Hey, I liked that movie. Besides, we've all been on a sailboat... very few of us have been in space.Yes, about time we bash the Gravity movie which is basically the space version with better CG.
All Is Lost movie
- Thread starter rfrye1
- Start date
I saw the movie and I agree it was bad. I agree Morgan Freeman would of been perfect for this movie because he is an experienced sailor. I remember him a while back talking about sailing a 30ft boat from NY and Bermuda and being caught in a storm and pulling through. He owns a Shannon 43 and sail the Caribbean.
Oh well..
Ok, so the warden took me to this movie because it had a boat, and without telling her my opinions beforehand, off we go. (It was date-night, where we go off and throw away two hundred bucks at an evening and act like we like each other). And yeah, Bob does look over seventy easy, and confused. But really. Think about this; most folks on this site are experienced sailors, and largely know how to work on their own boats to some degree. While it IS ridiculous that someone would go after a PL259 with an adjustable wrench, my day to day dealings encounter this UN-mechanical scenario commonly. That's why people pay me to work on the boat, because they don't know how. Period.
I do not discount, or disparage this type of sailor one iota. I feel like my opinion as usual will be lambasted, as my hate group following has reached epic levels, but how many people do you know that can work on their own cars. People buy them every day with no idea of how to change out the battery. Or the house for instance. Outside of you folks, most homeowners by FAR couldn't stop a leaking pipe, or diagnose a short in the electrics.
Of my customer list right now, there are not but about two that can change out an impeller. Fact is, the only people that I personally know that can work on their own boats COMPETENTLY are the other yard mechanics. The owners piddle with them, we fix them. In retrospect, the man strikes me as 90 percent of sailors out there right now.
The biggest thing that got a groan out of me was when he reeled about and knocked hisself out on the mast post. I personally have done some of the monumentally, most profoundly stupid things you can do on a boat yet, but conking myself out on my own boat short of being sent flying down an open companionway won't happen. Straight out of the Three Stooges.
And truth be known, in a pinch and desperation to signal a ship, I may have set the raft on fire myself. While I figured personally that the producers put an I.E.D. on board the raft, the boat would have held a bigger one.
But Redford won folks. I paid my twenty bucks at a theater, (I never turn on a tv for any reason). And it made the warden happy. We all won I guess.
And why are movies so damn loud now? Is it me? Cranky old fart? Or is the volume out of control at theaters now?..
Ok, so the warden took me to this movie because it had a boat, and without telling her my opinions beforehand, off we go. (It was date-night, where we go off and throw away two hundred bucks at an evening and act like we like each other). And yeah, Bob does look over seventy easy, and confused. But really. Think about this; most folks on this site are experienced sailors, and largely know how to work on their own boats to some degree. While it IS ridiculous that someone would go after a PL259 with an adjustable wrench, my day to day dealings encounter this UN-mechanical scenario commonly. That's why people pay me to work on the boat, because they don't know how. Period.
I do not discount, or disparage this type of sailor one iota. I feel like my opinion as usual will be lambasted, as my hate group following has reached epic levels, but how many people do you know that can work on their own cars. People buy them every day with no idea of how to change out the battery. Or the house for instance. Outside of you folks, most homeowners by FAR couldn't stop a leaking pipe, or diagnose a short in the electrics.
Of my customer list right now, there are not but about two that can change out an impeller. Fact is, the only people that I personally know that can work on their own boats COMPETENTLY are the other yard mechanics. The owners piddle with them, we fix them. In retrospect, the man strikes me as 90 percent of sailors out there right now.
The biggest thing that got a groan out of me was when he reeled about and knocked hisself out on the mast post. I personally have done some of the monumentally, most profoundly stupid things you can do on a boat yet, but conking myself out on my own boat short of being sent flying down an open companionway won't happen. Straight out of the Three Stooges.
And truth be known, in a pinch and desperation to signal a ship, I may have set the raft on fire myself. While I figured personally that the producers put an I.E.D. on board the raft, the boat would have held a bigger one.
But Redford won folks. I paid my twenty bucks at a theater, (I never turn on a tv for any reason). And it made the warden happy. We all won I guess.
And why are movies so damn loud now? Is it me? Cranky old fart? Or is the volume out of control at theaters now?..
....
donno why it was so loud for you Chris, maybe it was the "warden" talking thru the movie?.... it was more or less a silent film
I have stayed off this topic as it has been beaten to death, (and now I am kicking the horse, sorry Stu... )
BUT, think about this. Pretend for a minute that he had been the perfect sailor who handled anything and everything thrown at him perfectly, and had every proper tool ready to go. Would there have even been a movie?
The answer is NO. He would have "sailed", (pardon the pun) through every situation just the way everyone in both, (or was it three?) threads said they would have have handled each situation and the movie would have been boring.
I saw the movie. To me it was a lot like the DIY TV show RENOVATION REALITIES; a show where real people get in over their head doing something they either know nothing or have only read about. Their screw-ups are the moments that make the show worthwhile...
Hell, Redford is probably reading this thread right now mumbling under his breath, "made ya look..." He is probably laughing too.....
Its a movie. Fiction. It is not an instructional video
BUT, think about this. Pretend for a minute that he had been the perfect sailor who handled anything and everything thrown at him perfectly, and had every proper tool ready to go. Would there have even been a movie?
The answer is NO. He would have "sailed", (pardon the pun) through every situation just the way everyone in both, (or was it three?) threads said they would have have handled each situation and the movie would have been boring.
I saw the movie. To me it was a lot like the DIY TV show RENOVATION REALITIES; a show where real people get in over their head doing something they either know nothing or have only read about. Their screw-ups are the moments that make the show worthwhile...
