World War II has taken the world by storm, and Europe is feeling its effects. Back in the United States, however, peace and tranquility prevail as the people refuse to get involved. On December 7, 1941, all this would change.
Rafe McCawley (Affleck) and Danny Walker (Hartnett) grew up together and learned to fly in the dangerous aviation practice of cropdusting. The two join the U.S. Army Air Corps where Rafe falls in love with a beautiful and courageous nurse, Evelyn Johnson (Beckinsale), before volunteering to fight alongside the British pilots in the Battle of Britain. He leaves behind Evelyn and Danny who are soon stationed together at Pearl Harbor. Taking advantage of the heavenly spot, new friendships and loves are formed, unaware of the overwhelming forces moving toward them which would shatter their world and alter history.
Production, release, and critical response
Pearl Harbor was released Memorial Day weekend in 2001. Despite its dazzling special effects and a massive promotional campaign, critical response was largely negative, as its 25% rating on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer indicates. Many critics dismissed the film as visually polished but historically insensitive, also citing such literary flaws such as the banal dialogue, underdeveloped love triangle plot, and the shallow nature of the lead characters.[1]
Critic Roger Ebert summarized Pearl Harbor as "a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, about how on December 7, 1941, the Japanese staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle," and claimed 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."[2]
Director Michael Bay has said that Roger Ebert's criticism of Pearl Harbor has to be the most offensive of his entire career. According to Michael Bay: "He commented on TV that bombs don't fall like that. Does he actually think we didn't research every nook and cranny of how armor-piercing bombs fell? He's watched too many movies. He thinks they all fall flat — armor-piercing bombs fall straight down, that's the way it was designed! But HE's on the air pontificating and giving the wrong information. That's insulting!"[3]
Although the movie cost approximately U.S. $132 million to film and promote, it grossed a modest U.S. $200 million at the domestic box office, but it soon earned a respectable $450 million worldwide. Despite many believing it was a disappointment, the film was actually one of the highest-earning pictures of 2001. Pearl Harbor was released on DVD on December 4, 2001, three days before the actual 60th anniversary of the attack.
In addition, many Pearl Harbor survivors dismissed the film as grossly inaccurate and pure Hollywood, and the film's depiction of James H. (Jimmy) Doolittle as a loud, arrogant egotist as opposed to the warm, genial, brave, and modest man he truly was drew the wrath of (seemingly) everyone who had known the man in his lifetime.[citation needed]
From Here to Eternity (1953), Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) and Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) remain the acknowledged best cinematic treatments of the period in Hawaii before the attack, the Pearl Harbor attack itself, and the Doolittle Raid, respectively.
The roles that the two male leads played by Affleck and Hartnett have in the attack sequence are analogous to the real historical deeds of U.S. Army Air Corps Second Lieutenants George Welch and Kenneth M. Taylor, who took to the skies during the Japanese attack and, between the two pilots, shot down between six and 10 (depending on source) Japanese fighters. However, the movie itself makes no mention of or allusion to Welch's and Taylor's existence in history, and the movie's plot involving the leads, aside from their roles in the attack sequence, does not match any other historical account of Welch or Taylor.
Taylor, who died in November 2006, previously declared the film adaptation "a piece of trash...over-sensationalized and distorted".[4]
Because Bay's movie makes no mention of or allusion to Welch's and Taylor's existence, some consider the very presence of the two fictional main characters in their steads a blatant usurpation of the true historical figures' roles. This point, when coupled with what many critics feel is an arbitrary and ill-conceived love triangle plot involving the fictional replacements, makes some regard Pearl Harbor as an abuse of artistic licence.[5]
Historical inaccuracies
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Like many historical dramas, Pearl Harbor provoked debate about the artistic license taken by its producers and director. National Geographic Channel produced a documentary called Beyond the Movie: Pearl Harbor[6][7] which covers some of the ways that "the film's final cut didn't reflect all the attacks' facts, or represent them all accurately"[8].
One of the few small historical accuracies in the film include the wristwatch of the character Danny. Danny's wristwatch is the same style as WWII wristwatches issued to servicemen during the period. This is one of the small historical accuracies, what follows are the historical innacuracies.
