat, and that’s how they fought. Send out a lot of troops to vainquish a superior fighting force just by the sheer number of men.
it wasn’t really a duel sort of thing it was more like chess I guess, though that is a cliche. If you’ve seen the movie (and it sounds like you have) you know what I mean, they hunted each other all over town, only coming face to face in one of the last scenes of the movie. This part is a bit untrue, the russian did kill the german in real live but it was from a distance not up close like the movie paints but again I have no problem with a little tinkering with the story.
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