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Home Front: Culture Wars
Indiana Jones leads Hollywood version of battle for Falluja
2004-12-17
Oh dear.
Hollywood has joined the war. Universal Pictures announced yesterday that it is to make The Battle for Falluja. To prove it is serious, it has enlisted Indiana Jones himself, actor Harrison Ford, to help defeat the insurgency.
Ohfergawdsake. Who's gonna play "Short Round"?
The film - Hollywood's first foray into the second Iraq conflict - is due to go into production next year and will be based on a yet-to-be-finished book, No True Glory: The Battle for Falluja by Bing West, a former marine, politician and now war correspondent. The movie and book take as their starting point the killing of four civilian contractors in Falluja and the ensuing decision to order an assault on the city by US marines. That first assault, which was abruptly stopped by the White House, was led by General Jim Mattis, who will be played by Ford. Six months later, shortly after the US presidential election, the marines attacked Falluja for a second time, successfully occupying the city. Almost 80 US marines were killed in the two assaults, while some sources have estimated that 800 Iraqis and insurgents died in the April assault on the city and a further 1,000 in November.
"I'm very disturbed about the direction American foreign policy is going," said Ford, according to the Australian Associated Press. Ford... noted U.S. post-war casualties have exceeded those during the actual conflict. "I think something needs to be done to help alleviate the conditions which have created a disenfranchised and angry faction in the Middle East," said the 62-year-old Ford.
But you'll take the money, and you'll look mock-heroic, won't you?
The film promises to depict the story from the point of view of US soldiers and politicians; it seems unlikely that the plight of the Iraqis will figure too prominently in Hollywood's take on the subject.
Hand me my violin...
Writing last week for the online journal Slate.com, West said: "If America needs a hard job done, the marines will do it, and they won't lose their humanity in the process or any sleep over pulling the trigger. Yes, they are 'the world's most lethal killing machine.' That's what America needs in battle."
"I don't think military intervention is the correct solution," he said. "I regret what we as a country have done so far."
Act and be damned.
Posted by:Steve White

#21  Ford's comments remind us why script writers still have jobs. Otherwise, the actors would have to come up with their own words.
Posted by: jackal   2004-12-17 11:41:15 PM  

#20  as a political thinker, he's a great actor....
Posted by: Frank G   2004-12-17 5:31:55 PM  

#19  Hey Solo stick to spice running your real political views show you to be nothing but a wookies' bitch.
Posted by: Rightwing   2004-12-17 5:30:34 PM  

#18  
"I don’t think military intervention is the correct solution," he said. "I regret what we as a country have done so far."

What would the alternative have been? Twelve more years of sanctions?? Please.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama   2004-12-17 2:58:25 PM  

#17  Re: that picture. Pardon me while I turn sixteen again.

Ohmigod he is SO. CUTE. squeeeEEEEal!

There. I'm back. Agree about the hair, Seafarious. I think he just suddenly had it all cut off one day, and then he wasn't nearly so hot. You must admit, for an actor, his anti-war statement is pretty calm and reasonable.
Posted by: Angie Schultz   2004-12-17 2:35:15 PM  

#16  Frank, LOL, and an Irish accent. Maybe they'll hire some Marines as consultants. "Here, Mr. Affleck, lemme show you a trick you can do with a K-Bar."
Posted by: Matt   2004-12-17 10:34:31 AM  

#15  Ya know, I used to totally have the hots for HF. Then he lost his mind along with his hair. Gah.
Posted by: Seafarious   2004-12-17 10:10:05 AM  

#14  oh great, Gen Mattis as bisexual?
Posted by: Frank G   2004-12-17 10:09:11 AM  

#13  Hollywood will probably conduct it with the same accuracy and success as they did Alexander The Great.
Posted by: 2b   2004-12-17 10:01:41 AM  

#12  Indy is getting a bit long in the tooth for such a role.
He's about the right age to play a General. You can see a current picture of Lt Gen James N. Mattis here. He's currently serving as Commanding General of the Marine Corp Combat Development Command.
Posted by: Steve   2004-12-17 9:58:03 AM  

#11  AC - You dont think that Hollywood gives a flying fark about our soldiers do you?

