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Subject: Best & Worst Portrayals Of The Armed Forces In SF Movies/TV
eon    6/1/2004 9:22:24 AM
I recently had cause to wonder- which SF movies and/or TV shows had the best or worst portrayals of the U.S. or other nations' armed forces? By "best or worst" I'm referring to accuracy, as opposed to sympathetic or hostile. My vote for the most accurate portrayals I've seen have to go back to the classic SF/"monster" movies of the 1950s, especially the "giant bug" subgenre. Probably the best overall was the 1954 Warner Bros. movie "Them!", with its portrait of the U.S. Army in action vs. the giant ants. I found the portrayal of the senior officer in charge as having a gentle Irish accent interesting, as a god bit of the U.S. Army was still of Irish descent up to that time, a legacy of the Indian Wars. As for the absolute worst I've ever seen, the direct-to-video (I guess) movie "Xtro; Watch The Skies" centers around a portrayal of the U.S. Marine Corps that is so ignorant and insulting it has to be seen to be believed. (In fact, any veteran watching this one would probably have trouble deciding whether to laugh or swear.) Anyone else have any candidates for laurels- or Golden Turkeys?.
 
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sentinel28a    RE:Best & Worst Portrayals Of The Armed Forces In SF Movies/TV   6/2/2004 4:55:55 PM
"Independence Day" was pretty sympathetic to all nations' armed forces, namely the US. "Stargate SG-1" has the USAF (or at least part of it) as being heroic. As far as Golden Turkeys, I would hold up some anime as very insulting. "Gasaraki" has Japanese powered armor coming to the rescue of incompetent Americans fighting a Middle Eastern dictator (i.e. Saddam), "Super Atragon" has the fate of the world dependent on a WWII Japanese supersub after the US 7th Fleet has failed, and "Patlabor 2" shows the US planning to invade Japan if the Japanese government doesn't get a handle on terrorism. The worst are "Kishin Corps" and "Deep Blue Fleet," which has the heroic WWII Japanese army conquering the world in the name of all that is good! Revisionist history at its best. Which is a shame, because "The pit" and "Area 88" are both really good war anime. The funniest view of national armed forces I've seen was in "801st TTS Airbats," which has the Cold War halted for awhile to bet on a noodle-eating contest.
 
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mike_golf    RE:Best & Worst Portrayals Of The Armed Forces In SF Movies/TV   6/2/2004 11:39:19 PM
Hey Sentinel, if you liked 801st TTS Airbats you would probably really enjoy "The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming". A Soviet sub has beached accidentally in New England. The crew has to try and get the sub back out to sea without creating an international incident or starting a war. It was made in 1966.
 
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eon    RE:Best & Worst Portrayals Of The Armed Forces In SF Movies/TV-eon to mike_golf   6/3/2004 9:25:38 AM
I saw that one on AMC a while back. I'm not noted for my sense of humor, but I still about laughed myself sick. It was both better, and a h**l of a lot funnier, than either "M*A*S*H" or "Dr. Strangelove". But my favorite "service comedy" (although I'm not a big war-movie fan) is still "Kelly's Heroes". As to the portrayal of the military (ours or anyone else's) in anime', most anime writers have a very unsympathetic view of any military establishment, even Japan's. "Akira", "Black Magic M-66", "Ghost In The Shell", and even such TV anime' as "Gundam Wing" all portray miltary types as power-hungry, untrustworthy, and irresponsible. And of course it's up to the true-blue, courageous, resolute heores (mostly adolescents and/or civilians, of course) to save the day. But even U.S. TV isn't immune to this. The old TV miniseries "V" contrived to have the entire U.S, military establishment somehow neutralized and locked up in their bases by the "Visitors"- eaxctly how was never explained. But then of course they came to EArth, in fusion-powered FTL starships, to steal all of our water- which is of course a by-product of the fusion process. I consider the whole storyline an insult to the intelligence of anything higher up the IQ scale than a garden slug..
 
