They Shall Not Grow Old Streaming Canada
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Top reviews from the United States
3.0 out of 5 stars
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This is a review of the purchase on Amazon Prime Video.
The restored footage is excellent. I saw this film four times in the theater, and was expecting the same experience from the $19.99 purchase on Amazon Prime. I did not get it, and I feel cheated. The first one second was oddly the clincher. The introduction by Peter Jackson is missing as is the 30 minute afterward feature of the process of restoring the footage. Those are critically integral to the film, or at least Jackson thought so, yet they are missing. It is beyond belief that those are not included in the Prime video purchase.
I loved the film and appreciated the efforts that went into the restoration process. It's a shame that these efforts, an integral part of the story, are not even presented in the Prime version.
83 people found this helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Before I review the film, people need to stop giving this film only one star if they buy a DVD that's incompatible with their player. It's not Peter Jackson's fault that they're idiots and ignore the warning. The film itself is brilliant. As a historian of the late-19th century and World War I, I couldn't believe the outstanding work done bringing these "actualities" (as they were called at the time) to life. Forget the horrendous colorizing of the past; this process is truly impressive. The work done to get the color of the various regimental insignia correct as well as getting voice actors from the hometowns of those regiments to speak the lines the soldiers were saying onscreen (thanks to lip readers) shows you the attention to detail and Jackson's desire "to get it right." The war is told primarily from the British side because that's the source material Jackson had to work with. If you understand the importance of the Great War, you'll want to see this film. If you don't understand the importance of that war, you'll want to see this movie and learn about your past, for the First World War is constantly with us.
118 people found this helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
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Certainly an important documentary which we could not follow due to subtitles being way behind the film's action. For anyone with hearing impairment this would be totally unacceptable.
33 people found this helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
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This 2018 film is a documentary of British soldiers' World War I western front experiences. It is presented by Jackson in a rather strange and not-so-effective format. There is no directed story telling here; it's just a series of clips and quotes.. The format is not of the documentary style of film making.
The film clips are taken from stock combat footage and the audio clips were taken from interviews made decades ago (the last WWI veteran died in 2012). Color film clips were originally black and white but were colorized by Jackson. Color movie film wasn't invented until the late 1920's. A lot of CGI was added the the combat footage to clean it up. The audio track of soldiers talking to each other on film and the background foley for those scenes was added in post production. Movie soundtracks weren't invented until the late 1920's.
The film does nothing to capture the horror of the western front. In fact the film opens with several short quotes from veterans who all basically say the war wasn't a problem for them and they had no problems after the war (with PTSD). Jackson made no attempt to put those quotes into context. The veterans (who would have been born circa 1900) interviewed by unnamed persons sounded to be in their 70's. The interviews likely took place during the Vietnam War era probably the early to mid 70's. By the early 70's PTSD had become a huge problem for Vietnam vets. Many WWI and WWII veterans originally turned up their noses to Vietnam vets who complained of combat PTSD. They had been raised to believe "combat fatigue" was a form of cowardice. It took those older vets a very long time to come to terms with the effects of PTSD relative to their combat experiences.
Beyond the disjointed clips the film doesn't add much new content or knowledge about World War I veterans' experiences.
Is it worth watching? Yes, but be prepared. The technique of short audio quips and generally unrelated film clips going on for 90 minutes does get monotonous. It's not the veterans' stories that are the problem here. It's Jackson's creative choices that don't quite click which disappoint. Jackson experimented with a "different" documentary style and it just did not come together.
11 people found this helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Verified purchase
The moment when the jerky black and white footage transforms to flowing color is remarkable. After that the images become hard to take ....smiling troops, mostly cheerful for the camera, a shocking number of whom look misshapen, stunted, and have missing or grotesquely crooked front teeth (a reminder of the hard upbringing of the British working class in those days), and then the broken bloody corpses lying in filth... and all the while non-stop snippets of narration by old men (actual veterans? Actors reading what the real vets wrote? We're left in the dark on that, at least in the truncated Amazon version). The voices sound unnatural...by turns chipper and coldly detached. Perhaps it was the emotionally detached who were best able to survive the ordeal? The result seems a bit like watching footage of concentration camps while survivors (or actors impersonating them?) talk causally of the everyday routines.... "Oh yes, we had to step over our friends bodies quite a lot, but then if we were lucky there was a cup of tea waiting..."
Only at the end of the film do the voices reflect on the pointlessness of it all.
I'm not quite sure what's missing from this documentary. Historical context? Emotion? Rage? It all seems hollow and pointless somehow, like the war itself. The colorization and motion adjustment quickly loses its initial shock and awe. But who knows, maybe pointlessness was the mood Jackson was aiming for. Anyhow, it's a film you're not likely to forget.
17 people found this helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Verified purchase
The first 30 minutes are in black and white and begin the story of WW 1. When they switch to color, the people come alive. They sharpened the images way up, added color and even used a lip reader to know what the soldiers were saying, then dubbed the voices. IDK if people appreciate the work done on this film. It deals only with the trench soldiers, not the Air Force, Marines or the Navy. Those definitely could be candidates for future films. The colorization is not what other companies did in the 70's. It is real sharp, variable in tone and saturation. Looks like they filmed it yesterday. They even had to adjust the speed to be natural, because in 1917, the movies were hand cranked so the speed could be real fast or real slow. They made a natural movement of motion. Definitely worth watching if you are interested in the First World War. I think most of the negative reviews on this film were because the people ordered a PAL version for USA. I made sure mine said Region A/1. Works and plays wonderfully.
12 people found this helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Verified purchase
Peter Jackson and his crew did a remarkable job of telling us the story of World War I from the perspective of the British soldiers who fought in the trenches and dealt with every manner of death, dying, and misery. The fact that Jackson's people were able to use their amazing CGI facilities and skills to process the footage, colorize it, slow it down to normal speed, and sharpen the images makes the story come to life in a way that looking at the jerky, too-fast, silent footage we associate with that era could never do. The narrative consists entirely of the voices of real men, telling their own real stories, as we watch the scenes play out before us accompanied by realistic sound effects and the occasional voice-over for figures seen speaking on camera. On the hundredth anniversary of the end of WWI, this film is a wonderful tribute to brave, tough men who fought under horrible conditions and who lived to tell about it, and a memorial to the ones who never came back to tell their stories. And do ignore the one star reviews. They have nothing to do with the content of the movie.
5 people found this helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
Verified purchase
The closed captioning is way out of sync! I would like this to be corrected...
17 people found this helpful
They Shall Not Grow Old Streaming Canada
Source: https://www.amazon.com/They-Shall-Not-Grow-Old/dp/B07PMNNGVH
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