I'm getting sick of this now, what the hell is it with the American film industries obsession with trying to re-write history to show Americans single handedly saving the world and making the real heros look like American Arse kissing idiots and then calling it a "True Story"

Black Hawk Down, Saving Private Ryan and U571 were bad enough now they have another one due out and with Tom Cruise staring who i thought would of been smarter than that but hey.

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30500-12777448,00.html

BRITISH HISTORY RE-WRITTEN

Tom Cruise is set to star in a movie re-run of the Battle of Britain that suggests an American had a lot to do with winning it.


For those of you who don't know, the Battle of britain was the British Air forces finest moment, when we, heavily out numbered, managed to push back the German Luftwaffe at a great price and scarafice.

In this only 12!! yes 12!! Americans were involved in the battle of britain.


Cruise will play US airman Billy Fiske in the new film, which, to the fury of RAF veterans, bears the provisional title of The Few.


Mr Fiske was an American Business man who flew 3 missions, he never acheived any particular objectives, made any contributions of note or made any impact of special note to the effort, in fact didnt score a single hit on an enemy in his 3 flights and died when he crash landed on the 3rd mission.
I give him credit for going up there but at the end of the day he was less than special compared to many others that went up for their country.

The script has him lead the Allies to victory over the Luftwaffe,

One of just 12 Americans involved in the World War II battle, Fiske never downed a German plane and was killed when he crash-landed his aircraft.

This is where the excuses come in
An industry insider told the Daily Star the film would never sell if a Briton had the starring role.

"The hero must be American. The public wouldn't have it any other way. To get bums on seats the writers twist the facts."


Of course, after all everyone knows if your not American you would never REALLLLY acheive anything, especially not in a war!!! i mean im so sick of every American i meet without exception so far though in the case of my uncle he does it as a joke at least, when the subject of war, or sometimes even without reason, they ram down your neck how "They" saved our arses in WWII and in every major battle since =/, that i'm going to scream.
Now it seems they even want to try to re-write history to prove it =/, what was that about revisionist history?

I know some will say its just movies we all take it with a pinch of salt but how many times i've seen people who take the TV or Films for fact because "It said it was a true story!! it really happened!!" and then put there fingers in their ears and glaze over when you try to tell them the truth.

arghh drives me insane.
If you want to take such a sensetive subject as a major war where so many people sacraficed thier lives and make a Film about it well played, all the power to you but ffs don't insult everybody by then making the real heros look like incompetent retards and a Lone American the hero of the day and claim its a true story.

Would it really make a difference if the hero of the film had an American or British Accent?
If you realllly feel the American Public (You know this is who they are targetting) wouldnt pay any attention to it if the star is not American then dont use a British war with minimal American involvement as a scene.

It's no accident. Marketeers shape history for pop consumption. Many corporations are carefully spoiling America for profit. The disturbing problem with overfeeding the collective ego is, as it expands outward into a ever larger, more self-impressive, hollow, and thinly-stretched star-spangled bubble, pop culture and dishonest politics continue to inflate things to the both ridiculous and tragic moment of culture pop.

I know, i dont mind a bit of "hollywood Science" or flights of fantasy thats what movies are about, but continualy feeding this Holier than thou kick and insulting entire countries by making a "true" story about them and writing off their sacrafice and efforts and portraying them as idiots fawning over the American Pretty boys who save the day once is bad enough, to do it 3, 4 times in a row.....

While I agree with you to a degree, the problem is that Hollywood directors will pretty much tell you that they are making movies, not documentaries. And the truth is, if people are depending on Hollywood for their education in history, well... And in defense of Hollywood, they never claim that their historical remakes are 'true' history. They may not put out any disclaimers saying that it is 'not true' either, they just don't really say anything about it either way.

i'm downloading Black Hawk Down right now....
how is the movie different than what really happened?

The movie is no different. It stays true to the book, which documents events based on participants, both American and Somalian.

othadp: "i'm downloading Black Hawk Down right now....
how is the movie different than what really happened?"

What really happened is that nearly 1,000 Somalis were killed, and thousands more maimed, for being in the way when scared, armed American teenagers got lost in a place they were not educated, trained, or briefed to function in. The movie conveys a bit of the fear, confusion, pain and brotherhood felt from the American perspective, leaving out the disproportionate amount of suffering and death the residents of Mogadishu endured.

