There are 16 comments.

1. Member
   Kozak

   @Kozak

   

   1:57 PM EST ⋅ Dec 27, 2018

   Unable to make any of the showings due to work.  But I was able to pre order it on iTunes.

   Really looking forward to it.

   I’ve visited 3 WW1 battlefields, Gallipoli, Verdun and the Somme. All amazing places.

2. Member
   Miffed White Male

   @MiffedWhiteMale

   

   2:00 PM EST ⋅ Dec 27, 2018

   Saw it on the 17th.  Was going to take my oldest to see it today but only one theater in the area had it, and life intervened.

   I do wonder about the limited release – in certain theaters for two days only.   I get that this film won’t have mass appeal, but you’d think a wider release that lasted for at least a week or two would still draw more viewers.  Unless they were going for the restricted release as a way to Hype it (for lack of a better term).

3. Member
   Doug Watt

   @DougWatt

   2:13 PM EST ⋅ Dec 27, 2018

   The Menin Gate Ypres, the Last Post – Flowers of the Forest

   Pipe Major Richard Grisedale Black Watch/ Royal Regiment.

4. Coolidge
   Gumby Mark (R-Meth Lab of Demo…

   @GumbyMark

   2:33 PM EST ⋅ Dec 27, 2018

   Memorable film and you’re right – the 30 minutes with Peter Jackson is as good as the film.  Glad you got to see it.

5. Inactive
   Guruforhire

   @Guruforhire

   3:18 PM EST ⋅ Dec 27, 2018

   My wife and I enjoyed it quite a bit today too.

6. Thatcher
   EB

   @EB

   Post author

   3:25 PM EST ⋅ Dec 27, 2018

   Miffed White Male (View Comment):
   I do wonder about the limited release

   A friend of mine thought that maybe they were going after an Oscar nomination and had to be on a certain number of screens in 2018.  

7. Member
   She

   @She

   

   3:39 PM EST ⋅ Dec 27, 2018

   Saw it on the 17th. Best film I’ve seen in years. I cannot recommend it highly enough. 

8. Coolidge
   Gossamer Cat

   @GossamerCat

   3:42 PM EST ⋅ Dec 27, 2018

   I just got back from the showing and went onto Ricochet figuring that someone would post about it and if not, I would.  It delivered just as the reviews said it would: restoring the footage restored the full humanity of those in the clips.  Most of the soldiers were smiling because they were “in a picture”, but interspersed, you could see looks of such fright.  It broke my heart.  When they fixed their bayonets to go over the top, you realized that this was not a movie;  they were going to stick those into other human beings and most of the ones in the film would not make it.  I too enjoyed Peter Jackson at the end telling the story of how the film came to be.  Well worth seeing.

    

   They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

   Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

   At the going down of the sun and in the morning

   We will remember them.

   They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;

   They sit no more at familiar tables of home;

   They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;

   They sleep beyond England’s foam.
9. Contributor
   Seawriter

   @Seawriter

   4:27 PM EST ⋅ Dec 27, 2018

   Just got back from a showing in Houston. (My son bought me two tickets for Christmas – took my brother-in-law.) Wow!

   For me the movie was great, but the 30-minute piece about how it was made was even better. Part of it was realizing I use many of the same techniques researching the artwork for my books as Jackson used to produce this. (He even showed a few books from my main publisher, Osprey, at one point, explaining how they researched the colors.)

   My recommendation: see it. See it in a theater first. It will be a better experience than seeing it on TV or a computer monitor.

   The limited run was done for two reasons: 1. Make it eligible for an Oscar in 2019. 2. Create buzz. A lot of people who saw it are now telling folks to see it.

10. Member
    Quietpi

    @Quietpi

    5:44 PM EST ⋅ Dec 27, 2018

    Also just saw it.  Outstanding.  True, the half hour talk after the movie was fascinating.  It’s nothing short of a technological miracle.  But somehow lauding that over the movie in main sort of sells the movie short.  

    Granted, it will be out very soon on DVD.  but some theaters showed it in 3D.  I guess it’s too late now, but if you didn’t see it in 3D, you’re the poorer or it.  BTW at the Century Clackamas Town Center, it was sold out.  And this raises another (tellng) question:  Why would a film that is packing theaters be so limited in its release?  Never mind – I know the answer.  

11. Inactive
    Biggles

    @Biggles

    6:39 PM EST ⋅ Dec 27, 2018

    Saw it today to a packed sold-out theater in Charlotte.

    A harrowing experience snd I felt quite emotionally drained.

    Nevertheless its a masterpiece. Thank goodnes we have the instituions such as the Imperial War Museum, the Australian War Memorial and the BBC (and many others of course) that preserved the footage and collected the oral histories.

