Flaws in a very good film

Jack · March 20, 2007, 05:35:21 PM

I was just looking around and found this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_%28nuclear_device%29

Turns out we built a weapon very similar to what was seen in the movie - way back in 1950

RCMerchant · March 20, 2007, 05:40:59 PM

I'm a BIG Heinlan fan,and I just don't associate the movie with the book,and enjoy it on it's own terms...a fun,exciting gory,action-packed sci-fi, war movie! (with more than a little social/political content!)

trekgeezer · March 20, 2007, 07:25:15 PM

Quote from: RCMerchant on March 20, 2007, 05:40:59 PM
I'm a BIG Heinlan fan,and I just don't associate the movie with the book,and enjoy it on it's own terms...a fun,exciting gory,action-packed sci-fi, war movie! (with more than a little social/political content!)

I agree RC, I didn't recognize much from the book in the movie, they just used the names. I was disappointed that they didn't fight any Skinnies in the movie.

Quote from: Jack on March 20, 2007, 05:35:21 PM
I was just looking around and found this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_%28nuclear_device%29

Turns out we built a weapon very similar to what was seen in the movie - way back in 1950

Hmmmm......seems like I posted something about this before. The warhead on the Davy Crockett weighed 43 lbs and was fired from a stationary recoiless rifle. Check out my my post from a couple of weeks ago.

http://www.badmovies.org/forum/index.php/topic,113222.0.html

Jack · March 20, 2007, 08:30:42 PM

That's a cool little gun. It says in the article I linked to that the gun crew would be safe even if they fired it at one-half of its maximum range. I think it's fairly believable that if they built that back in the '50, by the far future that the movie took place they could have reduced it in size to a bazooka. I mean, if we can believe that we'll build fleets of space ships, we can believe that pretty easy

Dennis · March 21, 2007, 12:05:34 AM

The movie was ok, other than the title it had almost no relationship to the novel, which is more a treatise on a form of government disguised as a sci-fi novel. This is the thing that makes Mr. Heinlein's works so interesting, you read one and it's great fiction, then you think about what he's trying to say, and realise that there's more to the story then meets the eye.
As for small nuclear weapons, back in the 60's some one in the Dept. of Defense actually was working on a nuclear hand grenade, fortunately a member of the military(this guy was a civilian) pointed out that the chances of the thrower surviving were on the low side.
As far as flaws that make the movie hard to swallow, the only one for me was that the apparently advanced military of the future seem to think that you can invade a planet with an infantry force armed with automatic weapons and grenade launchers. No air support, artillery, or armor, now that's pretty hard to believe.

Yaddo 42 · March 22, 2007, 05:27:21 AM

DENNIS covers a lot of the stuff I had to excuse in the film. Why not soften up the Bugs with strikes from orbit or airstrikes. Isolated bases out in the open when your fighting an enemy that can send waves of cannon fodder and keep their major resources under ground, when they can attack from below anyway was just foolish and a waste of troops.

The cynic in me said that the war with the Bugs was just an excuse to kill off lots of members of the military they considered disposable anyway and distract the people, most of whom wanted nothing to do with politics and serious government affairs anyway. Seeing Neil Patrick Harris in psuedo-Gestapo gear and confirming just what "Games and Theory" really was the clincher.

But how seriously can you take a movie that includes propaganda/newsreels of things like soldiers handing out live ammo to children like it's normal?

raj · March 22, 2007, 01:05:59 PM

Quote from: Yaddo 42 on March 22, 2007, 05:27:21 AM
But how seriously can you take a movie that includes propaganda/newsreels of things like soldiers handing out live ammo to children like it's normal?

What, it's not?

WyreWizard · March 22, 2007, 03:51:58 PM

Quote from: DENNIS on March 21, 2007, 12:05:34 AM
As far as flaws that make the movie hard to swallow, the only one for me was that the apparently advanced military of the future seem to think that you can invade a planet with an infantry force armed with automatic weapons and grenade launchers. No air support, artillery, or armor, now that's pretty hard to believe.

You must have missed the one part of the film where a plane was carpet bombing a canyon full of Arachnids.

Yaddo 42 · March 23, 2007, 06:05:07 AM

Quote from: WyreWizard on March 22, 2007, 03:51:58 PM
Quote from: DENNIS on March 21, 2007, 12:05:34 AM
As far as flaws that make the movie hard to swallow, the only one for me was that the apparently advanced military of the future seem to think that you can invade a planet with an infantry force armed with automatic weapons and grenade launchers. No air support, artillery, or armor, now that's pretty hard to believe.

You must have missed the one part of the film where a plane was carpet bombing a canyon full of Arachnids.

And look how little that helped. Should have been hitting the bugs with that all the time rather than boots on the ground, if they were serious

Dennis · March 23, 2007, 08:22:28 AM

Quote from: WyreWizard on March 22, 2007, 03:51:58 PM
Quote from: DENNIS on March 21, 2007, 12:05:34 AM
As far as flaws that make the movie hard to swallow, the only one for me was that the apparently advanced military of the future seem to think that you can invade a planet with an infantry force armed with automatic weapons and grenade launchers. No air support, artillery, or armor, now that's pretty hard to believe.

You must have missed the one part of the film where a plane was carpet bombing a canyon full of Arachnids.

You may have missed the rest of the movie where they are conspicuous by their absence.