Over the last decade, there have been so many movies on WW2 (mostly very good though). But why have there been none about WWI? So many things happened in that war (except for the whole trench warfare standstill lasting years....). Possibly something relating to the offensives of Spring 1917. It might not be blockbuster material, but at least a good minseries (like Band of Brothers).

There are some. A&E made that "Lost Battalion" miniseries. That was pretty good. I think that the reason there aren't more is that trench warfare isn't as exciting or sexy as tank battles or WWII combat.

who wants to see people in the same exact trench fighting for weeks? when u can see large tank divisions planes bombing and all sorts of action?

I don't want to see tank battles though. I want to see absolutely monumental arty barrages follow by swarms of inexperienced infanty storming across no mans land under intense fire of enemy artillary.

There are not many photos from WW1 compared to WW2. Not enough photos to make a good movie.

WWI is overshadowed by WWII. Plus like Napoleon said. There aren't any tank battles. No machine guns. Gatling guns and machine guns were used in WWI but not ones that could be held by hand. People know about the big battles in WWII. Normandy, Pearl Harbour, Stalingrad, Iwo Jima, Bulg, the bggest tank battle ever in some plains in Russia, etc. America wasn't as major of a force in WWI as in WWII, since most WWII movies are about American soldiers and they entered Europe much later. (When all the fun stuff was over :D ). WWI has little amount of big machine guns. No real planes. Not some old crappy whatever they were called planes in WWI.

Originally posted by God
No real planes. Not some old crappy whatever they were called planes in WWI.

Biplanes?

I think World War I deserves to be credited as it is far overshadowed by World War II. Most people know about WW2 because it is the "good war" where we tried to save the world from the genocidal policies of Hitler. I think we would stop shining the spotlight on WW2 and turn it to WW1 if we realized that it wasn't really a good war. There were many crimes committed on the Allied side that went unrecorded, especially those by the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union even violated two of the four charges brought against the Nazis at Nuremberg. This isn't really about movies, it is about the fact that World War I was horrible too. There was genocide committed in World War I. The persecution of Armenian Christians by the Turkish is the most well known. Next tiem they make a concentration camp movie it should be about the Armenian Christians not the Jews. I mean no offense to anyone who is Jewish or of Jewish descent, I feel the crimes committed by the Nazis were horible, except we need to turn the spotlight away from the persectution of the Jews and freeing them in WW2 to the horrors of trench warfare and religious persecution in WW1.

By 1918 there was massed planes flying both air superiority and ground attack missions.

WW I is not glamorous, not well known, and the movies would have to make a lot of new uniforms and equipment. WW II stuff they already have on stock from past movies.

There have been plenty of WWI movies made, just not many recently, it may be that the subject has been covered, so few fresh ideas have surfaced.

The first movie to ever win an academy award was a WWI movie, "Wings".

I can think of lots of WWI flicks, like:

Galipoli
Lawerence of Arabia
All quiet on the Western Front
Paths of Glory
The Blue Max
Dr Zhivago
The Lighthorse

And there are many more.

Originally posted by God
Not some old crappy whatever they were called planes in WWI.
Weird argument. After all the dogfights in WW1 provide alot more intense action and drama then any others later...

And there are movies about it, "Red Baron" comes to my mind as well as "The Blue Max", which was mentioned by AoA.

I think one main reason why there are not as many movies about WW1 as about WW2 is that every country percieved that war as a huge tragedy, and not much more.
WW2 on the other hand is percieved as a "just war" on the allied side. Now why's that important?
Well, most war movies are not designed to be realistic historic movies but rather action movies with great heroes. And that's the point. WW1 is seen as much too tragic to make pure hero movies like "The dirty dozen" out of it. Furthermore the enemy (from an allied perspective) is not "as evil" as in WW2, so WW2 has all advantages.

Go see All quiet on the Western Fron and read the book, too. This will show you what you are looking for and also give you insight in the senselessness of every war.
:D

There are a few films set in WW I as AofA and others have mentioned (and I'll add to the list Steinbeck's East of Eden) but World War I has a PR problem:

1. Technology: Film technology of 1914-1918 was limited and camera equipment was heavy and bulky, and difficult for transport. Because of this most pictures and films from the war are of soldiers marching and parading. Boring stuff. This gives modern viewers the impression (when compared to WW II action pictures and films) of less "action". Also, the frames used in 1914-1918 are different from modern film frames, so that when WW I film reels are replayed on modern equipment everything seems jerky and jittery.

2. "Matthew Brady". The Americans in their Civil War were blessed with a visionary photographer, Matthew Brady, who travelled to all the great battlefields and took very graphic photos of the results of battles. In WW I, photographic equipment was more difficult to lug to the trenches and front lines, so most armies relied on official and unofficial sketch artists to do the same. While fascinating and a boon for historians, these sketches simply aren't as riveting and interesting for modern audiences as pictures and film can be.

