"Pearl Harbor' vs 'Tora Tora Tora'…any redeemable features?

Ive seen PH twice..nice CGI effects..and a very nice Kate Beckinsale. And besides, since there’s Spits in it I won’t complain 😛

That and the fact that “Titanic” is essentialy one on one i.e one liner one iceberg ,and the details of individual stories just aren’t there, thus it lends itself to a fictional make over, whereas “Pearl” being an act of war should be accurate, if only for posterity.

What I have always founds puzzling is the fact that while Titanic got massive applaud for using a love epic around a historic happening, Pearl Harbour got bashed to bits for it.

Because while Titanic was more of a human story, Pearl Harbor was more about the big bangs and the big bucks.

The differences are the directors themselves – Bay is primarily an action director (Bad Boys, The Rock, Armageddon etc), while Cameron, who’s done his fair share of action flicks in the past, can do much more than just throw money at a film. One of his best, Aliens, was done with quite a small budget in comparison….

Also, Cameron writes a lot of his films himself, while Randall Wallace (he of Braveheart fame) penned Pearl Harbor….

Pearl Harbor gives us the Titanic treatment….a love “epic” that happens around the attack and the Doolittle raid.

What I have always founds puzzling is the fact that while Titanic got massive applaud for using a love epic around a historic happening, Pearl Harbour got bashed to bits for it.

Woohoo,I,ll buy two!!!Yes the thrash Pearl Harbour film has been,err thrashed to death by now.For a jolly good mindless romp around the screen for a few hours watch Pearl.For an entertaining tension building movie watch Tora x3.Almost as good as “Battle of the River Plate”.

Nearly ! a few gliches to iron ou….

Now that’s what I

call music? :p

Now that’s what I call a serious presentation!

Redeemable features.

…both did wonders for Hawaii tourism?

April 2006.

Mark

The music’s good in Pearl Harbour.

Did I ask you to point up whether its silly or not? Who said anything about ‘Sink the Bismarck’? I asked for ‘flaws’ that you spotted in each film, nothing more…fairly simple, fairly straightforward….

M

I used “Sink the Bismark” as an example of a historically accurate film that uses composite charaters to introduce a “human” element in the story.
Rather like Titanic or Pearl…or even the revered “Battle of Britain”. Other examples might be to compare “Saving Private Ryan” with “The Longest Day.”

Re: Tora and Pearl…
both have redeeming features, but to directly compare the two in terms of story or story telling styles would be silly. IMHO.

Did I ask you to point up whether its silly or not? Who said anything about ‘Sink the Bismarck’? I asked for ‘flaws’ that you spotted in each film, nothing more…fairly simple, fairly straightforward….

M

It’s a bit of a silly question. Apples and oranges and all that stuff. :rolleyes:

Tora was designed to be almost a documentary…it clear if you watch it. It’s telling you the story of the attack…not a drama where the attack is part of the backdrop (From Here to Eternity, In Harms Way, etc…). It doesn’t follow one person throughout the film (a usual way to fictionalize a real event..witness “Sink the Bismark”…at the end of which there is a disclaimer saying that Kenneth Moore’s character was NOT based on two RN officers…which it names…who really did the job Moore is shown as doing).

Pearl Harbor gives us the Titanic treatment….a love “epic” that happens around the attack and the Doolittle raid.

In short…different directions for different audiences.

Yes, we know PH was a bit silly…and has been pointed out ad nasaum in the forum it gave some people the idea that Yanks did everything. Yes, yes, we know they didn’t.

BUt Tora remains a great film…they spent money that no one could afford to do today and used real planes instead of CGI.
But Pearl on the other hand has my admiration for at least presenting to a generation of youngsters that something call WWII did indeed exist.
And anything that presents Jimmy Doolittle (even as played by Baldwin) and the pilots of the Battle of Britain as heros can’t be all bad.

Okay, so my checklist of faults looks like this for ‘Pearl Harbor’…

Jap planes painted in the wrong colors AGAIN…
Wireless head set used by ‘Earl’ in the tower….did they even exist back then?
NO MENTION of the Nevada’s attempted run out the harbor entrance
NO MENTION (tho someone said they filmed but did not use it) of the USS WARD firing on a mini sub outside the harbor
NO MENTION of a flight of B-17’s coming in from stateside
Aircraft engine sounds were HORRIBLE…sounded like Cessnas played back at higher speed!
USS Missouri used in background shots in one scene (or more) TECHNICALLY wrong but tolerable I guess…
“P-40’s can’t out run Zeroes…so don’t try!”?? WRONG…early P-40 models such as were at Pearl that morning were at LEAST equal to the A6M2’s IF NOT FASTER ( I show a speed of 345 MPH for B/C model P-40’s at 15,000 ft compared to a max speed at sea level for the A6M2 of 282 MPH, 331 MPH at 15,000 ft)..and we all know Allison engines ran better down low.
The Flak barrage over Tokyo at the end…as I recall, the Japs barely got off a shot at the B-25’s…the movie makes it look like they were B-17’s being shot at over Schweinfurt or Regensburg by EVERY gun available…WRONG..
The INCREDIBLY SIMPLE task of coding the American Eagle squadron planes with the historically accurate ‘XR-‘…but they messed up again…instead they used ‘RF-‘
Dare we mention how they showed the Jap fleet approaching Hawaii in Nimitz class carriers, but they went to great pains in some scenes to make the Lexington (the one now used as a museum in Texas) look more like the ‘Hornet’ that launched the Doolittle attack?
Some of this could be construed as nitpicky, but if you’re gonna do a historic film, TRY to make it as accurate as possible….glaring errors WILL show up and be picked up by the audience….in this case ‘Tora Tora’ had WAY less glaring errors than ‘PH’ did…maybe they should have watched ‘Tora Tora’ before they started filming….

M

Oooh, PH had some B-25s, too!

Hmm…. not looking too hopeful otherwise! 😀

Yep, but they should not have been in that Film, but in a remake of 30 Seconds over Tokyo 😀 😀 😀

Oooh, PH had some B-25s, too!

Hmm…. not looking too hopeful otherwise! 😀

T3 had lots of Harvards in it…..need I say more 🙂

Martin

For Pearl Harbour, No redeemable features what so ever.

‘Pearl’ had some Spitfires and a Buchon in it….

and Kate Beckinsale, I suppose… 😉

That’s about it for the good things! 😀

Well “Pearl” did employ three Zeros whereas “Tora” used Zero Replicas. Apart from that one point I would say “Tora” is superior in every way.

I believe a minsub sequence was originally to be included in “Pearl” but was dropped to save cash.

Colin