The dubbed-in-English director's cut version. I have to say I'm underwhelmed relative to the buildup. Good suspense, but way too long and bad ending - "U571" has got it beat hands down in every category: visuals, suspense, non-stop action, plot, ending. IMO, today's ACTION movies are just far far better than those from the past - not even in the same class....
Just saw "Das Boot"
- Thread starter Futo Inu
- Start date
As much as I liked U571, I've gotta disagree.
Then again, I never saw the dubbed version and my german isn't all that bad, I could certainly follow the movie without the subtitles.
Somehow I don't expect that wolfpacks were non-stop action. Plenty of suspense I'm sure and more action when it happened than I'd ever care for, but I really thought it was a fair representation. A few U-boaters agreed.
BTW, I really, really liked U571.
Then again, I never saw the dubbed version and my german isn't all that bad, I could certainly follow the movie without the subtitles.
Somehow I don't expect that wolfpacks were non-stop action. Plenty of suspense I'm sure and more action when it happened than I'd ever care for, but I really thought it was a fair representation. A few U-boaters agreed.
BTW, I really, really liked U571.
Well, that does it -- I gotta see U571.
I once saw "Das Boot" in the original German and thought it was great - I had read the book. Saw it again with dubbed English and it just didn't sound right. Saw the Director's Cut and had to agree with the editors - bor-ing in the long version.
I was in the submarine service in the early 50's and was billeted to the USS Picuda(382) up in Portsmouth, getting converted to a GUPPY.
A few piers away was the U505. She was rusty and had long streamers of seaweed trailing from her hull. I went below and was appalled at the cramped conditions. Those old U-Boaters earned my grudging admiration, if that is the word.
The Picuda was a WWII boat and was a Cadillac compared to the U505. We had eight watertight compartments, they had four. We had hydraulically operated vent valves, they had manuals.
To give you an idea of the last, we used to simulate a hydraulic power failure and dive manually. One of the torpedomen slipped a three foot hollow pipe over the vent handle, then we both grabbed it and pulled out feet off the floor. Our combined weight opened the valve. Man, how those guys did it on a daily, or more basis, is beyond me.
Yeah, I gotta see U571.
I once saw "Das Boot" in the original German and thought it was great - I had read the book. Saw it again with dubbed English and it just didn't sound right. Saw the Director's Cut and had to agree with the editors - bor-ing in the long version.
I was in the submarine service in the early 50's and was billeted to the USS Picuda(382) up in Portsmouth, getting converted to a GUPPY.
A few piers away was the U505. She was rusty and had long streamers of seaweed trailing from her hull. I went below and was appalled at the cramped conditions. Those old U-Boaters earned my grudging admiration, if that is the word.
The Picuda was a WWII boat and was a Cadillac compared to the U505. We had eight watertight compartments, they had four. We had hydraulically operated vent valves, they had manuals.
To give you an idea of the last, we used to simulate a hydraulic power failure and dive manually. One of the torpedomen slipped a three foot hollow pipe over the vent handle, then we both grabbed it and pulled out feet off the floor. Our combined weight opened the valve. Man, how those guys did it on a daily, or more basis, is beyond me.
Yeah, I gotta see U571.
Ken in Iowa
New member
U-571 is OK, the story line was unexpected. Das Boot is the best. Better yet it is true. I read the books, there were two. First was a novel that the movie follows nearly exactly. It was written as a combination of the authors experiences on the U-boats during the war. The second book is fact, it is the photos taken by the author during his several tours. Remember the scene where the two boats meet on the surface durnig some rough weather? That was re-created exactlly as it acutally happened. Many other photos were recreated for the movie to provide added realism.
The second book explains where the two boats used to make the movie came from. They were real, operational boats. Both came from Uragruary. One was in very good shape and the other was not sea worthy.
Das Boot is one of the best WWII made, bar none.
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The second book explains where the two boats used to make the movie came from. They were real, operational boats. Both came from Uragruary. One was in very good shape and the other was not sea worthy.
Das Boot is one of the best WWII made, bar none.
