Pearl Harbor (film)

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Template:Infobox Film Pearl Harbor is a war film released in the summer of 2001 by Touchstone Pictures. It stars Ben Affleck, Alec Baldwin, Jon Voight, Josh Hartnett, Kate Beckinsale, Cuba Gooding Jr., Jaime King, and Jennifer Garner. It was a dramatic re-imagining of the attack on Pearl Harbor, produced by the team of Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay, who had previously been involved with such summer blockbusters as Armageddon and The Rock. The final section of the movie relates the Doolittle Raid, the first American attack on the Japanese home islands in World War II.

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Production, release and critical response

Pearl Harbor was released Memorial Day weekend in 2001 and was released on DVD to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the attack. Despite its dazzling special effects, the movie received generally poor reviews, many critics dismissing the film as shallow, hackneyed, and historically insensitive, with critic Roger Ebert claiming that "The filmmakers seem to have aimed the film at an audience that may not have heard of Pearl Harbor, or perhaps even of World War Two." The bombastic tone of the film was frequently cited as the polar opposite of the 1998 Steven Spielberg film Saving Private Ryan. It was also alluded to in the film Team America: World Police in the song End of an Act; the song is in love ballad style, but the lyrics proclaiming the speaker's emotions about the addressed girl are almost entirely overtaken by lyrics railing on the film ("Girl, I guess what I'm trying to say is that Pearl Harbor sucked and I miss you.").

The movie cost approximately $140 million US to produce, earning it the title of the largest approved production budget for a film to that date, and it grossed approximately $200 million in the US market. Nonetheless, this was considered to be a disappointment, due to the accounting methods used to determine the net profit made by motion pictures.

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Historical inaccuracies

The movie portrays many of the widely held but unverified beliefs about the Pearl Harbor attack as being unambiguously true, such as Doris Miller's exaggerated heroism, and the carelessness or incompetence of Admiral Husband E. Kimmel and General Walter C. Short (subsequent investigations showed that neither of the officers were informed by the Office of Naval Intelligence prior to the attack).

Other inaccuracies or fabrications include:

Early childhood sequences

Battle of Britain sequences

  • A four-bladed Supermarine Spitfire is shown during the Battle of Britain in the film; a Spitfire model that was not available until 1942, though the Battle of Britain takes place during 1940 (specifically May through October).
  • Ben Affleck's character flies with a Royal Air Force squadron (which used Supermarine Spitfires), but the planes actually featured in the movie bear the RF code letters of the No. 303 Polish Fighter Squadron and are, in fact, Hawker Hurricanes.
  • During the Battle of Britain flight sequences, the British spitfires are shown flying in the standard American four-ship formation. The British actually flew in the three-ship or "VIC" formation.

Pearl Harbor sequences

  • The USS Arizona Memorial, which straddles the USS Arizona sunk during the battle, can be briefly seen in a pan shot. The Memorial was dedicated in the 1960's.
  • In the movie, the USS Arizona was sunk by a Aichi D3A Val, using a single bomb but the real-life Arizona was sunk by a "special bomb" from the B5N Kate utility bomber.
  • Admiral Kimmel was not on a golf course on the morning of the attack, nor was he notified of the Japanese embassy leaving Washington, D.C. prior to the attack. The first official notification of the attack was received by General Short several hours after the attack had ended.
  • At the time of the attack, the battleships in Battleship Row were tied directly together, not spaced 50 yards apart as they were in the movie.
  • Some shots of the USS Hornet show an angle-decked carrier (USS Constellation) instead of a straight-decked carrier. The angled deck was a post-WWII invention.
  • In the movie, in excess of eleven Mitsubishi A6M "Zero" fighters were destroyed or downed. In reality, only nine Zero fighters were destroyed by any means (i.e. anti-aircraft guns, planes) in the real bombing of Pearl Harbor.
  • Japanese aircraft of that period were painted light grey, not green.
  • Navy Nurse Betty dies during the Pearl Harbor attack, but no Navy Nurses died as a result of enemy action during the entirety of World War II, including the attack on Pearl Harbor.
  • The ward dresses of the nurses have a different style than the ones Navy Nurses actually wore during WWII and no nurse would have worked with long hair falling freely about her shoulders.
  • Some of the bombed ships are actually mothballed Knox-class frigates and Spruance-class destroyers, with the box launchers for anti-submarine rockets, known as ASROCs, visible. That technology wasn't available until the 1960s. Also, one Knox-class frigate, USS Whipple, can be seen in a background shot of the boxing scence on the USS Arizona.
  • One of the intelligence photos taken by the Japanese Spies shows a North Carolina class battleship none of which were in Pearl Harbor at that time. Two of each battleship class (Nevada class battleships (Nevada and Oklahoma), Pennsylvania class battleships (Arizona and Pennsyvania), Colorado class battleships (Maryland and West Virginia), and Tennessee class battleships (Tennessee and California) were moored at Pearl Harbor on that fateful day.
  • A retired Iowa class battleship was used to represent the USS West Virginia for Doris Miller's boxing match. However, the main gun barrels are corked, which is unusual during wartime or training exercises. Furthermore, Iowa battleships have a 3x3 main gun configuration versus the 4x2 layout of the West Virginia. Lastly, the West Virginia did not have the WWII-era bridge and masts found on newer US battleships until reconstruction was finished in 1943.
  • During the attack on Pearl Harbor in the movie, the P-40N model of the P-40 Warhawk U.S. fighter aircraft is shown. However, the 'N' model of the P-40 was not available to the United States until 1943 though the Pearl Harbor attack takes place during 1941.
  • At the Airfield where the pilots are composing themselves and trying to take action against the strafing Japanese planes, Ben Affleck's character erroneously says "P-40s can't outrun Zeroes, we'll just have to outfly them." In fact, the standard tactic for American and Allied pilots, from the AVG (Flying Tigers) in late-1940 through 1941 and throught the Pacific War, was basic "hit-and-run." They would dive on Zeroes, get what "hits" they could, and then outrun them.
  • In reality, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, although he planned the attack, was not present on any of the carriers that bombed Pearl Harbor. He was aboard the battleship Nagato in Tokyo Bay, where he heard reports of the attack and made his famous remark, "I fear we have only awaken a sleeping giant, and filled him with a terrible resolve".
  • P-40 and Zero fighters are shown doing tight manuvers and incredibly dangerous stunts, almost like X-Wing fighters from Star Wars. Neither plane was that nimble, although the Zero was the most feared figher of the Pacific War until the F6F Hellcat debuted in 1943.
  • In a shot, a kamikaze(suicide Japanese plane) can be seen attacking, but this tactic was not used by the Japanese until the Battle of Leyte Gulf which occurred three years later in October 1944.

