Question: After Capt Miller gets briefed on his new mission to rescue Pvt Ryan and enlists Upham for the mission, there is a long shot of the beach. What are those Zeppelin-like things that are floating around, tied to the ground? What are they good for? (00:39:50)
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).
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.
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.
Question: Jackson, the sniper of Miller's crew, states that if he was in a mile of Adolf Hitler, he would kill him. So, as they were driven to the beach, why didn't Jackson and other snipers try to pick off the the German guys who were firing the at the boats as the Americans left them?
Answer: Sniping needs stability - the movement of the waves under the boat would disrupt their aim so badly that they wouldn't have much hope of hitting anything.
Answer: Also, the machine gunners were under heavy cover. No one had a good shot at them.
Question: What do the soldiers have in their mouths during combat? Shortly after Miller's team disables the machine gun nest at Omaha Beach you can see Tom Sizemore take something out his mouth and drop it and later when Edith Piaf's song is playing he takes something out of a bag and puts it into his mouth again.
Answer: During landing scene he puts chewing tobacco in his mouth... later we see him take it out and then still later he takes more from the same pouch.
Answer: They're chewing gum, or maybe tobacco.
Answer: Chewing tobacco without a doubt.
Question: What is said between Upham and Steamboat Willie right before Willie gets shot? It's all in German and a very dramatic scene, one of my favorites. All I have is VHS and I can't find a complete script on the web.
Answer: Upham surprises the group of Germans, yelling at them to put their hands up and their weapons down. Willie says, "I know this soldier. I know this man." Upham says, "And shut your trap." Willie says, "Up-ham," and Upham shoots him.
Question: When the higgins boats were blown to bits, before we see Jackson in the front of the boat, when the ramps go down, the whole people in screen were shot, also where Jackson was, but later Jackson is there with Miller at the seawall, how could this be?
Answer: Jackson could simply have been slightly wounded, or even missed completely, and was simply knocked to the floor by those around him who were hit. He could even have just hit the deck when the guns opened up.
I'm pretty sure you can see Jackson fall over right before the shot of the MG-42 firing. Although I may be incorrect because a lot of people seem to have his same hair style and color.
Question: When the squad comes across the radar site and there's a big discussion about whether to attack it or not, why doesn't Jackson just kill them with his sniper rifle? He claims to be a "fine instrument of warfare", so why not give him the opportunity to test that theory?
Answer: On paper, that does sound like a good strategy. However, there is the human element to factor in. The moment one German soldier fell and the others heard the shot, they would have taken cover to get out of Jackson's line of fire. This would allow them to be ready and take away the U.S. squad's small element of surprise that they had achieved.
Question: In the opening Omaha beach scene, we see soldiers being mowed down as soon as they leave the LCVP's. Was this really the case in 1944? Were the bunkers really that close to to the shoreline?
Answer: Yes, this was the case unfortunately. Many soldiers lost there lives before exiting the boats. Several Normandy survivors say that the scene was the best interpretation of what actually happened on that day.
Question: In the last battle, Upham is seen running around with cartridges of ammunition. Why don't the people who need it just have it close by, instead of having him carry it all over the place?
Answer: Because before a battle gets underway you can never predict exactly who's going to need it. You could split the available ammunition equally between all the soldiers, but then you could easily find yourself in a situation where the enemy attack from a particular angle, so only certain soldiers can shoot back. End result, those soldiers run out of ammunition while other soldiers still have a full load that they can't use. Far better to give each soldier a moderate amount, but keep a quantity in reserve along with a soldier assigned to resupply those who run low.
Question: Why do they have rifles and equipment wrapped up in plastic before they actually fight?
Answer: The bags were meant to keep sand out of the actions and magazines as long as possible before they needed to be used in combat.
Question: In the radar site scene, after Miller lets Steamboat Willie free, Reiben wants to leave the mission, and Horvath is holding his gun on him, Jackson also pulls his gun on Horvath, his superior. Nobody seems to care about it. Doesn't it count as a serious violation of military law or something?
Answer: It certainly does, not only on Reiben's part but also Horvath's. However, Capt. Miller was in no place to arrest or write up anybody as they were behind enemy lines and thus, no Allied Military Police to place anybody in custody, he even offered Reiben the option to put in for transfer. Miller understood the men's frustration with the mission and the loss of Wade and Caparzo, so instead of citing orders like he did after Caparzo was killed, decided to defuse the situation by inquiring about the men's pool on what he did as a civilian, then telling them. It worked, as Horvath and Reiben lowered their weapons and calmed the other men.
