Moron marines and idiot army guys in movies.

[ghouck]

I know, a lot of people with argue with this one, but the scene where Sarge is yelling at Pyle and gets shoot seems REALLY dumb on his part.  Yes, I suppose you could say it was in the Sarge's character to believe he's firmly in control of every situation, but, in my humble non-military opinion, insulting someone with a LOADED weapon never seems like a good idea.

I have to say, from 11 years of military experience, that is EXACTLY how many Drill Sergeants would have handled it. You'd have to be in boot camp to realize the situation, , physically exhausted, sleep deprived, and trying to learn a bunch of stuff that's fairly forign to you, ,all at the same time. I ween through Army boot camp back in the late 80's, and I can see a bunch of truth in how they depicted the situation in FMJ. We had a private try and commit suicide, and the DI pretty much yelled at him like the Sarge in FMJ did until he gave it up. A D.I. has  an enourmous mental advantage over a 'cruit (age, experience, a decent night's sleep), and that's what he was drawing from in that scene, , or at least that's how I saw it.

[Allhallowsday]

STERLING HAYDEN in DR. STRANGELOVE (1964)
ROD STEIGER in MARS ATTACKS (1996)

[Dr. Whom]

Ah yes.  Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence.  Rings true all the time.  In this case, for both the screenwriters and the military that they write.

Of course, sometimes malice is involved. Some movies really try to make the military look like idiots (Mars Attacks and Godzilla spring to mind). This has indeed to do with a loss of confidence in the military as an institution. Long gone are the days when a small boy could give the alert that the Martians had landed, and an entire armoured division would have been dispatched. Now the feeling is, if you involve the military, they'll only mess things up (not to use a stronger word)


On the other hand, for a number of screenwriters the military are just a variant of the ninja's who conveniently line up to be defeated one by one. It is not just Earth soldiers that suffer from this. Imperial Stormtroopers, to name just one. They're beaten by a bunch of teddy bears. 

[Flangepart]

Too lazt to write well? That explains so much of Hollywoods output....

STARFLEET SECURITY : WE LOOSE MORE PERSONEL IN A MONTH THEN MOST FLEETS DO ALL YEAR!

[BTM]

Course, Starfleet supposedly isn't military.  (Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.)

What I loved about Star Trek (especially TNG) is how they reacted in combat situations.  As Phil Farrand (who wrote the wonderful Nitpicker's Guides) points out, their strategy goes something like this: "Get fired at a hundred times, ask for a shield status.  Get fired out a hundred more times, ask for a damage, get fired out a hundred MORE times, fire ONE shot back."

[Dave M]

I forgot to mention in the last big cliche thread (when I went on about how herbivorous dinosaurs can be dangerous too) - Good guys in movies seem to always put themselves in a position where they're defending a fort when they know the bad guys are attacking at dawn. I've got no training, but that seems like pretty bad tactics to me. If you know that they know where you're going to be, shouldn't you be somewhere else? Especially since the good guys are usually outnumbered, outgunned, etc? This dosen't seem to be a case of trying to present anyone as stupid, maybe it somehow seems more virtuous to be on the defensive, reacting to an attack.

[CheezeFlixz]

I can say that as a former Marine I get my skivvies in a wad when I see military things on movies done exceptionally wrong ... I not talking medal out of order as it's against the law to wear them in correct order if you didn't earn them. I'm talking officers saluting enlisted men first, as the only exception to this is if the E grade won the CMH. Otherwise it's wrong, wrong, wrong ... case in point the movie "Marine" every copy should be burned. For pete sack he was wearing a Army cover not a Marine one, and Marines calling covers, "hats" and the or the head, bathroom. I could go on with the lack of attention to detail. Anymore today with Hollyweirds ain't Military attitude I'd just they wouldn't make military movies.

Samuel Goldwyn said in 1961 ...

“We should never lose sight of the fact that, no matter how entertaining a picture may be or how much money it may make, it can do our country a great deal of harm if it plays into the hands of our enemies. We have a great responsibility in this regard – far greater than almost any other segment of our country – and we must guide ourselves accordingly.”

Many movies today do just this, play into the hands of our enemies and I refuse to watch them.

[Flangepart]

Course, Starfleet supposedly isn't military.  (Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.)

What I loved about Star Trek (especially TNG) is how they reacted in combat situations.  As Phil Farrand (who wrote the wonderful Nitpicker's Guides) points out, their strategy goes something like this: "Get fired at a hundred times, ask for a shield status.  Get fired out a hundred more times, ask for a damage, get fired out a hundred MORE times, fire ONE shot back."

