The new 'Stalingrad' movie vs the old Stalingrad movie

Dr Zaius

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I wonder how the new Russian-made Stalingrad movie will compare to the old one made in Germany. I always liked the old one, especially the ending, although some of the battle scenes don't stand up to more recent war films.

Stalingrad 1993

[video=youtube;GaBc37SgiUE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaBc37SgiUE[/video]

Stalingrad 2013

[video=youtube;_Da3EgZUA0Y]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Da3EgZUA0Y[/video]
 

bendizoid

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Wow, this looks like what I've been waiting for. The Mk 4s look a little early with that schurzin (spell?) but that's ok.

Bob
 
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Dr Zaius

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Yeah, I noticed that too. It should have been mostly Mk IIIs and StuGs at Stalingrad, right? Also, I thought they didn't start adding the side plates until later.
 

bendizoid

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Yeah, a few Mk 4s without the side skirts but mostly mk3 and stg3s. Its ok, they look cool and the defiantly get the idea across, German panzers. The last scene clip where they charge attacking out of the burning building looks awesome.

Looks like a must see,
Bob
 

aiabx

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I thought the love story grafted into Enemy at the Gates was a fatal flaw, and I'll see how it works here, but I have to say it looks pretty awesome.
 

Dr Zaius

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I guess they probably added the side armor and made them look like Mk IVs because that was easier to mock up than a Mk III with no side armor. The producers probably felt that was an acceptable trade-off.
 

bendizoid

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They are probably bummed we are talking about mk4s with shurzen instead of the other excellent attention to detail they provided. Lol.

Bob
 

Dr Zaius

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They are probably bummed we are talking about mk4s with shurzen instead of the other excellent attention to detail they provided. Lol.
Wargamers will pick anything apart in five seconds.

But it does look interesting. I just wonder whether this is going to be fair and historically accurate, or straight from the Soviet propaganda machine. Honesty and unbiased assessments have never been the strong suit of Russian historians.
 

aiabx

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But it does look interesting. I just wonder whether this is going to be fair and historically accurate, or straight from the Soviet propaganda machine. Honesty and unbiased assessments have never been the strong suit of Russian historians.
*cough*U-571*hak*Pearl Harbor*cough*
 

Dr Zaius

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Oh please. Even though those films sucked big time, there are many quality history books and films on WWII from Western authors and filmmakers. Are there some that intentionally go for story or action over historical accuracy or are just plain bad? Of course. But you can choose which kind you want to spend your time with because you are afforded that choice here. You won't have any problem finding excellent references or films in any Western nation.

Comparing that to the propaganda machine of Russian sources on WWII is just laughable. Their own "official" histories were revised every few years as people fell out of favor and had to be excised and denigrated as political payback.

Apples and oranges.
 

Ray Woloszyn

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"Stalingrad" opened yesterday here in Ukraine and will hopefully catch it and the spurious PzKwIV's (obviously some coding from "World of Tanks") hopefully on Sunday. Best movie on Stalingrad is the German classic from 1959, "Hunde, wollt ihr ewig leben".
 

Ray Woloszyn

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Well, I went to see it at 21:15 thinking nobody would come to a war movie on a Wednesday night but was surprised by the packed house of young people, mostly with dates. Spoiler alert...everybody dies (well, almost everybody)! For those ASL players who play "RB" or "VotG" you can pick out many scenes that match the many scenarios of those modules. Good story based somewhat on Pavlov's House. The tanks played a very little role. Mostly good hand-to-hand combat and in 3D, the first war movie I ever saw like this. The two key German and Russian officers that appear remind one of SGT Rock. Germans, like in all Russian or Soviet movies, seem somewhat dumb. Best scene was when the Russians bounce a shell off a shot up T-34 in order to hit a critical German strong point. Two love interests, not just one which for some might make it doubly bad.
 
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Nexus6

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Cool. I will look for this new version on Netflix. It might actually be pretty good. After all, the Russians made what was IMHO one of the best war movies ever, Sergei Bondarchuk's 'War and Peace'. As big expensive epic movies go, few films can touch it. A bit off-topic, but I also liked the Russian version of Solaris. It was maybe a bit slow-going at times, but the ending was stunning, and in any event it was far, far better than the Clooney remake.

As regards the German 90's movie, the production values were excellent and it had some great moments, like the proverbial rats trying to leave the sinking ship scene at Ptomnik airfield. What bugged me about it though was how in true politically correct fashion, the movie absolutely reeked of German post-war guilt and angst. Again, very pc.

