Bruckheimer vs History---History Loses

Rating: Null/10 (8 April 2007)

Okay, most everyone has panned the film and for all the right reasons. Let me toss in a few pet peeves from an anal retentive who reads the occasional history book. First (and this is classic Bruckheimer), he takes exceptional pains to do extremely accurate CGI renditions of the Jap aircraft---then he has many of them whizzing around Pearl Harbor at sea level doing 400+ knots. The Aichi "Val" dive bomber could only manage 200 knots at altitude (like most dive bombers they used air brakes to limit speed in their dives) and best the Mitsubishi "Zero" could do was 289 knots at 15,000', less at sea level. The ships---again great representations but here are several squawks in ascending order of significance. First, he left out the sun awnings which all the battleships were sporting while in port (I was stationed on Oahu---it gets hot in the sun even in December). Second, the bomb that destroyed the Arizona went off after a millisecond delay, not after some poor sailor in the damn spud locker had time to look down and contemplate his pending misfortune. Lastly and most egregious, after the attack when the long boats are poking about battleship row recovering survivors and the dead, the battle ships have changed positions AFTER THEY SANK! For those who care, of the ships moored on the south side of Ford Island, only the USS Nevada, tanker Neosho, and repair ship Vestal went anywhere except straight down. Another thing that gets lost in most of the Pearl Harbor lore, this flick included, is that Ship's Cook 3rd Class Doris Miller earned his Navy Cross for assisting his mortally wounded captain and manning a machine gun under fire, NOT for shooting down any aircraft (if he hit any, the record is silent on the fact)---manning the gun under direct fire with no training was more than enough to attest to his bravery. He died in the service of his country when his ship, USS Liscombe Bay was torpedoed in November 1943. This movie reminded me of a graffiti epitaph reportedly seen on John Belushi's grave paraphrased somewhat: "It could have been so good but Oooh Noooo!"