Inaccuracies include, but are not limited to:
Early childhood sequences:
Stearman biplane (the crop-duster aircraft) was not produced until 1935. The opening scene of the film is set in 1923. Many Hollywood movies in the 1960's and 1970's used a Stearman as their stock 'old biplane'. A more appropriate aircraft would be a CurtissJN 4 'Jenny', but very few are available for this sort of work.
Eagle Squadron sequences:
A Supermarine Spitfire fitted with a four-blade propeller is shown during the airfield and flying shots in the film. It is a Spitfire variant that was not available until later in the war. Also, although the Eagles did use Spitfires, they were originally eight-gun MkIIs, later superseded by the MkV and IX (used by 133 Squadron). However, since there is only one MkII in flying condition (flown by the RAF Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, and as such not used for film work), the MkV was used, as well as the later MkVIII. The original plan was to use a highly-inappropriate Spitfire XIV in dogfight sequences with a genuine Messerschmitt Bf 109E(!!).
Ben Affleck's character is portrayed as joining the Royal Air Force (RAF) as part of the Eagle squadron; U.S. servicemen were prohibited from doing so, though American civilians were allowed[8]. His eyesight would have been checked for RAF service.
Ben Affleck was based at RAF Oakley. This base was actually a training base in the war, not a fighter base. Historians point out that during the hot August summer of 1940, such expedients invariably did take place from time to time, and even for squadron training exercises.
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.
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 Vee or "VIC" formation. Again this is open to dispute, because by the time of the late Battle, the RAF had adopted the GermanLuftwaffe 'Rotte' and 'Schwarm' system, known in RAF parlance as the 'Finger Four', which the USAF itself adopted as 'Four Ship' formation.
Pearl Harbor sequences:
The USS Arizona Memorial, which straddles the sunken USS Arizona, can be briefly seen in a pan shot. The memorial was dedicated in the 1960's.
President Roosevelt did not receive the news of the Pearl Harbor attack by an aide or adviser running into the room. He was having lunch with Harry Hopkins, a trusted friend, and he received a phone call from Secretary of War Henry Stimson. Hopkins refused to believe the report. The President believed it. [9]
Admiral Kimmel had received warnings about an attack but, thinking them vague, did not put his forces on full-scale alert. This contradicts the film's portrayal of Kimmel as a leader railing against Washington's apathy about the Japanese threat.[8]
Even though he specifically asked for, by dispatch and in person, all information, Admiral Kimmel never received the secret Magic dispatches that showed vital information. He also never received the famous 14-part message that the Japanese were delivering in response to the U.S. "ultimatum" of November 26. Especially not the 14th part which indicated the 1:00 p.m. (EST) delivery of the message and ordering the destruction of the "coding" equipment, even though this had been decoded some 9 hours before the attack.[10]
The reports that were given to Admiral Kimmel led him and his staff (as well as General Short, the Commander of the Hawaiian Army units) to believe that if Japan did attack, it would be somewhere in the southwest Pacific and not Pearl Harbor. In fact, they concurred when he deployed his task forces away from Hawaii. Before Pearl Harbor was attacked, he had deployed them around Wake and Midway Islands.[10]
The so-called "War Warning" dispatch that Admiral Kimmel received on November 27, 1941, did not warn the Pacific Fleet of an attack in the Hawaiian area. It did not state expressly or by implication that an attack in the Hawaiian area was imminent or probable. It did not repeal or modify the advice previously given me by the Navy Department that no move against Pearl Harbor was imminent or planned by Japan. The dispatch warned of war in the Far East. The number and equipment of Japanese troops and the organization of Naval task forces indicates an amphibious expedition against either the Philippines, Thailand, or Kra Peninsula, or possibly Borneo.[10]
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. Also, the report of attacking an enemy midget-submarine, in real life, did not report sinking the sub.
At the time of the attack, the battleships in Battleship Row were tied directly together, not spaced apart as they were in the movie.