Now you can ignore this and enjoy your popcorn and shoot-em-up.

does the film mention anything about the killings of the locals?

Originally posted by hypewaders
What really happened is that nearly 1,000 Somalis were killed, and thousands more maimed, for being in the way when scared, armed American teenagers got lost in a place they were not educated, trained, or briefed to function in.

So all the dead Somalis were just innocent bystanders? A large number of Mogadishu residents didn't band together to kill the Americans sent there to feed them?

Originally posted by hypewaders
The movie conveys a bit of the fear, confusion, pain and brotherhood felt from the American perspective, leaving out the disproportionate amount of suffering and death the residents of Mogadishu endured.

The movie was about the American troops. Why should it focus on anyone else?

Galt:

The question I was responding to was "how is the movie different than what really happened?"

I was only pointing out a disproportionality, and not qualifying the combattant status of the Somalis who were wounded and killed, which, since you asked, was largely but not entirely "innocent" (meaning these victims were not present for the purpose of killing Our Boys).

This thread is about hollywood distortion of history, American supremacism, and the results of this misrepresentation. Thank you for illustrating.

Originally posted by Psycho-Cannon
Black Hawk Down, Saving Private Ryan and U571 were bad enough now they have another one due out and with Tom Cruise staring who i thought would of been smarter than that but hey.

Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down had nothing to do with Americans saving the world. And nobody in U571 was kissing America's ass.

Saving Private Ryan was a fictional story about a half dozen troops risking their lives to find a soldier who may not even be alive. Trying to find this soldier would have no realistic affect on the outcome of the war, and therefore it was not a "save the world" mission.

Black Hawk Down was a fact-based movie about Americans not trying to save the world, but trying to save Africans from themselves.

To the best of my knowledge, U571 was fact-based fiction (the effort to steal the Enigma machine was real, but I think the British did it), but Americans weren't portrayed as saviors of the world; real heroes weren't portrayed as idiots; and nobody kissed the Americans' asses.

Originally posted by hypewaders
This thread is about hollywood distortion of history, American supremacism, and the results of this misrepresentation. Thank you for illustrating.

And how exactly did I illustrate this? By pointing out that American troops faced a very real threat from a large number of civilian hostiles (making them very difficult to single out from non-hostiles)?

EDIT: I don't doubt that many innocent Somalis were uninentionally killed in this fiasco - and American troops should never have been there, in my opinion - but it was the result of the "world community's" good intentions gone bad (in case you forgot that America wasn't the only nation with troops in Somalia, since it was a UN mission).

Don't take it too personally, Galt. Avoiding a debate about American interventionism, and returning toward topic:

Hollywood's influence is immense- and hollywood is for the most part a nationalist whore, reinforcing a perilous American myth of supremacy and righteousness.

Originally posted by hypewaders
Don't take it too personally, Galt. Avoiding a debate about American interventionism, and returning toward topic:

Hollywood's influence is immense- and hollywood is for the most part a nationalist whore, reinforcing a perilous American myth of supremacy and righteousness.

Hollywood a nationalist whore???? Have you heard the crap that came out of Hollywood regarding this country and the President. I don't buy this crap of "we support the troops, but get out". If you support them, you let them know with positives, and quit undercutting everything and acting like your arrogant opinion means more than everyone elses'. You may not like the President, but in a time of war, you do.

Most of Hollywood is made up of rich, overpaid actors, directors etc. who have too much time, don't think and don't have a clue. Examples: Sean Penn, Madonna, Alec Baldwin, George Clooney, Jeanie Garafolo, etc. No clue idiots who say nothing useful, do nothing, and can be refuted at every turn. BTW, why is Alec Baldwin still here? I thought he was leaving the country if Bush was elected.

The Battle of Britain movie is just like Braveheart, takes something that happened, then makes it how they think they can make the most money. Half the stuff in the film never occured at the time they had it, battles changed, Bruce never betrayed Wallace, Wallace was actually fighting for Bailiol, the Irish were never at the battle. If I was English, I would have been offended by the movie's inaccuracies.

"You may not like the President, but in a time of war, you do."

