The story is cliched. It's a cookie-cutter story with equally flat characters. There is no growth. There was NO excitement. There was too much hokey forced drama. The score was WAY overused. (It was annoying after about 1 hour.) The direction sucked. The actors sucked.

Now to focus on the music.

The 45-minute album we have is probably the better presentation of the score. Granted there is much more "action" music in the film that doesn't show up at all on the CD, but the film overuses the two love themes more than I can shake a stick at. By the time the 2nd hour rolled around, I wanted to throttle someone - it gets that annoying. I mean, there were only two main themes, and everything SOMETHING happened on screen that was supposed to be "dramatic", the music would come in full force.

It got old REALLY quickly.

So my summary is thus: PEARL HARBOR is a so-so film that runs about 1 hour too long. I'm not even going to approach to get into the historical aspect of it.

(drum roll)

My Michael Bay impressions!

ON SET - (first a long pause, then...)"Readyactioncut!"

DVD COMMENTARY - "Well, this first scene here we were trying to... (scene changes) ...well, um here in this shot we had a complicat... (shots cut too quickly to see) ...hang on a sec. Wait, this is great. My dad was on set this day... (shots continue in a stroboscopic fashion) ...oh hell. I give up."

PRESS JUNKET - "Well, you see... my hair used to be long, in a ponytail. That was when I made crass, pandering entertainment. But now I'm a serious filmmaker, so now my hair is short. See?"

Faith Hill's song was nowhere in the film (thankfully - it would have been completely inappropriate), and was relegated to the 2nd half of the end credits.

is this a rehash of the Titanic story (the film at least)?

Do you mean, is it a romance set against the backdrop of a famous historical event?

Yes.

Is it as enjoyable and as exciting as TITANIC?

No.

Really, the romances in PEARL HARBOR and TITANIC are radically different. You can't really compare them. But (and here's the irony, folks) the romance in TITANIC was more believable.

I'm probably a bit cynical; I read the script over a year ago and since that time have been convinced that the movie was going to be shlocky. So imagine my non-surprise when it turned out to be exactly that.

The japs just lauched some bombs on a USA MILITARY base...

And them USA released ATOMIC BOMBS on two CITIES of Japan, killing thousands of innocent people...

But I felt that it was just going through the paces, and even when the zeros are bombing Battleship Row, I didn't find myself really "excited" (as excited as one can be considering the carnage). It was like, let's show people dying. Okay, now let's show a ship getting hit by a torpedo. Okay, now let's show more people dying. Oh! Before we forget, let's show a little more of Academy Award winner Cuba Gooding, Jr. before people forget he has a tiny role in this film. Okay, more people dying. Oh, let's show the gratuitous bomb drop on the Arizona (again, cool vfx, but very little indication that 1,100 people DIED in that blast).

So the action is very-much a dissapointment, even though it's "nice to watch" (visually).

And I'm not going to get into a WWII debate with Andre (or anyone else).

It's my pleasure!

I also agree with you about the setting - it's not the most "likely" place for a romance to be set, but hey - that's Hollywood for ya!

Oh, and I should point out the other "big action" sequence at the end of the film (the bombing of Tokyo) was done rather well, in that they did a nice job showing the hardships that the Tokyo Raiders went through to train for the mission. That it runs a scant 10 minutes or so is a minor setback...

A better article on that bombing raid can be found here: http://www.grunts.net/wars/20thcentury/wwii/doolittle/doolittle.html

quote:

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Originally posted by dgoldwas:

And I'm not going to get into a WWII debate with Andre (or anyone else).

Dan

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Of course not.
I understand you people would have problems to admit that USA only entered WWII because of the Pearl Harbor's attack.

Till that day, your government was flattering with Adolf Hitler's Nazism.

quote:

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Originally posted by André Lux:
I understand you people would have problems to admit that USA only entered WWII because of the Pearl Harbor's attack.

Till that day, your government was flattering with Adolf Hitler's Nazism.

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See, this is why I'm not going to get into it. On "that day", my family was trying to stay alive after most of them had been slaughtered by the Nazi's.

So it wasn't MY government.

But as I said, I'm not going to get into it.

But I am sure you didn't know it, right?

quote:

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Originally posted by dgoldwas:
See, this is why I'm not going to get into it. On "that day", my family was trying to stay alive after most of them had been slaughtered by the Nazi's.

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Oh, I see. Just because I don't buy USA version of the facts, this makes me a NAZI lover, right?

Amasing...

quote:

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Originally posted by André Lux:
Oh, I see. Just because I don't buy USA version of the facts, this makes me a NAZI lover, right?

