The Thin Red Line/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Adaptation Displacement: As usual, many people have not heard of the book.
  • Awesome Music: The entire soundtrack by Hans Zimmer is a symphonic piece, probably his best work to date (and yes, that is saying something). Many people who haven't seen the film have heard the soundtrack in trailers for other, lesser war movies. Some people were even angry at Pearl Harbor when the beautiful trailer music taken from this film got them into theatres to see that film.
  • Do Not Do This Cool Thing: Averted in general. The film is pretty brutal, warfare is not depicted as something overly glamorous and there's not a word about patriotism (or any other high ideals for that matter). The tone is pretty much very down-to-earth.
    • Truth in Television: There are no Red Shirts, no Five-Man Band and few archetypal characters, unlike most war films. All the soldiers have slightly different personalities but generally tend to absorb the personality of their unit. Anyone Can Die, and new faces come in and go throughout the film, like they would in a real unit (the book was based on James Jones' real life experience) subverting the standard fictional narrative arc. Much of the film's narrative is experienced in the characters' heads, and the climactic battle that serves as a formative experience for the entire unit occurs in the first half of the film. In the rest of the film we observe the aftermath.
  • Heartwarming Moments: The film's opening in the Melanesian village; the death of Pvt. Coombs (a very young Matt Doran) as his fellow soldiers try to comfort him.
  • Straw Man Has a Point: Lt. Colonel Tall is presented as exactly the kind of commander no one would want to work for, a Jerkass who cares more about glory through military achievement than about his soldiers' lives. But he may be right about a lot of things, too; men die in war, and Staros may be too compassionate for the job. And when he has a full understanding of the tactical situation he comes up with plans that ultimately work.
  • Tear Jerker: Many, many moments.
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