OK. Let's just skip elections and go to the movies until the war on terror on war on terror on war on terror on war on terror on war on terror on war on terror on war on terror on war on terror on war on terror on war on terror on war on terror on war on terror on war on terroron war on terror on war on terror on war on terror on war on terror on war on terror on war on terror on war on terror on war on terror and war and war and terror and terror is over then, shall we?

Next election, vote for someone else. That's your right. I am assuming you are American, otherwise oh well.

Yer goddam right I am, and will. Let's just hope it counts this time.

Hehe, the problem is, if you're voting Democrat, not much to pick from. All they do is rail on Bush, but can't define what they each stand for. I'm all for Al Sharpton, baby, he's the man who can make a difference for the Democrats and for America!:D :eek:

Ok, back on topic now!

If you want to learn history pick up a book. People go to the movies because they want action/suspense/romance/whatever. If you don't like what Hollywood does to true stories, then why don't you go finance your own $100 million motion picture and make it textbook accurate. Until then just think of movies as any other form of entertainment: they are in it to make money and "exactly textbook true" doesn't sell more tickets. The problem is people like psycho who think movies are made to be accurate, like it's a cardinal rule or something. My suggestion is to watch the History Channel. :)

As a Canadian I am by definition neutral, so I have a solution to redress the balance of Hollywood history. I am currently working on a number of scripts which I hope will soon be turned into multi-million dollar motion picture extravaganzas:

Custer The story of a deranged and psychotic American driven by lust, greed and brutality to attack defenceless natives in the West simply for the thrill of murder. His days of torturing, brutalising and reigning with terror in the West are cut short by a valiant English colonist who teaches the natives to fight back and respect themselves. Custer is finally cut down in a climactic battle seen with our hero (played by Jude Law) cutting him down as he attempts to butcher more natives. Film ends to 'God Save the Queen' performed by Blur.

Grace Biopic drama about how one British man, WG Grace, who re-invented America's national pastime and dominated a country. Film opens with Baba Ruth grabbing an ice-cream from the hands of an adoring young fan. He has the baseball establishment in his pocket and is ruled by greed with penchant for fast cars and faster women. WG Grace is contacted by the owner of the Chicago Cubs who will be handed over to the evil Ruth if they don't post a winning season. In desperation the owner approaches a cricket legend who agrees to play for one season only. In the process he teaches the Americans about fair play, the will to win and has a heart of gold for the young fans who flock to them. Grace clubs 80 home runs (a record which still stands to this day) and the Cubs beat the Yankees in the World Series. 'Star Spangled Banner' performed by the Sex Pistols. Stephen Fry stars as Grace.

Revolution Comedy. The story of how an incompetent but well meaning bunch of colonists decide to take on their British rulers and fight for freedom. All is not going well for the misfit army which is run by half-witted and naive leaders such as George Washington (played by Jim Carrey). All seems lost until an inspirational Arab arrives to teach them the ways of the Koran and how to fight. He turns the army around and gains respect from the British for his striking and bold tactics and brilliant use of terrain and strategy. In the end his American second in command turns traitor driven by religious zeal, but his men rally round him in support and he wins the day! The Arab becomes the first American President and he establishes a secular country based on the peaceful teachings of Islam.

I'm working on some more after these three shoot me to fame!

I dont think movies "Have to be text book true".
As i've said above i don't mind a flight of fantasy or bit of half truth as these are the movies after all.
My only point was that taking a situation like this and making a movie of it but then replacing the Heros
of the war with an American who had nothing to do with wining it is more than just a bit insulting to the
real veterans and relatives of those that died.

Does Hollywood really think Americans are so up their own arse they can't stomach a movie unless it shows
America saving the day? are Americans really so patriotic they wouldn't belive a story was true unless
its an American Hero?
I dont think so surely? would it really make a difference to you if the Hero was British?
The Actors American isn't that enough?
I know your probably going to say no it doesnt matter so why are you complaining about it.
Because its insulting to those that died and fought the real thing to be cut out the picture and have the
movie paraded as a "true story"
Not just once, but several times in a row they've done that now.