    Seeing Peter Jackson’s introduction and then his epilogue on the making of the film are the icing on the cake.

    Just exceptional. Really exceptional.

     

12. Member
    WI Con

    @WICon

    

    6:49 PM EST ⋅ Dec 27, 2018

    I saw it along with my 16 and 11 year old sons. It prompted a far ranging discussion afterward. The old aristocracy that was washed away, the rise of Communism and secularism, the drawing of the current Middle East. Was glad they got to see war and soldiering outside of the typical stylized movie or video game. It’s right up there with Ken Burn’s Civil War. It was really something. Highly recommend it.

    Peter Jackson and team deserve acclaim for restoring and sharing what those soldiers endured with us. Will be interesting to see if Hollywood manages to snub this film and further alienate those not enthralled with super-‘hero’ movies or art-house garbage.

13. Member
    9thDistrictNeighbor

    @9thDistrictNeighbor

    7:07 PM EST ⋅ Dec 27, 2018

    I think my favorite parts were when the boys looked right at the camera.  A novelty for them, a connection for us.  What a different generation than those who constantly photograph themselves with their phones.

    If your interest has been piqued and you’ve never read Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves, I recommend it. Graves was with the Royal Welch Fusilliers and was wounded at the Battle of the Somme.

14. Member
    She

    @She

    

    6:03 AM EST ⋅ Dec 28, 2018

    A comment from an earlier post:

    I’m 64. I was born 36 years after World War I ended. Many of the grown-ups in my early life remembered it vividly. My grandparent’s generation, and some from my own family, fought in WWI. Aunty Betty’s father was the last member of my family killed in a war, in April of 1918, when she was six. She remembered that.

    Uncle Arthur (Dad’s oldest brother) was born in 1907 (so seven when the war started, eleven when it ended). His memories were of going to New Street Station in Birmingham with his mother, the members of the Womens’s Institute and the tea trollys, and handing out tea and biscuits to the arriving and departing servicemen. (A popular music hall song of the time was Florrie Forde singing “Hold Your Hand Out, Naughty Boy.” When that played on the gramophone, the young Arthur thought it was about him, and sometimes started to cry.)

    There’s a quick clip almost at the end of Peter Jackson’s talk, where he shows women handing out tea and cakes to the servicemen returning to Folkestone at the end of the war. I immediately thought of Granny Louise when I saw that.

    Arthur died at the age of 102 in 2009, and Betty at the age of 102 in 2015. So when I shuffle off this mortal coil (almost 40 years to go, if I don’t want to let the side down), I’ll have spent a large portion of my adult life in close contact with people who remembered WWI clearly.

    Generations that followed mine don’t have that advantage. And I doubt they’re inclined, unless they have a real interest, to suffer through the herky-jerky, scratched, overexposed, underexposed, and silent film for long enough to really understand what was happening, even if you could see it clearly, which sometimes you can’t.

    Jackson has given the war, and its soldiers, life for the twenty-first century audience. The superficial can start out by looking at them and mocking their youth, their tattered uniforms, their ignorance, their provincial and simple speech, their awful dentition, and their naivete.

    Then, let the movie begin, and look them in the eye, in 3D and in color.

    And see if you really still want to do that.

    This movie should be required viewing in every world history, European history, and twentieth-century history class in high school and college (at least at places where such classes are still taught). I think it could change some people, for the better. And it would certainly start some discussion.

    I concur with the folks on this thread who say that Peter Jackson must do more of this. He was born for this. And it’s his greatest achievement (speaking as a person who religiously watches the LOTR trilogy between Christmas and New Year’s every single year).

    God Bless him.

15. Reagan
    GLDIII

    @GLDIII

    

    8:08 AM EST ⋅ Dec 28, 2018

    I just saw it this evening, I understand why my grandfather left Belgium at the age of 17 after living as a civilian from the age of 6 to 10 during the war years. There was nothing left there keep him. No work, and very unhappy neighbors to both the south and east from the Versailles deal.

16. Member
    She

    @She

    

    6:53 PM EST ⋅ Dec 30, 2018

    Quietpi (View Comment):

    Granted, it will be out very soon on DVD. but some theaters showed it in 3D. I guess it’s too late now, but if you didn’t see it in 3D, you’re the poorer or it. BTW at the Century Clackamas Town Center, it was sold out. And this raises another (tellng) question: Why would a film that is packing theaters be so limited in its release? Never mind – I know the answer.

    Warner Brothers has announced a release on January 11 in NY, DC and LA. It will be released in 25 more markets (don’t know which ones) on February 1.