Dambusters

[easyrider]

The Dambusters remake has gone back into its hangar, says Peter Jackson
Posted by Guy Adams
Tuesday, 10 November 2009 at 02:11 am


Earlier this year, Sir David Frost announced to much fanfare that he was to executive-produce a remake of the classic WW2 movie Dambusters, in conjunction with the Director, Producer and all round film mogul Peter Jackson.

A full-scale replica of a Lancaster bomber was built. Stephen Fry was brought in to write the script, and many chins were stroked over whether to rename the famous aircrew's pet dog, which in the original 1950s film is called Nigger.

That was then. Today, Mr Jackson - who holds purse strings for the project - was interviewed by the Hollywood Reporter. A couple of paragraphs from the end, he is said to have made a startling admission: the film, which has been so eagerly trumpeted, is now apparently "on the back burner."

Being "on the back burner" is of course Hollywood-speak for "we've lost interest in this and it'll quite possibly never get made." Which would be a huge disappointment for Messers Fry and Frost, not to mention several generations of British movie-goers.

Asked why he'd taken the decision to "back-burner" the film, Mr Jackson allegedly told the Hollywoood Reporter that the Dambusters story, about the RAF crew who helped develop the bouncing bomb, which was tested over the Ladybower reservoir in Derbyshire (like in the picture above), is"too English."

To which I respond with a simple, Anglicised question: what the blazes did he expect?



UPDATE - Tuesday 6.20am GMT... Peter Jackson's spokesman just returned my call. The film remains "in development," but does not have a date to begin shooting. Mr Jackson denies saying that the Dambusters story was "too English" in his Hollywood Reporter interview. Instead he claims to have described it as "very English." I hope to get to the bottom of this extremely serious matter tomorrow.

[spider]

No doubt if it is produced, the ' hero ' will be an American etc etc...

[CS Gass]

No doubt if it is produced, the ' hero ' will be an American etc etc...

Probably played by a British actor too

[Lordinajamjar]

So they call the dog Niagara, rename British stiff upper lip to viagara, reset the story in Vietnam and Jane Fonda plays the bouncing bomb. Simple. Whats so English about that?

[spider]

The one about the capture of the enigma machine was a complete piss take...

[rod and serpent]

No doubt if it is produced, the ' hero ' will be an American etc etc...

You`d almost thinks the Americans had won the war single handed.

Even though they tipped up late for both world wars .:redface:

[cooley]

You`d almost thinks the Americans had won the war single handed.

I thought they did.

One of thw most prominent members of the Dambuster squadron was American as it happens. In fact most of the aircrew in the squadron weren't Brits at all.

[Turkey]

Yeah, a lot of the air crew were from the commomwealth, one was american; McCarthy.
The bomb, the aircraft, the commander, and many of the crews were British....
This remake has been an ongoing project now for something like 15 years...

[sofa]

You`d almost thinks the Americans had won the war single handed.

Even though they tipped up late for both world wars .:redface:

USSR and USA actualy. After the British Army Dunkirk run away and
the Singapore surrender to a inferior force.
Britian's major contribution was as a staging post for the attack on Europe.

[RoyalGreenJacket]

USSR and USA actualy. After the British Army Dunkirk run away and
the Singapore surrender to a inferior force.
Britian's major contribution was as a staging post for the attack on Europe.

so you don't really think the British contributed to WW2 then sofa?

i suggest you re-learn your history before you offend a lot of people by belittling those (including thousands of Irishmen) who fought and died fighting in the British Army in WW2.

you probably don't believe in wearing a Poppy and you are probably in denial about Auschwitz too?

get a grip.

[hptmurphy]

USSR and USA actualy. After the British Army Dunkirk run away and
the Singapore surrender to a inferior force.
Britian's major contribution was as a staging post for the attack on Europe

.

have a look at D Day 6th June 1944 just to show how 'brilliant the yanks were'

By the end of the day none of the American forces had achieved their objectives either by land or sea.