Doolittle Raid Sequences

  • Several shots of the USS Hornet aircraft carrier depicted it as having an angled flight deck, a technology that wasn't implemented until after the war. Note, however, the Japanese carriers are portrayed more correctly by comparison - a few of them did have their bridge/conning tower superstructure on port side rather than the more common starboard configuration.
  • Affleck and Hartnett's characters are shown taking part in the Doolittle bombing raid over Tokyo which, as fighter pilots, they would not have been allowed to participate.
  • The B-25s shown participating in the Raid are "J"-models, when the models used in the actual Raid were "B"-models.
  • Several crewmen on Affleck and Harnett's B-25's are killed in the firefight with the Japanese, including Harnett's character. In fact, only two members of the raid died- both in accidents during crash landings afterward- while eight more men were taken as POWs.

Misc.

  • Mitchel Field is incorrectly spelled "Mitchell Field," presumaby because the writers assumed the base was named for Billy Mitchell. It was, in fact, named for John Purroy Mitchel of New York
  • Despite Long Island's flat, level surface being notoriously ideal for airfields, mountains are visible in the flying shots over Long Island.
  • Navy Nurse Betty claims to be 17 years old and that she has cheated with her age to be accepted, but Navy Nurses were required to be Registered Nurses to join the Navy Nurse Corps, which meant three years of prior training and passing a State Board examination, very unlikely qualifications for any seventeen year old. The minimum age to join the Navy Nurse Corps was 22.
  • President Roosevelt is seen rising from his wheelchair to inspire his staff after the attack. There is no record of him having done this in real life.
  • The observation car seen in the Train Station was made for the California Zephyr, which didn't appear until after WWII.
  • Hartnett's line "I think World War II just started". WWI was still called the Great War back then, so this war was not considered "II" until the Great War was renamed World War I after the end of the second World War. Also, Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941, but the actual war was pre-empted with the invasion of China by Japan in 1937, and began after Germany invaded Poland in 1939. It is important to note that the war did not start when the US became involved, it started 2 years prior.
  • The sequence where Josh Hartnett's and Ben Affleck's characters 'play chicken' with their P-40's at the US airbase is cited in the film as taking place in late 1941. This is prior to Afflecks departure to the UK to join Eagle Squadron in time for the Battle of Britain. There is NO error here. Although the "Battle of Britain" (proper) took place from May through October, 1940, a lesser air battle continued thereafter. The first Eagle Squadron was formed in September, 1940. Eventually, there were three Eagle Squadrons, right up until the U.S. entered the war (virtually the same times/timing as the AVG - Flying Tigers - in China).
  • The Queen Mary is seen in New York Harbor in full Cunard colours. It's more likely that she would have been painted grey and would have served in war duties as either a troopship or hospital vessel.
  • The radar monitors shown in Pearl Harbor are of the the more modern type which show the rotation of a dish. This type of radar was not in use at the time.
  • Almost none of the characters in the movie smoke, which would have certainly been unusual in the early 1940's.
  • Another give-away that modern carriers were used in the production: Steam catapults are used during carrier scenes, which were not implemented into aircraft carriers until the 1950's.
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Award nominations

At the 2002 Academy Awards, Pearl Harbor was nominated for four awards:

At the 2001 Golden Raspberry Awards Pearl Harbor was nominated for five awards: Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, Worst Screen Couple, Worst Actor, and Worst Sequel or Remake (presumably of the 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora!)—but lost to Tom Green's Freddy Got Fingered in all but the latter category, wherein it lost to Tim Burton's version of Planet of the Apes.

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Trivia

  • The Movie Team America: World Police lambasted this film. During one scene, a mournfull song plays, in which the singer laments the loss of his lover, as well as the fact that "Pearl Harbor sucked," citing, among other things:
    • Michael Bay's lack of directoral talent
    • Ben Affleck's lack of acting talent
    • The movie's general "missing the point"
  • Touchstone Pictures official stance on the movie is that "it's a love story", and was never meant to be a historical account of the event.
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References

  1. The Aviation Factfile: Aircraft of World War II, Edited by Jim Winchester. Grange Books, 2004.
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External links

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