World War II was totally unrealistic
At first I thought the author might be poking fun at the war -- then I realized that he was actually poking fun at himself. People have high standards for fiction, yet some of the strangest things are real-life stories from history.
A couple of my favorites from the Pacific Theater: 1) Radar detected the Japanese strike force approaching Pearl Harbor, but the guy in charge said it was a glitch. 2) The Japanese planned to declare war before attacking, but mix-ups in the way coded messages were processed kept the Japanese delegation from delivering the declaration of war until after the attack, and 3) On several occasions Yamamoto made battle plans that stood some chance of success -- only to have Army guys muck around with the details. That had to get pretty frustrating.
You really can't make some of this shit up.
This is the effect of telling the histories of nations as if they were groups of 5 people. It's convenient to say sentences like, "Germany then instigated the Battle of Britain, causing Churchill to say X and beginning a lengthy battle," but anything like this is a gross simplification. When nations take action, the whole org-chart needs to move into gear, which takes extra planning and arguing and wrangling and doubting. It doesn't seem realistic because we're told the results of decisions and battles as if they were they were made by anthropomorphised countries with a leader and some generals. But it's always more complicated than that. Trimming facts off at the first few levels of details makes everything feel, well, oversimplified.
interesting view on the history. Of course, over here in Europe, we go into great detail when looking at WWII in history at school (at least the European part) and to be honest, I have to agree with the poster - all this feels kind of surreal and inaccurate.
I guess this is already some consequence of history-rewriting going on in some parts, combined with strange coincidences. But in general, yes, the whole story, especially when told in such few words as the original article, doesn't make a lot of sense.
On a different note: I totally agree on his opinion about Bablyon 5. There are few other series that managed to capture me as much as B5 did. Especially seasons 2 and 3 are brilliant and I would highly recommend everyone with even just a slight liking of Sci-Fi to give at least these two seasons a go.
If you want, you can start at S1, but it's quite slowly building up story, so you might get bored out, but in the context of the whole series, quite many episodes in S1 do make a lot of sense too.
"An intelligent observation of the facts of human existence will reveal to shallow-minded folk who sneer at the use of coincidence in the arts of fiction and drama that life itself is little more than a series of coincidences." -- Rafael Sabatini
This article was probably meant as humour, but I can't help but notice that fiction and life are two very different things. Fiction makes sense; life very often does not.
And then, in a sub-plot hardly ever mentioned, we have this superhero-like guy with the weird name of Audie Murphy! Who is too young to even be in the war to begin with! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audie_Murphy
You want a historical "yeah, right" moment, then take the sequence of events that start WWI. If it was a tv show, you would be thinking the writer was on drugs.
Apparently we're supposed to believe that in the middle of the war the Germans attacked their allies the Russians, starting an unwinnable conflict on two fronts, just to show how sneaky and untrustworthy they could be? And that they diverted all their resources to use in making ever bigger and scarier death camps, even in the middle of a huge war?
Sheer ignorance. Simply read Mein Kampf. The Nazis had an urgent program to conquer the whole world ASAP because of they thought there was too much cross-breeding with "inferior" races. They had to get started right then! The death camps? To rid the world of so-called genetic contamination. It's all spelled out in Hitler's books. (There was a sequel book.)
EDIT: Okay, I get to the end, and the article is all tongue in cheek.
But Churchill remained the awful strategist he had always been. Outstanding organizer for the Navy, inspiring leader, but: Norway, Anzio, the Dodecanese...
He forgot the Japanese Balloon Bombs and the US Government coverup of them.
http://www.unexplainable.net/artman/publish/article_8992.sht...
He should have gone further in his analysis.
"Battalions of stormtroopers dressed in all black, check"
Maybe at the onset at the war, but for the last year or two it was a pathetic lot of teenagers and the elderly after all the desirable soldiers had all been killed, captured or maimed.
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>Apparently we're supposed to believe that in the middle of the war the Germans attacked their allies the Russians, starting an unwinnable conflict on two fronts, just to show how sneaky and untrustworthy they could be?
That's not fair. They explained it in the backstory - the Germans were short on fuel and needed full access to Caspian hydrocarbon reserves.
WWII fits the stereotypes so well because it originated (a lot of) them.
No intellectual curiosity was satisfied by the article.
history has been shoehorned into a narrative that fits well with the motivations of the victors. that this narrative is childish, condescending to its audience, and inaccurate is hardly surprising.
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It may have been unrealistic but I hope nobody makes a sequel.
I dont know the author and why its here on HN, but its easy to make obvious statements that most of TV shows are oversimplified BS. I'd be interested to read his vision of true WWII history though. I think the truth is that its was complex combination of various forces. None of them were evil/good or black/white, simply because it was a story about huge masses of ppl , who are hmmm.. more complex than good elves and bad orcs. Perhaps its hard to see from US but here in Europe its still a big deal that should be touched with respect as so many ppl died and so many lives changed during that period.. RIP
Luckily, Monster Quest, Ghost Hunters and all those other shows should satisfy any desire for fiction on the History Channel.
Churchhill did have a frikkin amazing ability to produce one-liners. In retrospect it was almost inhuman.
Reminded me of that Mark Twain quote (apocriphal?) "Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't."
"The greatest generation", indeed.
my god. I can hear the air quotes.
"The difference between reality and fiction? Fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy