What movies or TV series have you watched more than 5 times?

I’m a U.S. military historian and national security SME. Since 1998, I’ve made the effort to keep up with new war movies and t.v. shows as they are released. I cannot remember the last pre-1998 war movie or show that I’ve come across that I haven’t seen before.

I don’t like to critique the ones I watch, since even a poorly made movie/show is costly and requires hard work. That being said, my attitude is if you’re going to produce a war-related piece, at least put enough money and effort into it to avoid the common, amateurish mistakes.

Examples of obvious mistakes can be things like depicting a German W.W. II warplane that’s painted like a Luftwaffe plane, but it’s actually an American plane, or the production wardrobe supervisor used something from the Vietnam War in a 1st Gulf War movie.

With the above comments in mind, the best war movie that I’ve watched six times is the 1981 German film, “Das Boot” (The Boat). It’s the most accurate W.W. II submarine movie I’ve ever seen. The dialogue, interior set design, uniforms and the combat scenes are impeccable. The scenes of the crew undergoing relentless depth charge attacks are frighteningly realistic.

I first saw Das Boot in 70mm, Dolby IMAX. The soundtrack was deafening during the combat scenes, and the jarring, twisting, and crashing of the sailors and equipment inside the submarine wasn’t trick photography or other movie magic.

In order to make the movie, the production crew took hundreds and hundreds of photos and videos inside of a real W.W. II German submarine on display at a museum in downtown Chicago. Then the entire end-to-end internal compartments of sub were built as a complete 287 foot long set that was completely enclosed like a real submarine.

Most submarine movies simulate the extreme movements while under attack by manipulating the camera to capture the action, and then the actors are trained to move like they’re being thrown around inside the submarine when a depth charge is exploding. For Das Boot, the whole submarine tube set was mounted on a gimbaled, 3-axis full motion platform just like a flight simulator. The full motion platform eliminated the need for the actors to fake being thrown around after a depth charge explosion. The motion platform threw people around like the real deal.

For safety purposes, the actors had to be taught how to fall without getting hurt. They wore concealed padding and all of the equipment they could get injured on was foam rubber molded to the right shape and color.

Lastly, the film was made in German. The original release had English subtitles. It became so popular in English speaking countries that they brought the actors back to the studio a couple of years later and recorded an English soundtrack. The dubbing was painstakingly matched to the visuals. The main characters all spoke passable English with a German accent. The only exception was one of the supporting actors who had a fair amount of dialogue, didn’t have decent English skills. The producers hired an English tutor, but the recording and editing schedule was late and over budget, and the actor couldn’t assimilate enough English fast enough. So, they hired another actor to do the English voiceovers for the original cast member. The dubbing came out pretty good. You would have to intently focus on an actor’s mouth for several seconds to see a very slight difference in movement from German to English.

This is probably way more than anyone wants to know. Check it out on Amazon Prime Video…it’s worth the time to watch. Ciao!