It’s an incredible film ; and the opening alone get’s it in any discussion of war movies. However, I too find the film incredibly corny and silly at times. The letter at the beginning. The mission to rescue him - which of course didn’t happen in real life. The guy was brought home, for propaganda, but they didn’t wastefully send a bunch of guys to get him. Great war film? Yeah. But by no means the best (although I know many people disagree with me).
I prefer The Longest Day.
It was a work of fiction, based on the Sullivan brothers.Are you implying it actually happened?
No, the German that Upham smoked at the end was "Steamboat Willie’, the guy from the Machine gun nest, not the soldier that killed Mellish.See below for picture comparisons.
the latter of the two being an SS officer as per the SPR online dictionary
Old Ryan is actually another actor named Harrison Young
Originally Posted by KEYSTONE TWO-EIGHT:
It was a work of fiction, based on the Sullivan brothers.Are you implying it actually happened?
Actually it was based on the Niland brothers, not the Sullivans, the Sullivans were the reason brothers/relatives were no longer posted together on ships in the NAVY.
Thanks hawkeye! your name suits you! I had never heard of them before!
It seems that some non-American people have some misconceptions, hell almost an inferiority complex, about how Americans view our role in WW2. For the most part, particularly those who are students of history, we don’t believe that the US single handedly won the war. If anything, from viewing this and other message boards, many non Americans downplay the US’s role. Sure we came in 2 years later than the UK. But when we did arrive we came in full steam.
I don’t see how anyone can view SPR and come away with the idea that Americans believe we won the war on our own. The squad in the movie suffered 75% casualties, and would have been wiped out if not for the very timely arrival of the P51’s. I wonder if some go into this and other movies expecting that, and see things that just aren’t there in order to confirm a self-fulfilling point of view.
And as for complaints that other Allied forces weren’t featured, well no one complains about American soldiers not being featured in Stalingrad, oh wait, it’s because they weren’t there!! SPR is a movie focusing on one small rifle squad dealing only with other US troops over a span of a few days, not about super-soldiers marching into Berlin and slitting Hitler’s throat.
Just came across this thread. For me, “Saving Private Ryan” is a very good war movie. It looks right, and works hard at looking right. There are some goofs and improbabilities, but these things happen. The plot may have been a bit sentimental but, after all, this is a drama, not a documentary. I notice that some have problems with the opening scene. I actually found this very impressive as a well-sustained battle scene, notwithstanding that one or two little goofs crept in at this point. I would have few reservations in recommending SPR to somebody who wanted to see a good, reasonably authentic war movie; a lot more than I could say for many other WW2 movies. Best regards, JR.
Anything to do with the actual location? 
There was a joke about that, don’t remember it but the basic idea of it was Wexford Coast wasn’t chosen because of the Normandy similarities but because Wexford villages were still in 1944.
It’s a good all around WW2 action film, the story is loosely based on brothers serving in WW2 but in the real story two of the brothers survived.
Interestingly, for much of the younger generation this was our first “war movie”. Definitely something that sticks with you for a long time.