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I thought "U571" had way too many holes in the plot to be plausible. The real stories of sub capture were more compelling. (It's like "Titanic" contriving absurd drama when they had much more richness already at hand.) The Marine says he will train the landing party (in presumably a few days) but we never see any such training...the "German" airplane appeared to be a British Typhoon...the German "destroyer" was perhaps a seagoing tug with a non-warship stern...the U-boat was operated with a handful of men with no language skills who saw the sub for the first time when they took it...the drydock got the dummy U-boat made up complete with functioning conning tower when they had no advance warning of the grounded U-boat-- did they have sheet metal sitting around already shaped to fit around the Allied sub to transform it into a German one?...the insubordinate crewmen should have been pitched overboard-- this was supposed to be an elite crew, etc. "Das Boot" is in a class all its own. One particularly great scene shows the U boat watch riding the conning tower at high speed during high seas, and the German officer shows his joy at the experience. The first time you saw the crew rush through the watertight doors, followed all the way by the camera, and throw themselves into a pile in the bow in order to give the boat more weight in front for diving, was a remarkable triumph in story telling and cinematography. There was nothing in "U571" remotely this creative.
I am a poor excuse for a film critic but I have fond memories of Das Boot. First the odds of returning from a tour on one of these boats was pretty awful and was portrayed well in the story. The camera work in the tight corriders worked well to give the sensation of a severely claustrophobic envioronment. The sounds seemed very realistic, especially during that major dive. I found myself thinking of the smell of that dank, dark shell which contained disciplined and terrified men. It is worth the watch.
Bobbalouie
New member
For the life of me, I can't understand why they would generate another fiction sub movie when the greatest sub story ever (in my humble, etc.) is TRUE and written as a great book. I'm speaking, of course, of "Clear the Bridge", by Richard O'Kane, the story of America's most successful WWII sub, the USS Tang.
The story has everything, from a crack, on-the-ball crew who push all the limits, to humor, to depth-chargings. There are some of the best rescue and sinking scores. There is the awful struggle with faulty torpedos, and a crew who dealt with them themselves. In the last battle of their last patrol before the boat was to go back to the states for a refit (and crew shake-up), their last torpedo malfunctions and sinks the sub. THEN, we read of the only case of survivors from a sub sunk in battle and their POW experience. This story has EVERYTHING.
READ IT, confound it. I've read just about all of them by now. Believe me, all the others pale by comparison.
Someone has GOT to make this into a movie!
Bobbalouie
The story has everything, from a crack, on-the-ball crew who push all the limits, to humor, to depth-chargings. There are some of the best rescue and sinking scores. There is the awful struggle with faulty torpedos, and a crew who dealt with them themselves. In the last battle of their last patrol before the boat was to go back to the states for a refit (and crew shake-up), their last torpedo malfunctions and sinks the sub. THEN, we read of the only case of survivors from a sub sunk in battle and their POW experience. This story has EVERYTHING.
READ IT, confound it. I've read just about all of them by now. Believe me, all the others pale by comparison.
Someone has GOT to make this into a movie!
Bobbalouie
Stephen Ewing
New member
Score another critic who just couldn't get past a German aircraft and destroyer in the mid-Atlantic, a WW2 submarine hitting a submerged submarine with a torpedo it launched while submerged itself, that tired old "launch stuff out the torpedo tube to make 'em think we're dead" routine, the language problems, the training problems, the shortage of crew, etc., etc.
I hated U-571 with a passion, and am annoyed that they didn't just make the movie about U-505 or U-110, both of which are better stories. Das Boot is still the yardstick for submarine movies. I was happy to find out that Lehmann Willenbrock, the captain of U-96 who the movie captain was based on, survived the war. If anybody has a U-boat fixation, www.uboat.net is the place to go.
Incidentally, Reinhard Hardegen, who commanded U-123 during Drumbeat in early 1942, got a tour of a US sub in the late '30s. He was appalled at the luxury the soft US sailors lived under.
Steve
I hated U-571 with a passion, and am annoyed that they didn't just make the movie about U-505 or U-110, both of which are better stories. Das Boot is still the yardstick for submarine movies. I was happy to find out that Lehmann Willenbrock, the captain of U-96 who the movie captain was based on, survived the war. If anybody has a U-boat fixation, www.uboat.net is the place to go.
Incidentally, Reinhard Hardegen, who commanded U-123 during Drumbeat in early 1942, got a tour of a US sub in the late '30s. He was appalled at the luxury the soft US sailors lived under.
Steve
I thought Das Boot one of the best movies I have seen.I was aboard the german sub that the natural history museum has in Chicago.Cramped is a understatement.Its my understanding that the movie U571 is pure fiction.The code machine was captured by a British crew with no Americans involved.
