Something of the movie felt so off compared to the 1979 version, which i believe to be the much much stronger film, and much more true to the book
Like the movie has 3 very strong sections and 3 very very shit ones
1st part is similar to book and 1979 version, boundless optimism, and the foolish naive young Iron youth, give way to the true horror of war, and not being an adventure
Then there's there's a shockingly boring half hour of the guys being behind the lines and stealing eggs and the pacing problems feels indescribably weird - i also personally could not connect with any of the chars outside of kat and paul, where in 1979 version the whole troop was very memorable, and thus the dwindling friendcircle, and the annialation of the original 9 members of the troop was much more devastating
Then there's at least a middle section where the humiliation of krauts by allies cucking them with resources, which is well acted, and the best middle action scenes with tanks and flamethrowers which is great - however good action scenes dont alone make for good war movies/dramas
tHen a second very bizarre section follows which events are out of order in the books, and compared to the1979 version, kat dies from being shot by farmboy for stealing eggs or some shit instead of on front line - now this should make little narrative difference, but i feel it undercuts the core theme of kats death from the book. I understand when Soldiers in final episode of Band of Brothers die, it sympolizes the tragic irony and horror of turbo veterans outliving shit like Normandy and Rhine battles, only to die of car crash, but with Kat in 1979 version, he dies after everyone of the original troop, despite being a gigachad rugged soldier - symolizing the ruthlessness of the war consuming all of bravest and most battle-hardened noble soldiers, dying of egg-poaching undercuts the deadly all cosuming reach of the war itself
There's other shit which bothers me as well
Post kat death the movie stalls AGAIN. Like wtf is with the goddarn pacing of this movie holy shit - it's like im watched 3 different movies stitched together.
Like in book and 1979, the pace is even and very simple - the group gradually dwindles over time, with eACH concurrent death being heavier and heavier, there's no weird soul shit mid way. The full culmination of Kat's death, is how unexpected it is, because until the reveal we believe the old veteran of all the smucks would live - with the final climax beings Paul's death despite being a mega veteran by war's end, when he has a moment's relapse in judgement when painting a bird and exposing his head over trench, symbolising the culmination of lost innocence
Like the book &1979 is very basic and simple - the themes are simple but deep, the slow burn is as satisfying as it's cruel and heartwrenching
The fricking 2022 movie pinballs from great to brokenshit nonsense, again wtf is with the pacing,
Also i fricking realize the krauts attempted to recontextualize the feeling of betrayal which soldiers felt the political leaders sold the ground beneath their feet, not being privy to the macro scale info on how turbo fricked krauts were, but my god the head kraut bad-guy literal fricking ww1 mouschtache twirling guy is so comically evil and 1dimensional, it's like a lap of iced water to my face - it's like fricking JarjarBinks whiplash
One moment we have the cruelty of man displayed in all its rawness as Paul remorses over the Frog he stabbed in a krater, the next fricking Frollo from Hunchbag of Notredarne is singing his badguy lyrics - like it reminds of that shitty RedTails George Lucas movie about black americans overcoming their perceived racism from their white peers, while still fricking portraying the head kraut badguy as a scar having saturday cartoon villain, it kind of defeats the purpose to dispel old mythos if you just upkeep others
Like i realize people can experience things differently, and maybe others who saw 2022 might believe im over exagerating, and they felt the Kraut General stand in, but for me it was too too too too much, its like cold water splashed into your bed.
The 1979 movie was very muted.
And this whole obsession of the 2022 to place the 2ndary theme of how Krauts mythologized the loss of WW1 as the fault of politicians, which i understand is a big mythos for krauts ,and the rise of old adolf, but it tears the movie into different types of frankenshit parts. It feels indescribable to me - like krauts had to postrate themselves before the earth about how WRONG they were in history, and the rest of us were like "you r-slurs realize that AllQuiet book was very neutral in the portrayal of its themes?" Like it applied to all parties on the western front
Something about the fricking movie feels very Presentism, like a need to ascribe present day morals to the old book, as if it needs updating. I want to go full r-slur and almost call it woke, but it's very very far from woke, it's another indescribable form of cuckoldry which i think is unique to krauts and their perpetual self shame. I donno its so weird and im not media literate to describe the feeling of weirdness i felt about the miss-mash of themes i was left with post movie
TLDR: go watch 1979 version, much better movie
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!bookworms have any of you guys read the book? Was the film a faithful adaptation?
I thought the General was very cartoonish, I agree that the producers tried way too hard to convey where the whole “stab in the back” came from.
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Shit movie. Didn't get the point of the book at all.
I could longpost on this but to put it simply the movie was too obsessed with Hollywood violence when the book focused on how dull and pointless WWI could be. To give an example,
In the movie the main character dies in combat in one final push.
In the book he is shot by a sniper because he pokes his head out to look at a butterfly.
The movie's death is gritty.
But the book's death is inane and anticlimactic — and that's exactly the point.
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Pretty sure that's from one of the older movies. Book just says:
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The stab in the back idea wasn't even explored in the book. The book ends with the main character
killing 
himself. It depicts a pointless war that no one was winning. It doesn't have room to deconstruct antisemitic 
tropes as that would 
take away from its antiwar message. Afterall, every main named character 
who is sympathetic dies. Caveat; I read the book. 11 years ago. I can't confirm how well I remember it
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did we read the same book wtf?
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Doesn't he walk into no man's land? Paul loses his will to live and dies on a peaceful
day. Idk I was 16 at the time
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In the book no.
yes! In the final chapter he's on a 14 day leave because he inhaled gas. He sits in a garden and talks about how much the war broke him.
yes after his reflection on the final page, it monologues about how he fell on the quietest day of the front.
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Iirc it doesn't say how he gets killed, just that it happens on an otherwise mundane day and goes unnoticed.
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That was an element called "wastage." Essentially even on days without assaults, there are still X number of men dying from random shots, disease, accidents, etc.
It's why we had to hurry up and finish the Pacific Theater in ww2. Morale on the home front was waning and people were losing support of the war effort. And even during quiet periods of no assaults, people were still dying every day.
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Especially given the shenanigans Japan was up to in China.
Should've dropped a nuke on Tokyo.
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That may have been part of our class discussion at the time The time and I've gotten confused
over the years.
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i read the book right before watching the movie and was overall disappointed with the changes the movie made.
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The movie is not at all faithful to the book or to historical accuracy. I watched it a while ago, but I remember the 1930 movie was a good adaptation.
It's lesser known but Westfront 1918 is also a good WW1 movie. There's no combat scenes but La Grande Illusion is a must watch, an amazing picture about POWs.
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