The Battle of Midway in Roland Emmerich's movie vs the real history

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Күн бұрын

Roland Emmerich's 2019 movie simply called "Midway" shows a lot more than the Battle of Midway. We'll be joined today by one of the historical consultants on the movie who is also the co-author of Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway.
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Пікірлер: 55

@hckyplyr9285 Ай бұрын

I'm starting to think Jon Parshall could talk naval history 24/7! Not sure when he has time to write but I'm definitely getting his new book.

@Yamato-tp2kf Ай бұрын

I never get tired of listen to him... I would love to have a conversation with him around a cup of coffee

@TheKansasredneck Ай бұрын

@@Yamato-tp2kfbetter make it 200 cups, John is the Encyclopedia Britannica on the Pacific. His appearances with Seth and Bill are awesome. History forgotten is too soon repeated.

@robertdendooven7258 8 ай бұрын

A great appearance by Jon again on a show about The Battle of Midway. Shattered Sword is a great book. So is the newer book on Midway by Craig Symonds. I will be looking forward to the show on the 1976 movie on June 4. I think both the 1976 and 2019 have their strengths and weaknesses. For me, the 1976 one has much better actors and gives better background on the battle. The negative for it is the "personal" side stories and the use of incorrect film footage in it. The 2019 movie does a better job with depicting the correct aircraft even though many details on them are wrong. The biggest problem with it is the casting of the actors. Besides Yamaguchi, Layton, Nimitz and Halsey, none of the other characters are likeable. i also agree with Jon on the "Star Wars-afication" of the flight scenes. It is not how airplanes perform for the most part.

@johnsanabria3279 Ай бұрын

Reminds me of a ww1 atrocious film called "Flyboys" . The very thought of pubescent teens as aviators is laughable. As well ,to see a biplane flying at the speed of a jet and hugging the contours of a zeppelin is just utterly ridiculous ! Don't even get me started on "Red Tails"!

@bobharrison7693 Ай бұрын

I hated the 1976 movie. Why was it necessary to clutter up one of the most significant events in history with fictional characters? And that stupid love story with racial "shame on us" overtones was enough to make one puke.

@petepruitt7196 18 күн бұрын

What a very interesting and thought provoking analysis! Thanks! I read his book btw

@ziggle314 Ай бұрын

Parshall is always great. Thanks!

@jeffreymcfadden9403 Ай бұрын

Jon is the man who tries to match his shirts with his wall paper,,,so says Seth.

@AndrewNiccol 4 ай бұрын

The video is a gem for me that loves Midway.

@RoberttheFox0001 Ай бұрын

I remember seeing this when it came out in the theatre with my Dad. It was sooo amazing.

@robertmatch6550 Ай бұрын

For a good take on the Doolittle raid, watch "30 Seconds Over Tokyo". an excellent movie made DURING THE WAR. Some of the shots included in the movie were from a personal camera carried by one of the aviators.

@madcat3525 Ай бұрын

Great Presentation! Looking forward to more videos.

@CaptainSlower1 Ай бұрын

No Wildcat fighters are shown in the 2019 film.

@kemarisite Ай бұрын

That point about Nimitz's battle plan and the prospect of a 5 to 2 carrier battle over multiple days would be an interesting alternate history. If we assume the Midway air group and submarine line do what they historically did, which was basically bupkes outside of heavily attriting the Japanese atrike group, then in this alternative scenario it seems like that Spruance and Nimitz decide to just let Midway deal with things itself. If that happens, as Jon has explained in Shattered Sword, the Japanese have insufficient troops for the landing and no real naval gunfire support doctrine, so there would have been a series of air raids, some shore bombardment with the Marines (potentially) replying with their 7" guns from shore, and an (almost certainly failed) landing attempt that is shot to pieces and then broken up by a tank counterattack. Then, ... what? The Japanese can sail around and expend some more ordnance, but then they're out of fuel and have to go home. Maybe the US carriers try to shadow them and pick off some stragglers now that the Japanese are lighter by hundreds of tons of fuel, shells, airplanes, and bombs.

