Is it just me or did "Jarhead" suck? by Calhoun

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Is it just me or did "Jarhead" suck?

POSTED BY: CALHOUN
UPDATED: Wednesday, May 24, 2006 07:07
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VIEWED: 5444
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Tuesday, May 23, 2006 9:55 PM

I saw a post here a while back claiming "Jarhead" to be an awesome movie rivalling "Serenity".. I had been eagerly awaiting the DVD release and now after finally seeing it find myself wondering why in hell someone would compare "Jarhead" to "Serenity"... I personally found "Jarhead" to be so much tripe..

but thats just me..

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Wednesday, May 24, 2006 1:38 AM

CATHERA

I have to admit I haven't seen it but a friend was in Iraq as a civilian worker for 2 1/2 months and said a lot of the back stuff the Marines do (scorpion fights, etc) is true. He of course liked it because he experienced a lot of the stuff in the movie.

One day.
One plan.
One army of Browncoats.

On June 23rd, we aim to misbehave.

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Wednesday, May 24, 2006 2:33 AM

J6NGO1977

I liked it. It's very influenced by Full Metal Jacket. If you watch it to expect and all out action war movie you will be dissapointed.

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Wednesday, May 24, 2006 2:50 AM

JONUS

I thought it was a decent war movie.

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Wednesday, May 24, 2006 2:55 AM

CIOCCOLATA

It is not just you. I was very disappointed in the movie. For anyone to even think of comparing it to "Serenity" has to out of their gorram mind.

Just my opinion.

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Wednesday, May 24, 2006 3:02 AM

CHRISMOORHEAD

It's easier to appriciate if you've experienced the alienation of trying to intergrate back into proper society after being deployed. Most war movies about people at the grunt level have that same common theme.

My only beef with the movie was when the Sargeant said something along the lines of, "Maybe he could get away with that shit in the Army". I mean, first of all, that whole inter-service rivaly crap has got to stop. Second, Marines have a history of being more mentally unstable than any other servicemen, and that's nothing on them, cause they're always the ones treading in the shit. Still, if anyone knows who Dimebag Daryl is, then you probably know the occupation and reasoning behind the guy who shot him.

But in the long run, "Jarhead" doesn't hold a candle to "Serenity" as far as movies go. Reality sucks, and I prefer my fantasey heroes and their situation in Serenity as opposed to the hopeless, all too familiar reality of Jarhead.

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Wednesday, May 24, 2006 3:06 AM

CHRISMOORHEAD

Oh yeah, I also love pointing out the words "Front Towards Enemy" on the M18 Claymore to my friends. No one really beleives or appriciates the humor in that untill they see it in a movie.

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Wednesday, May 24, 2006 3:14 AM

MERCURY002

i thought it was a poor remake of full metal jacket.

it was an exact copy with the drill sargent to the 5 minuets of battle it shows at the end, end the training is practically the same.

Simon:"If the battle was so horrible, why did he name the ship after it?"
Zoe:"Once you've been in serenity you never leave"

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Wednesday, May 24, 2006 3:20 AM

JOSSISAGOD

I believe that it is impossible to compare Jarhead to Serenity. The two are in drastically different genres with two very different purposes. The only thing that can be compared between the two is that they are both movies.

JOSSIS(Most Definitely)AGOD

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Wednesday, May 24, 2006 3:24 AM

CHRISMOORHEAD

Not that it makes the comparison any less valid, but you are aware "Jarhead" was based on a novel of the real life experiences of a Marine, right?

Full Metal Jacket seemed a lot more action oriented, whereas part of the utter hopelessness in Jardhead was that they had to live in consistantly hostile territory without ever being give the oppertunity to fight.

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Wednesday, May 24, 2006 4:15 AM

ZISKER

I love Serenity. And I love Jarhead. But I don't believe the two can be compared. Serenity is a Science Fiction action-oriented film based on characters from a television show with brilliant characterization. Jarhead is based on the memoir of a Marine and is anti-action, that's almost the entire point of the movie. And I thought it captured a lot of the BS about the hurry-up-and-wait and other less-than-glamorous aspects of military service pretty damn accurately. I can also see how someone who favors "serious" movies might prefer it to Serenity. It all depends on what you're looking for.

One day.
One plan.
One army of Browncoats.

On June 23rd, we aim to misbehave.
http://www.serenityday.org/
http://forum.serenityday.org/

Little or no free time, but want to help?
Help Spread the Signal: http://www.geocities.com/browncoatsignalcorps

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Wednesday, May 24, 2006 4:23 AM

JARHEAD

Hey everyone. Thought I'd de-lurk for a second and give a grunt's perspective. First of all, my handle predates "Jarhead" by about six years. My units CMO(chief medical officer) gave it to me, and it stuck, basically because he was chief and nobody screws with doc. You just don't do it.

Now to the point of the thread - "Jarhead" does not begin to be compairable to "Serenity." It's also not a war movie so much as it is a non-war movie. It's about the other side of the Corps, the side that most of us end up being on, where you've been reved up, had your brain dicked with to the point of being a borderline sociopath, and then told that you weren't needed after all and to have a nice life. And there'll be a whole different set of mental disorders than the ones everyone talks about to follow shortly.

As for how accurately we(Marines in general, and grunts in particular) are portrayed, the answer is completely. I didn't recognize some of the lingo(specifically "The Suck"), but then my tour was ten years after the events of this film so that could easily have changed. For instance Vietnam and earlier era Marines have no clue what oo-rah(pronounced exactly as it looks, no "H") means unless they've been told by someone younger. So yeah, they nailed us, how we look, talk, act, all of it. Even the Wall of Shame, cuz one of those manages to pop up at every unit.

As to the charge that the film is a rip off of "Full Metal Jacket," I simply can't see how that could be. Jaime Fox's Staff Srgt. Sykes (I think that was his name) is nothing like R.Lee Ermey's Gunny Hartman. We hold up the later as a model for what a a Drill Instructor is supposed to be. Fox's character is NOT an exageration, just someone that we've all served with. He's a good NCO, no more or less.

I’m never serious. Serious means something bad is about to happen.

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Wednesday, May 24, 2006 5:55 AM

SAMEERTIA

I didn't like "Jarhead", the movie, not our fellow board member.
But I don't think it was because of any of the reasons listed above.

It was too soon for "Jarhead". The movie should have been made in 20 years, when we could look at it with some kind of nostalgia, instead of with a sickening pit in our stomach- We're watching our brothers, sisters, classmates and cousins go through it in real life.

Why the hell would we want to watch a movie about it?

To raise awareness? Believe me, Hollywood, we're very much aware of what our soldiers are going through, and we're doing all we can to help them find their places once they come back home. We don't need a movie about it to make us aware of it.

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Wednesday, May 24, 2006 6:39 AM

MONKSDAD

The movie jarhead wasnt that good, it was one of those movies that was just "there"

"And I think calling him that is an insult to the psychotic lowlife community."

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Wednesday, May 24, 2006 7:07 AM

NVGHOSTRIDER

Jarhead was drastically changed from a true account. I did find the movie entertaining and very humorous, but to let folks see what the other side of the fence looks like is a hard thing to do. To explain it is pretty much an injustice to the actual experience.

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