Japanese aircraft of that period were painted light gray, 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, Ticonderoga Cruisers and Spruance-class destroyers, with the box launchers for anti-submarine rockets, known as ASROCs, visible. That technology was not available until the 1960s.
The FF-1062 USS Whipple can be seen clearly in a background shot of the boxing scene on the USS Arizona.
One of the intelligence photographs taken by the Japanese spies shows a North Carolina class battleship none of which were in Pearl Harbor at that time.
A retired Iowa class battleship was used to represent the USS West Virginia for Dorie 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. Also, the West Virginia did not have the WWII-era bridge and masts found on newer U.S. battleships until reconstruction was finished in 1943.
In the film, 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.
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 battleshipNagato in Tokyo Bay, where he heard reports of the attack and supposedly made his famous "sleeping giant" statement.
Yamamoto's "Sleeping Giant" quote is not only mis-quoted (In the film, he says "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant" when the full version is "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.") but almost certainly an invention by the screenwriter of Tora! Tora! Tora! Larry Forrester. Neither he, the director nor producer of that movie could produce the documents to support the claim. Pearl Harbor screenwriter Randall Wallace readily admits he took the line from the earlier film.
P-40 and Zero fighters are shown doing tight maneuvers and incredibly dangerous stunts, almost like X-Wing fighters from Star Wars. Neither plane was that nimble, although the Zero was the most feared fighter of the Pacific War until the F6F Hellcat debuted in 1943.
Dorie Miller's actions during the battle are altered. In the film, Miller comforts Captain Mervyn S. Bennion and is with him when he dies. Miller then delivers the captain's last orders to the ship's executive officer and then mans a machine gun. In reality, Miller helped move Bennion to a safer location. Bennion continued to direct the battle until he died of his wounds just before the ship was abandoned. Miller is credited with shooting down two enemy planes.
The USS Texas doubles for the USS West Virginia during the sequences featuring Dorie Miller. The Texas is considerably different in design than the ship she portrays, most notably lacking the 'cage' masts that distinguished West Virginia and California-class battleships. During these sequences, the West Virginia appears moored by herself, but in reality the battleship Tennessee was moored inboard (between the West Virginia and Ford Island) at the time of the attack.
In the attack, a sailor is shown jumping clear of a falling Battleship "tripod" main mast. No Battleship lost a tripod mast in such a manner. Not even with the sinking of the USS Oklahoma, which capsized, did a mast fall in such a way as shown in the film.
In the film, Dorie Miller is shown firing a twin Browning M2 Air Cooled 50 caliber machine gun. In reality, the .50 caliber machine guns found on the USS West Virginia were water-cooled with a large water cylinder around the barrel for cooling in a similar manner to the .303 Vickers Heavy machine gun.
Doolittle Raid sequences:
In preparation for the attack, Doolittle (Baldwin) is show training the pilots on land in a flat, sparsely wooded valley near mountains somewhere in the American Southwest. The actual training was done at the airfield known today as Columbia Metropolitan Airport in West Columbia, South Carolina. It is a far more verdant and mountainless area in the state's "Piedmont" topography. In fact, it continued to be training site for B-25 crews during the war which would use islands in the nearby Lake Murray for target practice. A crashed B-25 was recovered from the lake in the 1990's, restored and is now on display in the state museum.
Several shots of the USS Hornet aircraft carrier depicted it as having an angled flight deck, a technology that was not implemented until after the war. However, in every other respect the ship, portrayed by the USS Lexington, is accurate, and even of the same Lineage, the Essex class. 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 in which, as fighter pilots, they would not have been allowed to participate.
The B-25 Mitchells 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, no members of the raid were killed in this manner. Three airmen died in the crash landings in China, three were later executed as POWs by their Japanese captors, and one died of starvation in captivity. (Four other POWs were recovered alive near the end of the war).
Other inaccuracies:
Mitchel Field is incorrectly spelled "Mitchell Field."
Despite Long Island's flat, level surface, 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 - or even being capable of - this in real life.
The sequence where Josh Hartnett's and Ben Affleck's characters 'play chicken' with their P-40's at the U.S. airbase is cited in the film as taking place in late 1941. This is prior to Affleck's 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 July 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 timing as the Flying Tigers in China).
