Let me start this off by taking a moment to recognize all
POW and soldiers who are MIA. You are heroes and deserve the deepest respect
this nation can bestow. Any comments I make in this post are directed to the
makers of the movie, not Louis Zamperini or any of the actual people who
experienced this firsthand.
I never actually finished the book, Unbroken, but I have read
parts and I know the story. It is truly an inspiring one. The hardships he
endured and his triumphs over them could motivate anyone. And even more
inspiring was his ability to overcome the events of the war after struggling
with it after the war. That’s like, half the book. I guess Angelina didn’t like
that enough.
This movie should’ve had three times the content and been 30
minutes longer. That being said, this movie has serious pacing issues. There are
also several scenes that I don’t thing add to the movie and could’ve been cut.
This is one of the few movies that I think would benefit from more montages. The
movie spends a lot of time making you stare at similar things over and over. It
makes for a boring movie.
Unbroken the movie focuses on his experience as a POW and
while he’s adrift. The movie ends when the war ends and he comes home. They touch
on his early life and his running briefly and in weird flashbacks at odd times
and only for the first part of the movie. It’s actually really weird and I absolutely
hated the inconsistency. They only cover
his PTSD and recovery from it and life after the war in the end credits. I think
that’s possibly the biggest injustice this movie does.
Here is how they should have done it:
*Caution- High School movie idea ahead (it might suck, but
at least not as bad as the movie they already made*
Start the movie with the search mission that lead to the
crash, cover all of it just like in the movie, but have short flashbacks to his
childhood throughout. After the crash, you can have the cast away parts but
shorten it to 2-3 scenes at most and cover most of it in a montage. Continue the
childhood flashbacks during this time, the childhood flashbacks should be
getting into the track parts now, but he should still be young.
Show his capture and cover the places he was held but we can
cut out most of the scenes of him sitting on an island. A more interesting
aspect to cover would be the things that happened immediately after his capture
and the many places he was taken. Think short concise bits here, not long drawn
out bits. The flashbacks should be into his high school track career.
After he gets to Tokyo they should keep it mostly the same
as the movie, but they should cut out some of the pointless beating scenes and
replace them with, you guessed it, a montage. A 15 minute section of the movie
is devoted to one incident when the entire camp was forced to punch him in the
face. Yes that’s horrible and a point you want in the movie but it doesn’t need
to take up that much time.
Another thing, this move is rated PG-13. It shouldn’t be. This
is a movie about the horrors of being a POW and PG-13 makes it feel like a
family friendly version. The reality is that horrible things happened and they
should show it, not hide it.
The flashbacks should lead up to the Olympics now and the
climactic point with the wooden board should parallel his finish at the games. After
that there should be an acceleration of the flashbacks to the point where the
end of the war when they think they will be executed should match up with the cancelation
of the Olympics in Tokyo.
After that I don’t have much to say other than, at this
point we should be around and hour and 40 minutes into the movie, spend the
next thirty minutes on his PTSD and difficulty recovering from the war
(including flashbacks to earlier in the movie), from there to the end (another
30 minutes at least) it should cover his recovery and acceptance. After that
you can end it.
Thanks Angelina, I’m probably never going to watch another
movie you make.
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