Saving Private Ryan

Where is the "I haven't seen the movie yet" option?? I've been avoiding seeing the movie because of the talk about the terribly graphic scenes. I don't know if I could handle it without getting sick.

Didn't see it due to laziness. I have an iron stomach, so I'm not worried about being queasy.

where's the "i haven't seen it" option? i haven't seen it due to all the hype. the more people talk about it, the less i want to see it.

I haven't seen the movie, nor do I intend to see the movie.

Where is the option for I haven't seen the movie and will watch it when it comes to HBO or some other channel?

My grandfather was a paratrooper (not unlike Pvt. Ryan himself). He -never- talked about WWII, though he was pretty open about Korea...

I am so anti-war that it was very difficult to see that first 20 minutes. If it weren't for the fact that the study of WWII is so important to my husband, I would have insisted that we leave. I just can't handle the hard realities. At the concentration camps we visited in Europe, I found it difficult to even breathe while my friends and husband had to see everything. I would prefer to experience it first hand than send a young person to fight for me.

I have lots to say about Saving Private Ryan.

It seemed very Spielbergian to me. Spielberg has gotten very good at pulling heartstrings. He knows exactly what to do to get an emotional response. I was prepared for this when I saw the film, and, as a result, it didn't work. I'm pretty certain that if I hadn't thought about this beforehand, all of the tricks would have worked.
Although I think the plot was a little weak (this film, like Schindler's List, would seem stupid and contrived if we didn't know about the reality of WWII and the holocaust)

Having said that, it was easily worth the $7.75 and 2.5 hours it cost me. The camera work was quite good, the sound effects were great, and the visual special effects were both enthralling and horrifying.

He does some really amazing things with film speed, color depth/richness, and sound that really imparted the experience of being in a stressfull battle situation. Or, so it seemed to me, having never been in a battle, or been shot, or even really gotten into a real fight.

I encourage y'all to see this in the theater with good sound and a big screen.

It was very real which is very good, but I almost had to leave the theater during the D-day scene - it really got to me. I would call it graphic though, I seen much more graphic movies - the realism came more from excellent sound engineering. There was gore, but I've seen movies with a lot more that didn't affect me any where near as much.
* I agree that the plot and story of Saving Private Ryan were nothing special, but the technical aspects of the film (as milktree pointed out) make the movie a good one.

It gave me a headache and a stomach ache, but not from the gore. I can't stand that jostling camera movement, and it was entirely too loud. And too long. My head hurt all the next day... Oh yeah, and I agree that the plot was rather weak too.

My grandfather was a paratrooper, but I don't know where he was sent. His two brothers one was a paratrooper but died from a malfunction before he could even make it to the war and the other died in the first run on Normandy. According to my grandpa who arrived like D-day +4 that you couldn't walk around without stepping on bodies. True the plot was weak, but spielburg can take anything and make it into a good movie with the camera and sound. Actually, after years of analyzing books against my will I could find an extremely well placed and obvious plot...problem was it was never straight-out said so not many people could pick it up. I didn't even until the end of the movie.

It would be better seen on television.

I never watch WAR for entertainment.

Haven't seen it.

Didn't see it, mostly because I heard it was very gory. I've seen real life gore and can deal with emergencies, but I am very affected by it. I didn't want to get myself all wound up over a movie. Someday I'll rent it on DVD and watch it at home, so I can mute the really awful sections. I hate horror movies for the same reason - I don't want to watch mutilation for the sake of seeing it. Yes, I had family in German camps in WWII. Yes, I know things were completely awful and have read many, many accounts of the atrocities. But do I want to see a graphic portrayal of it to "drive the point home"? No. I'd rather see a drama of the people involved, not long, drawn-out scenes of bloody violence. It's like the many well done movies I've seen on Vietnam. Yes, people died in that war as well, and I know about it. But I'd rather watch a movie about the personalities and difficulties people encountered, instead of a movie about the injuries inflicted.

EB: I'm sure they would have :) I would have loved to avoid watching my son fall, at 5 months, and fracture his skull. You go through things because you must. It doesn't mean I want to subject thousands of people to watching a video of my son in that accident. Replaying scenes for entertainment is a different matter.

EB: History can be told without gore and other items put in for "entertainment value". I've been told the movie is pretty schmaltzy in a Spielburg fashion. My grandfather was in WWII and saw lots of horror, he was able to tell the family about all the things he went through without resorting to "and then the leg bone POKED THROUGH his skin, blood was oozing everywhere". We knew it was a horrible war and felt the effect without the overbearing graphic detail. I have learned a lot about the Romans without seeing videos of lions eating humans :) I do not feel it denigrates the enormous effort my grandfather and many like him went through to say that Spielburg's movie version of it is not my style. I loved Schindler's List, which was about another horrible aspect of WWII. That got the point across without resorting to 'grossing people out on purpose'.

still haven't seen the movie.
my mom's uncle (my great-uncle?) was in WWII. he was a radioman on a bomber, so he never saw combat from the perspective that the movie portrays.

I think Saving Private Ryan is a must see....but I will admit, that I will never watch it again. I think war is a terrible, completely unnecessary game that we play. And the movie just confirmed it for me. Its always been terrible that we send our youngest, brightest people into war...but the actuality of it has never been laid before us like it was with this movie. If you haven't seen it, go see it once...whether you like it or not, even if you don't think you can stomach it....watch it, make yourself sit through it. Because this is the reality that we have created in life, and we should see what this world has come to.. And even if the movie was not very accurate, it gets the point across beautifully.

Um, elijahblue...it's "Santayana" (George Santayana, the philosopher/writer), not "Santana" (Carlos Santana, guitarist). Please tell me you knew that.

I didn't think the movie was that exceptional, except that it gave me an insight into the things that people had to experience. But I think it could have been done better, by going deeper into the emotions of the characters. The fighting, shooting, killing etc. was an important part of this film, but after an hour of it, I don't need to see more.

What about an "I haven't seen it" option? I plan to, because everyone keeps telling me how great it is, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. lisashea: I'm sure the men who fought would have preferred to avoid "long, drawn-out scenes of bloody violence" too. lisashea: I don't think what most people got out of it was simply "entertainment." Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it (in a very loose paraphrase of Santana). And it is disrespectful to the memory of those who died in war to downplay what they went through, to choose to depict only those portions of their experience that don't upset anyone. hunter: no, I didn't. In fact, I scrounged around to find the quote, and I have it listed as Santana (no first name)... but then again, I found it on the internet, so...

Interestingly enough, while I usually cover my eyes to avoid seeing graphically violent scenes in movies, I didn't want to not see most of this movie. It seemed so real that it felt important to me to bear witness, somehow.

I haven't seen the movie.