How many books are t v shows have you seen get details wrong
- Thread starter jman87
- Start date
Kraut783
SOF Support
(Movies and TV shows)
ALL of them....well, to be honest...most of them.
There are some great examples out there...like Band of Brothers
The real shows would just be boring, with some adrenaline rushes, then back to boring....
ALL of them....well, to be honest...most of them.
There are some great examples out there...like Band of Brothers
The real shows would just be boring, with some adrenaline rushes, then back to boring....
Kraut783
SOF Support
Yeah, I mention Band of Brothers as being realistic...equipment, tactics and such....story accuracy...well...
DaylightGhost
Unverified
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2025
- Messages
- 2
Warfare has been the best I've seen this year, not perfect but as close as a couple hour movie can be without losing an audience.
DaylightGhost
Unverified
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2025
- Messages
- 2
Warfare was a good watch this year. Not perfect but good enough without losing a regular audience.
Kraut783
SOF Support
Nope...
For being an aspiring author, your research abilities and grasp of written language are both pretty big barriers to overcome.
Topkick
Verified Military
Most come with a " based on actual events" message and likely don't look much like what actually happened.
The book had a number of lies so it follows the movie isn't going to be great. Things like no cover on his scope to prevent reflection, the character of "Mustafa" was made up, the bounty on his head didn't exist...
War movies have been trash since the dawn of time. We somehow expect modern movies made under the GWOT's hyperpatriotism to be any different?
Yeah, nah.
Anyway, I recommend cracking open a search engine and doing some digging. Pick a book or movie, American Sniper, Lone Survivor (and the criticism of that is nuclear), Band of Brothers, The Pacific, etc. and in about 10 minutes you can shatter a lot of notions about the film/ series accuracy. I'd argue the best thing out right now is Masters of the Air and it has problems.
Blackhawk Down is another where the book has issues as does the movie. That one at least is understandable.
Something else to consider is the movie making process itself. One page of a script is roughly one minute of screen time. Now you're truncating events, dropping them, oversimplifying details, dropping people, combining people into a composite character... all problems with BHD, but problems that are understandable.
One of the most accurate scenes I've witnessed is buried in a horrible movie, Hurt Locker. The scene where he goes out for cereal, but stands in a brightly lit, fully stocked aisle of cereal and is overwhelmed with choices and paralyzed to make a decision? That's a thing. I felt that one as a contractor fobbit so I can only imagine that happening to dudes who just spent 12-15 months in Iraq.
No clue. You'll have to dig for yourself. After his book was exposed I wrote him off. He became another vet/ another SEAL to make up stuff for fame, money, psychological and emotional reasons...whatever the unfortunate cause. He was a SEAL, a sniper, saw a lot of combat and that's where it ends for me because the rest is suspect. I applaud his service and obvious bravery but his actions have cast him aside.
----
Off on a tangent, this becomes a MAJOR problem for historians. If you look at all of the books written about the GWOT, there quite a few where events were created or embellished. Imagine trying to write a history about Fallujah, TF Bruiser will get worked over at some point, Red Wings will get the treatment, the UBL raid will be revisited, opening days of the GWOT...on and on. Pick a fight, pick a topic, pick a period and you'll have these first person accounts to use. All of the above have books written by participants where we know the info to be false. We know McPhee in Delta, Kennedy in SF, and whoever else isn't a SEAL...all of the services have guys who are lying about their service. There's already one Nightstalker who has raised some eyebrows (one of the Little Bird guys and sadly that book was written by a Delta alumni).
And historians will have to dig through that pile of crap to accurately write about GWOT events and people.
But it isn't just the GWOT. Stephen Ambrose...beloved historian and author with Band of Brothers as his defining work. There are bitter debates online from Easy Co. vets and historians alike about BoB. I think there's enough evidence to support sloppy fact finding and personal bias into BoB as to take the book and series' narrative with a grain of salt or two. If an Easy Co. vet took issue with someone, and Ambrose liked that person or liked the narrative, he published the skewed info or left it out altogether; there are more than a few soldiers who didn't care for Winters.
A lot of GWOT books will eventually be discredited, mark my words everyone, but by then the authors will have made a pile of money and achieved enough fame where fanbois defend them to their dying breath. We know because it is already happening and it will not improve.
Looks like that 5 hour energy is working this morning. Kudos to anyone who made it this far.
Last edited:
Similar threads