@bobharrison7693 Ай бұрын

Glad you hit the Dick Best portrayal. As a Naval Aviator I submit that the "dead stick landing" scenes were absolutely trash. I know of only one successful dead stick landing on a carrier (that was done by an F-8 Crusader of all things) and it would absolutely NOT be done the way the movie portrayed. Pulling up over the stern would be suicide -- totally undoable. The other scene that was absolute BS was Best's hit on Hiru where he trolls level over the flight deck and releases his bomb. For starters, that sort of delivery would be impossible from a proper dive. It would also negate one of the purposes of a dive attack which is for the bomb to punch a hole in the deck before exploding.

@logicsconscience Ай бұрын

Why was it stupid for the Japanese to want Port Moresby? They had 3 goes at Port Moresby BTW.

@jannarkiewicz633 Ай бұрын

Same Jon. Same shirt. Same wallpaper. i am in love.

@markodeen4105 Ай бұрын

I think we should start a Give Send Go and raise money for new wallpaper, I'm thinking a pacific map!

@jannarkiewicz633 Ай бұрын

@@markodeen4105 I had the same idea for like a $25 goal on a GoFundMe with like a max 25 cent contributions. And a second one for the wardrobe.

@danielbackley9301 Ай бұрын

@@markodeen4105 NO!

@markodeen4105 Ай бұрын

@@danielbackley9301 Yes!

@johnwells1015 16 күн бұрын

Shattered Sword is the definitive book on The Battle of Midway from the Japanese perspective.

@pizzafrenzyman Ай бұрын

historians always want accuracy, but movie makers always want to entertain. these two wants rarely intersect.

@Robb-n1t 11 күн бұрын

With the exception of the masterfully produced "TORA, .. TORA, .. TORA". .. Anyone that hasn't seen it is missing out on a tremendous movie, with amazing production values, .. stunning cinematography, .. and an equally stunning sound track. This is one of my favorite movies in my entire lifetime.

@kaltenstein7718 Ай бұрын

A problem I have with midway is with the visual effects. While the japanese carriers as well as the Yorktown class are beautifully rendered, the sinking Lexington is represented by the Yorktown class 3D model. Which is a shame, as the Lexington class carrier conversion arguably were the most powerful carriers the americans had at that point (goes into that same point were the Japanese also couldn't use their best carriers Shoukaku and Zuhikaku.) Also there are some weird re-use of Battleship models, first in Pearl Harbour and then later in the japanese fleet shots, where they semingly made a model for Yamato and Konguo and copy pasted that to fill the backgrounds. Which is a shame, as the destroyers and cruisers are very well represented.

@joebudi5136 Ай бұрын

True story. I was born there.

@robertmatch6550 Ай бұрын

Props to Jon Parshall who has a broad view of the U. S. part of the Pacific War, and probably the British part as well.

@burninsherman8284 Ай бұрын

16:52 that star wars sequence is copying the dambusters

@73Trident Ай бұрын

Jon Parshall is there I watch. Jon gave this movie a much higher grade than I did. If I took a drink every time they streched the truth a little or a whole lot . I would have died from alcohol poisoning. I really disliked their view of Dick Best. That put me in a sour mood for the rest of the movie.

@Coolbreeeze5858 Ай бұрын

He’s awesome on unauthorized history of The pacific war

@Ozone814 Ай бұрын

@@Coolbreeeze5858agreed, would love if he started his own channel. But I love that he’s really blown up over the last few years

@73Trident Ай бұрын

@@Coolbreeeze5858 Yes he is!

@Ozone814 Ай бұрын

Midway 2019 is still a fun movie…if you turn your brain off. 😂

@timbarnett3898 Ай бұрын

No! The movie doesn't start at attack on Pearl Harbor. Movie starts in Japan duck hunting for formal dinner. After dinner private talk between Japanese admiral an American. Then a scene expansion to Enterprise aircraft carrier. Then clearing of Enterprise deck of exercising sailors. Then airplane landing shutting off fuel etc to practice emergency landing. Then flight crew introduction to radioman that died. There were actually all kinds of screens before Pearl Harbor.