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sentinel28a    RE:Best & Worst Portrayals Of The Armed Forces In SF Movies/TV-eon to mike_golf   6/3/2004 6:28:45 PM
I always kind of wondered what happened to the military in "V." I just assumed the aliens had wiped 'em all out or were fighting them somewhere else. The original series only concentrated on southern California, after all. Oh well--it was good when I was a kid. Anime does have a generally unsympathetic view of the military, which is understandable considering what Japan's military did to its own country in WWII. I think that anime directors usually have a bigger beef with the high command than the line doggies--both "Macross" and "08th MS Team" showed the soldiers as being just regular folks. Heck, in the "Robotech" novels, at least, the antiwar protestors, personified by Lynn-Kyle, were portrayed as being naive and more of a hindrance than a help.
 
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Kadett    To be fair to Gasaraki   6/6/2004 1:17:17 PM
It didn't portray the Americans as being incompetant. They simply got their butts kicked by other mecha is all. The anime "Silent Service", which is about a Japanese nuclear sub, was just plain nasty towards the US Navy though.
 
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eon    RE:To be fair to Gasaraki-eon to Kadett   6/7/2004 1:42:31 PM
Even in live-action Japanese SF, the U.S. military is usually portrayed negatively, such as in several of the "kaiju eiga" or giant monster movies of the 1960s. Usually, the portrayal goes as follows; giant monster attacks Japan, monster is perceived as threat to rest of world, U.S. government says if Japan Self-Defence Forces can't handle monster, U.S. forces will, with nukes if necessary, collateral damage to Japan be d****d. This attitude has been consistent since WW II, and shows no signs of changing. (If I might make an editorial comment, somewhere along the line Japan seems to have forgotten exactly who started that war........).
 
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sentinel28a    RE:To be fair to Gasaraki-eon to Kadett   6/7/2004 5:01:14 PM
Revisonist history has left quite a mark on the Japanese. I've met quite a few students here at my university (I work with the Asian Studies department) from Japan that are shocked to hear about the Nanjing Massacre or the Bataan Death March. All too often, it seems like Japanese WWII military history begins and ends on August 6, 1945. Gasaraki didn't impress me period, but showing the US as incompetent didn't help. Evangelion did the same thing, but only for one episode, and they didn't dwell on it. One of the funniest asides to real life events I ever saw in anime was in "Burn-Up Excess," when the main character, Rio, gets trapped in a Middle Eastern dictatorship (i.e. Iraq) with a sentient tank. The other Burn-Up team members organize a rescue effort, but the UN refuses to let them go in. Maya the resident gunbunny solves the problem in her typical way by sticking a large pistol to the UN rep's head. I imagine GW would've liked that episode!
 
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Horsesoldier    RE:To be fair to Gasaraki-eon to Kadett   6/16/2004 7:44:06 PM
>>Even in live-action Japanese SF, the U.S. military is usually portrayed negatively, such as in several of the "kaiju eiga" or giant monster movies of the 1960s. Usually, the portrayal goes as follows; giant monster attacks Japan, monster is perceived as threat to rest of world, U.S. government says if Japan Self-Defence Forces can't handle monster, U.S. forces will, with nukes if necessary, collateral damage to Japan be d****d.<< Which is amusing, insofar as I've always thought the original Godzilla movie was a parable about WW2 wherein the part of the US of A is played by a 200 foot tall green lizard and with the Japanese military dictatorship dressed up as well intentioned scientists. Points of comparison -- both are stories about groups of Japanese who sail off into the Pacific. When they get there, they do something involving explosives. This, in turn, awakens an implacable monster who pursues them and destroys Tokyo.
 
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eon    RE:To be fair to Gasaraki-eon to Horsesoldier   6/17/2004 9:22:01 AM
According to "The Godzilla Movie Book" (indispensible if you like this sort of thing), Tomoyuki Tanaka, the original producer of the Gojira films, was inspired by a trip to New York he took in 1953, during which he saw "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms". Which I guess means the whole "atomic bomb= big nasty monster" motif came from the U.S. film industry. Of course, you could also argue that since "Beast" was based on the Saturday Evening Post story "The Foghorn", that Gojira's "grandfather" was none other than Ray Bradbury......
 
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AlbanyRifles    Mike Golf   6/24/2004 9:56:36 AM
All I have to say is "We've Got To Get Organized!"
 
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