Question: When they let the German who shot Wade walk away blindfolded, why on earth did they not handcuff him as well? They did not assure that he was picked up by the allied, and he could easily remove the blindfold. After all it was bad judgment as he was the one who killed Capt. Miller.
Question: Why was CPL Upham treated so badly by the other soldiers? they were only Privates (E-2), but a Corporal is E-4. They should've seen him as a superior and respected him, shouldn't they?
Chosen answer: Upham isn't a soldier, he's a clerk, recruited from another unit because of his linguistic skills. His rank is irrelevant; untested in combat, he would not receive any respect from the other soldiers until he proved himself worthy of it.
Question: Does anybody have an explanation to the apparent violation of orders by Miller's team? Their orders are to find and bring back Pvt Ryan, yet they engage themselves in one battle after another, repeatedly jeopardizing their mission. One would expect the mission objective to be exclusive, and that engagements with the enemy should be avoided of possible.
Chosen answer: Miller is a good officer. He won't carry out his orders at the expense of having American soldiers die. Losing Ryan at the battle would have doomed his unit. He knows that not losing this town is more important to the war effort than saving Ryan.
Question: Rumor has it that the soldier Captain Miller helps to get on shore in the beginning of the film is one of the Ryan brothers. Supposedly you can see his name on his uniform at some point. Since I don't have the movie I can't check for myself. Anyone who can verify this?
Answer: In the trailer, this scene is shown as the death of Sean Ryan, but in the film the soldier is washed away, and the real Sean Ryan (the one with the pack marked "Ryan. S") is too far from the shoreline to be washed in again. The trailer also shows the deaths of Peter and Daniel Ryan, which are not shown in the film, but 20 minutes of the film was edited out, so it is possible the deaths of all three brothers were filmed, but not shown. There's no guarantee that the soldier Miller helps is Sean Ryan (as Sean was the only Ryan brother who fought on Omaha; Peter was killed on Utah, and Daniel was killed a week ago in New Guinea), but it very well could be.
Answer: Its not. If you pay attention to the Soldier Miller is helping onto the beach you can see he is not wearing a pack as is the soldier lying dead on the beach with the name Ryan. S stamped on it.
Question: Why, when the radar attack, the 7 of them attack it, but some men get blown up. Who are these people?
Answer: They aren't attacking the radar, technically, they are attacking the German machine gun nest guarding it. "Steamboat Willie" is the only surviving gunner.
Question: This may have been obvious but I wanted to check, the guy that kills Adam Goldberg horribly with the knife and shoots Tom Hanks, he was the guy they let go with 1000 paces, right? Nasty thought. The translating private shoots him at the end as well, right?
Answer: They are two completely different people. The soldier they let go, who (probably unknowingly) shot Miller and who was killed (or murdered, as I prefer) by Upham after he surrendered was a member of the Heer (regular army)Â - you can see the insignia on his collar. The man who stabbed Mellish was a private in the Waffen-SS (military arm of the SS) - Âyou can see the "SS" runes ("lightning bolts") on his collar. They have similar shaved hairstyles, but if you look closely at them in side-by-side screencaps, you will notice the differences. The Waffen-SS character also does not seem to recognize Upham when he encounters him on the stairs; the Heer character seems surprised to encounter Upham when he surrenders.
Question: Why would an interpreter be necessary for a mission such as Miller's? Is this purely a plot devise to add a character who is 1) inexperienced in combat and 2) not part of a pre-existing group close-knit through combat?
Answer: Miller and his platoon advanced onto Ramelle France. Seeing as none of the platoon spoke French, Upham was a perfect candidate for this. Also, when they capture steamboat Willy, Upham is also of good use as he spoke French and German.
Question: Why didn't they just shoot Steamboat Willie on sight? And once they decided not to kill him, why couldn't they call a chopper to come take him? Also, why were they so intent on committing a war crime by killing him once he'd surrendered? I know he killed Wade, but that's just what happens in war.
Chosen answer: Rules of war are when someone surrenders you take him prisoner and are not allowed to kill him, they followed the rules of war. They are all very emotional from the battle and losing a friend and fellow soldier though and they wanted a scapegoat. They were behind enemy lines so nobody could come to pick up the prisoner, as the lieutenant explained, and helicopters weren't really around in WW2.
Question: When the typist realizes that three Ryan brothers have died, they eventually take the information to an officer with one arm. Would someone with such a permanent disability be allowed to stay in the service, even in a non-combat role? Was it a wartime measure?
Answer: There would be absolutely no reason for him not to remain in the service; he's a colonel, an important officer, and as you say, he's not in combat, so how would it disqualify him? As it's not a disability that would (significantly) affect his ability to discharge his duties, it would be strange to not allow a high-ranking officer to continue in his role, wartime or not.
Question: At Omaha Beach, there were large metal things strewn along the water line (they sort of resembled gigantic jacks). First, what are those? Second, were they at the actual Omaha Beach on D-Day?
Answer: Nicknamed "Czech Hedgehogs", they're designed to damage incoming landing craft or to stop tanks making their way up the beach. They were indeed present on D-Day.
Question: After the D-Day battle, Capt. Miller and the Colonel are discussing whatever. They keep mentioning something called "the 88's." What are the 88's?
