I saw two movies... Blade and We Were Soldiers

[AAP]

Savannah was boring. So I escaped to the movies and saw these two.

Blade was cool, though it got very WWF-ish at the end. When are filmmakers going to realize that without a ring and thunderous crowds behind it, a suplex on film looks lame as shit?

We Were Soldiers was GREAT!! I was about to cry myself when those two women delivered that black lady her telegram. And she denied it refusing to accept what it meant.

One question though, right at the end when the U.S. made that charge, those two helicopters had those SUPER ULTRA machine guns or whatever they were called (the ones that just poured lead out of them) they were doing most of the damage. The U.S. infantry ended up just standing there and watching. My question, is why didn't they use those helicopters and guns before when the army was pinned and surrounded on the ground? If they could land a copter and get troops in, they should have used those bad boys for strafing runs and cut the enemy down.

 

[curling]

First that was a good question. And I too thought it was one of the best war movies I have ever seen(and I have seen alot). I will answer with a guess. I think the reason the helicopters weren't used when they were surrounding was to prevent killing Americans with friendly fire. In otherwords they were to close to slants. But they could clearly seperate Charlie from the Americans for the last battle. I also thought it was cool that Mel sent the diary of the dude he killed to his wife.

 

[Peyote Killa]

I saw Blade, and liked it alot. I guess cuz I have read the comicbooks for a while now, and this new Blade movie was more comic book related than the first(as far as the story line goes)

Blade was a badass like always, but I too didn't really like the whole bodyslamming thing, that is kinda playe out, but it was still very intense and full of fight scenes, the kind that I like.

 

[Jord]

We were soldiers

I too saw We Were Soldiers except i thought it was a disgrace. It was just american propoganda at its worst. Vietnam should never have happened. PERIOD. The soldiers who died there were a total waste. Nothing patriotic at all about dying in vietnam. Shameful, yes. Patriotic, no. As for the movie, the glorified parts where mel gibson set foot on the battlefield and left the battlefield gave me the utmost in diarreah. SUPER cheese. The bottom line is america has to be at war. That is why it thrives. War=spending. Lots of spending=good economy. However , having a good economy is not worth a single human life.

 

[curling]

Re: We were soldiers

I too saw We Were Soldiers except i thought it was a disgrace. It was just american propoganda at its worst. Vietnam should never have happened. PERIOD. The soldiers who died there were a total waste. Nothing patriotic at all about dying in vietnam. Shameful, yes. Patriotic, no.

You know this kind of pisses me off. I mean you are saying their lives were wasted? You were probably one of the ones at the airport calling them baby killers and other vile ass liberal crap. I bet their families don't think the soldiers that died there were a waste. They did what their country(be it right or wrong) told them to do. So THEY were patriotic you are not because it sounds like you do not support them for what they has to do. Listen I am not saying we should have been there(in that war) either that was a stupid politician's decision but when an American soldier goes into another country you support them GOT IT!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Norman Bates]

Re: Re: We were soldiers

You know this kind of pisses me off. I mean you are saying their lives were wasted? You were probably one of the ones at the airport calling them baby killers and other vile ass liberal crap. I bet their families don't think the soldiers that died there were a waste. They did what their country(be it right or wrong) told them to do. So THEY were patriotic you are not because it sounds like you do not support them for what they has to do. Listen I am not saying we should have been there(in that war) either that was a stupid politician's decision but when an American soldier goes into another country you support them GOT IT!!!!!!!!!!!

You really think one should support an injust cause?
During WWII Oskar Lafontaine was fighting against German soldiers. SOme people here consider him a traitor for fighting his own people and instead fighting for his believes.

 

[3Vandoo]

Ads for Blade 1 and 2 tell me, is there any Kung Fu academy for vampires?

 

[nick_067]

I'm with curling. It wasn't the soldiers choice to go to vietnam. They had to do what their government told them to. They did not die for nothing. They died doing what they were told to do for their country. And yes that is patriotic. What is not patriotic was all the people at home calling them names when they returned like they had some choice about wether or not they could go. I meen they could have didged the draft like all the hippy pot head bastards. If anyone was a disgrace during that time period, it was them.

 

[Frackal]

It is the politicians who are pathetic, the soldiers died for their country, as true heroes...it is also pathetic that you speak out against them.

 

[javaguru]

Here area a few points regarding American involvement in Vietnam. This isn't a pro or con post but just one to provide information before making snap judgements without any type of contextual background.

1. Communism was seen as the number one threat to western democracies after WWII.

2. After WWII China was considered to be the great bulwark of democracy against communism in Asia. With the fall of China to communism in 1948 it was felt a great blow was dealt to the future of democratic governments in Asia.

3. The Korean Conflict, with Chinese involvement, along with Soviet Influence in other communist uprisings led to the rise of the Domino Theory. Basically, the theory stated that once a country fell others would also begin to fall as communist countries began to agitate within its neighbors borders. Support for this theory was seen in the Soviet Unions efforts in Eastern and Western Europe as well as Chinese involvement in Asia.

4. The French defeat at Dien Bien Phu was a major blow to the French government and forced their pulling out of Vietnam. However, it was felt that US involvement was needed to save face for the French regime and prevent the communist party from gaining power in France. Likewise, the French suggested that US involvement would also ensure French support for reconstruction efforts in Western Europe which was deemed essential to US foreign policy to combat communism.

Given the above, it's pretty easy to see why US politicians decided to become involved in Vietnam. I sometimes find it annoying how flippantly people make 20/20 hindsight judgements. People make it sound like it was a "no brainer" when the issues were a lot more complex. One has to look at history within context, it's more than actions and events but about ideas, ideology, and social issues among other things. I wish TA's and professors would do more to teach appropriate critical thinking in their US and World History survey courses.

As a general FYI, based on public opinion polls of the day the majority of Americans favored US involvement in Vietnam until after the Tet Offensive of 1968 when the US Public felt they had been told lies about how close we were to winning. Even at the end, large number of Americans still favored involvement. Likewise, regardless of what is portrayed in the media, there were just as many pro Vietnam demonstrations as anti war demonstrations. Finally, the behavior shown by many anti war demonstrators was despicable. These men and women were called on to do their duty as citizens of their country and were treated with disdain. Nobody is more anti war than a soldier, because at the end of the day they're the ones doing the dying.

I haven't seen "We Were Soldiers" but I have seen Blade II and I really liked the movie except for the pro wrestling crap. I just sat there thinking, " I can't believe they put that in the movie, it looks like crap."