"Dunkirk" movie: What was Right, What was Wrong

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Great movie. However, I can't figure out why the Spitfire pilot was gliding over the troops, yet flew so far up the coast and got captured. Could have circled (spiral descent) and got closer to the troops leaving, behind the defensive perimeter of Dunkirk itself, for a chance to join them.

Also, the movie shows them stopping French troops from leaving, but the truth is: "About 338,000 men were rescued in about 11 days. Of these some 215,000 were British and 123,000 were French, of whom 102,250 escaped in British ships." It is true the British soldiers had priority though.
 
Saw it today and enjoyed the movie. Just keep in mind it's Hollywood. Unless you were there you won't know what it was really like.
 
Originally Posted By: rubberchicken
I thought it was 99% accurate, except for the Spitfire gliding forever while maneuvering and shooting down the Heinkel.


He shot down a Stuka dive-bomber in the part where Commander Bolton closed his eyes preparing to die, with the Spitfire's engine off. Added drama for a movie, but I guess possible if he had position and line-of-sight on the Stuka.
The glide seemed a little long, although if you start out high enough, you can keep a glide quite some time.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2017/07/20/what_s_fact_and_what_s_fiction_in_dunkirk.html
 
My grandfather on Mom's side was rescued from Dunkirk. I was sifting through a box of Mom's old tools and found his knife. It has 1943, W&SB, Sheffield stamped on it.
 
I think it's generally acknowledged now that one of the great bits of good fortune we Brits had in WWII was to have Adolf Hilter in charge of the German war machine!

Had he not given the order to stop the army's advance on Dunkirk, so that Goering could show off what his Luftwaffe could do (or not do as it transpired), then Dunkirk could have been a true disaster. Certainly my old man's view was that had they kept going, and crossed The Channel, we were so unprepared, we would have folded.
 
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Great movie. I would expect it is reasonably accurate in the gist of the story, but there are always going to be "Hollywood" bits that really don't hold up to scrutiny.
Gliding a fighter like that isn't realistic. But it's dramatic and adds to the emotional effect.
 
Saw it last night on the iMax screen. Thought it was pretty well done. One guy with us said it wasn't what he was expecting, think he expected the Director to have taken a more conventional approach. But I liked the way it focused on the personal experience of the assorted characters and emphasized via the scene overlaps and repeats. Were the sinking ships done by CG? Wondering how they pulled that off with the overhead shots and such.

Was the fuel situation with the Spitfires accurate? Dunkirk wasn't that distant from a fighter a/c range perspective was it? Heck the whole movie was worth it to me to see the three Spitfires in the formation fly-by shots and the Merlin engines in concert over the iMax sound system.
 
Originally Posted By: SonofJoe
I think it's generally acknowledged now that one of the great bits of good fortune we Brits had in WWII was to have Adolf Hilter in charge of the German war machine!

Had he not given the order to stop the army's advance on Dunkirk, so that Goering could show off what his Luftwaffe could do (or not do as it transpired), then Dunkirk could have been a true disaster. Certainly my old man's view was that had they kept going, and crossed The Channel, we were so unprepared, we would have folded.


I've read quite a few reports where they mention that he was an Anglophile.
 
I thought it was pretty "sanitized for your protection". "Saving Private Ryan" is the high water mark for WW2 films
 
Originally Posted By: oil_film_movies
Spoiler Alert

Great movie. However, I can't figure out why the Spitfire pilot was gliding over the troops, yet flew so far up the coast and got captured.


do the Millennials approve? does it have a zombie in it?
 
Originally Posted By: Bud
Saw it today and enjoyed the movie. Just keep in mind it's Hollywood. Unless you were there you won't know what it was really like.
It's often called "Liarwood" hereabouts. Never let the facts stand in the way of a good "story".
I will say the helicopter assault in Apocalypse Now was very well done.
 
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Hitler had a soft spot for the British. He wanted them as allies and made several attempts at a truce, not a surrender. Hitler wanted Britian as a ally to go after the real hated enemy, Communist Russia. Hitler could have turned Dunkirk into a slaughter. He realized to late Churchill was to ambitious to make Britian a world power and remove Germany. The world would have been much different is the British would have joined Germany and eliminated the Russians.
 
Originally Posted By: Panzerman
Hitler had a soft spot for the British. He wanted them as allies and made several attempts at a truce, not a surrender. Hitler wanted Britian as a ally to go after the real hated enemy, Communist Russia. Hitler could have turned Dunkirk into a slaughter. He realized to late Churchill was to ambitious to make Britian a world power and remove Germany. The world would have been much different is the British would have joined Germany and eliminated the Russians.
Would you sign a truce with Shickelgruber?
 
Originally Posted By: Alfred_B
I've read quite a few reports where they mention that he was an Anglophile.
Hitler did have a certain admiration for the conquests of the British Empire. Since the Battle of Britain had not quite started yet (July 10), Hitler must have decided Britain would never give up.

For those Americans wondering why we didn't get involved earlier, especially once France fell, remember there was a strong head-in-the-sand attitude in about half the country here. Charles Lindbergh was running around giving speeches, using his celebrity, to keep the U.S. out. Roosevelt couldn't even get Lend Lease going until March '41 although some help started in Sept. '40. Even George C. Marshall at the time thought Britain would fall and any U.S. supplies would become German property soon.

It would have been nice to see some Americans in combat against German positions in the movie. Hey, movies lie all the time, so couldn't Nolan have inserted a little into the movie, you know, with 'artistic license' and 'marketability' as the excuses?
wink.gif
 
I visited the beach at Dunkirk about 15 years ago. (Yes, I'm old and probably one of the few Americans that had heard of Dunkirk and the evacuation). What surprised me was that it happened on a Beach, between Dunkirque France and Ostend Belgium. They called it Dunkirk because that is the closest town to the beach. Looking out over the water, off in the distance, I could see Dunkirque to my left and Ostend to my right. Yes. The water is shallow.
 
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Would you sign a truce with Shickelgruber?


You look at that way, I look at that Churchill got alot of Americans killed because he thought Germany was in the way of rebuilding a new powerful British empire and when all the smoke cleared they were little more than the United States sidekick where Germany was offering them a equal power agreement.
 
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