Ihateregistering1 said:
Kargathia said:
Making a war movie that treats its main characters not as actual characters, but as embodiment of the author's sweeping generalisation of a group (in this case the American army) is very likely to just be a shitty movie.
Are you serious? The book is written by one of the guys who was there with those guys (ie. the "Lone Survivor"). These people he wrote about aren't 'characters', they're actual people who he knew, and knew well. This isn't the author's 'sweeping generalization'.
If you truly can't fathom the idea that there are actual people out there who would willingly risk their lives for each other, then I just feel sorry for you.
While there is much that can be said, I'd probably best summarize here.
- Your disregarding of the first paragraph has succesfully taken the quote out of context. Well done.
- "Author" does not imply book. It refers to whomever made any kind of creative work.
- While this whole thing is already ridiculous to even debate because you've successfully taken the entire argument out of context, I'd like to note that the automatic fallback on "but...but.... heroics!" is as ridiculous as it is cliche.
A movie, book, or any other piece of entertainment that is based on a true story can very easily be shite, regardless of how heroic, sad, romantic, or funny the original events were.
To take this particular case as an example:
Lone Survivor was not made in order to educate viewers as to exactly what happened in the moments depicted during the movie; it was made because a studio executive figured he could turn a profit by entertaining people with this particular story.
And as such, it is perfectly reasonable to consider a movie absolute and utter shite without passing any kind of judgement whatsoever on events it is based on. Especially as as far as source reliability goes, "blockbuster action movie" is kind of down there, just below drunken ravings.
Edit: this is much the same as when you'd for some unfathomable reason decided to make a movie about my life. Sure, it'd be "based on true events", but it'd still be a shitty movie, because fuck-all happens, and I'm not funny enough to make it a comedy.