On the movie USS Indianapolis ==spoilers==

[Don_prince]

Warning if you want to enjoy the movie do not read. In this topic I handle the inconcistency's that annoyed me. Even a little bit of research could have changed this movie drasticaly...

So well, I dont know where to start here... Well, Nicolas cage as a captain oviously was not the best choice. While he is good in other roles, he is not quit good in expressing power. When giving the speech to his crew its important to scream. He did not.

Next to that, the captain is not in charge of fire control. He is in charge of the entire ship and does not tell the fire control officers every single target. In the scene with the planes he calls out all the targets which is the job of the firecontrol officer. There is oviously too many targets to call out and its the job of the fire control officers to divide the guns between targets and tell them when to switch target. The captain can call out priority targets.

The captain, while in charge of crew and ship, and as such can overrule the order of the admiral or vice-admiral, on those capital ships is not the highest officer. Capital ships like this one always had an admiral and a vice admiral on board.

The captain in this movie reads the super secret leter out in the open. Such letters never should see daylight and always should be opened in the captains quarters. On such ships as these the captain will not get this note, the admiral will.

Quit often do you see shots of half the crew looking from all places, in reality this is never ever allowed unless for show.

When sailing without escort (which happened sometimes) the ship should stay in either some level of emergency or battlestations, the crew can not be playing around like shown in the movie. It is eiter sleep or beeing on watch. Lots of times there was not even cooked food as the cook has a different duty then aswell.

Well I'm not even halfway and I'm annoyed to hell... Ill finish this of later...

Update,

So another question: Why is the captain not on his station when the ship is about to sink/sinking? Where are the officers on the bridge? The captain should stay on the bridge as long as humanly possible.

Why do the two sailors, when the ship breaks in two (what a coincidence, I mean having the structure beeing bent and them freeing is logic but not this, and also the cells usualy are in the bow, why? Lots of void space and the most uncomfortable place on the ship due to accelerations and slamming. now we are here anyway, what the fudge where those guys doing in there. when on open sea only on normal stations prisoners should be in their cells. On any other station announcement all prisoneres should be released) swim to the surface in clear water... There should be loads of bubbles of air oil steam and residue. Oh and newsflash people cant swim or float in air or steam. That is why you need to leave a sinking ship as quickly as possible and get away with the liferafts and boats as they do not float in air or steam as well and burn in steam aswell...

[Don_prince]

Oh and why does the stern when broken off sink with the front part first? That part still should have so much buouyancy that it should sink stern part first if not float due to watertight sections...


I have no words for the seccond hour... just no words,

My advice, read the cruel sea from nicolas monserat or HMS ullyses from Alistair Maclean

[JudgeDredd]

I saw this film advertised (didn't think it was out until November as launch had been put back)...but seeing Nicolas Cage as the main character put me right off. Seeing that, there was no way I was going to pay good money to watch this movie in the cinema.

[Frankie]

Don_Prince, if the Director, Mario Van Peebles, had consulted you on set, about the realism aspects, then you would had met Nicholas Cage in person.

[Longknife]

I didn't read you post because I haven't seen it yet but do intend to watch it.

I agree Cage was a bad choice. I don't particularly care for him as an actor anyway but that aside I really cant see him playing a naval officer well.

[JudgeDredd]

He's ha d afew decent roles - but he's also had some right dog ones. Mostly, though, it's down to his depressing tone in most everything he does.

[wilso845]

I dont know what the fuss is about its a film and who cares if the captian is doing somthing different in the film as apposed to what he did in his role

[Longknife]

Mostly, though, it's down to his depressing tone in most everything he does.

That's exactly it. He always sounds like he just found out his dog died...

[Don_prince]

A captain is a leader and a dictator. His orders are law and his mimic and voice and handling should express power and force and force of respect so it feels natural to obey him. Next to that a captain has no emotion and never ever gives up or breaks character. The crew should give up anything to be in favour of this dictator and if the dictator failes, then the crew lost what tied them together.

It is quit hard to describe this but ill try: My granddad had a captain expression. He had the air of power around him, standing straight up, a very expressed way of speaking... you would not dare to ask him to repeat anything he said, The way he talked and moved forced off obeydiance and respect (Yes he was a warveteran). Cage does not have this. Tom hanks did, barely but he did have it a bit.


Cage is more a politician, he listens, tells all will be alright, asks opinions, agrees with everything, cries, shows emotion, shows a lot of care and does nothing with that information. The other roles he can do is a drunk, psycho or a drug addict. Oh and beeing angry.

So what is the difference:

A captain: I'm sorry your cat is dead. Which #$%^&^%$ IDIOT did not tie that pole. Now clean up this $#*! from my messroom floor. I said NOW!

Cage: I'm so sorry our cat died, yes, yeees, yes it was such a lovely cat -10 minute conversation about how lovely the cat is with crying scenes- How unfortunate that that pole was not tied down. Yes we will find the guy who did it. He needs to be sorry -and when catched- yes we know you are sorry, you must feel horrible and so on.

See what I did there? That is why cage can be a politician and not a leader. People nowadays want a leader that gives them the idea that he cares for you on a pillow. Only in reality that will not make a soldier run forward infront of the wrong end of a gun. Thats why a lot of those leaders fail. The other end? Well easy to make mistakes but lets not go down that road... I think I made my point.

[Don_prince]

I dont know what the fuss is about its a film and who cares if the captian is doing somthing different in the film as apposed to what he did in his role

Its not about if the captian is doing somthing different in the film as apposed to what he did in his role, it is just a few things in the movie that compleatly missed the goal to visualise and create the atmosphere required around this movie. One of the things being Cage not having what is described above.

I get more and more irritated about movies where they so oviously things where made up as never would have been the case in reality. For a movie with this budget I am angry that they did not phone up a seafarer or even a soldier to look at the script to say hey we have a command structure here, its not the board of the towns pub quiz commitee where everyone has an equal say. Hey this is an operating machine, there is no time to look at nothing in the dark. Hey if steam blows in your face in the engine room your face has 3rd degree burns, you dont walk through that just communicating.

They just wanted it to look fancy with dramatic effects... Oh look at them walking trough this amazing blow of steam that comes from nowhere. Oh wow lets look at compleatly nothing and not sleep in the sleep time of our 4 hour on/off duty cycle. Oh wow this captain cares so much about this crew see him listen and care to this pointles emotional story (yea shure with the entire crew of what was it? 800+? treath them like fluffy pillows)

And yes I should stop geting angry at things like these...

[Longknife]