How would Americans like it if we release a film called 9-11 with Americans dying in the Towers, crying and suffering,
Then the brave Brits come storming in to save them all in the face of exploding planes and collapsing towers.
I cant imagine the up roar that would cause in the states, they'd be in the streets calling for our blood.
Comment in bad taste, probably, hell i can see the heckles on some of you rising all ready but how do you think the
veterans of the Battle of Britain feel after all they did to see a "True story" painting the US as the hero with the
Brits in a Cameo roll.

Its also annoying that a new phenomenon is occouring, fine so you all seem to think that you are smarter to know the
truth than take films as reality, so do i thats great.
Unfortunatly theres a lot of people that take what they see on tv and films as truth or at least let it form their
opinion of something, Black hawk downs a classic.
How many people will come away from that movie and whilst understanding that its a movie and dramatised, when asked how
big a part did the States play in the Battle of Britain, will reply they saved the brits fucking arse man!! they owe us.
It just drives me up the wall trying to combat ignorance and arrogance normally,but when people start
"Quoting Hollywood" it just goes too far.

ROFL well played my friend ^_^.

What was the difference between the film and reality?

Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down sets out to tell the story of a US military debacle. On October 3, 1993, Somali gunmen brought down two Black Hawk helicopters as American Special Forces tried to seize the warlord Farah Aideed. During a night of fighting 18 US soldiers died and 73 were wounded. One pilot was taken hostage and CNN showed scenes of American dead being paraded through the streets of Mogadishu. Within months the Clinton administration pulled US forces out of Somalia.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz declared Black Hawk Down to be a “powerful film.” His fellow film enthusiasts included Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Army Secretary Tom White, and Iran-Contra plotter Oliver North.

Ironically one of the few soldiers to stand out is the character played by Ewan McGregor. Unfortunately it is not through McGregor’s efforts that the character is made recognisable. Even the best actor would have had trouble bringing these characters to life because their dialogue is so limited, rarely extending beyond “f***” and “hu-ah.”

McGregor’s character stands out because he was originally based on Specialist John Stebbins. When Stebbins was convicted of child molesting, the name had to be changed in an effort to protect the army’s reputation. The new name, “Grimes” was grafted on later and is pronounced at every opportunity for no apparent reason other than to make clear that he is not Stebbins.

Bowden’s book tell us about the American participants on October 3; he has gone to some lengths to interview Somalis who were there that day. We learn about their backgrounds, what they witnessed and what they did just as we do about the Americans

Scott’s attitude is very different. The role of the Somalis in the film is to die in anonymous waves like the Hollywood Indians of old westerns. The film is shot entirely from the point of view of the American soldiers. We do not learn about the vastly disproportionate number of Somalis killed and injured on October 3.

At the time it was widely understood as a humiliating defeat for the US military. The few seconds of film CNN screened showing the mutilated body of an American soldier being dragged through the streets shocked the US public, who could not understand why these young Americans had been sent to Mogadishu.

CNN had 40 minutes of film from a Somali stringer. It showed only 30 seconds and of that only 2.5 seconds included the dead soldier. So powerful was this image, however, which was of a very different kind to the slick Hollywood depiction of death and injury shown by Scott, that it made the use of ground troops on this scale politically impossible for almost a decade.

Instead Scott shows us alternative images of US soldiers who, although wounded, are heroic until the very moment they are killed.
"Brave and Patriotic" youths laying down their lives fighting to the death against incredible odds, gloryfying it hollywood style.

What then really happened in Mogadishu

To begin at the beginning, why were the American forces in Somalia? According to Scott’s film they were there as part of the UN mission and their role was to get food aid through to the starving. This was not the case. The famine was already over by the time US troops arrived. Bowden’s book Black Hawk Down and the book Me Against My Brother, by another American journalist, Scott Peterson,** both make this clear. Neither of them is anti-American or left-wing in their political sympathies.

Peterson points out that the number of famine deaths had peaked in October to November 1991. President George Bush did not launch Operation Restore Hope until December 1992. In any case the 30,000 combat troops, attack helicopters and warships that Bush despatched were scarcely suitable for an aid mission.

A scene at the beginning of the film suggests that the UN prevented US troops from protecting aid convoys. Again this is untrue. The mission was handed over to UN control in May 1993, but effectively the US remained in the driving seat. Although 23 nations participated in the UN operation, political and military control was in American hands throughout. US Admiral Jonathan Howe was in charge of the whole operation. His staff and all the most senior military officials were American.