Amasing...

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?? Andre, what are you talking about? I'm not trying to make any personal attacks, and have tried to stay out of this silly argument.

I'm just saying that whatever the USA chose to do in 1945 has NOTHING to do with me. So leave me out of it.

You are entitled to your own opinions (as are we all), and I'm just asking that _I_ have nothing to do with them.

quote:

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And then USA released ATOMIC BOMBS on two CITIES of Japan, killing thousands of innocent people...
What a shame!

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and thereby saving MILLIONS more lives than anyone can possibly conceive of.
If it wasn't for the bombs, the war would have drug on longer than necessary with the planned invasion of Japan. How many Japanese and Americans do YOU think would have been killed in such an invasion?

get a clue, dude.
this is all common knowledge.

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Yeah, I said "Japs".
Here in Brasil this is not a pejorative term as it is in your place.

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crap like this is why I would consider moving to Brasil. Here in America you are not allowed to express yourself because someone might -- of all things -- get their feelings hurt. And we wonder why people get mad and violent -- no outlet.

"Jap" was not necessarily a derogatory term back in the 1940s. It was short for guess what? "Japanese," and even then it was not necessarily to denote Americans of Japanese ancestry.

PC individuals have decided to take it the wrong way though.

one of my VERY good friends is Chinese. (In fact, she is not Chinese, but American -- never been to China, dosen't speak a lick of the language. She has Chinese lineage).

We call her all sorts of things, from Chink to Slop-ed; of course this is all in private conversation. She's grounded enough to know we love her and are just having fun. Besides, she calls me and her hubby "honky white trash" all the time in a vain effort to insult us! (I say vain only because we know we're honky white trash! That's no insult -- just telling it like it is.)

but I've gone on and on unnecessarily...

Signed,

JJ, damn white trash honky (I haven't been on Springer yet)

quote:

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Originally posted by JJH:

and thereby saving MILLIONS more lives than anyone can possibly conceive of.
If it wasn't for the bombs, the war would have drug on longer than necessary with the planned invasion of Japan. How many Japanese and Americans do YOU think would have been killed in such an invasion?

get a clue, dude.
this is all common knowledge.

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JJ, my friend, I tought everybody knows now that Germany and Japan had already lost the war when USA decided to drop a couple of ATOMIC BOMBS over Japan.
In fact it's commom sense by now that USA did it just to test their new arsenal and what better place than two cities in Japan? They could use the PEARL HARBOR factor to justify the genocide of thousands of innocent people...

As for why the A-bomb was chosen, Andre has a point in that it was the newest thing in the arsenal, but that in itself was not the pure reasoning. We (the USA) had already fire-bombed most other Japanese cities into oblivion, and if we could have used the A-bomb against Germany, I have no doubt we would have. (This is a preemptive comment against the notion that the Japanese were bombed for racist reasons.)

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen because they were nearly the only large cities LEFT that had NOT been destroyed by fire-bombs ... EXCEPT for the former capital city of Kyoto, which was explicitly spared by the decision of an American general who thought the place might make a nice place to visit after the Occupation. All of this is a matter of record.

Andre did not mention that Brasil (to my knowledge) has the largest population of Japanese that live outside Japan, other than Hawaii. No doubt he is knee-deep in "Japs"

And Andre is also right that until Pearl Harbor happened, America had no intention of entering what became World War II, despite the best intentions of then president Franklin Roosevelt. I do not, however, subscribe to the conspiracy theory that dictates that the White House KNEW about Japan's designs on Pearl Harbor, and allowed it to happen JUST to open the doors to the war in Europe.

I'm a little sensitive to the matter, as I am very close to a very large Japanese American family...none of whom look too fondly on the term. Call them overly sentimental or me PC...but I just call it being respectful.

"Well, "Pearl Harbor" is big and stupid, painfully bad in parts, comically patriotic in a big American flag kind of way (Michael Bay loves his American flag, as well as his mysteriously golden light). The attack sequence is spectacular, but everything around it is what we thought it would be: ridiculous. I was really shocked and saddened
to see someone as gifted as Cuba Gooding limited to 3-4 pointless scenes. Zimmer's score seems very simple -- a few notes repeated over and over, echoing that "TRL" track you mentioned. Not at all memorable. And yes, it's 3 hours long.

Quill - yes, the Japanese officers do display some reluctance, and you can tell that Bay et al tried to please both sides. But in a film which focuses on the US side of WWII, it's bound to be a little negative towards the Japanese.

