Glad or Sad?

[DracoPaladore 0]

There is no doubt, many countries who contributed to many wars and events in history are never presented in movies or games. Whether it be the Canadians at the Gothic Line, or the Finnish in the Winter War, Swedish tanks in Italy, Australia, New Zealand, and so on.

I have notice a huge advance of Russian themed World War 2 games, but this seemed to only have started when the movie "Enemy at the Gates" came out, and now everyone on the internet wants to eat snow, be a sniper, and call themselves "Vasilli".

Is it me, or does history now only matter in trends? It was not until the movie came out that many people took notice of the fight against Germany for Russia. Many times, people couldn't care less.

But am I the only who thinks taht these events, and that these battles are only cheapened by Hollywood movies or video games? I recently read a letter from a Canadian teenager to the newspaper Globe and Mail on computer games, and that Canadians are never represented. His usual response from companies when he asks "Why" is usually that they were never significant, that they only faught one or two battles, or they were fighting as British. I was somewhat upset at this, but then why would I?

I mean, I try to remember all of the battles of World War two where my and other countries faught, try and remember important events that helped overall in the outcome of one of the world wars or even the Medak Pocket, one that happened in my generation. But it seems to me that if any one of these events were made into a movie, it would only cheapen the impact and sacrifice of soldiers and those who died. How would you feel if some company was raking in millions of dollars from your countries loss? Especially if the movie or game was mainly ficticious, and many of the events and facts in the movie are altered to meet viewer demand.

Thoughts?

[brgnorway 0]

Quote[/b] ] ..........Swedish tanks in Italy.........

Good Lord, that'll be the day when the swedes takes Italy and replaces Alfa Romeo with US owned Saabs and Volvos.

Makes me want to seek political asylum in Rhodesia ....... errrh I mean Zimbabwe!

Apart from that I'd say you have a valid point! Anyone remember how the americans were responsible for getting hold of the enigma code lately?

[DracoPaladore 0]

Quote[/b] ] ..........Swedish tanks in Italy.........

Good Lord, that'll be the day when the swedes takes Italy and replaces Alfa Romeo with US owned Saabs and Volvos.

Makes me want to seek political asylum in Rhodesia ....... errrh I mean Zimbabwe!

Apart from that I'd say you have a valid point! Anyone remember how the americans were responsible for getting hold of the enigma code lately?

I thought the Swedish Tank corp was in Italy in World War 2? Wern't they used for several battles? I might have it mistaken with other battles. I thought they were used for support in Ortona...forget it. I must have them confused with something else.

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ] ..........Swedish tanks in Italy.........

Good Lord, that'll be the day when the swedes takes Italy and replaces Alfa Romeo with US owned Saabs and Volvos.

Makes me want to seek political asylum in Rhodesia ....... errrh I mean Zimbabwe!

Apart from that I'd say you have a valid point! Anyone remember how the americans were responsible for getting hold of the enigma code lately?

I thought the Swedish Tank corp was in Italy in World War 2? Wern't they used for several battles? I might have it mistaken with other battles. I thought they were used for support in Ortona...forget it. I must have them confused with something else.

Sweden was neutral.

[Munk 0]

Agreed, damn Hollywood to hell!

[DracoPaladore 0]

Quote[/b] ] ..........Swedish tanks in Italy.........

Good Lord, that'll be the day when the swedes takes Italy and replaces Alfa Romeo with US owned Saabs and Volvos.

Makes me want to seek political asylum in Rhodesia ....... errrh I mean Zimbabwe!

Apart from that I'd say you have a valid point! Anyone remember how the americans were responsible for getting hold of the enigma code lately?

I thought the Swedish Tank corp was in Italy in World War 2? Wern't they used for several battles? I might have it mistaken with other battles. I thought they were used for support in Ortona...forget it. I must have them confused with something else.

Sweden was neutral.

It is with my deepest sympathies for the Swedish whose neutrality I offended. I somehow had it confused with the Polish.

Ok, enough. Backeth on topic!

[redface 1]

Sweden was neutral.

historical knowledge also comes in trends: until deep into the 19th Century, Swedes fought wars all over Europe

[billybob2002 0]

Sweden was neutral.

historical knowledge also comes in trends: until deep into the 19th Century, Swedes fought wars all over Europe

Sweden was neutral during WWII... They were too busy selling bofor guns to both sides...  

Edit: I see now what you were trying to say...

[brgnorway 0]

Quote[/b] ]Sweden was neutral during WWII... They were too busy selling bofor guns to both sides...

Actually, they were desperate to stay out of the conflict!

Sure you'd swallow a few camels when avoiding getting your country invaded and raped!

To my knowledge, Bofors didn't sell cannons to Germany - but ball bearings and iron got shipped in large quantities!

[ralphwiggum 6]

Quote[/b] ] ..........Swedish tanks in Italy.........

Good Lord, that'll be the day when the swedes takes Italy and replaces Alfa Romeo with US owned Saabs and Volvos.

if denoir gets his wish this is what will happen...

Quote[/b] ]Apart from that I'd say you have a valid point! Anyone remember how the americans were responsible for getting hold of the enigma code lately?

yeah. they had to beg British who were also helped by Polish.(don't forget Poland! )

in all seriousness, it's a double sided thing. If it weren't for Enemy at the Gates, a lot of people would not get exposed to the otherside of story. However, as people mentioned it also limits some aspect of it.

am i the only one who is thinking that director of Enemy at the gates is French?

