There were 2 obviously liberal characters and one obviously conservative character. The movie is really about decisions
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Lions for Lambs
utopian_paradox — 17 years ago(May 10, 2008 09:05 PM)
There were 2 obviously liberal characters and one obviously conservative character. The movie is really about decisions and doing something instead of nothing. I didn't feel any pull either way. SOwhy does everyone think this movie is so liberal???
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bsg_tns — 17 years ago(June 05, 2008 12:00 PM)
They were all Liberal characters. Why do I say that, even though Cruise obviously played the "righty?" Because he was nothing more than a strawman standing in as a "righty". He wasn't giving a real rightwing point of view. Instead we got a Liberal version of a "rightwing" point of view. It was a
caricature
of a rightwinger, which is obviously how Liberals see conservatives. Liberal Hollywood loves doing that. But there's a difference between a rightwing caricature vs the real thing. Ultimately these caricatures reveal more about Liberals than they do about the "rightwingers" they portray.
Free speech -
billymac72 — 17 years ago(June 09, 2008 10:25 AM)
It was made and acted by liberals and it shows. I think at its heart it intends well, but the condescending Streep reporter seemed like the real voice of the film to me. That may just be my impression.
Conservatives are represented by two main character sides: the Cruise character and the two former students-turned-soldiers. To me, Cruise played this like a total demagogue. Yes, I think there was an effort to make the "arguments" somewhat balanced in that they attempted a less-dismissive portrayal of a conservative character than usual, but Cruise behaves as a caricatureclearly a right winger as a liberal sees it (note: holy crap! I just now read the post above me and bsg tns says almost the exact same thing as me! Apparently, we attended the same conservative talking point think tank. Which parish do you belong?). There's never a time during his platitude-laced speechifying when we get a sense of the real person, let alone that the reasoning is his. Sounds like one big sound bite. It's also just as obvious that the little, under-the-breath, quips made by Streep were catering to ready-to-applaud liberals. She's obviously meant to be the smarter of the two here. I've read, heard and seen countless interviews with Republican senators, and I've never quite seen one like thisat least not a consensual one. Why would the senator not end such a nasty, hostile, biased interview? I also loved the scene of Streep looking at the horrifying pictures of Cruise with GW, Condi, et.al. Gasp!!
As far as the soldiers, they're portrayed as misguided, pitiful victims. This is what liberals refer to as "supporting the troops." I suppose it's a way to turn a blind eye to the majority of soldiers who strongly believe in what they're doing and their country's cause. But the left wing believes all these volunteers have just been brainwashed, and will return to civilian life as drug-addled, psychologically disturbed bums (if they return at all). I will grant them that at least this time the soldiers both have college educations.oh wait, let me qualify that. They both had college educations, but were obviously too stupid to know not to enlist because they were minorities from underprivileged neighborhoods. Surely,
they
wouldn't agree with the war. Surely,
they
haven't been blinded by their own "patriotism." Oddly, this makes the left feel good. I don't question their good intentions. They think they're providing a "voice" to soldiers/minorities too dumb to explain their commitment themselves. Isn't that nice of them?
Would it be too much to ask Hollywood to make ONE film about an admirable, smart, heroic soldier? Just one? There are soldiers who have done multiple tours in Iraq, been injured, and then requested to go back and serve moreamazing individuals. -
godfather17 — 16 years ago(January 26, 2010 08:15 PM)
why should they? being a soldier is the opposite of smart. if your a soldier you follow orders. they dont think for themselves. and if they do, its even worse because they might actually disagree with what there doing but they do it anyway. there going against what they know is right.
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lighttrix — 17 years ago(January 01, 2009 11:30 AM)
"Would it be too much to ask Hollywood to make ONE film about an admirable, smart, heroic soldier? Just one?"
Saving Private Ryan?
Band of Brothers, i admit this wasn't a film, however it was produced by Spielberg and Tom Hanks. -
GMEllis625 — 17 years ago(January 02, 2009 08:49 PM)
"We Were Soldiers" does portray Mel Gibson's character as heroic ("First foot on the field of battle; last foot off"), but the overall message of the movie is the futility of war, especially the Vietnam war. "Saving Private Ryan" also has as its main theme the futility of war. That's the liberal view of war, (as in "what if they gave a war and nobody came?"). The conservative view is that war is occasionally a necessary evil, and we are at our most altruistic when we sacrifice American lives for another county's (or people's) freedom. After we discovered the atrocities of the holocaust the cry was "Never again!" yet we suffer genocide and oppression every day because we don't believe those causes to be worth the lives of our soldiers.