@Idahoguy10157 17 сағат бұрын

The Japanese success was predicated on surprise. When the American strike from Midway comes in Nagumo knew surprise was lost. Then the American carrier VT p attack squadron arrives. Admiral Nagumo could have finished recovering aircraft and sailed west. Resumed the battle against the American carriers tomorrow.

@happyhippo4664 Ай бұрын

It seems inconceivable that, given Jon's interest in Midway, he hadn't seen the older movie in such a long time. His memory of it must have been that it wasn't worthwhile.

@johnheigis83 Ай бұрын

26:05... Why didn't the "Dewlittle Raid" tactic - mid-bombers, from a Carrier - get used - often, thereafter...?... ... Since, it was successful, apart from the fuel and distance issues they ran into; that could have been corrected...? It worked, to get bombers off a Carrier.

@kemarisite Ай бұрын

The bombers had to be parked on the flight deck and completely shut down carrier operations until they were flown off. That's part of the reason Enterprise went along on the raid, because they could conduct normal flight operations for reconnaissance and anti-submarine patrol or in case of air attack. Until those bombers were flown off, unless they were just dumped over the side, the Hornet was nothing but a target.

@josephknaak9034 20 күн бұрын

In aircraft it was pretty much a 100% loss rate. And the loss of crews was pretty high Little military significant damage.

@unclefart5527 Ай бұрын

Great, now I want to get out my blu-ray and watch it. Again. What I liked were the full scale Devastator reproductions, something totally absent from the seventies one. Just for that the movie is a worthwhile addition to the genre, in spite of its often cartoonish and overblown CGI.

@olentangy74 Ай бұрын

Actually the reproductions you mention were SBD Dauntless’s,. The TBD Devestators were older aircraft and weren’t depicted in the film ( I don’t think).

@andrewnlarsen Ай бұрын

@@olentangy74 The devastators were depicted due to Torpedo squadron 6 having a prominent role

@andrewnlarsen Ай бұрын

I can somewhat understand the gripes but still it could have been a lot worse. And personally, some of the problems came from having to get additional financial help from the Chinese studios.

@JonBrooks105 Ай бұрын

Actually, the 2019 film shows a Yorktown Class carrier sinking at Coral Sea which really confused me when watching it!

@ph89787 Ай бұрын

I wrote that off as Budget limitations. But the thing that gets me is the shot makes it look like TF16 showed up in the middle of the Battle.

@samnichles447 23 күн бұрын

Dick Best was to the Akagi what Luke Skywalker was to the Deathstar.

@TheIndianalain Ай бұрын

As a guy who has always beeen interested in the history of naval warfare in general and the battle of Midway in particular, I absolutely HATED the 2019 movie. And amongst the hundreds of things I hated, I totally loathed what they made of Dick Best. As if depicting him as some kind of brainless maverick wasn't enough, the nail in the coffin was the attack on Hyriu, where he dives all the way to the deck, flies horizontally over the flight deck for the sole purpose of dropping his bomb in the middle of the red circle. Even the most stupid pilot of every airforce in the world wouldn't have been crazy enough to do that, and for what? Showing the Japanese what a great pilot he was? I litterally stopped watching the movie after that point.

@andrewnlarsen Ай бұрын

I definitely agree about the attack on Hiryu, that was definitely overblown. Akagi I'm willing to give it a very small pass (shrug).

@_Braised 19 күн бұрын

At least they HAD Dick Best in there. The '76 Midway travesty didn't even bother having the real pilots... or planes from the battle...or theatre... or in some cases from WW2 entirely...

@cecilchristopher5092 Ай бұрын

I'd say this about intel that would have warned about the attack on Peral Harbour as is the case with military Intel even today. There was so much general Intel that sifting through it all and identifying Peral as the target was impossible. The same was true of 9/11. It is always easy to find the clues after the fact when you know what to look for.