Answer: An "88" is a German 88-millimeter gun, a lethal and extremely versatile gun which was often thought of as the best gun in the war - on ANY side. It could appear on a tank, as an anti-tank gun, as an assault gun or as an anti-aircraft gun.
Question: When Captain Miller told Ryan, "You might want to take some time with this, if there's some place you want to go," did he mean he could go off to the side to quietly grieve away from the other men, or did he mean that they could go look at whatever he wanted to they were passing by on the way back to the boat?
Answer: He means he could go off in private and mourn without being watched. The death of three brothers would be a huge blow, and he might need some time to compose himself.
Question: Would making a sticky bomb using the method shown in the movie be possible in real life?
Answer: Yes, they could be possible. But making bombs like that are very dangerous to use so I wouldn't try it out. It's doubtful anything of the sorts were used during WWII, there already were pre-made sticky bombs around that worked a lot better.
Question: During the assault on the machine gun nest, when Upham uses his scope to see the action, there is a scene which shows an ally tossing a grenade to the nest, but the enemy catches it and tosses it back. How did the ally manage to survive the blast? The grenade was tossed back straight to him and exploded where he was standing. I paused at the point of the blast and I could see some blood flying along with the explosion.
Chosen answer: SGT. Horvath went right, so that was him throwing the grenade, which the German catches and throws back. When Horvath throws the grenade he is actually inside a bomb crater. When the grenade is thrown back by the German soldier, the blast happen on the grassy flat ground outside the bomb crater. So Horvath was sheltered by the blast being down inside the crater. Those are bullet holes in Wade's chest, and not grenade wounds.
Question: Miller, and his men meet a guy named Mendelson who has bad hearing because a German grenade went off right by his head. Realistically, wouldn't Mendelson be dead?
Answer: When he says "right by my head," I'm sure he doesn't mean it literally...if it had, of course he'd be dead. There could have been something blocking him from the shrapnel, but the sound wave could still severely damage his hearing.
Answer: He may have put too much into his line. It's possible the shockwave damaged his hearing. If the grenade went off right by him he would have much more severe injuries than loss of hearing. His injury on his face is probably from shrapnel caused by the blast.
Question: When Caparzo hands Melish the knife, why did he get upset?
Answer: The situation from before, an intense firefight, got to him, the stress and anxiety taking over for a moment. It's likely this is his first moment of rest and reflection since landing on the beach. Plus, it's a Hitler Youth knife, revealing they just killed a bunch of minors.
Question: How accurate is the Normandy invasion scene? Was the real battle as dramatic as shown in the movie?
Answer: Definitely, the scene was praised for its historical accuracy by veterans and WWII experts. Even the landing crafts were real. Not on all beaches this kind of resistance was happening though, like Utah beach.
Answer: The scene was no doubt mostly accurate and was praised as one of the most accurate depictions of World War II ever and even traumatised some veterans. However, there were some changes and some slight inaccuracies (most of it due to filming reasons). For instance the 'Dog One' exit is portrayed as a footpath whereas it was an actual road in reality. The beach in the film is much narrower beach than the real Omaha beach, this was because the real Omaha had the US cemetery and the surrounding area had changed significantly since the war. In any case filming permission on the beach itself was denied by French authorities (although filming in the cemetery was granted), so a similar looking beach in Ireland had to be used. The bunkers were also primarily used as observations posts and not machine gun nests as depicted. However, despite this, the depiction of the landing on Omaha is mostly accurate, and most of the errors mentioned were very minor.
Question: A question about those sticky bombs they use in the last battle to blow the tracks of the tanks. Were there ever really any bombs made like that from socks, grease and explosives and used for such a purpose or was it something they just made up for the movie?
Answer: There were actual "sticky bombs" used in WWII. Developed by the British, they were nitroglycerin-filled glass spheres, coated with a sticky adhesive, and covered by a protective metal sheathing that was stripped away before being thrown. Designed as anti-tank weapons, the bombs were often more dangerous to the user than to the tank, occasionally getting stuck to the person who was throwing it, or even igniting while being handled or during transport. In addition, Britain trained their Home Guard units in the making of improvised sticky bombs, the most common being glass containers of nitroglycerin inside a bag soaked in the glue compound, and dropped onto enemy tanks from rooftops. The G.I. may have learned of the improvised method, as actual sticky grenades only made it into the hands of very few combat units.
Question: In the beach scene, they keep talking about something called "dog one exit". What is "dog one"?
Chosen answer: The Allied forces identified five heavily-defended "exits" off Omaha Beach, which had to be cleared in order for the invasion to proceed inland: Dog One, Dog Three, Easy One, Easy Three and Fox One. The real Dog One was a road off the beach, although the movie portrays it as a stepped footpath.
Answer: Why not tie up him and put him in a ditch? There's a million things he could have done. One reason he just made him walk away blindfolded was to scare him into thinking he was going to be executed. Its not really shown whether they even had handcuffs, so it's hard to determine if they could have done something like that. Their main concern was with the mission, not what would happen to him. Last thing with letting him go, Miller could have been shot by any one of those German soldiers so it's more just ironic that he killed him.
Lummie ★