Tell me about it!
They needed some Marines. Ship Security is like useing cops to handle an invadeing army. You need combat pros for kicking a$$ when you have to repell borders.
Next Gen....the PC military if Hillary has her way.
Yeah....I wanna see R. Lee put Worf to good use. Now thats a Marine waiting to happen.

[Neville]

case in point the movie "Marine" every copy should be burned.

For some reason your remark reminded me that I still haven't seen that one. I'm watching it as I write this lines, and I have to agree it's trash. I have no clue on the way real soldiers act, what uniform goes with what hat or if the sergants yell "Go!" or "Advance!" when it's time to kick butt, but the first three minutes of the movie had me laughing out loud harder than when I watched the first "Naked Gun". Which, BTW, it is a fitting comparison.

I hope bad movie reviewers welcome it with their pens sharpenned. Anyway, karmna for you and I'll go back to my guilty pleasure.

[BTM]

and I can see a bunch of truth in how they depicted the situation in FMJ. We had a private try and commit suicide, and the DI pretty much yelled at him like the Sarge in FMJ did until he gave it up. A D.I. has  an enourmous mental advantage over a 'cruit (age, experience, a decent night's sleep), and that's what he was drawing from in that scene, , or at least that's how I saw it.

Weell.. I don't know.  I understand totally what you're saying, but, I guess to me, yelling at a guy who's threatening to commit suicide (although, IMHO, not really the best tactic) is a bit different than CONTINUING to yell at someone who has a gun pointed AT you, and you know (as Sarge did from Joker telling him) that said gun is loaded.

Again, just totally my opinion.  :)

[BoyScoutKevin]

I see stuff that drives me up the wall all the time.  It's remembering where it all comes from that is my problem.  Okay, how about "AI Assault" for one.  The crack military team goes in to stop the two killer robots that are loose.  The robots have ultra armor, so the special forces guys need a laser to cut through it.  They take one laser.  They also take one radio and go in without any sort of air support on call.

The tactics used by the highly training team are as follows:  clump together, stand still, shoot in the offhand, and get killed once the robot walks up to them.

Now, you know how I feel about some of the most highly regarded films out there, but, when I see a character say and/or do something so illogical and irrational, that no one in his effing mind would do or say, I go straight up the wall. I expect more realism from my characters and less sloppy filmmaking from my filmmakers.

[asimpson2006]

The only thing I would have to say to this is Robinson in Redneck Zombies.  I mean, why the hell would you have a drum of radioactive material in the back of an army jeep and the back being OPEN might I add. 

I mean its a Troma film so I guess something this is expected with their films.

 

[CapCase]

In my opinion, the most idiotic portrayal of the military I have seen in a movie is the Vietnam sequence of The Twilight Zone Movie.  Soldiers on patrol huddled together playing loud music and shouting at each other.  I seriously hate that movie for the way it portrays American soldiers in Vietnam. Plus the old folk sequence is boring as hell.

When I served in the Marine Corps in the early eighties there were still quite a few Vietnam Vets around. Many of them were crazy  but few were stupid.

[Sleestak]

There is a part in Aliens that disturbs me:

The marines knew that they could possibly be on a dangerous mission.  Yet, they did not protect their primary escape route off the planet which was that Evac ship.  They only left the chumpy guy who didn't do combat (was he a mechanic possibly?) and the one-liner pilot, strapped in and only armed with a pistol.  When things got sticky that was the first thing they called on to retreat but it had already been wasted.  You would think they would have left a few roughnecks behind to guard the ship.

[Jack]

Come to think of it, that spaceship in Aliens was awfully big considering how few people were aboard.  They had an extra dropship - that didn't make any sense.  If there are two dropships, I would think the standard procedure would be to have enough people to fully man both of them, you don't usually have multi-million dollar ships sitting around unused.

One thing I find silly is that every movie featuring the military has them being navy SEALS or Army Rangers, or some other elite organization.  There's never any plain old Army guys.  And then they always show these "elite" troops behaving exactly like an untrained actor would act in a situation.  Raptor Island is a good example.  No one ever aims at anything, they spray bullets back and forth in a wide arc, even though the creature is standing right in front of them.  They'd never think of squeezing off a single round aimed at a raptor's head, they just spray a bunch of ammo in the general direction of the critters.