What about the fact that the soldiers in the movie are shown cursing a lot. Wouldn't that also be in violation of military law?
Maybe in the ultra-PC world of today, but certainly not WW2. I separated from service nearly 20 years ago, but can definitely say it was almost against regs NOT to swear.
What is the ultra PC world?
PC means Political Correct.
Read UCMJ article 134.
No. Swearing is fine in the US Military. It's very common. When I was in there I heard at least 1 F Bomb almost every 2 minutes.
Question: Would the military really have sent a rescue mission to save one man during world war 2?
Answer: No, not really. There is no evidence of any such mission. While the U.S. military does have a policy of excusing the last remaining members of a family from combat after their siblings have been killed-known as the Sole Survivor Policy, officially implemented in 1948 but followed de facto before then - they never sent a unit into enemy territory to "save" anyone. The real soldier upon which the film is based, Frederick Niland, was simply taken out of active duty and sent home when it was learned that his three brothers were dead (though his eldest brother, Edward, was later revealed to be alive in a Japanese POW camp and ended up outliving Frederick).
Question: My tape ran out right at the end due to all the ad breaks and new bulletins so I missed the last 5 minutes. I saw right up to the bit after old Private Ryan does his speech to the grave and then his wife, presumably, comes up and says, 'James' and kaput. Can anyone tell me what happened in those dying minutes?
Answer: James asks his wife if he is a good man. She assures him that he is. He then salutes the grave and the camera zooms in on the American flag fluttering in the wind and then the film ends.
Question: Near the end of the movie, Miller says "James, earn this. Earn it." What is he talking about?
Answer: A great number of soldiers died to save James' life. Miller is telling him to go on to live a life worthy of that sacrifice. That's why elderly James desperately asks his wife if he'd lived a good life.
I'm sure James was grateful that Miller, and his men were willing to risk their lives to save his.
Question: Almost after the D-Day battle is over, Caparzzo picks up a Hitler Youth Knife and hands it to Mellish. Then Mellish calls the knife a "shabbat challah cutter." What does that mean?
Answer: I do not know the exact signifigance for the Jewish faith but Shabbat Challah is a Jewish Bread and the Challah Knife is used to cut the bread. So using a knife from a Nazi you killed for this would be a pretty good F You to Hitler and the Nazis.
Question: After the D-day battle and Capt. Miller is informing the Colonel about the types of mines, what was the purpose of Capt. Miller taking such a long pause during his discussion?
Question: Why did Upham tell the soldiers to drop their weapons instead of shooting them? Why did they surrender instead of shooting him? And why did he then let them go?
Answer: Upham was not a hardened war vet like the men in his squad. He seen Steam boat Willie shoot Miller which made him furious because of how desperately he tried to save Willies life at the Radar tower so he felt betrayed and guilty for not listening to his squad so he finished the job he didn't have the heart to do before by killing Willie. He let the others go because he didn't have a problem with them. The surrendering Germans knew the Americans were inbound after tank was destroyed so they gave up immediately.
Chosen answer: He was alone and probably couldn't have shot them all before being shot himself. However, he was in a perfect position to make them surrender as none of them wanted to be the one to get shot for aiming their rifle at him. He didn't let them go, he told them to start walking in one direction as his prisoners.
Question: I noticed that during the whole film, when bullets hit the soldiers' bodies, dust comes out (even on a wet Omaha Beach). Why is that?
Answer: It is eiderdown that blows into the air when they get hit by a bullet. They used eiderdown because it was a very warm filling for their assault jackets. Eider is still rarely used in the manufacture of some sleeping pillows and quilts.
Question: What did Miller mean when he said, "Give me Rieben on B.A.R."? What is "B.A.R."?
Answer: The BAR is the Browning Automatic Rifle; it was the automatic rifle of this area for US forces, when he says, "Give me Rieben on B.A.R." he is picking squad members, he would want people with certain specialties in the squad, a medic, a sniper, a demolitions expert, a automatic rifleman, which is the BAR, etc.
Answer: These were barrage balloons, commonly used during the war. They are used to stop low level bombing and low level fly bys by enemy fighter planes. The cables attached to the balloons are designed to cut through the wings of the aircraft and to bring them down, so any pilot would have to fly above them, and the balloons would also restrict the view from above.