I'm willing to give it the benefit of a doubt since it is being writte by an ex-marine but I'll also look for children flying kites and direction by Mike Al-Moore (who hollywood considers an 'expert' on the Iraq war.....).
Posted by: CrazyFool   2004-12-17 9:47:55 AM  

#10  The ray of hope here is that the book is by Bing West, a former Marine and a co-author of the The March Up, a book about the First Marine Division's campaign in March/April of last year. West is also the father of Owen West, who IIRC was a force recon Marine in the campaign and is himself an author (Sharkman Six, a novel about the Marines in Somalia.)

Now, what Hollywood will do with the material is another matter. I assume the fluffy bunnies and baby ducks will be computer generated, and that Sean Penn will play the doctor at the Fallujah hospital.
Posted by: Matt   2004-12-17 7:33:19 AM  

#9  Ford is one of them all right, but he is not a complete idiotarian, especially by Hollyweird standards. He turned down the part of conspira-loon/crook Jim Garrison in the Oliver Stoned fantasy JFK for example.
The role went instead to Kevin Costner, one of several bad calls Costner made in wrecking what had been a promising career.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy   2004-12-17 7:24:34 AM  

#8  There should be considerable accountability on the movie moguls getting this right, given the sacrifice of our soldiers, they better not screw it up.
Posted by: Capt America   2004-12-17 2:44:01 AM  

#7  Replaced by this Hollyweird twitter. And, BTW, Ford is, indeed, one of them.

P.S. Ben, baby, you shouldn't piss off the Photoshop crowd, heh.
Posted by: .com   2004-12-17 2:43:00 AM  

#6  May want to throw in a bombing run on Syria and Iran has part of the ending...just to be proactive.
Posted by: Capt America   2004-12-17 2:40:18 AM  

#5  Indy is getting a bit long in the tooth for such a role. Musta ran out of Tom Clancy movies.
Posted by: Capt America   2004-12-17 2:38:46 AM  

#4  "The plight of the Iraqis" means the viewpoint of the terrorists and their shills at Al Guardian. This sympathetic euphemism implies that the Euro-bigots' neo-Goebbelist view is the only valid one for "thoughtful" people, something the primitively gullible masses of Eurabia define in terms of their adherence to the backward and fossilized 1970s media tropes that still prevail in that benighted region of the world.
In particular, this piece seeks to establish an equivalence between US views of the conflict and a Hollywood fantasy, eg Indiana Jones. This inference is reinforced by referring to Ford as though he actually is Indiana Jones, thereby connecting the latter character to the new movie and, in turn, making this equivalent to the non-Guardian view of the conflict.
The Euro-masses and Brit-bigot chatterati will buy this kind of idiocy and Goebbels style manipulation wholesale, and think themselves superior for doing so.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy   2004-12-17 2:31:49 AM  

#3  This little tidbit caught my eye:

"That first assault, which was abruptly stopped by the White House, was led by General Jim Mattis, who will be played by Ford."

I call bullshit. Total Bullshit. Another half-assed dizzy as a drunk blonde version of reality from Al Guradian's Editorial Wankers. The stop order came from the US, alright, because the Sunnis in the pre-Interim Gov't - a broad spectrum council of idjits - went apeshit and the MSM lapped it up with a spoon generating the usual clap-trap stories of genocidal mayhem. Remember? And the US acceeded to their wishes, despite the stupidity of it. We were apparently trying to generate at least some goodwill from the zipperheads then in positions of influence - IIRC a group that couldn't agree on diddley-squat, tried to torpedo the Constitution, and generally proved itself too factional to be worth warm spit. Basically, Allawi was the only good thing to come from it - and he was far better than we dared hope for, given the other aspects of their brief reign.

Spin removed, this was the sequence:
2004 Apr 6, U.S. Marines launched a major assault on the turbulent city of Fallujah.

2004 Apr 10, Iraqi government negotiators entered the besieged city of Fallujah...

2004 Apr 11, US forces and insurgents agreed to a cease-fire in Fallujah.

As for Bing West, I'll google him later to see if he's the real deal or unworthy to bask in the light of our people - I don't much like his quote at the end - it sounds theatrical and ham-handed. He is, after all, dealing with Hollyweird and that seems to send some people over the edge, if they aren't already.
Posted by: .com   2004-12-17 1:48:33 AM  

#2  What are the odds?
Posted by: mojo   2004-12-17 1:30:10 AM  

#1  Interesting, if they do it right.
Posted by: Omater Chomock1599   2004-12-17 1:23:20 AM  

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