This topic does not deal strictly with guns, but says so much about Hollywood’s total refusal to even consider the right of self-defense, I think I bears discussion here.
Last night I watched the Showtime production of “On the Beach.” I am a big fan of Showtime’s “Stargate SG-1,” and had hoped that the same quality and attention to entertainment would be evident here. Boy, was I in for a shock.
This movie was first released in 1958, based upon the Neville Shute book of the same name. It’s the story of Australians after a nuclear exchange between the US and USSR. The exchange wipes-out the Northern hemisphere, and the story deals with the people in Australia waiting for the fallout to reach and kill them all, too. Into this scene comes the sole surviving US Navy ship, a nuclear attack sub that has escaped the destruction. As originally written and produced, it is a spare, stark story with great emotional impact.
The remake is unbelievably bad. It has been victimized by current Hollywood far-left idiocy, including “all weapons are bad” and “all military men are evil.” Most of the performances are very good, but the rewrite is so bad that the performances are wasted.
Where to start? In this version, the US sub is a boomer, not an attack boat. The captain has a French accent (played by Armand Assante – what the ****?) He is a “good” Navy man. Why? Because he refused the order to launch his ICBMs, showing that he is really a good guy and against violence. (Right. Just the sort of person the Navy gives command of a boomer to). Once it is established that he is “good,” he is then free to have an affair with Rachel Ward’s character – Jane Fonda’s double -- he ultimate brainless, militant feminist.
To see just how bad the radiation is in the US, the sub sails -- along with a cynical, military-hating mathematician who is, of course, way smarter than any of the dumb military guys but goes so he can do their jobs for them. The submarine and the movie’s treatment of the military is so bad and so funny I missed some of the lines because I was laughing at it. The captain wears the uniform of a Navy captain but is identified as a commander. The crew wears a hysterically bad collection of Navy, Army, Coast Guard, and, I think, Explorer Scout uniforms. There is not one uniform in the movie that is militarily correct. The crew – evil military, remember – behave like stupid psychotics. Everyone – including the captain – spends most of the movie screaming at one another. Enlisted men call officers foul names and threaten to kill them. The officers are uniformly badly trained and cowardly, with half apparently in the Army, according to their insignia. The crew takes votes on what they want to do – in Hollywood’s military, there’s none of that foul military discipline, you can be sure! The captain acts exactly like someone who picks fights in bars. The simplest continuities are broken. While entering San Francisco harbor from the sea – which requires that you be moving toward the east – the OOD gives the order to come to heading 262 – which is almost dead west. Then, to make a small course correction, he orders a change of heading to 141 – a change of almost 180 degrees.
In the end (I’ll spare you more details), the crew decides they want to die at sea. The sub sails away, but wait! In the last scene, the captain appears (in a badly screwed-up dress uniform this time) to the Fonda character’s delight. He has decided to stay with her, and to hell with his crew. Hey, they’re going to die anyway, so why not get laid one last time?
This movie is astonishing for several reasons. For one, I am unaware of one single piece of film that better reveals how ignorant Hollywood has become. Ignorant of the simplest details about the armed forces; of reason; of honor; of what makes people real men and women and what does not. Two, for how it shows that it has no interest in the original intent of a writer’s work, but instead, is interested only in using the name of a good work to once again trumpet the stupid, valueless, honorless, crap that has been its almost total output for 30 years.
If this movie is any indicator, Hollywood is now officially a separate planet, and one on which self-defense and honor have no place.
Last night I watched the Showtime production of “On the Beach.” I am a big fan of Showtime’s “Stargate SG-1,” and had hoped that the same quality and attention to entertainment would be evident here. Boy, was I in for a shock.
This movie was first released in 1958, based upon the Neville Shute book of the same name. It’s the story of Australians after a nuclear exchange between the US and USSR. The exchange wipes-out the Northern hemisphere, and the story deals with the people in Australia waiting for the fallout to reach and kill them all, too. Into this scene comes the sole surviving US Navy ship, a nuclear attack sub that has escaped the destruction. As originally written and produced, it is a spare, stark story with great emotional impact.
The remake is unbelievably bad. It has been victimized by current Hollywood far-left idiocy, including “all weapons are bad” and “all military men are evil.” Most of the performances are very good, but the rewrite is so bad that the performances are wasted.
Where to start? In this version, the US sub is a boomer, not an attack boat. The captain has a French accent (played by Armand Assante – what the ****?) He is a “good” Navy man. Why? Because he refused the order to launch his ICBMs, showing that he is really a good guy and against violence. (Right. Just the sort of person the Navy gives command of a boomer to). Once it is established that he is “good,” he is then free to have an affair with Rachel Ward’s character – Jane Fonda’s double -- he ultimate brainless, militant feminist.
To see just how bad the radiation is in the US, the sub sails -- along with a cynical, military-hating mathematician who is, of course, way smarter than any of the dumb military guys but goes so he can do their jobs for them. The submarine and the movie’s treatment of the military is so bad and so funny I missed some of the lines because I was laughing at it. The captain wears the uniform of a Navy captain but is identified as a commander. The crew wears a hysterically bad collection of Navy, Army, Coast Guard, and, I think, Explorer Scout uniforms. There is not one uniform in the movie that is militarily correct. The crew – evil military, remember – behave like stupid psychotics. Everyone – including the captain – spends most of the movie screaming at one another. Enlisted men call officers foul names and threaten to kill them. The officers are uniformly badly trained and cowardly, with half apparently in the Army, according to their insignia. The crew takes votes on what they want to do – in Hollywood’s military, there’s none of that foul military discipline, you can be sure! The captain acts exactly like someone who picks fights in bars. The simplest continuities are broken. While entering San Francisco harbor from the sea – which requires that you be moving toward the east – the OOD gives the order to come to heading 262 – which is almost dead west. Then, to make a small course correction, he orders a change of heading to 141 – a change of almost 180 degrees.
In the end (I’ll spare you more details), the crew decides they want to die at sea. The sub sails away, but wait! In the last scene, the captain appears (in a badly screwed-up dress uniform this time) to the Fonda character’s delight. He has decided to stay with her, and to hell with his crew. Hey, they’re going to die anyway, so why not get laid one last time?
This movie is astonishing for several reasons. For one, I am unaware of one single piece of film that better reveals how ignorant Hollywood has become. Ignorant of the simplest details about the armed forces; of reason; of honor; of what makes people real men and women and what does not. Two, for how it shows that it has no interest in the original intent of a writer’s work, but instead, is interested only in using the name of a good work to once again trumpet the stupid, valueless, honorless, crap that has been its almost total output for 30 years.
If this movie is any indicator, Hollywood is now officially a separate planet, and one on which self-defense and honor have no place.