"They Shall Not Grow Old" Peter Jackson's WWI film

[Europa1]

227bhp said:

I was commenting on a previous posters snowflake reference, but yes, the youth of today, or even anyone from 15 to 40. Apart from people getting killed you can't make any comparison with modern warfare to that of WW1, not at all, it was completely different.

So true. Despite watching the film, I still cannot comprehend the experience of the guys, on both sides. Live in horrific conditions; have a life expectancy that for some was measured in days after arrival at the front, die in horrific conditions, possibly without a grave.

Aged 18, I was worried about ploughing my A-levels, and ploughing a particular girl at Norwich High School. Not whether I'd live until my next meal.

[Riley Blue]

MYOB said:

FourWheelDrift said:

A lot of lip reading work was carried out to have the right words said by the voice actors for the soldiers on screen.

I doubt anyone could have lip read from those old films. In fact, I would say it is impossible given the frame rate of the original recording. Still, I liked some of the jokes expressed, especially the one about the tall German! "we'll get you next time! ".

That's what happened, forensic lip readers were employed to determine what was being said. Also, by studying insignia and badges, the voices that you heard had the same regional accents as the soldiers on the screen would have had.

[Moley RUFC]

As mentioned already some of the humour was pretty special. I particularly enjoyed the chap saying he’d stolen a pocket watch from a young captured German and then nicked 6 more when carried on a stretcher by German PoW’s

[mcelliott]

Just watched the last half an hour (again) - some of the up close footage of the tanks is breathtaking, as well as the camera work in general. Cinematic masterpiece.

[MYOB]

Okay, they used forensic lip-readers, but this is not a precise science and some is guessed by studying action, body language, mannerism etc. In the youtube clip posted above, the lady reported what one of the chap was saying but he was facing sideways to the camera, and there's no way anyone could lip-read him. I'm not knocking it - but it's is largely guess work.

It's great what they are doing though by attempting to add a voice to the individuals.

[Rogue86]

227bhp said:

I was commenting on a previous posters snowflake reference, but yes, the youth of today, or even anyone from 15 to 40. Apart from people getting killed you can't make any comparison with modern warfare to that of WW1, not at all, it was completely different.

You can make lots of comparisons. The camaraderie and the threat of imminent death are two things that haven't changed at all. If you think the fear in cowering away from an incoming 105mm munition has changed in 100 years you are dead wrong.

The way we fight wars has changed. The balls it takes to fight them hasn't.

[Europa1]

Smollet said:

Perhaps it would be good for them to see the horrors of that war rather than a sanitised version?

I have to agree with this.

I'd put this film, together with the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan, on the national curriculum, for all first year GCSE students, regardless of which subjects they are studying, just to give them some perspective on life. Their life.

[anonymous-user]

coppice said:

Based on what I have seen the only nations involved in WW1 were Germany and Britain( including the commonwealth)on the western front . Up to you whether you dismiss inconvenient facts as drivel.

Inconvenient facts ? Even the title “World War I” surely suggests a wider conflict, I suggest you broaden your research (or visit some more sites.)

[TheGuru]

Rogue86 said:

The way we fight wars has changed. The balls it takes to fight them hasn't.

I’d argue differently, there is no doubt that fear is the same and that there are many people in the armed forces with balls, however there are vast differences in society between now and then. As one of the WW1 soldiers was saying that it was completely expected of them and they had a duty to their country, that you just did what you were told. I don’t think that attitude exists anymore, we are a lot more individualistic and egalitarian these days, add selfish to the mix too.

[HarryW]

Absolutely brilliant piece by Peter Jackson, any praises or awards he gets for this will be well deserved in my book, BZ. Struggle to get my head around some of the comments on here tbh, disrespectful doesn't even begin to cover it, perhaps wilfull ignorance might.

It was, to me, sobering to hear the voices of those who were there and see it at the same time.