The US troops sent to Mogadishu were not intended to help the aid effort. Among the Rangers were members of the secret Delta force, a fact that in deference to the military Scott never spells out. The presence of General Garrison in Mogadishu was kept secret because his military background in special operations would have made it all too clear that the purposes of the task force was not humanitarian. Garrison had commanded the Phoenix Program, whose task was to kill Vietnamese village leaders who were thought to be sympathetic to the Viet Cong. Since then he had conducted covert operations all over the world.

In the weeks leading up to October 3, the Rangers had earned themselves the enmity of the civilian population of Mogadishu. Three times a day Black Hawks would harass the city’s residents flying along the streets below roof level before soaring back up to hundreds of feet in the air. This activity was popular with the Rangers who told Bowden it was like riding a roller coaster. Sometimes they would hover low over flimsy shacks blowing them apart, or over a crowded market place tearing people’s clothes from their bodies or even ripping babies out of their mothers’ arms, in a practice the pilots called “rotor washing.”

Even before October 3 the US military were casually brutal about the number of dead and injured among the Somalis, whom they referred to contemptuously as “Sammys” or “Skinnies.” They regularly lobbed mortar shells into the city from the UN compound. They hit hospitals and homes killing an unknown number of civilians. No attempt was even made to count the number of casualties when troops opened fire on crowds.

The single action that did more than any other to cement Somali hostility and to unite the different clan factions in Mogadishu against the Americans was the massacre of a meeting of Habr Gedir clan elders on July 12, 1993.
Admiral Howe had put to them the previous day peace proposals.
They had convened their meeting to discuss these and find a peaceful sollution.
Cobra gunships armed with TOW missiles and 20 mm cannons then attacked the house, with ground troops finishing off the wounded as witnesses claim they begged for their lives.

I saw a documentary on TV a while ago where a British Reporter went to somalia to see what happened in response to the complaints about the film , he wasnt there more than an hour when an old woman try to force her way past his guide and screaming abuse thinking he was American.
After they explained he was a British reporter trying to get their side of the story she calmed down a bit but was still crying and a large crowd had already started assembling and his guide was suggesting he think about leaving if he wants to live.
But he stayed and inverviewd them as a scared guide went round the crowd explining he was British and wanted to tell their story, probably saving his life.
Seems the woman lost her husband and 2 daughters to the Americans when they shot up her house during the incident and knows many many more that died or lost people, apparently the entire village remebers what happened and hates the Americans and feel they will never get justice for what they did and what they did to their "elders" who were murdered when they met to discuss American "Peace" proposals.
Even today if an American were to walk alone in along the street where this happened its unlikely they would leave alive such is the hate and pain that still is there.

When the mission on October 3 went wrong the US troops found themselves in a situation that was largely of their own making. Bowden is very candid about the extent of civilian casualties on October 3. He describes how the American troops opened fire on civilians
as they put it in their own words “mowing down whole crowds of Sammies,” laughing when they blew a woman apart. He also admits that they took women and children hostage. Scott’s film does not show the hostages and pays no attention to civilian casualties.

Nor does Scott admit, as Bowden does, that the Rangers went to pieces under fire, and that their discipline broke down. The average age of the Rangers was 19, with many almost fresh off the high school football pitch having never been under fire before, they were cocky and happy enough to mow down "Sammies" from the air and with mortars and against unarmed crowds but as soon as they turned back in retaliation for the masacre of their "elders" and fired back they lost it.
(Typical Bully mentality imho)
Bowden notes that one of soldiers joined the army because his wife was pregnant and he needed a better-paid job with a health plan, something all to common it seems today.

Why did these young men die? To answer that Scott would have had to examine the background to the US intervention in Somalia. This is the most glaring omission in the film. There is no hint of America’s long-term involvement in the area and its role in creating the tragic situation in Somalia through its support for the vicious dictator Siad Barre

The US had supported Siad Barre since the mid-1970s. Until then Somalia had been a Soviet ally.
An old story but thankfully most people seem to have forgotten this already and as such will happily sit by while this whole think is rinsed and repeated over and over.

When neighbouring Ethiopia overthrew Emperor Hailie Selassie, the Soviet Union shifted its support to the new Ethiopian regime. The US government took the opportunity to form an alliance with Somalia, pouring millions of pounds worth of sophisticated weaponry into this backward country, because it offered a base on the strategically important sea lanes leading into the Middle East.

