How about a movie about Corregidor ? Long overdue ... might be alittle uncomfortable if they show the treatment of the survivors ...

You may remember that the original Midway was done in Sensurround (originally developed for Earthquake (1974)). This used large sub-sonic speakers that would make you feel shaking, be it from the ground moving or bombs hitting an aircraft carrier.

And now we have 3-D. Will 3-D have a similar life span as Sensurround?

Not to worry, in this latest Hollywood version of history, the Japanese win this time and in the end convert to islam and thank allah.

I want to know if the screenplay uses the recent research that radically rewrites the Japanese side of the battle. The real story of Midway is even more impressive than the accepted version has it.

Now, if they can only resist shoehorning major roles for women in the movie

Why? Kate Beckinsale would be perfect playing Adm. Nimitz. Imagine her standing on the deck of an aircraft carrier in a bikini shooting down kamikazis with a machinegun. It may not be hundred percent accurate, but any effort will need to be fictionalized for dramatic clarity.

recent research that radically rewrites the Japanese side of the battle?

Elaborate, please?

I agree JT. This is a great chance for Hollywood to show how great and brave americans are. But they won't do it. They will have to show the struggle of the black man being relegated to mess duties of officers (which made them privy to real history), the women who contributed, a couple of love interests and of course, Japan cannot be shown as the imperialist haters that were vicious in their treatment of american soldiers. So, it just can't work in today's world. Truth cannot be tolerated. ww

The original movie was a darned good one. I'm just wondering how Hollywood will shove an anti-American plot line in this one.

RE: Recent Research
Here's one good book:
http://www.amazon.com/Shattered-Sword-Untold-Battle-Midway/dp/1574889230

'From the producers of "The Pacific"' isn't a selling point to me. I thought "The Pacific" was weak and failed to tell a coherent story. It didn't include enough context about the larger war to show why the battles mattered.

Steve: the account of Midway that most Americans know is based on Walter Lord's Incredible Victory, and/or Gordon Prange's Miracle at Midway. Both those gentlemen depended on a book called Midway: The Battle that Doomed Japan, by Mitsuo Fuchida, for an account of events aboard the Japanese carriers. Fuchida was Nagumo's senior air commander and an eyewitness, so he should have been a reliable source. The problem is that Fuchida's book includes several glaring lies. Recent work using other Japanese sources demonstrates that Fuchida's account of the battle is just plain wrong in several ways, especially about the climactic dive-bombing attack that wrecked three Japanese carriers in five minutes. For more information, see Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully.

Eric, why would they mess with a character named Chester, when they have "Bull" Halsey?

But, you protest, Halsey wasn't on-board at Midway.

Hey, this is Hollywood. They wanted to cast Sammy Davis Jr. as Barney Oldfield.

Amazing. All the 'creative' stuff coming out of Hollyweed these days. And it's all ORIGINAL! I can hardly wait for the re-mark of all the Rocky movies.

As long as they don't pull a "Pearl Harbor"

I'm cheap and lazy and don't want to read the whole book, please share some of the details on how it varies from what most of us think happened.

The main item has to do with the American dive-bombing attack that wrecked Akagi, Kaga, and Soryu. Fuchida wrote that Nagumo was about to launch his strike against the American carriers when the American bombers attacked -- a classic case of "victory snatched away at the last second." Conversely, for the Americans, it's a miraculous "victory snatched from the jaws of defeat" -- if they'd attacked ten minutes later, their own carriers would have been facing a death sentence at the hands of the skilled Japanese flyers.

But that's not the way it happened. Preparing to launch a strike was a long and complex process, requiring a clear flight deck for at least 45 minutes. But the Japanese were landing and launching fighters so often that they never had a chance to spot the strike for launch. When the American bombers hit, the Japanese carrier flight decks were bare. They were at least an hour from launching any strike.

Fuchida told other lies, and Parshall and Tully document all of them. But that's the main one. While it was a magnificent victory and an immensely costly one for the USN, Midway was not a miracle.

IMO, one could do a pretty good movie about Torpedo 8. If Hollywood simply MUST have love interest... well... I guess CMDR Waldron and some of the other men were married or had sweethearts back home. The story could thus be told rather like "30 Second Over Tokyo".

I wish Hollywood would also (correctly) tell the story of Taffy 3. But I guess they are too busy making military-themed blockbusters like "Stop Loss" and "Rendition" and "Green Zone". / sarc

Eric - Kate Beckinsale would be perfect playing Adm. Nimitz. Imagine her standing on the deck of an aircraft carrier in a bikini shooting down kamikazis with a machinegun.

Hey, I'd pay to see that!