Saving Private Ryan

Audio problem: After the Rangers break through the German lines at Normandy, Captain Miller delivers a message on the hand radio. After he turns his back to the camera and stops talking, he continues to move his mouth. (00:24:30)

Audio problem: When the Americans are defending the bridge, there's a scene where the guy with the m1 carbine is shooting his rifle. When he shoots the last round, his rifle "pings". Only the m1 Garand "pings". (02:18:10)

ratfink808

Audio problem: When Ryan and Miller make their way to the bridge, they reload and fire their weapons behind sandbags. Miller begins to fire his Thompson but it jams and we see him try to rack the charging handle to fix it. He then tries to fire again but the gun fails to do so; all while we hear the sound of the Thompson firing. The editors added the sound of it firing despite the fact that it jams in the final cut.

Matdan97

Audio problem: On the beach, a soldier with a B.A.R. puts his arm around Captain Miller's neck and says they don't have a chance. His line carries over to the next shot of Miller unwrapping his Thompson, but we can see that soldier behind Miller, and he's not talking. (00:16:00)

Scott215

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Mistakes

Factual error: After the soldiers' initial disembarkment they are shown crouching in groups near the shore and later running towards the bunkers. Unlike the movie shows, anything even as simple as crouching behind the tank traps, let alone actually standing up and running, was impossible at Dog Green Sector and indeed for anyone when pinned down by a machine gun from a high far-away position. In the real-life landing at Dog Green within 7-10 minutes all the officers of the landing company were dead and the survivors inert. They could do nothing except throw away all their equipment and slowly crawl up the beach, shielded from bullets by the incoming tide and dead bodies. 1 hour 40 minutes after landing twelve (known) survivors made it to the base of the cliffs. Only 2 had enough strength left to go on and fight with another group. (The second wave, apart from one boat which was almost entirely killed, opted to land elsewhere when they saw the fate of the first wave.) In this way the movie rather poorly represents what it meant to make a properly opposed landing on D-Day - although whether this is justified or not is another matter. (00:07:00 - 00:07:40)

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Quotes

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Trivia

Trivia: The movie was shot in chronological order, which is unusual for a film. Spielberg chose to shoot it that way so that the actors would feel like they were going through the experience in the same order as the characters they play, and they lose friends on the way. This helped create the resentment towards Ryan, who doesn't share the journey with them.

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Questions

Question: When they are preparing to attack the machine gun emplacement guarding the radar, Captain Miller asks 'Who's going left?' There's a long silence and finally Jackson responds that he'll do it - he'll go left. What is the significance of going left? I'm assuming that it is more dangerous, but if this is the case, why? Also, why does Captain Miller ask for volunteers for someone to go left? (As he picks himself and Mellish to go middle and right, respectively).

bbarrington

Chosen answer: There's no tree cover to the left. Whoever goes that way will likely be spotted and targeted before the others and get gunned down, but it's their best chance that one of them will make it into grenade range of the nest before they're all killed. It's not a job anyone sane would volunteer for, and the Captain is trying to get someone to volunteer so he doesn't have to potentially order TWO men to their deaths on a mission that all of them, including him, think isn't worthwhile.

Captain Defenestrator

Answer: Most people are not ambidextrous so running left means you'll have shoot left or use the right shoulder to shoot as you're running left which is much harder to do, try this out.

Answer: As I seem to remember, the squad a viewing the gun position from the side and the gun is viewed pointing from their right to left, correct. So if someone is going to the left and is by the MG crew they, as said MG crew turn the gun to bring them under fire, would more than likely be the first target in line.

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