What is it you hate about 1941
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Teremov — 14 years ago(January 16, 2012 09:00 PM)
I just watched 1941, and I found it way funnier than Airplane!, which was no more than a silly parody of Zero Hour! I watched that also. ZAZ just took the original plot, rewrote it in a silly way and threw in some random gags, while Spielberg, Zemeckis and Gale (ZGS?) actually tried to come up with something new, crazy and risky. It was a greatly directed, wonderfully casted hit-and-miss madness. Airplane! was only a hit-and-miss parody.
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matt197981 — 14 years ago(January 23, 2012 12:21 PM)
I love this movie it's funny and makes me laugh I love the chaotic feel of the whole thing
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gulag — 14 years ago(March 26, 2012 10:13 AM)
When I saw this in the movie theatres back in the day I remember it had a lot of bad press. I went in expecting to dislike it. But I was pleasantly surprised that I actually found it fascinating. I just didn't think it was a comedy. To me it was a strange surreal take on war hysteria. As a comedy it doesn't work, Spielberg isn't a comedy director. But as a strange chaotic surreal farce it's quite interesting, if a minor work. It's a shame we have to read words like 'hilarious' on the poster or DVD case, but 'hysterical' fits.
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pv61 — 13 years ago(June 09, 2012 06:26 AM)
First of all, I didn't find it funny.
Then, there was John Candy,
and then there was some kind of weird lighting, very uncomfortable, blurry, in the beginning, that made it look like those scenes in TO BE OR NOT TO BE, where Ms Bancroft demanded vaseline filter lenses
I could have stand the vaseline and Candy, but the plot was not at all funny to me.
I liked the dance number performed by the navy boy in the contest and Treat Williams, that's all
Seems like Mr Speilberg's sense of humor is a very weird one, I like most of the stuff he has directed, except this and HOOK -
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CannibalCraig — 13 years ago(October 29, 2012 08:29 AM)
I don't know why people don't like this. I grew up watching it and I still roll over laughing whenever I watch this. I am not even a huge Spielberg fan, but this movie was hilarious.
I'm just a guy that likes horror flicks. -
ravi02 — 13 years ago(November 02, 2012 11:25 AM)
It tries to be a wacky screwball comedy (like It's A Mad, Mad, Mad World) and fails completely. The film's entire idea of a joke is showing people screaming and stuff exploding. Over and over. For two hours!
I'm a big fan of Spielberg, but 1941 is the one film of his that I outright hate. -
parillamilt — 13 years ago(December 10, 2012 11:43 AM)
The OP asked what you guys HATED about this movie, not why some of you think this is a great and funny movie. Please start your own thread.
Why it didn't work for me:
Tons of money thrown into a movie that maybe shouldn't have been made in the first place. Bigger & better does not translate into funny and more funny.
A script that needed more work. The humor got lost somewhere.
A bunch of big stars with little parts and little to do.
Over emphasis on facial reaction shots (a Spielberg trademark).
Scenes so planned out to the smallest detail that it got in the way of the gag.
Sure, there were funny moments, but it just didn't gel as a whole. -
joe_538 — 12 years ago(December 15, 2013 07:43 PM)
Stretch tried to rape Betty and Wally went to save her. That's not the kind of scene to be included in a comedy.
Now substitute Stretch, Betty, and Wally with Bluto, Olive Oyl, and Popeye.
Back to the Future?
Bronco Billy?
Robin Hood: Men in Tights?
The Volunteers?
The Guide for the Married Man? (Wally Cox segment)
The Three Amigos?
Uncle Buck?
In Lady and the Tramp, it is implied that the stray dogs who chase Lady do so because she's in heat, and would've had their way with her had Tramp not intervened.
Another thing is that the "foggy" cinematography in this film made this film look very depressing.
California by the ocean in December. It reminded me of The Summer of `42
The climax of, Dennis, Tree, Kelso vs. the Japanese sub was also very confusing and pretty boring, too. We can't even tell who won or lost.
I'd say the Japanese won the Battle of Los Angeles. They inflicted more damage and took a prisoner without suffering any casualties. Not to mention the damage caused by the airplanes, anti-aircraft guns, runaway tank, and rioting. "Boring" is hardly the word I'd use. But hey, some people find Airplane! and Blazing Saddles boring. -
IMDb_wanderer — 13 years ago(February 27, 2013 04:16 AM)
For the following reasons:
The Characters.
There were too many, and not all of them were worth following along with. More than a few were way out of place, and thus didn't work when it came to being funny (the Nazi officer on board the Jap sub who could only speak German is a huge example). As mentioned in this thread, a number of comedians were wasted in their specific roles. IMO, if there had been a few less characters in this movie, it may have been funnier, and more direct.
The Subject Matter.
There are ways in which a parody/satire/sendup can really work. Movies like
Airplane!
and
Hot Shots!
work because of their subject matter, where they parody one genre in particular in a certain way which makes it hilarious.
1941
fell flat because WWII was a real war, and they tried to parody something that was still fresh in a lot of people's minds at the time. They played on the hysteria that rocked America in the days following the attack on Pearl Harbor, along with the belief that Japanese forces were planning an invasion of mainland USA. And to portray that the US military was incapable of handling such a threat was just downright disrespectful to the real US military of the day, when compared to history.
The Film's Length.
Yeah, this was an issue to me. It could've been half an hour or more shorter than it was, and it would've told a better story.
Other Little Things:
Wild Bill defecting to the Japs after spending the whole movie preaching how great America was.
The US military bombing one of its own cities, and firing on its own air force.
Eddie Deezen.
The Japanese weren't funny. Also, they were the only ones that didn't suffer any kind of setback that befell virtually everybody else.
There was next to no character development. Hell, even today's crappy parody movies have more than this movie did.
The announcement that 1942 would be a much crazier year in the war. Yeah, like the Fall of Singapore, the bombing of Darwin, the Battle of Java, the Burma Railway, Kokoda, Guadalcanal and that's just the Pacific theatre. Try making a comedy out of all that!!!
They call me the wanderer.