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Subject: Most militarily incorrect movie
Jeff_F_F    6/23/2007 10:09:06 AM
My vote is for Godzilla, with Apache attack helicopters firing cannon mounted on the sides of the fuselage and ending with an entire stadium blown up with what looked like a few Harpoons.
 
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flamingknives       6/24/2007 5:32:36 AM
And using MLRS as a direct-fire weapon.
And having a very large lizard (at all) but particularly being able to dodge bullets and tank shells.

"Sniper", where an olympic target shooter is sent on a mission with a Marine sniper.

"The Battle of the Bulge" in many respects, including an M24 with the turret blown off and the crew not reduced to crispy strawberry jam. 
 
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BasinBictory    Oh - this thread can get long...   6/24/2007 5:58:48 AM
Don't forget that in "Sniper" the Master Gunnery Sergeant played by Tom Berenger incorrectly referred to the Mosin-Nagant sniper rifle he later picked up as a German Mauser. You would expect that an E-9 Marine sniper would know every single piece of long-range hardware in all the arsenals of the world. I am a Mosin enthusiast and was irritated at the snub - evidently the scriptwriter wouldn't know his ass from his mouth, as both of them produce fecal matter.
 
How about "Invasion USA" starring Chuck Norris - lots of egregious gun errors, but the one that sticks in my memory is when Chuck uses an M203 grenade launcher like a pump-action shotgun and quickly fires off two grenades on either side of a doorway he was about to go through. Not only is this impossible with the M203, he would have been killed by the blast, since he fired at about a distance of 10 feet.
 
There's another movie which I cannot recall the title of, but it stars Nicholas Cage as an attack helicopter pilot, loosely patterned after "Top Gun" and the one scene I recall is where he's in the simulator and shouting, with ever increasing volume, "I am the greatest!" I Am the Greatest!" I AM THE GREATEST!" The movie basically takes the Top Gun F-14s and substitutes them for attack helicopters - where they spend their time training to shoot down other helicopters, which of course is not their primary (or even secondary) mission.  That movie was just utterly dumb.
 
"G.I Jane" starring Demi Moore as the first female to attempt BUD/S training (the Navy SEALs). While I don't object to the basic plotline, and I thought Viggo Mortensen's portrayal of Command Master Chief Urgayle was superb, the action sequences when they were fighting the Libyans was like a cowboy western movie, lots of yip-yip hollering, standing up, shooting from the hip, spraying bullets wildly, etc. -  as opposed to the professionalism you'd expect from SEALs.
 
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the British Lion       6/24/2007 10:12:00 AM
Starship Troopers gets my vote. No armour, almost no air support, awful, AWFUL, infantry tactics. (at one point they surround a group of bugs and proceed to shoot into them... forgetting that one stray bullet would hit a trooper on the other side of the circle).
Thier rifles, aside from the few snipers, had nothing in the way of sights to aim with, iron or optical... (it's a good thing their targets were so big!). And they were big and bulkey to boot. Could have done with caseless ammo too...
Non of them thought that maybe cammo would be a good idea, wearing dark grey uniforms in a dessert kind of makes you stand out.
No night or thermal vision that I saw; in fact, very little useful infantry tech at all. I dunno, maybe they thought it just wouldn't be "sporting" to use ALL their tech against a bunch of bugs...
 
There's more I'm sure, but that's all I can think of for now...
 
B.L.
 
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BasinBictory       6/24/2007 9:51:26 PM

Starship Troopers gets my vote. No armour, almost no air support, awful, AWFUL, infantry tactics. (at one point they surround a group of bugs and proceed to shoot into them... forgetting that one stray bullet would hit a trooper on the other side of the circle).

Thier rifles, aside from the few snipers, had nothing in the way of sights to aim with, iron or optical... (it's a good thing their targets were so big!). And they were big and bulkey to boot. Could have done with caseless ammo too...

Non of them thought that maybe cammo would be a good idea, wearing dark grey uniforms in a dessert kind of makes you stand out.

No night or thermal vision that I saw; in fact, very little useful infantry tech at all. I dunno, maybe they thought it just wouldn't be "sporting" to use ALL their tech against a bunch of bugs...

 

There's more I'm sure, but that's all I can think of for now...

 

B.L.

Oh boy, don't get us started on Starship Troopers. From what I can tell, most on this board are fans of Robert Heinlein and fans of Starship Troopers the book. Allowing Paul Verhoeven to direct that movie (and thus make a travesty of it) would be like allowing Michael Moore to direct a movie based on a Tom Clancy novel.
 
There's another movie directed by Verhoeven (who I actually like, by the way) called "Total Recall" starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. There's a scene where Arnie turns on a hologram projector of himself and walks into an ambush. The soldiers surround him (actually just his hologram) in a complete circle, about 10 meters across, and proceed to blaze away at what they think is Quaid, surprised that they're hitting nothing. If this were true, half of them would be dead as they were standing in a circle shooting.
 
I can't believe I forgot about the Rambo movies. While "First Blood" was at least believeable, the Rambo movies (just like the Rocky movies) got increasingly hilarious and farfetched. An explosive-tipped arrow to kill the NVA colonel? Sure! Why not! Never mind that a former Special Forces operator like John Rambo would simply use a silencer if he had a need to shoot and kill somebody with a minimum of noise...
 
