LOTR director Peter Jackson restores WWI footage for new documentary, "They Shall Not Grow Old."*

In spite of the PBS shows a few year sago, I think most of this country is VERY uneducated about WWI, since we were only in it a short time (but still suffered great losses).
Also, I don't think a lot of non Jews understand why the end of the war was exactly what led to Hitler.

 

I understand that which is why I demonize the ideology MORE over the crazy person that is put into the power as a result. The person is evil, the people that put him there are the fault for this.

 

Compare that to the UK and it seems like you can't go 100 yards without walking across some sort of Great War memorial. There are standalone memorials, and almost every church has one, protestant and Catholic, alike. I'm tempted to say, but don't know for a fact, that Great War memorials exceed WWII memorials, from England to Wales, to Scotland. It permeates the country.

Because of this, young people in the UK have more of an awareness of WWI, as opposed to the USA, but probably not its significance. It always helps when something like this comes out, as a refresher course in history.

Sadly, here in the US, I believe that the war will be forever lost to most people. Moreover, I don't think that Jackson's film will raise a pulse over here.

As an author, I've pitched a book about the war from my great-grandfather's perspective to my agent, and while he thinks it's a good idea, he doesn't have many inroads with publishers in the UK, which is where we'd have to shop. I've got the idea to pitch it, and go ahead and have it translated into French, for that market, as well.

It just won't sell in the US, and really it's the same with the Korean War over here. WWII books do great, and so do Vietnam books, because both subjects have great appeal due to the victory of the former, and the tragedy of the latter. WWI and Korea are too nebulous in the minds of the American public.

Regardless if Jackson' film does well in the USA, for those who want to see it here, it appears like it will be an enriching experience. We'll keep it in our hearts, because we want to, right? This film is a noble effort that won't go unnoticed for those of us with eyes to see and ears to hear.

 

We will have to wait for the extended Blu-ray to find out.

 

I agree, but we'll probably end up in thread-lock if we go into too much there.

There is also so much more to WWI than just the trenches on the Western Front, though that's how its usually portrayed. I'm really looking forward to this.

 

Lieutenant George: Great Scott sir, you mean, you mean the moment's finally arrived for us to give Harry Hun a darned good British style thrashing, six of the best, trousers down?

Captain Blackadder: If you mean, "Are we all going to get killed?" Yes. Clearly, Field Marshal Haig is about to make yet another gargantuan effort to move his drinks cabinet six inches closer to Berlin.

 

A trip to Westport, Bryant's or Q-39, Andy's Frozen Custard, and the WWI Museum.....a good afternoon of stuff to do right there!

 

"The Monocled Mutineer"
Is worth checking out.

 

For me, a film called Paaschendaele is brilliant in showing the impact this war had on the men who were in it. As I understand it, Paaschendaele represents a battle for a godforsaken piece of ground that couldn't be taken until Canadian regiments came in. The full story is far more complex and pathetic. For me, this film personalised what is just horrific data of dead bodies and uselessness for most who have read about it. The data is one thing but films that make the data personal are important. I would expect Peter Jackson's attempt will do similar.

 

I just wish P.J. would get on with his long-mooted Dambusters remake; the screenplay is being written by Stephen Fry (although what stage it's at now is unknown), Jackson himself has done extensive research into the planes used and confirmed ten Lancaster bombers have been constructed for the project and are literally sitting in a hangar in Wellington as we speak, plus he's said himself that had he not been forced to take on directing duties for The Hobbit that it would have been made already!

Unfortunately, it seems the stress of making the aforementioned Hobbit movies broke Jackson, he hasn't directed any features since 2013 (when the last reshoots for those movies took place).

If he does ever get around to it, I just hope he doesn't employ that horrible HFR technology again; it looked atrocious and pretty much ruined the Hobbit films for me, alas...

 

I see what you did there.

 

I can't wait to see this new Jackson film. It's clearest view of the past that we have ever had. I'll grab the DVD when it comes out.

 

With all the humour within the trailer it certainly showed the horror of war and bought it more to life being in colour, I thought it was an incredible piece of work, to think some of those who fought were only 16 years old is mind blowing

 

It certainly is an abstraction of life.

 

On BBC 2 tomorrow night - and presumably on BBC iPlayer

 

First he restores that lost sequence from the 1933 King Kong and now The 'Great' War? If I ever get to see this I will be thankful... good on yer Pete!

Saw Passchendaele at the theater, not sure if it would be understood well by some though, and the crucifixion motif might rub some wrong though I thought it very appropriate as a metaphor.

So many suffered after the war with ailments caused by those gases, what a particularly horrible invention, yet seen more recently in Syria. I wouldn't wish it on an animal the kind of suffering it can cause. I'm so sensitive to chlorine anyway I can be quite empathetic there (I even would break out in a nose-bleed going into an indoor swimming pool).

The guns fell silent one hundred years ago at 3:00 am my time 'tonight' (PST), 11:00am November 11th Paris time. I think of the vets from that muddy war whom we got to see and hear in person at school assemblies on Remembrance Day in the 1970s (before it was a no school 'holiday'), and also family members I could only hear the names of. So many things changed afterward but perhaps not enough as some wanted a second round quite badly.

 

There seems to be some actual excerpts with the old interviews here:

 

Did New Zealand suffer similar enormous casualties like The Australians did fighting the Turks?

 

You're going to make me cry.

100 years since the end of The Great War.

I'll turn but 45 on November 13th, but I knew these people. I knew them, talking to me, face to face, voices so clear, giving me a wink, a glass of lemonade on a hot day, slipping me a $2 bill and telling me to hang on to it.

I wanted to write more but I have no words.

 

I remember one vet using the term "splendid chaps" about his old 'great war' comrades in arms, as we looked upward to the screen on the auditorium stage, at slides of old photos. For some reason that term got me then and I remember it still. I'm sure a lot of them were, and so young, younger than we great-grandkids are now.

I tried to find the song Lullaby For Father online someplace, written by Archie Fisher, recorded by Barbara Dickson, but only found the words...

Watch your daughter's children play
Thirty years ago today
Memories of your last young summer
Never seemed so far away
Smiling at the gathering storm
In the khaki uniform
When you marched along the high street
Did you listen to your heart beat?
Did you find what you were looking for
In the somewhere over there
Was the answer found on the battleground
Was the question really fair
Tell me are the crosses that stand
Planted by a gardener's hand
Tended only by the weather
Somewhere in the no man's land
And does my love of life betray
His immortal memory
Poppies on a dusty high street
Echoes of the lasting heart beat

 

I like Peter Jackson a lot, he always seems like a genuinely nice, humble, normal guy without any airs or graces that you could have a beer and a chat with... but he's just plain wrong and/or misinformed about 'colored' (and even that term is rather dubious in itself; we're all colored, it's just a matter of how much pigmentation is on your skin) soldiers in WWI not being allowed to fight;

Black Soldiers in WW1 – The Black Presence in Britain

But I applaud his efforts in making this new documentary... you can never have enough tributes to those who laid down their lives in service of their country.

Now, how about that Dambusters remake, Pete, ol' chap...?

 

I'm in line at the World War 1 museum right now. Everyone else had the same idea but the folks here are very quick at handling the long. I remarked to a lady in line with me that they should send these people to Disneyland to handle their lines.

 

It really is a remarkable museum and I would urge anyone with an interest in World War One to come to Kansas City to visit it.

 

I can't seem to find any information on when or if this film will be released in Canada. Does anyone here know?

 

I don't think it gets a theatrical release. It's already been shown on BBC. Frankly, I don't know what's going to become of it, but I had to find it elsewhere. I would gladly purchase the BD when it comes out.