Siad Barre exacerbated clan rivalries and was responsible for causing famine by devastating the farming districts. During the late 1970s and 1980s Somalia became the largest recipient of aid in Africa, but most of this money went on military spending. By the late 1980s Somalia was awash with arms.

When rebellion broke out in the late 1980s, the US backed Siad Barre as he ruthlessly suppressed opposition. In 1988 he razed the city of Hargiesa to the ground in an attempt to destroy the rival Isaaq clan. In these years every young Somali learned to use an assault rifle

In 1991 Siad Barre was overthrown. A unit of US Marines had to be diverted from the Gulf to evacuate the US embassy, which was by then the largest in sub-Saharan Africa. The American landing a year later was an attempt to recover this strategic base on the Horn of Africa and to consolidate the Middle Eastern gains that the US had made in the Gulf War.

This bloody intervention proved unsuccessful at the time, but the present US administration has shown that it is eager to complete Bush senior’s unfinished business in the Middle East. Somalia is on the list of targets in the “war against terror”. While it may be lower down the list than Iraq, a repeat visit can be expected.

* Mark Bowden, Black Hawk Down, Bantam Press, 1999

** Scott Peterson, Me Against My Brother, Routledge, 2001

Damn psycho, write a book on it why don't you haha. Anyways I skimmed over most of it and all I have to say is this: American's dying/getting there asses kicked by the Somali's is not going to further the studio's goal of making money/selling tickets or help there "image", as they might be labeled as Anti-American. American's winning/beating the "bad guy" (which is, conveniently, anyone who fires at us, even though we are in THEIR country killing THEIR people) is expected. Do I buy it? Of course not, as 90% of what you hear and see in the media/entertainment industry is bullshit. The problem is a lot of people take movies as history, mostly because of their lack of knowledge in the area, and also because its "right there on the screen" so some how it seems more believable. But these are the same people who watch Pirates of the Caribbean and saying "ohhh so that's how pirates were!" so I guess we can't ever really help them ;)

Originally posted by Spyke
The movie is no different. It stays true to the book, which documents events based on participants, both American and Somalian.

...thats a joke right....i suppose you can say it stays true to the book just ommiting the huge and most important parts...but then i guess thats true of any book made into a film, just a conicidence then that all the parts left out happened to show why the US troops were attacked so feircly and just how badly they responded =/

And Galt they didnt go there to "feed" the somali's, they US didnt send troops until a year after the famin peaked and was considered over by the time they got there.
Also the troops sent were battle troops and attack helicopters and war ships, not humanitarian troops.
In fact the UN that was meant to be the humanitarian aspect of the mission was effectivly put in the back seat on this one, yet in the movie we are shown as the bad guys trying to stop the US Peacekeepers feeding the poor starving somalis.

hehe sorry man just wanted to prove a point =p i guess the post got a weeee bit long huh =/ well posts like that never get a reply as no ones ever arsed reading them lol so i'll leave it be =/.

Basically the film not only left out the facts of what happened but they even threw in a dagger at the UN by again making the US look like the victims or pointless and unprovoked attack by savages which was not the case but they make the UN look like they were in control and trying to hold the US back which is a complete falacy yet one so many people that saw the film seem to belive is true.

Originally posted by hypewaders
Hollywood's influence is immense- and hollywood is for the most part a nationalist whore, reinforcing a perilous American myth of supremacy and righteousness.

In some cases, yes. In others, no.

Amistad (http://www.tntech.edu/history/amistadr.html).

...thats a joke right....i suppose you can say it stays true to the book just ommiting the huge and most important parts...but then i guess thats true of any book made into a film, just a conicidence then that all the parts left out happened to show why the US troops were attacked so feircly and just how badly they responded =/

No joke. Although it's been a couple of years since I read Bowden's book, I don't remember it going into any great detail about the situation in Somalia prior to the raid itself. Bowden focused pretty much on the raid form the American perspective. While he did interview some Somalis, and did guessitmate at the propable casualties suffered by them, his book focused on the raide itself. In that, the movie stayed close. But hey, I don't need Hollywood to give me real history. I've got this board.;)