As far as the Hind ramming into the tank - why the heck would a helicopter pilot do that in the first place? A tank is a 60-ton monstrosity more or less immune to ramming attacks, except by another tank. A helicopter, even the monstrous Hind, is an aluminum eggshell by comparison and doesn't need to ram anything because, hey - it can fly after all!
 
Virtually any episode of "The A-Team" qualifies as bad military "movies" even though it was a TV show. A group of former Green Berets who become underground mercenaries, you'd expect these guys to be deadly killers with their guns. Instead, they play shoot-em-up with various local baddies, no one gets hit with bullets, but the bad guys eventually get caught when their vehicles flip over due to well-placed explosives, etc.
 
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Yimmy       6/24/2007 10:02:00 PM
I actually really like the film "Starship Troopers".

But then I have never read the book, while I take the film for what it is, a sci-fi comedy.  A very good sci-fi comedy.


 
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Jimme    Starship troopers   6/25/2007 2:37:00 AM
That movie has always bothered me, its my brothers favorite, he has the VHS and DVD, i could never understand so many things about the movie.

A. why such crappy weapons? wouldn't automatic shot guns have torn much better through those bugs?
B. Mobile Infantry on a distant planet? why not at the very least give them tanks? hell shermans would have ripped through them bugs better then a bunch of guys walking.
C. Air/Space support. Only one scene showed any kind of aircraft bombing the bugs, why the hell are boots on the ground in the first place rather then bombardments.
D. the meteor that destroyed Buenos Aires would have DESTROYED THE ENTIRE PLANET!!!!

 
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BasinBictory       6/25/2007 3:49:00 AM

That movie has always bothered me, its my brothers favorite, he has the VHS and DVD, i could never understand so many things about the movie.

A. why such crappy weapons? wouldn't automatic shot guns have torn much better through those bugs?
B. Mobile Infantry on a distant planet? why not at the very least give them tanks? hell shermans would have ripped through them bugs better then a bunch of guys walking.
C. Air/Space support. Only one scene showed any kind of aircraft bombing the bugs, why the hell are boots on the ground in the first place rather then bombardments.
D. the meteor that destroyed Buenos Aires would have DESTROYED THE ENTIRE PLANET!!!!


If you've read the book, you will understand what a mockery of the book the film makes.
The movie, in and of itself, I actually like a lot. It is entertaining, humorous, has lots of cool weaponry and explosions, and of course, hot naked women. I am a big fan of Paul Verhoeven's movies (which also include Robocop and Total Recall) and wouldn't hesitate to watch another of his films.
 
However, the movie simply doesn't do the book justice. It is only very loosely based on the book, which is perhaps in the Top 5 or Top 3 of all science fiction novels of all time.
 
But to answer your questions:
 
A - in the book, the Mobile Infantry were equipped with "powered armor" which was essentially an exoskeletal suit which enhanced the wearer's strength and speed and was also a self-contained breathing apparatus. Each individual soldier was in essence, a one-man tank. So, the movie depiction of soldiers wearing SWAT gear and toting machine guns was pure Hollywood.
 
B - see answer to (A), but in addition, the powered armor allowed soldiers to move at a clip of approximately 40kph without too much effort - hence the name "Mobile" Infantry. The infantry of the movie are no more mobile than the Greek hoplites - they moved everywhere on foot!
 
C - In the book, there is no "close air support" to speak of. The dropships as depicted in the movie didn't exist at all in the book - the troopers were instead dropped from orbit inside a capsule which gradually flaked away during descent, leaving them only in their powered armor for the final few hundred feet to the surface. They were basically high-tech space paratroopers, not the high tech Air Cavalry heliborne (okay, spacecraft-borne) trooopers like depicted in the movie.
 
D - Not necessarily. I don't recall how big they said the asteroid was in the movie, but in real life, the meteorite that caused the large crater in the Arizona desert would probably be able to destroy a medium sized city. A slightly larger rock could wipe out a large city like Buenos Aires, but not necessarily destroy Earth.
 
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caltrop    Starship troopers book   6/25/2007 9:32:46 AM
I love that book.
 
In addition to what has been written.  The several of the actions in the book dealt with quick strikes (hit and run).  Also, perhaps Heinlein thought air defense would be so good in the future that something like CAS would be impossible.  This is implied from the story details.
 
During the insertion, the troopers were launched with decoys.  Also, it was noted that as the re-entry capsule was eroding, the flakes would also increase the radar return thereby decreasing the chance that AD would successfully lock on to the trooper.
 
It was noted by the lead character that while "jumping" was the way the Mobile Infantry moved (powered leg assist and jump jets), that to jump to high above the horizon gave the local defense a chance to lock on and shoot the trooper out of the sky.
 
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TrustButVerify       6/25/2007 10:56:36 AM
Well, the second and third Rambo movies have been mentioned, as has Godzilla and Firebirds. The Iron Eagle movies come to mind, but I agree- Starship Troopers takes the cake. If I'd never read the book, I might still have a soft spot in my heart for the movie.  
 
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DragonReborn       6/25/2007 11:17:50 AM
U-571
 
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