K-19

JayW. · Joined: 30 Nov 2004 Posts: 59

I saw 30 minutes of it because the Superbowl but it looked very good as for details is certained. It did had the feel of Das Boot but I reserve my judgement on the movie yet. I'll watch it at 4 o'clock this afternoon. Cool

JawW.

Joe Zazza · Guest

K-19 is a vastly, absolutely, positively, inferior movie if compared to Das Boot!
Das Boot is a classic on par with All is Quiet on the Western Front, Guadacanal Diary, etc.
It will be a genius who can develop a submarine movie that beats, let alone matches the excellence of Das Boot!

/s/ Kapitan-Uberleutant zur See Rock

Guest · Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2005 10:17 am Post subject:

There's not much a point to compare Das Boot with K-19. Das Boot made by Germans for Germans about Germans (about their suns, fathers, grandfathers). K-19 is made by Americans for Americans about Russians (solders of the Evil Empire). However, in my opinion K-19 is the best Hollywood movie about submarines of the former enemy. At least there we see that Russian submarines captains would not betray their Motherland, their military oath, their military honor, who would carry out their orders no matter what. When I am watching 'Hunt for Red October' it makes me puke to see how easily the author came up with the idea of a Soviet Navy captain betraying his Motherland. K-19 is also very good technically. At last I saw in a Hollywood authentic Soviet Navy uniforms, convincing Soviet Navy order of battle, lots of convincing details - up to the point of a photo camera when an officer makes a snapshot of Soviet sailors on the North Pole - that was FED - a Soviet replica of German WWII Leika.

K-19 is a very good American movie about Soviet submariners.

Bruno Lotse · Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2005 10:20 am Post subject:

The last post was mine.
Very Happy

Nitro · Joined: 27 Oct 2003 Posts: 225 Location: Atlantic Canada

If you read the book, you'd have the insight into Ramius' character to understand why he defected... He's more a sleeper agent then a turncoat.

XabbaRus · Joined: 21 Sep 2001 Posts: 6949

Good submarine movies are extremely tough to make, though a screen adaptation of "To Kill the Potemkin" would be good.

You'd have to have suspense and sub hunting...

I think a screen adaptation of the RSR sub campaign would be good especially the bit when they are escorting USS Providence back to the ice-pack.

Bruno Lotse · Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:59 pm Post subject:

bradclark1 · Joined: 01 Feb 2003 Posts: 1007 Location: Connecticut, USA.

Das Boot might be a classic but I found that it was ultra boring. I watched maybe half then turned it off. I really don't see what all the hoopla about it is.
Then again they say that Gone With The Wind is a classic too.

Brad

Sailor Steve · Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2005 12:32 am Post subject:

Sorry to hear it. I have the 5-hour "Original, uncut" version, and have watched it three times since it was released.

Subnuts · Joined: 22 Feb 2005 Posts: 113 Location: Connecticut

Back in 1998, I first saw Das Boot in it's dubbed theatrical version. I was bored and irritated most of the way through.
I saw it again two years later, that time the director's cut, and was completely drawn into it. I still can't watch that 20-minute long depth charge attack without getting my stomach in a knot, and I still can't watch the whole "stuck on the bottom" bit without getting bad case of copper mouth! Surprised

Nitro · Joined: 27 Oct 2003 Posts: 225 Location: Atlantic Canada

Bruno Lotse · Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2005 3:54 am Post subject:

Have I glanced at the book? Of cause not. I do not have time for trash 'literature'. I prefer reading writers like Clay Blair or Lothar-Gunter Buchheim. I watched that flick once (hardly made to the end) and to my best recollections a CIA guy was referring to the Soviet sub captain as a sun of Lithuanian anti-Soviet activist. Interestingly, even guys who was making that flick had enough common sense to throw away a story that a son of a high ranking Soviet apparatchik would throw away his privileges as a member of Soviet 'nomenklatura' and defect to US for what - to become a welfare-recipient? That's possibly why they cooked up another story - his farther was a Lithuanian freedom-fighter and, therefore, the son would go West as he did not want to have anything with the state against which his farther was fighting.

Bruno Lotse · Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2005 4:07 am Post subject:

Nitro · Joined: 27 Oct 2003 Posts: 225 Location: Atlantic Canada

Saying a book's trash literature simply because the movie sucked is rather moronic...

It's like saying The Iliad is terrible simply because Troy blew ass. Smarten up.

Bruno Lotse · Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2005 12:06 pm Post subject:

Hm... You mean in the book the captain does not betray his Military oath, defect, and deliver a top secret weapon into enemy hands? No, I don't think so. Both the book and the movie are built on the same idea - the captain of the top secret, most expensive weapon was not through and through politically and ideologically reliable. This is what I call, using your words, 'rather moronic'.

Check out American submarine movie K-19 - there you will see that the boat used to have a Commander who was at the very outset of her construction, knew the boat through and through, commanded well-deserved respect from the boat sailors. Yet when the time comes to put the top secret, most expensive, vitally important for national defense boat to sail, Moscow assigned a new Captain - whose only credentials was being married to a daugher of a Politburo member (so he was a member through his wife of elite clique of apparatchics). Ideological and political reliability was in much more regard than technical knowledge and proficiency. This is real and lots of other stuff in K-19 is real and, therefore, convincing and this is why I watched K-19 a number of times - movie is very-well made. The best American movie on the submariners of an enemy power - be it Soviets or Germans in WW2.