Despite What happened in SPR it was actually the Royal Navy.. yes the Brits, who saved the yanks bacon on two of the beaches with Destroyers coming into porovide close support where the yanks could hit an elephants arse witha a fist full of gravel,
and the a cruiser neutraliseda battery the yanks had shelled for 24hrs without success.

the Brits, canadians and french had achieved all their objectives by the time scale in question and were almost caught out as the forces the Americans were supposed to have neutralised were now in a position to flank the brits and the canadians.

It was the Americans who failed to take the second bridge at Nijmegen causing the british to be cut off for 3 days and lost the 3rd bridge and 9,000 men,

They were loosing carriers hand over fist in the pacific because they wouldn't listen to the brits and get rid of wooden flight decks from carriers

Yeah send over all the equipment you want and afew quid Mr Roosevelt but keep your people out of the planning and fighting as they often caused as many problems as they solved.

[paul g]

.

have a look at D Day 6th June 1944 just to show how 'brilliant the yanks were'

By the end of the day none of the American forces had achieved their objectives either by land or sea.

Despite What happened in SPR it was actually the Royal Navy.. yes the Brits, who saved the yanks bacon on two of the beaches with Destroyers coming into porovide close support where the yanks could hit an elephants arse witha a fist full of gravel,
and the a cruiser neutraliseda battery the yanks had shelled for 24hrs without success.

the Brits, canadians and french had achieved all their objectives by the time scale in question and were almost caught out as the forces the Americans were supposed to have neutralised were now in a position to flank the brits and the canadians.

It was the Americans who failed to take the second bridge at Nijmegen causing the british to be cut off for 3 days and lost the 3rd bridge and 9,000 men,

They were loosing carriers hand over fist in the pacific because they wouldn't listen to the brits and get rid of wooden flight decks from carriers

Yeah send over all the equipment you want and afew quid Mr Roosevelt but keep your people out of the planning and fighting as they often caused as many problems as they solved.

Bit unfair on the Amercias they did after all lead the breakout from Normandy.

Compared to the numbers of carriers they had, the Americans lost relatively few, and the wooden flight decks did allow them to carry more aeroplanes, which was importabt in the Pacific, Japan also had wooden decks on its carriers, hence why they lost four at Midway.

Weight was a factor in he choice of wooden decks, after the washington treaty, no navy could have a carrier force that amounted to more than 69,000, the weight saved by the wooden decks resulted in the Ameriicans and Japans being able to build more and larger carriers than the british who had armoured flight decks, but carried fewer aircraft and were designed for operations against opponents like Italy and Germany who had no carriers at all.

[Flamingo]

Bit unfair on the Amercias they did after all lead the breakout from Normandy.
.

After the majority of German armoured forces had been sent to the other flank in front of the British / Canadian / Polish forces after pressure from Operation Epsom and Goodwood, weakening the forces in front of the yanks to an extent that they were able to attack successfully. Not wishing a flame war, just to point out there was more than one factor.

[ollie]

[QUOTE=hptmurphy;277753].


"It was the Americans who failed to take the second bridge at Nijmegen causing the british to be cut off for 3 days and lost the 3rd bridge and 9,000 men,"

There were far more important factors at the heart of the british fiasco in Arnhem then the americans failing to capture the Nijmagen bridge.

Piss poor planning and over confidence at all levels chiefly amongst them, not to mention the poor training of the british airborne division

[GoneToTheCanner]

Would they have even considered D-Day or any of the European theatre amphibious landings without American industrial might, chiefly providing critical landing craft (the British shipping industry could not provide anything like nearly enough LCIs / LST ships), critical shipping transport (the British had no equivalent to the classic Liberty ship, turned out at rapid speed by the Kaiser yards, at a rate never equaled by the British), critical air support (again, no British equivalent to the C-47 or the masses of P51s / P38s / P47s and the thousands of US and Allied aircrews trained in America and Canada), not to mind the stupendous quantities of ammunition and war material supplied and sustained by American logistic effort. Apart from that, Epsom and Goodwood are hardly hallmarks of British military genius,given that they repeatedly sent Shermans(I wonder who made them?) and infantry soldiers head-on against the SS and their 88s. Arnhem, for all it's mistakes, wouldn't have been remotely possible without the Americans. Taking pops at the Americans is an easy game but not sustainable by virtue of cold hard fact.
regards
GttC