Yeah I see where you're coming from. But as a german guy I must say that I don't like this movie. It's too one-sided (like all Spielberg movies). Of course WWII was one of the worst things ever happened but most of the time you only see american soldiers getting killed in the worst possible way (+ crying, screaming, etc etc). What about the other nations? Or germans? The first 15 minutes are shocking though.
The movie is told from the perspective of American soldiers. Of COURSE it is going to be partial to the American experience. I take issue with your assertion that the movie does not show the ugly side or more morally unscrupulous side of the US soldiers. In the Omaha beach sequence you mentioned we see Amerixan soldiers rejoicing in the fact that German soldiers are burning and want them to continue to burn. We see helpless German soldiers fleeing Americans getting shot in the back. And we see Americans ridicule them after they are shot dead saying "Look I washed for supper." We also see a pivotal scene where US solider strongly consider - and argue over - executing a German POW
Still doesn't work, sorry.
Don't get me wrong: It's not a bad movie. It's a great movie. It's just...I don't like it ....ah...I don't know. In the end it's like "Germans=bad, american soldiers = heroes". I know that's an exaggeration. But now..when I think about it I would say that the last 20 minutes (the last battle) are better than the opening minutes (D-Day). Just because you see both sides suffer.
The American soldiers were heroes
A bunch of the greats have already been mentioned so:
Red Cliff
Part of me wants to say Star Trek Nemesis for this scene alone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXq3dytL6ZA
You should have been there on opening night at the theatre; everyone's jaw was wide open throughout the whole thing.
Nope, it's not "Lord of the rings".
Man I've been meaning to see this movie. Those pics look great.
Amazing how nothing has come to close to this in more than 30 years (referring to battles in space).Some excellent ones so far, I'll add:
Battle of Endor, Star Wars
I've been meaning to watch this. I've heard the 40 minute climatic payoff is amazing.
Definitely worth a watch, best thing John Woo's done since Face-Off.
Best battle is either Helms Deep or Minas Tirith.
The battle of Helm's Deep still gives me goosebumps.
I still love the (brief) depiction of the Battle of Dagorlad in the prologue of Fellowship if the Ring. An army of around 200,000 against and army of 300,000, with Howard Shore's epic-as-hell music in the background. I never get tired of watching it.
For those who don't know what these are from:
Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (actually guessing on this one, I'm not too familiar with the Trek movies)
Black Hawk Down
Heat
Yeah, your guess is the right one. =)
What's great about the Mutara Nebula battle is how it isn't a lot of colorful effects diarrhea, like the battles in Abrams' ST movies. Those were just tons of red phasers and photon torpedoes flying everywhere at lightning speed, so much crap onscreen that I couldn't ever see what the hell was going on. A lot of colors and flotsam whizzing every which way in a seizure inducing manner.
In Wrath of Khan, every single photon torpedo fired was impactful and visceral. You felt them, they were substantive. You cringed and felt for the Enterprise when Reliant's phaser cannon cut into its port torpedo launcher. You could actually see what was happening onscreen. It's tense, just like the u-boat films which Nicholas Meyer referenced on his commentary of the DVD. But what's so important is how slow the ships move. This is what is great about Trek, they are these giant ships and they act like it. When the Reliant comes charging out of the static towards the Enterprise, we can see Kirk pivoting his chair, while ordering "Evasive starboard!" Yet the ship herself turns much more slowly then his chair pivot. We feel the engines straining for such a maneuver. Trek ships need that sense of size and weight. After all, this is space... they have nothing but the Enterprise and an occasional alien planet. This ship is the workplace, and home, and overall landscape for 500 people. She's as much a character as any of the main characters. So to maintain the heft and importance, it is crucial that the ship not be pulling off all sorts of crazy loop-de-loops or whatnot.
Regardless of what you may think of the rest of the movie, Revenge of the Sith had some great large-scale battles
Great in...what way? That they managed to get a lot of cartoony cg ships in every shot without making you actually care about any of it? Kinda like praising a book for having a lot of words.