Speaking of Russian WW2 movies, I was floored by the 60's film 'Ballad of a Soldier'. An amazing piece of work! I mean, leave it to the godless communist Russians ;) to make possibly the best 'good Samaritan' movie I've ever seen.

Come to think of it, I rather liked the Stalingrad movie 'Enemy at the Gates'. Although I kind of rolled my eyes at the Jude Law/Rachel Weisz sex scene, everything else about the film was top-notch. I especially liked Ed Harris as the icy German sniper, and Bob Hoskins was perfect as Commissar Nikita Krucshchev.
 
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Dave68124

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Yes this what i want to see very nice man, Stalingrad is my favourite Thriller Movie with full of action and all beauty of the out world in our land.... Main while this is a great film...

new movies coming soon
I think the Asian kid who is spamming websites for a $.01 a post needs to work on his spelling if he is going to claim to be from the U.S.
 

JOKippe

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Watched it last week with no expectations, and I think the movie was a failure if expected to be taken seriously. The bookend opening/closing scenes were pointless and served no purpose except to bore the viewer for the first and last parts of the film. Finally, the movie gets started after a while and we get treated to a lot of blandly-tinted CGI scenes (can't they do CGI in color yet?) Almost every action sequence is over-the-top, physics-defying bllsht. The HTH combat scenes were poorly executed (they should've watched a few episodes of Spartacus to see how to do a CGI fight properly!) Almost everything is overdone to the point of being ridiculous, such as the bomber crash. Ultimately, what was the plot? I dunno. It just seemed to be a long cartoon fantasy that very few people with a serious interest in the subject would like. Maybe that was the point of the bookend scenes...it's all just a collection of absurd stories by a narrator that wasn't even there.
 

Scott Tortorice

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Watched it last week with no expectations, and I think the movie was a failure if expected to be taken seriously. The bookend opening/closing scenes were pointless and served no purpose except to bore the viewer for the first and last parts of the film. Finally, the movie gets started after a while and we get treated to a lot of blandly-tinted CGI scenes (can't they do CGI in color yet?) Almost every action sequence is over-the-top, physics-defying bllsht. The HTH combat scenes were poorly executed (they should've watched a few episodes of Spartacus to see how to do a CGI fight properly!) Almost everything is overdone to the point of being ridiculous, such as the bomber crash. Ultimately, what was the plot? I dunno. It just seemed to be a long cartoon fantasy that very few people with a serious interest in the subject would like. Maybe that was the point of the bookend scenes...it's all just a collection of absurd stories by a narrator that wasn't even there.
+1 Complete agreement! This movie was a big bomb. It was really incoherent at times. It begins with an interesting Alamo-like premise where an eclectic group of Russians are ordered to hold a building at all costs, but then proceeds to complete abandon that plot for two very muddled and thoroughly uninteresting romances, one involving a Russian girl who ultimately two-times her two beaus, and one involving a Russian girl who is being raped a German officer (apparently that qualifies as a 'romance' in Russia). Really awful. The movie also suffers from wooden narration ham-handedly injected into the action, as well as a really annoying tendency to introduce plot elements...and then forget completely about them (such as the mission to retrieve weaponry from a crashed bomber - once retrieved, the weaponry never makes an appearance again). While I do think the CGI in this film does show that Russian cinema is catching up to the West in that department (this movie was a big leap in the effects department compared to Wolfhound), the rest of the film was simply dreadful. Really, little better than WWII fan-fic you can find on the internet.

Terrible. I gave it a 2/5 on Netflix.
 

OttoBomb

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It's awful. Nothing as terrifying as Pearl Harbor awful, but certainly in the same locale. Think Micheal Bay transformers style hand-to-hand fight scenes, but with people, and sometimes entire platoons are totally engulfed in flames while engaged in this style of fighting. Sadly that statement was not sarcasm or a joke.
 

Michael R

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It is certainly over the top. The 3D effects, however, were above average to me. I especially liked the almost constant debris floating in the air. I agree that the plot is basically "Pavlov's house". Unfortunately, the whole thing is told in a vague sort of flash back. The story meanders quite a bit. I wanted to see a Russian view; I definitely got that.
 

Dr Zaius

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Glad I skipped this one. Something about this triggered my BS sense.
 
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