The Official Midway Movie (2019 version) Thread

So I've seen the film and can safely say it's at least better than the 1970's film. Quite a few bits in the film were well researched and surprised me. That said it's nowhere near perfect, and has a multitude of issues.

Pedantic list of nitpicks coming from an armchair historian -

The good:

Spoiler

• Casting for the Japanese admirals Yamamoto, Nagumo & Yamaguchi are all on point, and look like their real world counterparts to such a degree that it's almost eerie.
• Shows the disagreements between Admiral Nagumo and Yamamoto.
• The film actually shows the internal political squabbling between the Imperial Japanese Army & Navy as they had very different ideas on military strategy as Japan sought to expand its influence in Asia and often had to compete for resources.
• The film actually bothered to have Admiral Husband Kimmel in it.
• Woody Harrelson, though an odd choice for the role, cared enough to actually visit my workplace many months back to research his role as Admiral Chester Nimitz, and it shows. He definitely put effort into it.
• Dennis Quaid as Admiral "Bull" Halsey is spot on.
• Set and costume design is mostly accurate and nicely detailed.
• Aircraft function as they should, no nonsensical "Red Tails"-style antics that defy the laws of aerodynamics, or physics for that matter...
• Includes the Doolittle raid and the raiders' rescue in China by pro-Kuomintang forces.
• Includes and highlights the efforts of Joe Rochefort and station HYPO in the decryption and interpretation of Japanese communications.
• Destruction of the first Japanese carriers is mostly true to life.
• Scene in which the carrier Hiryu is being scuttled is not only true, but is practically an on-screen version of the following painting:
• Shows Nagumo's indecisiveness during the battle that turns the carrier Akagi into a massive powder keg.

The bad:

Spoiler

• Ed Skrein as Dick Best is terrible. Accent is over exaggerated and he comes off as completely unlikable. Writers clearly tried to make him the protagonist, of sorts, but it doesn't work for a film like this.
• "Homefront" scenes are pointless and go nowhere. Honestly, these should've been cut.
• Incorrect statements regarding US Navy dive bomber philosophies are made in the film. The US was among the early adopters of Dive Bombing as a concept, and knew all too well their importance based not only on their own experiences but observations of Japanese, German & British military operations in the Pacific, Western Europe & the Mediterranean respectively.
• Nimitz knew of station HYPO and had quite a fair degree of confidence in them.
• Amount of pessimism regarding the US' chances against Japan is exaggerated. By the time Midway took place the US had already successfully thwarted the planned Japanese invasion of Port Moresby at the Battle of the Coral Sea.
• Difference of ship composition and aircraft numbers is greatly exaggerated. Though the Japanese did have 2 Battleships and 2 Heavy Cruisers that actually took part in the Battle of Midway, the US had more aircraft (US had 233 carrier-based and 127 land-based aircraft vs. 248 carrier-based aircraft and 16 floatplanes for Japan) as well as more Destroyers and up to 16 Submarines.
• Complete lack of representation of US Navy fighter aircraft, which provided cover for the bomber craft as well as intercepting Japanese fighters and bombers.
• Stupid amounts of prevalence of the then greatly out-dated TBD Destroyer torpedo bomber that, by 1942, was being actively pulled from service and had largely been replaced by TBM Avengers.
• Perpetuates the myth of George Gay being the sole survivor of Torpedo Squadron 8. There were 2 others that survived.
• Japanese naval bombers operating in in-land China.
• Does not show the Japanese aircraft that intercepted Doolittle's B-25 squadron during their raid over Tokyo.
• "tHiS iS fOr PeArL hArBoR"
• No, one man did not single handedly take out a Japanese carrier.
• Number of aircraft attacking Japanese carriers obscenely low, probably for "dramatic effect".
• CGI is the equivalent of those CGI trailers for crappy Chinese/Korean FPS games.
• SBD Dauntless takes 3 full bursts of Japanese 7.62 & 20mm HE rounds with only a few small dents. Wat.
• Japanese A6M2 Reisens (aka Zeroes) never had pure white camo schemes.

Overall I'd say its about on par with the movie Fury in regards to authenticity/accuracy, but it's nowhere near the level of films such as Tora! Tora! Tora! or A Bridge Too Far. Solid 6/10.

 

Appreciate the correction there, they were called Devastators. Destroyers were another torpedo bomber. At any rate, by the time the Battle of Midway took place the Navy had been pulling TBM's from service. However TBD's are the only carrier-born torpedo bombers shown throughout the entire film. Some were still in active service, but not to the point that they made up the entirety of the Navy's torpedo bombers at that point.

For the first part, I think you're confusing Tora! Tora! Tora! for Midway. The former predominantly used actual aircraft and used miniatures for their effects. The latter was the one notorious for reusing footage from Tora! Tora! Tora! in addition to Navy archival footage, the most hilarious bit being when an SBD changes into an SB2C Helldiver shortly before crashing.

And yes, they did take a bunch of Texans and attempt to make them look like Zeroes. However, given the extreme shortage of surviving flyable examples (there's maybe 1 or 2 of them flying, at best) this can be forgiven.

 

I've had "Last Stand of the Tincan Sailors" on my reading list for a while, and at this point I have no excuse not to finish it. And honestly I wouldn't mind seeing something like this done, though I'm certain the film will do "Bull" Halsey no favors.

I agree wholeheartedly. An overall look at the events leading to and the battle itself would've been preferred. That said, what we got in the final product wasn't bad so I can't complain too much.

 

I'm glad they did a reboot of this battle.