It was the human aspects that stuck out for me, particularly the connection between the foot soldiers of both sides.
I also Found the early comment about the character of the different regions of German soldiers and where they were from very telling. I've met a few Bavarians over the years and they seem to be more akin to the English that you'd ever care to imagine.

[227bhp]

Rogue86 said:

227bhp said:

I was commenting on a previous posters snowflake reference, but yes, the youth of today, or even anyone from 15 to 40. Apart from people getting killed you can't make any comparison with modern warfare to that of WW1, not at all, it was completely different.

You can make lots of comparisons. The camaraderie and the threat of imminent death are two things that haven't changed at all. If you think the fear in cowering away from an incoming 105mm munition has changed in 100 years you are dead wrong.

The way we fight wars has changed. The balls it takes to fight them hasn't.

They were just normal men, some as young as 16 so weren't even men. They left their jobs and a week later were on the front line dodging bullets and shells, a lot of them were just cannon fodder. That's nothing like it is today.
If you got killed in the Iraq war you were unlucky, in WW1 you were very lucky just to make it home.
There are people on this forum who have been so wrapped up in cotton wool and their kids too they can barely make it out of bed without help, I wouldn't want to depend on them to make me a cup of tea, let alone defend this country!

Edited by 227bhp on Monday 12th November 22:51

[yellowjack]

Riley Blue said:

boyse7en said:

Anyone seen this know if it is likely to be ok for a 12 year old?

There are close ups of bodies, both men and horses, and being in colour I think they're unsuitable for children. There's also a scene of horses being shelled which I found difficult to sit and watch.

It would be good if an edited version suitable for school viewing could be made, perhaps it will.

If you're thinking of the scene I think you're thinking of, then to me it smacked of a total fk-up.

Much of the "combat" footage in WW1 was staged (or perhaps re-staged) for the cameras. That scene looks like it was staged, with the explosions meant to go off after the troop of horses went past. That's how it looked to me, anyway. There's a chap in uniform running away from the left side of the camera, toward the horses and fallen men, in the raw black & white footage I've seen of that scene. He's in uniform, but with no weapon or 'field' equipment. Unless someone can confirm otherwise, I'm going for a "training accident" friendly fire incident for that one...


11'25" onward in this video... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpXGemT-ViQ&li...

Edited by yellowjack on Monday 12th November 23:14

[yellowjack]

Anyone else seen this... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuz0BA3-_P0 ..."then & now" film of the Somme in 1916?

I've not had chance to watch it all the way through, but it looks interesting from the bits I have watched.

[Rogue86]

TheGuru said:

I’d argue differently, there is no doubt that fear is the same and that there are many people in the armed forces with balls, however there are vast differences in society between now and then. As one of the WW1 soldiers was saying that it was completely expected of them and they had a duty to their country, that you just did what you were told. I don’t think that attitude exists anymore, we are a lot more individualistic and egalitarian these days, add selfish to the mix too.

I would argue that as a race we are more intelligent to some degree than we were 100 years ago. People are less likely to run 200yds into direct machine gun fire because someone told them to. I don't think that's particularly selfish or a bad thing. People are definitely more suspicious now than they were.

It's clear from watching the documentary that many of the men heading to combat had absolutely no idea what they were heading into and wanted to get there before it ended. The civilian population was heavily censored. They didn't sign up because of a sense of duty. They signed up because their friends were doing it and they wanted an adventure.

I would say absolutely nothing has changed. There are people much younger than you heading into worse odds in forgotten parts of the world as we speak. It might be 'trendy' to call them snowflakes but in 100 years, your sons will be talking about how brave they were compared to their own generation.

[GipsyHillClimber]

I was extremely impressed by this film, I think we've all seen the black and white footage and as somebody said on the first page of this thread, it makes it seem a lot more real when the framerate is smoother and there's colour and voices. I imagine most people thought that somebody in the footage looked like somebody they knew or worked with etc.