The Queen Mary is seen in New York Harbor in full Cunard colours. It is more likely that she would have been painted gray and would have served in war duties as either a troopship or hospital vessel. By late 1940, the Queen Mary was on her way to Sydney to be fitted out as a troopship.
The radar monitors shown in Pearl Harbor are of the more modern type which show the rotation of a dish. This type of radar was not in use at the time.
In a wide-angle shot, the distinct outline of a U.S. Kitty Hawk class aircraft carrier can be made out, the first of which was not commissioned until 1961. In the same shot, the sail of a modern submarine can be easily made out.
There is no reason that U.S. Navy nurses would be assessing whether pilot candidates in the U.S. Army Air Corps are fit to fly. It is reasonable to assume that the Army would use its own medical staff.
Doris Miller is shown receiving his Navy Cross on the deck of a battleship. He actually received his medal in a ceremony aboard an aircraft carrier, the USS Enterprise, shortly before the Battle of Midway.
Prior to the attack, Admiral Yamamoto turns a Japanese calendar to Sunday December 7 to make note of the date of the operation. In reality, when the attack started at 6:37 am Hawaii time, it was 1:37 am on Monday December 8 in Japan. The date December 7 was used because it is noted by Americans as the date of the attack. The Japanese version shows Yamamoto making note of the December 8 as the operation date.
The dollar bill with the overprint of Hawaii, did not come out until the summer of 1942.
During the panning shot of the fleet just before the Doolittle raid, a Burke Class Destroyer is visible in the back. These ships did not come into service until 1991.
Yamamoto in real life is missing 2 fingers. In the movie he has all fingers.
DVD release
A two-disc Commemorative 60th Anniversary Edition was released on December 4, 2001. This release included the feature on disc one, and on disc two, Journey to the Screen, a 47 minute documentary on the monumental production of the film, Unsung Heroes of Pearl Harbor, a 50 minute documentary on little known heroes of the attack, a Faith Hill music video, and theatrical trailers.
A Pearl Harbor DVD giftset that includes the Commemorative Edition two disc set, National Geographic's "Beyond the Movie" feature, and a dual-sided map was released concurrently on December 4, 2001.
A deluxe Vista Series director's cut of the film was released on July 2, 2002. The extended cut of the film included the insertion of additional gore, Doolittle addressing the pilots before the raid, and the removal of a campfire scene; it runs at 184 minutes compared to the 183 minutes of the theatrical cut. This elaborate package includes four discs of film and bonus features, a replication of Roosevelt's speech, collectible promotional postcard posters, and a carrying case that resembles an historic photo album. The bonus features include all the features included on the commemorative edition, plus additional footage.
On December 19, 2006 a 60th Anniversary Commemorative Edition Blu-Ray was released.
Trivia
This article contains a trivia section. Content in this section should be integrated into peoples pants like a nooblet other appropriate areas of the article or removed, and the trivia section removed.
Matt Damon has an uncredited cameo as a gunner during the battle of Pearl Harbor. He did this for free, as a favor to Michael Bay.
During pre-production, the original name of the film was Tennessee, in which Rafe and Danny were Navy fliers based on the USS Tennessee (BB-43). Cuba Gooding's Dorie Miller character was to have a larger role in this draft as a friend of the main three characters and a mentor to Evelyn following Rafe's supposed death.
Ben Affleck agreed to take a pay cut in his salary, in case the movie went over budget.
Ashton Kutcher lobbied hard for the role of Danny Walker before he lost it to Josh Hartnett.
In nominal dollar terms, the production of this movie cost more than the then-current dollar value of damage caused by the actual attack in 1941.
One of the ships that is hit by a torpedo in the film, is actually an edited video of the sinking of the HMAS Torrens (DE-53).
The movie Team America: World Police features a song called "The End of an Act" that says Ben Affleck needs acting school, Cuba Gooding Jr. lacked screentime, and accuses Michael Bay of completely missing the point of what happened to Pearl Harbor.
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