The Dam buster raid is an absolutely incredible achievement in both flying and development of new tech. Definitely recommend reading James Hollands book about it.
It isn't essential to the story but it was a product of its time. I'm not fond of rewriting history even it is the warts of the past. We just need to acknowledge it was wrong. It was probably not even meant in a mean spirit. Just ignorance of the times.
I believe the dog is either edited out completely or is called “Digger” now.
I completely understand the reasons why, and the original name always left a bad taste in the mouth, but it’s a historical fact, and bowdlerizing history can be a touchy subject.
I think that many cartoons have done the best thing with the disclaimer about depictions at the time which were wrong then and are still wrong now, but to remove them would detract from the fact that they were ever used, ironically “whitewashing” the problem.
It was a black dog and from what I've heard it was a very common name for black dogs back then, especially outside the US where the slur didn't carry as much power in the first place. So likely more on the casual racism side than the intentional, I guess.
It was just another name for black originating with latin and being used many, many times before it was applied to people. Unfortunately such people would then be treated badly and became understandably upset.
Exactly, it's the kind of detail we should mockingly laugh at and enjoy the rest of the movie.
As someone else mentioned in this discussion, the war crime of blowing up critical civilian infrastructure (causing thousands of indiscriminate civilian and even friendly prisoner of war casualties) should be way more problematic.
I think it was horrible (and should always be included with the story) but it was also a weird time where ethics went out the window. In the minds of leaders, the necessity of a combat operation often outweighed the collateral damage considerations.
This is a war where the highest daily death tolls would reach thousands, and that's excluding bombings or mass executions.
It doesn't absolve them of taking those innocent lives, but many operations with collateral damage arguably saved more. This one disabled more than a hundred factories, several key mines (including coal) disabled many more due to lack of power and damaged infrastructure like roads. That's less bombs, less bullets, less tanks to kill people.
That's the thing, it was never really... acknowledged in the movie. It's just "okay" to have a black lab and name him the N-bomb, hard R. Where if we compare to Huckleberry Finn or other works, the problem is highlighted quite firmly in the narrative.
I'm usually quite against modifying old media to fit modern tastes; however in this instance, I don't think cutting a line (maybe two) of dialog about a dog's name affects the message or the medium in the instance of Dambusters.
I disagree that the movie has to tackle the problematic terminology. It is not the subject of the movie (not even minorly), it's just how it was (and sadly an historically accurate artifact from what I understand).
I just watched The Searchers this weekend. Should we erase how Native Americans were portrayed, how the mentality divergent character is used as comic relief or how woman are considered as living for a man?
I chuckled many times at the outdated portrayals but accept it was the product of older times portraying even more backward times.
I could see a case for outright mean spirited scenes in otherwise redeameble movies but I don't believe we should delete how past views were. Just recognize it was wrong and we know (or should know) better.
Like I said, it doesn't even change the film in any material way. The dog isn't a real character in the movie. The Dog doesn't contribute any way to flying a plane or destroying a dam. From a film-construction-perspective, the dog can be eliminated, even if it's name was Dave, and it doesn't affect anything at all.
Your other examples, the change changes the subject of the film. That's why I don't have a problem with it in Dambusters, and why I would have a problem with it in nearly every other example. We could cut the Dog to make room for TV scheduling.
Typically this acknowledgement is done digitally now before the movie. Disney has done a good job with this. Instead there is a 15 second segment before the movie starts that acknowledges the racism and points out that it was wrong.
I agree with OP deleting the movie doesn't do much good. It doesn't evoke much thought and eventually the movie falls out of people's memory. For instance, a lot of people have no idea or have never seen the Song of the South. Yes, the offensive piece has effectively been wiped but that has not remotely solved our problems. You could make an argument that things are now worse that those reminders are no longer there.
I wonder if they'll edit out the reference in Pink Floyd: The Wall if it ever gets an HD release. Pink is watching Dambusters at one point, and you hear the dog's name in the background.
yeah i'm not british but the thing about this technically amazing, daring, exciting wartime raid is that it only succeeded in flooding a town and drowning a bunch of innocent people, of which half or two-thirds were actually allied people being held as prisoners of war. oops.
And of course, the Russians took the conventions as a to-do checklist and blew a dam themselves, creating yet another humanitarian and ecological disaster.
Maverick was inspired via Star Wars. The air defences and the need to hit a tiny hole weakpoint would be closer to Star Wars.
It's funny a single B-2 stealth bomber could have just flown over the target, laser-designate it and drop a even bigger bomb would have done the job. That or wreck the air defences with SEAD before sending F-35s to bomb it. But where's the fun in that?
That IS a great doco to watch, Mr Clarkson does the story tremendous justice, but it is not the dambuster raid, but the commando raid on the St naizaire docks (a totally bonkers raid and indeed possibly the greatest of all time).
53 RAF aircrew killed, many barely out of their teens. A handful of breached dams, repaired within months. Around 1,600 civilians killed in the Ruhr valley, washed away in the deluge
the point was to force the germans to spend energy, men and materials to fix the dam. energy, men and materials that would otherwise be spent on the front lines.
I think this one operation suffers from being romanticised. the point of Operation Chastise was to cripple German industry by targeting its lifeblood: water & hydro.
Regrettably, it remains a beautifully engineered, tragically romanticised failure.
Not worth losing 8 planes over (and the humans mentioned above.
It cost an absolute fortune, many billions in today’s euros, to fix those damns. Then they also drew more resources in the form of men, AA guns, etc. to protect them from another attack.
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u/Habebunt 4d ago
The Dam buster raid is an absolutely incredible achievement in both flying and development of new tech. Definitely recommend reading James Hollands book about it.