Warbird Information Exchange

Today's movie is Tora Tora Tora. Please vote in the poll and reply to this threads with your thoughts about the movie. What you loved... or hated about it. Thanks.

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There was some level of authenticity about this film. Only a "radio geek" like me would notice this, but when the radio operators were sending Morse, they were sending actual text, not just banging on the key. That doesn't happen very often in the movies or on TV.

73,
Dean K5DH
"Radio Geek"

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Dean Hemphill, K5DH
Lake Dallas, Republic of Texas

When I was 12, I saw it seven times in the theater when it was first released and loved every minute of it! (Even the slower parts!)
I think it holds up well compared to films before and after it.
I've bought every version on DVD as the add extras.
i also love the whole backstory on the production of the film.
Jerry

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"Always remember that, when you enter the ocean or the forest, you are no longer at the top of the food chain."

I gave it four stars. It's definitely one of my all-time faves, but from a storytelling viewpoint it does get a little slow at points. I find the historical minutia fascinating, but I can see how the average moviegoer could get a bit bored (even in 1968.)

SN

Watched it last weekend for the first time in about twenty years. It's surprisingly good by modern standards. I recall reading that a leading Pearl Harbor historian read the script and offered suggestions for improvements. Leaving out the "replicas versus CGI argument", I think it was very well done.

Only thing that bugged me was the late-60s hairstyles! Mind you, that's a small point, but one which gets me every time. *cough* Battle of Britain *cough*

Tora Tora Tora is an eminently watchable film.

Cheers,
Matt

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Matt Austin - playing with warbirds since the early 80s.

See my Lee-Enfield videos at - http://www.youtube.com/user/Jollygreenslugg

Tora is definitely the yardstick that movies on the Pacific Theater need to measure up to, maybe because so many subsequent movies "borrowed" its footage!

The historical accuracy, especially for the late 1960s, was quite remarkable, especially when you consider turkeys like "The 1000 Plane Raid" were its contemporaries.

This film falls somewhere between a documentary and a drama. It doesn't really do exceptionally well as either genre, but it straddles the fence exceptionally well.

Compared to PH, it rates an 11.

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One scene really gets to me. I know one of the guys who were "in the original cast" at Pearl in the scene where they were frantically trying to manhandle that PBY-5 out of harms way. Needless to say the next time I watched Tora after meeting Larry it was pretty emotional.

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"I love the smell of 100LL in the morning."

Its a great movie when you consider the movie that came 35 years or so later.

Also - let's track the movies and TV shows that used TTT as 'stock' footage:

Midway
Final Countdown
Baa Baa Blacksheep (TV)
Australia
Pearl (TV)
Winds of War (TV)
others????

Plus the accuracy of the ship models, the 1:1 scale Akagi and Nagato built in Japan and the effort to replicate the Zeros, Vals and Kates should be worth at least another point. "Old school" yes......... but still better than the angled deck IJN carriers that the CGI goofballs made for Pearl Harbor.

The producers actually thought about recovering and restoring REAL Japanese aircraft from the islands, but realized they could only get 10 or so airworthy - not enough for the film so they decided to modify AT-6's and BT-13's.

And the stunt gone awry when the P-40 veers into the mockups..........film magic! That actor did not need any "motivation" to run.




















Come to think of it - Pearl Harbor would have been such a better movie had IT used Tora Tora Tora stock footage. LOL

DB

Love those shots of the Tora gang recently in Denver with the skyline in the background...that Kate with the white stripe used to be based in the Springs with Jerry Flesher and Whitey Wannemacher YEARS ago....sans the giant bomb. It was on loan from Joe Mabee.

Mark

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Mark Morris

My Grandfather was the Chief in charge of the Boat House on Ford Island during the Attack. He was an active member of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, but like many of them; never talked about it.

It took my Grandfather 4 trips to the Theater before he was able to stay there long enough see the whole movie. I think that is a pretty telling fact.

I like Tora Tora Tora. I think that it told the story of the Attack in the only way possible. Yes; it was a sorta documentary.

Whats wrong with that?

Oh, and lets not forget the actual, real life, one wheel landing by the B-17!

There was another film I saw on HBO back in the 1980's that used Tora footage in black and white as an opening sequence. It might have been "Race for the Yankee Zepher" but I'm not sure. It was only used to pen the film. There's no way that in today's CGI based film world that Hollywood would EVER build another 3/4 length 1:1 size carrier or 1:1 battleship for a film!
Jerry
Jerry

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"Always remember that, when you enter the ocean or the forest, you are no longer at the top of the food chain."

One of the best docu-drama films that has been made about any historical subject in my opinion. It tells the story as truthfully as it could using characters all based on real people, and the strategic and emotional side of the battle from both sides of the story.

The dedication to detail in recreating the ships, the aircraft types, the ground settings and the battle scenarios, as well as the historic timeline and conversations that all unfolded for real, is amazing.

It is also amazing that Hollywood put so much effort and money into something that shows a disastrous military defeat for the USA, without feeling the need to ham it up with untrue heroics thrown in, as the later film Pearl Harbor did. The Japanese crew also put in a superb effort but perhaps they had reason to have more pride in the story they were telling.

It also encompasses some of the greatest aerial battle footage ever shot for a feature film. The Japanes fighters and bombers taking off into the sunrise are such gorgeous and inspiring shots. The massed formations of aircraft flying over Hawaii. The actual attacks on the ships seem like a maelstrom and must have been something to see on set, and something to have been involved in as a pilot. And then the aerial battle between the Zero's and the P-40E's, now that is simply stunning footage as they weave through the clouds.

The only thing that this film is let down a little by is the fact that it comes across as such a huge surprise to everyone that Japan has attacked them as if out of the blue. In reality it was no surprise, it was simply an attack without a prior declaration of war. It was in all the world newspapers for the months leading up to 7th of December 1941 that the tensions were rising between the USA and Japan, and between Britain and Japan. In the week leading up to Sunday the 7th there was much in the press about the expected war and the suspicion of Japan being likely to attack the USA. And in fact I have even read a newspaper report from October 1941 stating that Roosevelt had in a speech pretty much declared open war on Japan, and this was a quote from an admiral who was assessing the situation for Associated Press. So as good as the film is in telling the actions of that day, it misleads the viewers, especially those too young to know, into thinking all was rosy and happy one day and bam, war the next, which is completely not true.
All the same I have rated the film 5/5 for its excellence.

It is interesting how there was such a series of odd things that happened that all lead up to those in charge of security for Hawaii to either miss or not believe all the warning signs of the impending attack. The radar station closing down. The flight of B-17's being mixed up with the Japanese. The sighting of the submarine being dismissed as it was the US captain's first day on the job. The declaration of war being delayed in Washington. And the warning from the code breaker in Washington not getting through on time, etc. There could be a great conspiracy theory film in all that.

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You can add "Empire of the Sun" to movies that "borrowed" from Tora. The scene immediately prior to the famous P-51 attack, where the pilots are taking off on their Kamikaze mission, they are suddenly launching from an aircraft carrier.

I'll have to go back and watch "Empire of the Sun" to be absolutely certain, but I'm pretty sure all the footage in that one was original. The Kamikaze takeoff was at sunrise, but it was from the airfield (with an almost seamless blending of real T-6 Zeroes taking off and an exploding model.)



Oh, there are already plenty of conspiracy theories about PH..mostly that Roosevelt and his administration either had foreknowledge of the attack and let it happen, or even deliberately goaded the Japanese into attacking, in order to break the US out of its isolationism and get us into the war. Of course, 70 years later there are similar paranoid conspiracy theories about the Bush administration and 9/11.


SN