3. The war itself (which Hitro mentions) is less popular with casual audiences today because of its inconclusive battles and muddled outcome. WW II has definite campaigns and battles with usually swift and definitive results. WW I in contrast comes across as a simple and pointless meat grinder into which all the nations threw their youth for 4 1/2 years. Even when an end could be found in 1918, it turned out to only be a temporary medieval-style truce until the next generation 22 years later, when the fireworks started again. After 1945 everyone knew that Germany and Japan would never be allowed to rise again. In 1918, many were predicting Germany would rise again - and they did. All the "popular" wars with modern audiences - the Punic Wars, Alexander's campaigns, The Thirty Years War, the Seven Years War, the Napoleonic Wars, the various American wars, and World War II - all of them had definite and conclusive endings, even if it wasn't the one we wanted.

WW I created our modern era; it moreso than any other single event defined the 20th century. But modern popular audiences only see WW I as a prelude, a bloody skirmish before the real fireworks of 1939-1945.

AoA mentioned all the movies that came to mind, and more.
Napoleon mentioned the Lost Battalion.

There are some, if you look.

It is an event that very, very few living people remember, having occured over 80 years ago.

However, I am fairly sure we may see something in the near future, since their seems to ba a general interest in the Great War emerging again.

Vrylakas has obviously not seen "The Great War" by the BBC.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000634BA/qid=1038874228/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_3_1/202-9802866-9187803

26 episodes of 40 minutes showing vast amounts of WW1 footage, real and staged (at the time) showing alot of intense action and covering almost every theatre.



The problem I'm sure is that WW1 was less a war of goodies and badies and the American film industry doesn't manage balanced films, or ones that don't focus on Americans.

Had "Das Boat" been given over to the American publishers interested in the story the British ships would have been replaced by American ships and I doubt it would have portrayed the Germans in the same light. The tragic ending would have probably have been changed to a glorious ending with American fighter bombers destroying the evil Germans. The ending as the German Bavaria Studios (from memory) did it conveyed shock and great sympathy for the characters that after all their suffering and miraculous survival that to be killed on reaching the presumed safety of port seemed so unfair.


The fault is completely that of us Europeans by having such a limited film industry to produce rival products.




I believe the Soviets produced some epic WW1 war films, but they have not really become well know with only one of two exceptions.

Originally posted by kittenOFchaos
Vrylakas has obviously not seen "The Great War" by the BBC.

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Had "Das Boat" been given over to the American publishers interested in the story the British ships would have been replaced by American ships and I doubt it would have portrayed the Germans in the same light. The tragic ending would have probably have been changed to a glorious ending with American fighter bombers destroying the evil Germans. The ending as the German Bavaria Studios (from memory) did it conveyed shock and great sympathy for the characters that after all their suffering and miraculous survival that to be killed on reaching the presumed safety of port seemed so unfair.



I agree on that.

WWI isn't as easy as WWII because there is very hard to see the "bad" and the "good" guys (I mean for some viewers).

I think germans knew maybe best what World wars were really about as they were on the losing side.

Das Boot is in my opinion one of the best warmovies of all time as it truly describes how people feel when they are sent by their country to fight and die to war that has almost no meaning. It's not about political goals but surviving, not only as whole but invidually.

Das Boot is a great one; but the original "All Quiet on the
Western Front" (1930) retains a lot of its power, too.

"All quiet on the western front" is a good one this movie was also banned in Hitlers Germany in the 30's because it demonstrated that war is NOT all fun and glory.

KittenofChaos wrote:

Vrylakas has obviously not seen "The Great War" by the BBC.

Nope - I'm quite familiar with it. Nice series indeed. But it doesn't cross my point; I didn't claim that there weren't any pictures from WW I. I said there were much fewer "action" pictures and films, and those tended to be of significantly lesser quality than those from WW II. WW II has, for instance, a substantial body of color photos and films available, while WW I has a tiny few color photos. I really think the primitive film technology of WW I (coupled with the muddled outcome and lack of a clear winner, as you put it) plays a role in a general lack of interest among non-historians.

World War Two gets alot more movies because it was far more epic in scope and approaches myth in scale and theme. WWI is indeed overlooked but there really aren't alot of American Civil War movies either that jump to mind. I don't think the conflicts in WWI inspire American audiences today with the same charged feelings as the monumental conflict with the Nazis and the Japanese.

...there really aren't alot of American Civil War movies either that jump to mind.
Gone with the Wind, Gettysburg, and Glory are all great films.

Gone with the Wind, Gettysburg, and Glory are all great films.

Not to forget the greatest American Civil War movie ever - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly !!! :goodjob: