2001

on 7/25/2007 12:46 PM snipped-for-privacy@some.domain said the following:

The only things good about 2001 were the special effects and the music.

i thnik a lot more of it. like blade runner, it had a lot of firsts.

It was the first movie to point out that when you get right down to it, space travel is godawful boring. Unless you run into aliens, something blows up, or one of the crew (or ship's computer) goes crazy, nothing much really happens for months at a time. Unfortunately, inflicting the Discovery's crew's boredom on the audience wasn't much of a box office draw.

Pat

Blade Runner is a heck of a lot more interesting. There's conflict on several levels - physical and moral.

Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.

...which brings me to the directors cut of Das Boot, which I just picked up. The whole thing is a two-sided DVD and the movie is about four hours long, illustrating the long stretches of bordom between engagements. There's a whole depth charging sequence which was also cut from the theater release. Most of the directors footage has been added to the first half of the film.

As a whole, it's the only directors cut movie that I've ever seen where the new cut is better than the original - they took the best submarine flick of all time and made it even better.

They've made "The Enemy Below" (1957) even better?

(kim)

many miles above. das boot is hollywood, even "realistic" hollywood. it's like the slow cut of a razor blad across the eyeballs of sensibility. like real war.

Tell me you got the subtitled one, because the dubbing on the other one sucks. They are only vaguely saying what the German language version has them saying.

Pat

The Bedford Incident. Or how about Ice Station Zebra?

Pat

Yup. I prefer it in German with subtitles - and even then, I noticed that the new version has some "politically correct" leanings in the English subtitles. Like when they have the captian saying "you have to have good people" vice "you have to have good men" as really would be more correct to the period. The theater release version is sutitled per the latter, if I recall.

In the directors cut DVD you can actually select dubbing/subtitles in any combnation of four or five different languages...but listening to the dialog in German is really the only way to watch it.

Greatest submarine flick of all time. My favorite thing about it is that it reflects the feeling of just how small the boats were, unlike all the Hollywood garbage.

...niether of which are anywhere close to holding a candle to Das Boot.

Take a wild guess what they are running on AMC at the moment? They just dropped anchor in Vigo, Spain.

The movie worked particularly well at the theater due to the darkness of the place; you felt like you were right down in the sub with them.

I think our subs (designed to engage in long range patrols in the Pacific) were probably a lot more comfortable than the Type VII U-boat shown in the movie. I imagine even the Type IX U-boats were probably a step up in comfort, as they too were designed for long range. I once read a description of the German U-boat design philosophy which stated that the submarine was designed entirely as a piece of machinery inside of which the crew had to find some way to live. The movie sure makes it look like that, doesn't it? I have the Revell cutaway model of a Type XXI sub, and they did a lot better job on that one than they did on their Type VII kit. Of course, if you want a detailed Type VII model, and have a whole lot of money burning a hole in your pocket, then it is time for you also to drop anchor in Spain:

of course you need crew: someplace to put the seven-foot-long thing. I note they also make crew for the 1/72 scale Revell one. Whoops, now they're sinking again.... That Gibraltar run went about as well as they suspected it would. :-)

Pat

Most of the added footage in the directors cut is before Vigo. And it really adds something, IMO.

Yeah...hadn't thought about that, but I did turn off all the lights and run the sound through my stereo when I watched it.

Yeah - I've been aboard the U-505 in Chicago, so I have a first hand perspectve on just how tiny the boats were...one of the experiences that was eliminated by cutting holes in the sides of the boat for public access, IMO. I've got a chunk of U-505's hull around, somewhere...

Yeah - I'd LOVE to get my hands on that kit...and there's a German company that makes a REALLY excellent R/C one that I wouldn't mind having. Found a link on a fluke once and looks like I faild to bookmark it...:(

The first (added) depth charging sequence in the directors cut really helped set the mood for the rest of the film. Can't believe they cut it for the theater.

This one?

(kim)

No, but I've seen that one and it's pretty nice too. This one was from a German manufacturer - not Robbe - and it was nicely complete (VERY nicely molded) and accurate. And I think it was also 1/32, but it may even have been a bit larger. Very nice kit...and pricey.

Try to find a director's cut copy of "Aliens" (the second in that series) and compare it to the theater release. They cut out about 45 minutes of the movie and most of the plot.

THIS is the one I was thinking of - they do a GATO that looks nice, too:

Oh yeah? How about _this_ one?:

'll bet that U-boat crew wouldn't have had a clue what to do if a giant octopus attacked their sub, much less if the Van Allen Belt caught fire, and icebergs started sinking onto them! :-) But since this is model building newsgroup, here's two neat model submarine links: this, which is about the coolest model sub in the world: 's from here: Pat

They showed that in the AMC version, which is the director's cut, but dubbed. They always think they are going to get away, and then..."ping"........"ping"....."ping"..."ping"...

Pat