I think adding that extra realism really hit home something I knew but never really dwelled all too much is that pretty much all able bodied men were recruited (or conscripted), seeing the horrors of war and then having exactly the same thing happen to their children or younger relatives 20 years later. It must have given that generation an interesting perspective on life and 'nationalism'.

Really hard hitting programme which I thought was really well done. Some bits I thought had a hint of rose tinted glasses but that's understandable from the veterans who will have needed an element of schadenfreude to cope with what they went through I imagine. I was also dubious when one of the veterans said that they of course let anybody with their hands up go unharmed but then they followed that up by mentioning that "some lads" ignored the machine gunners surrendering when their blood was up and they'd just seen their friends mowed down by these individuals.

[LoonyTunes]

TheGuru said:

Rogue86 said:

The way we fight wars has changed. The balls it takes to fight them hasn't.

I’d argue differently, there is no doubt that fear is the same and that there are many people in the armed forces with balls, however there are vast differences in society between now and then. As one of the WW1 soldiers was saying that it was completely expected of them and they had a duty to their country, that you just did what you were told. I don’t think that attitude exists anymore, we are a lot more individualistic and egalitarian these days, add selfish to the mix too.

If the same conflict sprung up today I'd not fight in it. The working and middle classes are far more worldly wise today than they were back then and yes that also includes selfish as well.

I'm afraid I'd only fight a war against an aggressor with designs on acquiring my actual homeland and/or killing my family, friends and countrymen - I'm not going to some far-flung god-forsaken hell-hole to sacrifice my one-and-only lifetime in this cosmos killing foreigners in their own homeland because some politico tells me to - or says that it's patriotic.

[Bebee]

GipsyHillClimber said:

schadenfreude, dubio

For the uninitiated (me)

schadenfreude

'pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune.
"a business that thrives on Schadenfreude"


dubio

In dubio definition is - (when) in doubt. Latin phrase. in du·​bio






I wish I'd have gone to Oxofrd, sorry I mean Oxford, I'm just a Googlehead.......

[RC1807]

I finished watching this last night and I found it very moving in places, seeing how the troops had to struggle for a few days out of the trenches, then back to it, slopping around in mud. I can't imagine just how awful it must have been.

There was one clip of the walking wounded, where one of the soldiers was shaking uncontrollably, probably shell shock. Awful times for them all, made somuch more amazing by the fact that they kept morale going - and seemingly remained able to crack a smile.

Made me think that last bit - keep smiling though the very bad times. We just don't know how good life is. Really.

I'm driving back to the UK for a couple of days next month. I'm stopping, for the first time, in Ypres. I've driven past it more than a hundred times over the last 20 years or so, and I'm ashamed I've not stopped to acknowledge, let alone bow to the memorials.
I will make up for that on 13th December.

Edited by RC1807 on Tuesday 13th November 11:16

[aeropilot]

RC1807 said:

Awful times for them all, made somuch more amazing by the fact that they kept morale going - and seemingly remained able to crack a smile.

And they even sang a song about it in 1915.....

Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag,
And smile,smile,smile
While you've a lucifer to light your fag,
Smile boys, that's the style.
What's the use of worrying?
It never was worth while, so
Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag,
And smile,smile,smile

[Halmyre]

LoonyTunes said:

If the same conflict sprung up today I'd not fight in it. The working and middle classes are far more worldly wise today than they were back then and yes that also includes selfish as well.

I'm afraid I'd only fight a war against an aggressor with designs on acquiring my actual homeland and/or killing my family, friends and countrymen - I'm not going to some far-flung god-forsaken hell-hole to sacrifice my one-and-only lifetime in this cosmos killing foreigners in their own homeland because some politico tells me to - or says that it's patriotic.

The politicos of course will have persuaded you (if the tablods haven't) that the barbaric inhabitants of Whereverthefkitis have evil designs on your nearest and dearest and need to be stopped in their tracks.