Hell, Redford is probably reading this thread right now mumbling under his breath, "made ya look..." He is probably laughing too.....
Its a movie. Fiction. It is not an instructional video
I have not seen the film, and not sure I'll be able to sneak off and do so [if the admiral saw it I'd have to install sonar to get her on the boat], but I think it makes a fascinating contrast to Flirting With Mermaids. From what I have read on this thread, we have fictional Redford portraying an experienced sailor hamstrung by personal hangups that lead him to a bad end, and there we have in-the-flesh Kretchmer purposefully and continually placing himself in horrifying conditions sailing about on disintegrating vessels, calmly rebuilding a Perkins fuel pump during a hurricane passage, staysail wound around the prop shaft while navigating through a tight reef entrance, all of which ends with a lobster dinner in the Azores. . . on someone else's tab. If I didn't know the fictional account from the historical one, which would demand the greater suspension of judgment?
Is it plausible an inexperienced sailor could make the mistakes portrayed in the movie? I think yes...
Recall the few sailors who have showed up here wanting to take coastal day sail boats off shore..
John Kretschmer wrote several books including Flirting with Mermaids which is an account of his sailing adventures as a boat delivery captain. He began as a brash young man taking a 30+ foot boat around the horn, apparently in the wrong direction, and matured into a brash older fellow who took boats in varying states just about everywhere imaginable. It would take a much better sailor than I to determine if Kretschmer's confidence and/or bravado is matched by his sailing skills, but overall, his mechanical ability, drive, fortitude and navigational acumen were almost enough to make one believe that keeping a boat afloat no matter what is an act of will as much as skill.
I was trying to remember if I saw a PFD even once in this film??? I sure can't remember one. I did learn something from this movie, storms love a fresh shaved man! Even my wife said WTH!
Many opinions, all valid. Expecting realism in a movie is wishful thinking. Even Hollywood depictions of real events is fictionalized. If you watched Captain Philips don't think what you saw is actually what occurred. Argo, the movie about the Iranian hostage situation with the dramatic conclusion that didn't actually happen. The list is endless.
You make a valid point, but the people you describe or not the people who undertake an ocean passage singlehandedly.
One a separate note:
Shouldn't he have been using something with a longer range thatn a VHF?
Well, are we supposed to believe that his handheld VHF could be disabled because it was soaked by water? Isn't everybody carrying a waterproof (at least submerged to 5' for 30 minutes) handheld in a their ditch bag by now? He was certainly in range of the ships that passed by him within a few meters.
What about DSC, wouldn't that be useful? Even if it is just a Hollywood fiction, it needs to be plausible, so that it isn't laughable. I think Redford failed because he pretended that somebody alone in a boat in the middle of the ocean would be relying upon 1970's technology, when clearly, we all know that is a stupid premise.
What about DSC, wouldn't that be useful? Even if it is just a Hollywood fiction, it needs to be plausible, so that it isn't laughable. I think Redford failed because he pretended that somebody alone in a boat in the middle of the ocean would be relying upon 1970's technology, when clearly, we all know that is a stupid premise.
"somebody alone in a boat in the middle of the ocean would be relying upon 1970's technology"
I wonder about that, Scott. After all, people were plying the open oceans in 1970, even 1870, with the available technology all the attendant risks. I suspect that there are lots of boats bobbing about right now with nothing more or better than what was depicted.
There were plenty of things with which to take issue. And some curiosities: Can you really stand up in an inflatable life raft like that one? Wouldn't a tanker/container ship that close to the raft make a wake that would make just sitting in the raft pretty exciting.
I wonder about that, Scott. After all, people were plying the open oceans in 1970, even 1870, with the available technology all the attendant risks. I suspect that there are lots of boats bobbing about right now with nothing more or better than what was depicted.
There were plenty of things with which to take issue. And some curiosities: Can you really stand up in an inflatable life raft like that one? Wouldn't a tanker/container ship that close to the raft make a wake that would make just sitting in the raft pretty exciting.
If he carried one and was able to shorten the rescue time he would have shortened the movie and our pain! Even better would have been not untiring the lines at the dock and staying there.
I don't doubt you wufi ....
Then I laughed to think that he would actually get it right (the sextant) without any practice. I don't think the movie was trying to tell us that the sailor purposely avoided modern technology ... I think they just were too lazy to explain why he was so lacking in technology and general proficiency.
Basically, this movie was using sign language to provide communication with the audience rather than dialogue. That's where the movie failed because the props and the actions didn't really make sense to anybody who would know what they were watching. And I think it didn't make sense to those of us who don't even profess to have much experience or knowledge (like me).
I'm sure there are a few sailors out there who eschew many of the technologies that are available today, for various reasons. Redford didn't take any time to show if that were the case. I laughed when he pulled the sextant out and it was obvious he didn't really know how to use it without directions. Who would have a sextant in their ditch bag if they don't know how to use it, and what good would it do for a person in a life raft anyway? I explained to Sue that it was a Hollywood prop to provide a means for Redford to find out where he is on a chart and then we would know that he was crossing the shipping lanes (to explain the ships that crossed - and then his despair after drifting out of the lanes without making any contact).
Then I laughed to think that he would actually get it right (the sextant) without any practice. I don't think the movie was trying to tell us that the sailor purposely avoided modern technology ... I think they just were too lazy to explain why he was so lacking in technology and general proficiency.
Basically, this movie was using sign language to provide communication with the audience rather than dialogue. That's where the movie failed because the props and the actions didn't really make sense to anybody who would know what they were watching. And I think it didn't make sense to those of us who don't even profess to have much experience or knowledge (like me).