well, I like it. it has "some" reminiscence perhaps of THIN RED LINE,it has some very deep and moving ( and bassy !!! I mean 30hz and below ) moments. track 3 for instance (the men leaving their wives at dawn) is very powerful.

i highly recommend it. it's patriotic but with reserve, with respect. it's very emotional.
I liked the movie a lot too. dvd in August

Why is Gleenie-Smith still having a hard time after all these years? He never could write good music. I think every other music artist from Media Ventures has at least done something noteworthy over the past 8 years, but Nick is still at rock bottom.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Bladeisback:
what ???? have you seen the movie btw ??

pfffff

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by TimT:
I find it to be repetitive, simplistic, depressing, and unoriginal.

---

I agree with you 100% You can say the same things about the film as well.

Erik

So, to sum:

Movie - painfully atrocious and already on the top of my 'worst of 02' list.

Score - pleasant and engaging enough a listen, but really derivative.

and hating the movie so much also.... amazing....

stunned.

I'm a big fan of POLEDOURIS, ZIMMER, GERRARD , WILLIAMS, JONES etc but i have an open mind too and was impressed by many tracks on this CD.

jeez.

My suggestion to you is to listen to Hans Zimmer's score for The Thin Red Line before you form your opinions on how "good" the score for We Were Soldiers actually is. Trust me, you'll get it.

The soundtrack and film are too obvious on how unspired they are. And that chant crap is horrendously bad in the film's portrayal of the NVA; sorta like a New Labour Vietnam. That awful photo montage scene, too, is an insult to anyone's intelligence...complete cheese, and very processed.

Not that he's changed, but Nick Glennie-Smith's appears to have been on auto-pilot thoughout the score and film.

Basically everything Sean pointed out, esp. the cheesy photo montage...I was in tears of laughter.

The main problems I have with this movie though are lack of narrative focus/point and the way it's just a pastiche of every war film ever made w/out making any statement of its own that is new, interesting, or compellingly developed.

NONE of the characters are either interesting or well developed and it's only b/c Mel Gibson's the star of this film that it even holds itself together. The film changes gears more than a season of ensemble dramatic tv - Barry Pepper narrates, then Mel's introduced, then Chris Klein. None of them are particularly interesting nor is the Vietnam War seen thru their eyes (nor those of their wives, which was how they marked it and that was a semi-interesting idea that's embarassingly played out in the film over about 2 scenes). Worse, the film changes tacks about nine times in terms of what SPECIFICALLY about the war it's focused on - the use of helicopters in battle, the first fighting in 'Nam, the tactics of American soldiers/generals like Mel and Co. vs. the N. Vietnamese troops/generals, the war at home vs. the war abroad, what it takes to be a man/soldier and a husband/father... The list is endless. And none of these ever plays out for more than, like, four minutes. As I previously mentioned, the score sound-alike-bits are the least offensive part, really, in that there are direct shots from Apoc. Now and especially THIN RED LINE (a lizard jumps off a dew-kissed tree...hmm, where'd we see that before?) throughout the film.

I'm not tryin' to spread the hate; I just could not stand this movie. It nearly made MURDER BY NUMBERS and THE NEW GUY look genius by comparison (note: nearly).

But anyhow... Peace out.

a more accurate depiction of the events than Coppola or Stone.

full agree with you: Moore himself is laughing all the way at Platoon, FMJ, APNow ( I like these movies at lot, don't misunderstand) because of their irrealism! and he's right. WE WERE SOLDIERS (like BLACK HAWK DOWN) are accurate depictions of two battles. Get that guys and stop the "fashion" ranting (become the new fashion on Internet.... ). Is WE WERE SOLDIERS a perfect movie ? not. is its patriotism overblown ? not. is it wrong to show the other side too ? Not! ( no matter how much the VCs can be hated ).

A) it looks like it was shot in someone's backyard. An 85 million dollar studio epic shot in...Ojai, CA. Wheeeee!

B) a movie has to have something to identify with before it has a point to make - nobody here, nor none of its themes/tactics, takes ceterstage. It was like watching one of those "BOOP - Welcome to the Vietnam War! BOOP!" filmstrips. And Randall Wallace cribbed so many things from better films that've come before him, it's hard not to recall any of those films because it's impossible not to see he's been influenced heavily by them.

C) It also has you believe the War lasted about a day..."and then Mel Gibson fought for some more and then came home the next day". A "tie up loose ends" ending that occurs on screen at the same time Keri Russell finds out about Chris Klein. Sloppy and simplistic, IMO.

Just bad filmmaking, IMO, all around. Just not enough of anything interesting or any compelling POV for me to sink my teeth in here. That's just how I feel...I certainly don't like to alligator-wrestle w/anyone's like/love of a particular film, so speaking for me, that was not my intent. It just happens to be a film I remember very vividly as disliking immensely.

I didn't find it nearly so patriotic (not necessarily a bad thing in this day and age) as I did overly sentimental.

It's about the first major battle Americans participated in during Vietnam.

And as for Thin Red Line rip-offs, there ain't none.
Stylistically many excerpts are the same.
The music though is similar at times, yet different enough.
No more annoying than Goldsmith's First Contact theme in Mulan.
Much less annoying than Zimmer's Gladiator rip offs and various Hornerian plagiarisms.
Nothing that I would call "stealing". But much which I would call temptrack.

In short: same style. different music. nothing new. but relatively good.

Bladeisback, I don't understand what "irrealism' is. To my knowledge it is not a word. And "fashion" ranting. What's the dilly, guy?

The problem with these films showing the "other side," is that they try too hard in attempting political correctness. That is totally lost in something like Black Hawk Down, advertised as a new-age war movie full of white boys shooting black people in Somalia. As far as We Were Soldiers goes, the film is trying two things at once that DO NOT mix: trying to be an anti-war with pro-war ideals. And what about that retarted scene in the church where Chris Klein makes that dumb-ass speech on how he wants to rid the world (or Africa) of orphans! LOL! Movie like Pearl Harbour and We Were Soldiers should be placed under the Comedy section; they're a complete farce!