I PRAY that this film will inspire people to go to the library and look up what REALLY happened at Pearl Harbor. I really do. Otherwise we'll get the same 14-year olds who think that James Cameron's TITANIC was a historically accurate account convinced that PEARL HARBOR is a historically accurate recreation - which it isn't.

Dan

quote:

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Originally posted by Big Bear:
Thanks for the info, all.

Incidentally, I don't think it is quite fair lumping Cameron's TITANIC and Bay's PEARL HARBOR together. Apart from the integration of his openly fictitious love story (a huge part of the film, I know...), Cameron was a total maniac for verisimilitude. I highly doubt Bay begrudged WWII vets the same courtesy.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Quill:
In the end this movie is not and never will be intended as a history lesson, though hopefully it will inspire some to go to the library and learn more about it the entire affair, and get an accurate look at both sides of the conflict.

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How naive... This will never happen, since this kind of movie is made to delude audiences (particulary the general alienated USA-ian) and to promote the "(north) american dream" ilusion.

Plus, it serves to spread hate (towards the japs on this case) and ignorance - not to mention the bad taste (aka Hanzimmer, etc all).

Pitiful...

quote:

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Originally posted by Big Bear:
Cameron was a total maniac for verisimilitude. I highly doubt Bay begrudged WWII vets the same courtesy.

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That's true.... While Bay DID consult with vets on the film, and much of what he shows is technically "historically accurate", it's done with such little emotion as to negate the entire impact of the event.

quote:

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Originally posted by Lancelot:
(I believe in the instance he was referring to, it was something about Zeroes shooting survivors sailors in the water--historians say that never happened, but vets claim it did....)

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And indeed such a sequence is in the final film.

quote:

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Originally posted by André Lux:

this kind of movie is made to delude audiences (particulary the general alienated USA-ian) and to promote the "(north) american dream" ilusion.

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The movie was made to make money. Any and all derogatory side effects on society at large is purely coincidental.

While I understand your point, and a well-spoken one, I think this starts to get into the hazy territory of technical accuracy versus historical culpability. Or something like that.

What I mean is... sure Bay may have replicated certain events down to the last spinning propellor, but even more important is the notion of staying true to the gravity of the material.

Now I'm not saying every war film needs to be a harrowing dirge of humanity... I think of something like LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL. It had its own spirit, but never seemed to be out of step with what we all know collectively about that particular historical situation.

I think great historical filmmaking lies in the balance of these two factors. In effect, telling the truth... but telling your own truth. As filmmakers go, Bay is a liar of the first order. You can practically feel his contempt for the audience seeping off the screen.

Anyhoo.

quote:

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Originally posted by Big Bear:
The movie was made to make money. Any and all derogatory side effects on society at large is purely coincidental.

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Exactly my point, The Big Beer!
Who else then alienated patriotic dorks would care to see such an obvious ill crap?

Thanks for reinforcing my point.

quote:

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Originally posted by SPQR:
It's a Bruckheimer film. I've never paid money to see one...and I'm certainly not going to begin now. No amount of ILM 'magic' could entice me to sit through a 3 hr commercial for Uncle Sam and his GameBoy goon squad.

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I don't think Bay has contempt for the audience, (as opinions go, and this is just my own.) I think that Bay does know what to give an audience, though granted, his is a commercial background.

I think Bay is great at establishing a good shot. Maybe he's not an Actor's director--but his strengths are in visually setting up a good story, through dramatic shots, action shots. That's where his strengths are, at least. Perhaps a truly great director (e.g., Hitchcock) will have strengths in the technical and in the acting aspects.

Spielberg, likewise, is a fantastic technical director, and his skills with the actors are fairly decent, as that goes.

This would be Bay's 4th film, and he's had an incredible amount of success, which I don't think is a indicator of audience contempt. I think audience contempt comes in a failing of several aspects--such as "Batman and Robin", when a director/studio takes their audience too much for granted, and basically spoon-feeds us a re-hash of something we saw only a few years earlier.

I would go as far to say that this years' upcoming "Jurassic Park III" is something that is beginning to take its' audience for granted....a movie made strictly based on the commercial sucess of the first two. (Still, the kid in me loves dinosaurs, so...who knows?)

quote:

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Originally posted by Lancelot:
I would go as far to say that this years' upcoming "Jurassic Park III" is something that is beginning to take its' audience for granted....a movie made strictly based on the commercial sucess of the first two.

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Actually, from what I've seen so far, I'm pretty sure that JP3 will be a much better moviegoing experience than PH. At least JP3 isn't 3 hours long and trying to be something that it isn't.