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Rating: Null/10 (10 February 1999)

A few comments regarding criticisms labelled at TTRL:

Complaint No.1: The movie is not an accurate description of any aspect of the campaign for Guadalcanal - It's not supposed to be...Too often in standard war movies the study of the battle overshadows the study of the combatants which is what the book and hence the movie are basically about. As James Jones (the author) was careful to point out in the Special Note at the beginning of the book "...naturally, any resemblance to anything anywhere is certainly not intended." Guadalcanal is nevertheless used because "[t]o have used a completely made up island would have been to lose all of these special qualities which the name Guadalcanal evoked for my generation."

Complaint No.2: People in war aren't like that - The final sentence of the book: "One day one of their number would write a book about all this, but none of them would believe it, because none of them would remember it that way." Our view of war has been shaped, not only by traditional, hero-worshipping war movies, but also by the general portrayal of inconsequential and unemotional violence in film and television as a whole. Let's leave it up to those who were there and don't have a hero complex about their involvement to tell the story.

Complaint No.3: It's boring, disjointed and plotless - War is boring, disjointed and plotless. So many authors who have experienced war have commented on this (one of the best is Norman Mailer's "The Naked and the Dead". Unfortunately, the media and the film industry have hidden this fact in the name of entertainment. And what about the stories of the average insignificant veteran? Ask yourself, how many of the soldiers in TTRL are going to go home and tell everyone how boring it was and how little difference they as an individual made. "One day one of their number would write a book about all this, but none of them would believe it, because none of them would remember it that way."