[denoir 0]

Good Lord, that'll be the day when the swedes takes Italy and replaces Alfa Romeo with US owned Saabs and Volvos.

Alfa Romeo is owned by Fiat which is owned in part (just like SAAB) by General Motors

GM in crunch talks on Fiat future [bBC]

Prepare for the Alfa Romeo SUV and City Jeep

[brgnorway 0]

Good Lord, that'll be the day when the swedes takes Italy and replaces Alfa Romeo with US owned Saabs and Volvos.

Alfa Romeo is owned by Fiat which is owned in part (just like SAAB) by General Motors  

GM in crunch talks on Fiat future [bBC]

Prepare for the Alfa Romeo SUV and City Jeep

This has been going on for some time now. The funny part is that none wants to sell or buy. It's about blackmailing a naive "almost partner" . The bad part in this is that Alfa Romeo must use the engine block from GM's Opel/Vauxhall four cylinder engine - meaning no more Twin Spark engines.

However, after the spaghetti people have done their magic with the engine tops it'll sound and go like an italian instead of the usual german-american crap!

[DracoPaladore 0]

Ummm....back on topic?

I corrected my error, I mistook Poland and Sweden during the war. Ok, got it? Good.

But if you really don't wanna discuss my topic, take it elsewhere. I'm sure the moderators would want proper Swedish ball bearing talk and Italian invasion somewhere else!

Quote[/b] ]am i the only one who is thinking that director of Enemy at the gates is French?

Don't think you can get any more Frencher than Jean-Jacques Annaud

[ralphwiggum 6]

nah. if i want to get French, i'd take good old French fries from McDonald's!

there is a very hard problem of who is responsible. looking at Enemy at the gates, it was made by a French director with US money, in German locations.

this film was marketed worldwide, and now the kids don't know the whole picture. but who is to blame? the one who came up with the idea? money behind it?

i tried to look for reference to Vasilli Zaitzev on the book called 'enemy at the gates' which the movie claims to be inspired from. mention of Zaitzev was total of 2 freaking paragraphs.

so who made/sold this idea and plant in kid's head? it's hard to tell. i say the best thing to do is make more movies about Russian front and other fronts that appeals to movie goers worldwide. yes there will be some bastardization, but it's a price to pay.

[denoir 0]

I don't know why people are so sensitive where a move is made and who made it. As long as it's good...

As for Enemy at the Gates, while some scenes are interesting, I wasn't too impressed overall with it. It's IMO pretty pale compared to for instance Band of Brothers.

[ralphwiggum 6]

I don't know why people are so sensitive where a move is made and who made it. As long as it's good...

As for Enemy at the Gates, while some scenes are interesting, I wasn't too impressed overall with it. It's IMO pretty pale compared to for instance Band of Brothers.

bah! don't you know that BoB is brainwasher material made by US capitalist pigs!?!

sad thing is who or where it was made is a factor to look into.

for example people love to criticize US military influencing the films made with US military resources. some here call it another form of opinion bending.

who makes the film is also important. michael moore made a film that showed his perspective and other movies also have influence of director or their opinion. you will not see michale moore directing movie that would triumph rightwing cause. Just look at "Team America". the movie creators didn't like Moore, so he was portrayed in very negtive manner.

[denoir 0]

bah! don't you know that BoB is brainwasher material made by US capitalist pigs!?!  

Well, although it did show a skewed picture ignoring all the other nationst that faught, still it was first of all very good and second, it's purpose was to show what happened to the 101st, and never intended to show the war from all sides.

Quote[/b] ]sad thing is who or where it was made is a factor to look into.

for example people love to criticize US military influencing the films made with US military resources. some here call it another form of opinion bending.

I don't think resources are usually the problem, but American movies have a global audience while they are often very American-centric. So people get annoyed over that. Not too seldom non-American movies are remade into weaker clones and that isn't too popular either. And then of course there is the blatant propaganda - for example JAG - which I don't understand why they even bother to broadcast outside the US.

I think that local, national culture is all fine and well, but one has to understand the effects of showing it to non-believers, so to say

Still, in the end it's usually a balance. The more difficult examples are movies that are very well made but carry a political message that not everybody subscribes to.

[feersum.endjinn 6]

Sweden was neutral.

historical knowledge also comes in trends: until deep into the 19th Century, Swedes fought wars all over Europe

Yeah, you could always be sure that Swedes always fought to the last Finn...

[sputnik monroe 102]

There use to be lots of Eastern front computer games back in the day. Also Cose Combat 2 had the Polish in it. That was back in the day though when computer games stood out from console games. Back then PC games were more about strategy and skill, ie sims and strategy games.

Now all we get today are stupid real time "stratey" and FPS games. What bugs me most is that all these stupid FPS and RTSs are clones of one another. You bunny hop and gather spice in every freaking one. Not to mention deathmatch and CTF, come on people come up with something more innnovative.

I miss the days of Steel Panthers, Wolfpack, and Aces of The Pacific.

That being said there are still a few decent games out there for the PC. That number will continue to decline though as more and more games become Muliplatform aka Jack of all trades master of none.

[EiZei 0]

As for Enemy at the Gates, while some scenes are interesting, I wasn't too impressed overall with it. It's IMO pretty pale compared to for instance Band of Brothers.

Seemed too overdramatic and exeggarated for my tastes..