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beemerb
We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world;
and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men
every day who don't know anything and can't read.
-Mark Twain
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beemerb
We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world;
and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men
every day who don't know anything and can't read.
-Mark Twain
If you liked these movies, you need these books:
Iron Coffins
Autobiographical account by one of the few surviving U-boat captains. Very detailed perspective on life on board a sub.
Silent Victory
A comprehensive history of US submarine ops in the Pacific in WWII, which was primarily a war against the Japanese merchant marine. The Japanese never did figure out convoying and anti-submarine warfare, and by the end of the war their shipping fleet tonnage was miniscule, primarily due to US fleet boats sinking damn near every merchant ship of any size. An insight into what might have happened on the US-UK routes had we not figured out ASW! Unfortunately out of print.
[This message has been edited by JimR (edited June 01, 2000).]
Iron Coffins
Autobiographical account by one of the few surviving U-boat captains. Very detailed perspective on life on board a sub.
Silent Victory
A comprehensive history of US submarine ops in the Pacific in WWII, which was primarily a war against the Japanese merchant marine. The Japanese never did figure out convoying and anti-submarine warfare, and by the end of the war their shipping fleet tonnage was miniscule, primarily due to US fleet boats sinking damn near every merchant ship of any size. An insight into what might have happened on the US-UK routes had we not figured out ASW! Unfortunately out of print.
[This message has been edited by JimR (edited June 01, 2000).]
Shawn Dodson
Moderator
Having been a submariner (and I still go to sea on them from time to time), Das Boot is THE MOST REALISTIC submarine movie I've ever seen. I watched this movie on the mess decks many times with my shipmates while out on patrol under the Atlantic in the early 80's.
Another good submarine book is Thunder Below! : The USS Barb Revolutionizes Submarine Warfare in World War II.
Another good movie is 84 Charlie MoPic, which is the story of a LRRPs team in Vietnam that's accompanied on patrol by a combat motion picture photographer. The story is told through the combat photographer's viewfinder. Not a high budget movie, but it's fairly realistic in the small unit action it depicts. The call for an artillery fire mission on enemy troops in the open is the most accurate I've seen in a movie. However it's nowhere close to the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan.
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/s/ Shawn Dodson
Firearms Tactical Institute
http://www.firearmstactical.com
Another good submarine book is Thunder Below! : The USS Barb Revolutionizes Submarine Warfare in World War II.
Another good movie is 84 Charlie MoPic, which is the story of a LRRPs team in Vietnam that's accompanied on patrol by a combat motion picture photographer. The story is told through the combat photographer's viewfinder. Not a high budget movie, but it's fairly realistic in the small unit action it depicts. The call for an artillery fire mission on enemy troops in the open is the most accurate I've seen in a movie. However it's nowhere close to the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan.
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/s/ Shawn Dodson
Firearms Tactical Institute
http://www.firearmstactical.com
Stephen Ewing
New member
JimR, have you read Blair's two volume Hitler's U-Boat War? Pretty good in it's own right. I have to agree with you about Iron Coffins. Wahoo and Clear The Bridge are on my reading list, though.
I hope y'all are happy. I've spent the evening thinking about the British submariner who complained that after Das Boot came out, his boat spent months with all commands and responses in German. Apparently they all just got a kick out of it.
Steve
I hope y'all are happy. I've spent the evening thinking about the British submariner who complained that after Das Boot came out, his boat spent months with all commands and responses in German. Apparently they all just got a kick out of it.
Steve
Jeff Thomas
New member
I saw the German version of Das Boot, with English subtitles. It was so good, I never wanted to see it any other way, and I probably never will.
OTOH, I may look for the same version in the video stores now that you guys got me thinking about it again. Powerful flick.
U-571 was fun, but not nearly so memorable, IMHO.
Regards from AZ
OTOH, I may look for the same version in the video stores now that you guys got me thinking about it again. Powerful flick.
U-571 was fun, but not nearly so memorable, IMHO.
Regards from AZ
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Nukem:
I had to quit watching "Das Boot". I scratched for three days after whole crew got a case of "crotch crickets"
[/quote]
Was that scene after the booger scene?(That's were I quit watching)
I had to quit watching "Das Boot". I scratched for three days after whole crew got a case of "crotch crickets"
[/quote]Was that scene after the booger scene?(That's were I quit watching)