avatar time 😎

This is so fucking funny, apparently “war bad” is liberal propaganda now??? Yes, war IS bad you fucking dipshit.

All Quiet on the Western Front (the original book) was written by a German WWI veteran who was determined to show just how utterly horrifying, disgusting, and senseless the war- and by extension all war- was. The book and its adaptations take great pains to portray the suffering endured by the common soldiers on both sides, who didn’t even really want to fight but were manipulated/forced into it by those in power. The book was even banned in Nazi Germany and the author had to flee the country because the Nazis believed the book was “anti-German” and would hamper their war efforts by showing the German people the real horrors of war.

The Nazis didn’t just force Erich Maria Remarque to flee and ban his book.

They killed his youngest sister in retaliation, going as far as to tell her “Your brother is beyond our reach, but you will not escape us” (paraphrased.)

When he spoke about the horrors of war, when she spoke in compassion and love for people, what were they awarded with?

Erich was forced to leave with his life in threat, a man who laid down his own life thinking it was for his country. Elfriede was beheaded, brutally, taken from her life and her family and made an example.

The people who tell you stories of war in glory have long been disdained by soldiers. Wilfred Owen, another soldier in WWI (though British), calls out Jessie Pope (an infamous propagandist for the British government) for her role in sending young men to die in Dulce et Decorum Est.

He died just a week before the war ended.

We have records of Sumerian soldiers who had seen combat fighting ghosts in their sleep. This is not glory. This is not honour. This is sacrificing the young for the whims of old, uncompassionate, unfeeling and uncaring men. Bitter, making deposits in blood to cash out the war.

When they tell you stories of war in glory, remember that the heroes they speak of made their victories upon mountains of their dead.

Everything is exceedingly normal until it isn't.

I wanted the movie to test the capabilities of every single craft in moviemaking. There are huge sets, huge props, complex wardrobe. I wanted it to feel like an old movie that was made in the heyday of Hollywood. Luscious, and beautiful, and operatic and all that. [...] 'cause I didn't want the audiance to go, "Oh, it's digital," because once you introduce that, it's like a license for people not to believe things. [...] If you do it for real, people have a sense.