The last pro-America war movie was probably "The Green Berets" the last lines of which are between John Wayne (Col. Kirby) and the young Vietnamese boy (Hamchunk) as the boy asks "But what will happen to me?" and Wayne replies, "You're what this is all about!" I think it would be wonderful to release a re-mastered DVD of that movie and include an epilogue on what happened after we abandoned the Vietnamese.
It is quite natural for Hollywood to be more liberal than mainstream America, and Hollywood can serve a valuable role as our collective conscience. It is unfortunate when so many of their efforts are aimed at directly affecting public policy (and "Lions for Lambs" was just such an effort), and even worse when they sacrifice the story and entertainment value of the movie to do so. The good news is that when they do screw up the movie it usually loses money, as happened here. -
Starchie28 — 16 years ago(April 01, 2010 04:57 PM)
"We Were Soldiers" does portray Mel Gibson's character as heroic ("First foot on the field of battle; last foot off"), but the overall message of the movie is the futility of war, especially the Vietnam war. "Saving Private Ryan" also has as its main theme the futility of war.
This is completely wrong. Neither movie was making a statement about the futility of war. We Were Soldiers was about an epic battle in Vietnam and the events that led up to it, and Saving Private Ryan was about America's entrance into the WWII, and the sacrifices. It made no attempt to show that those actions were futile, just that they had human consequences, some good and some bad.
I guess it's simply too difficult for you to see this through your "Hollywood is liberal" clouded mind. Of course you're also promoting The Green Berets as an example of a movie that gets it right, when it's been roundly criticized for many reasons, including its tendency to present a completely biased, pro-war viewpoint in direct opposition to what was actually going on at the time. -
GMEllis625 — 16 years ago(April 01, 2010 09:04 PM)
You are certainly entitled to your opinion; obviously I disagree.
I am curious how you can say that The Green Beret presents "a completely biased, pro-war viewpoint in direct opposition to what was actually going on at the time." How do you know what was actually going on at the time? -
TheGunman — 15 years ago(September 12, 2010 10:14 PM)
Saving Private Ryan was about America's entrance into the WWII, and the sacrifices. It made no attempt to show that those actions were futile, just that they had human consequences, some good and some bad.
All the images show how brutal and futile war really is. It's about how destructive it all is to the people who fight it. It certainly is an anti-war film, and Spielberg has said so. -
cyguration — 10 years ago(July 02, 2015 02:02 AM)
All the images show how brutal and futile war really is. It's about how destructive it all is to the people who fight it. It certainly is an anti-war film, and Spielberg has said so.
To be fair, there's no such thing as an honest pro-war film. Real war is brutal, futile and grizzly. If you really want to win a war, you kill the leaders not the pawns.
Any "pro-war" movie is likely just propaganda, like Call of Duty. Glorifying the glitz and adrenaline of "fighting the good fight".
Real war is just a larger scale gang fight where both sides justify the need to kill each other.
If there's an honest pro-war film out there then it's just a nationalized color-and-stripes version of a pro-gang film (although, I don't think I've ever seen a pro-gang film or know of one that exists). -
jmorrison-2 — 16 years ago(November 09, 2009 07:18 PM)
"There are soldiers who have done multiple tours in Iraq, been injured, and then requested to go back and serve moreamazing individuals".
Amazing individuals, indeed. Many of these soldiers want to go back because they want to be with their buddies, and they want to help ensure that they all get home safely, not because they believe in the "cause". -
Shteve3 — 16 years ago(September 13, 2009 08:53 PM)
I agree with you and you reminded me of this video that I saw a clip of on Fox News the other day. I put the link below. I also felt that even if they had given a fair representation of the conservative side that it still would have felt unbalanced because it seemed the rights had to defend themselves the entire time against the lefts and liberals weren't wrong about anything and they knew all the answersas usual. I did like how Streep's boss tried to put her in her place though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiQJ9Xp0xxU
I think beep just happens, but that's just me. -
owenandowen — 17 years ago(December 13, 2008 05:26 PM)
Usually when someone says it's balanced, and that they are conservative to add "validity" to their point is full of Sh*t. this film is not balanced, and the fact that it tanked at the box office so badly, just makes it even funnier.