All Quiet On The Western Front: 21 Things You Missed

Another year of movies means another season of Oscar bait, and what’s a better bait for Oscars than a war movie? Not just any war movie, but an adaptation of the seminal anti-war tale, All Quiet On The Western Front? Edward Berger brings us the most visceral adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s novel to date, with pulse-pounding action that makes you feel like you’re in the trenches yourself. But that doesn’t mean it’s constant carnage, the movie remembers that at the heart of war is the human factor. Time is taken to see how our characters develop over the course of the war, and we even get to see them stealing food from local farms on their off-hours, just like in real life! Not only do we go over the historical allusions made throughout the film, we even noticed some slight inaccuracies in the production. No offense to the production staff though, they all did an incredible job bringing the grit and grime of wartime to the silver screen! We go even further to discuss the changes made to the story for the sake of the adaptation, although it’s up to you as to whether or not those choices worked. And with any harrowing tale, symbolism abounds! Stick around until the end of the video to see how our comrades’ fates are linked from the moment they set off to war until the very end!

Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
0:25 - War never changes, even if the directors do
1:20 - It’s all in the title
1:56 - The not-so-fantastic Four
2:43 - The BRAAAAM of war tolls
3:19 - The Dog-tags of war
3:50 - Tank God I’m not in the trenches
4:34 - The Mask of War
5:14 - All Quiet on the Eastern Front
5:52 - One day before retirement
6:27 - From Rags to Ditches
7:10 - A not-so-wild-goose chase
8:05 - No Yolking Matter
8:46 - Hidden in plain sight
9:19 - No vacation in wartime
9:54 - Killed in Not-so-Cold Blood
10:29 - Two years too late?
11:02 - Cause of death?
11:45 - Borrowed time
12:27 - Don’t eat soup with a fork
13:03 - Two sides to every story
13:34 - Full Circle

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Written by: Joshua Clinton
Edited by: Joey Criscitello

[angrytom]

Incredible film. The scene in the crater with Paul and the French soldier brought me to tears. Profoundly moving.

[stuartmacinnes]

The "killing an enemy in cold blood" comment kinda annoys me. It's warfare, it wasn't cold blood. Even without the warfare, it was in self defence. Cold blood would suggest that he did it when it wasn't necessary. The scene in question was horrific and even had me in tears but to say cold blood suggests lazy writing

[ryanmcmahon]

It just occurred to me that the barely-a-teen soldier who appears at the end to take the scarf from Paul's body was probably young enough to fight in the German military in WWII, once things got desperate enough (again). So the symbolism about him becoming the "new" Paul, it makes sense.

[bonidle]

The “Paul” character did not “murder an enemy in cold blood”, he killed him in hand to hand combat with his knife after the French soldier was about to shoot him but got blown into the crater, before he could reach his rifle again. The purpose of the scene was to demonstrate the extremely personal nature of killing an enemy at such close quarters rather than the abstract method of shooting an enemy at distance.
This film was like a diamond in the utter tsunami of crap churned out by Hollywoke today.

[yeredorozco]

One thing I noticed that may or not be true is how the main character respected life. Thoughout the movie he is sobbing over the death of his fellow comrades and those he sadly has to kill too. However, towards the end, he seems to not care anymore and kills fearlessly without any remorse, inevitably ending his life. It's almost as if respecting life in war is what helped him survive so long in it. Once that was unfortunately gone, life took him away. Although he died, he did so in the light and rested as if he was sleeping, which was an amazing touch. This film left me feeling pensive, and sensitive about my life. I couldn't go on my day without thinking about the blessing of living where I'm at in time and in space and how life is so delicate.

[gavinmills]

One small feature I liked was how yellow the soldiers teeth were after months in the trenches. So many times do we see Hollywood war films with hardened war veterans having pristine white teeth! A little thing but it always bugs me.

[MrSviggels]

Another fact on the soldiers uniforms, you can see that older soldiers such as Kat are wearing the Model 1907/10 uniforms, while newer recruits such as Paul wear the newer Model 1915’s. This shows that men like Kat have likely been here since the beginning.

[stripeslGFX]

This movie IS SO Watched it at work and nearly broke down crying lmao. So much emotion stuffed into this masterpiece

[dceasar]

I liked how it accurately portrayed the age of the soldiers as well. Many other war films and movies don’t show how young some of these men were.

[SoldierSpiderx]

The soldier screaming as the tank rolls over the trench: One can impossibly imagine what it must have been like to witness such a thing barring in mind this is the first time (maybe not this battle but era) tanks have ever been used. These soldiers have never seen anything like a tank before and no matter how many bullets they shoot it just doesn’t stop.

[alexandratheavenger]

They should NOT have removed the part where Pau went home for 8 days. That was a crucial part of the story.

[arthurtaylor]

I don't think it was too violent. If anything, it was a very accurate portrayal of how bloody and brutal war can be. Does that make it hard to watch at times? Definitely! But, this is the harsh lesson of history and why we must work not to repeat it.

[zntx.]

The „Im Westen nichts neues“ -Title actually refers to what „media“ at that time was telling the German citizens. I myself read many newspapers from around that time for a history project. There were always war news on the front page. And while you had much movement and „action“ on the eastern front described, the western one was pretty stationary with people dying over a few feet of land. Therefore there was „not much happening“ in means of fronts moving etc. This movie sort of shows how people were being slaughtered, while newspapers said week for week „Nothing new at the western front“ and how all of this was just „Nothing“.

[MauserKark]

Small correction: the regiment depicted in this adaptation is Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 78 (which is actually stated by an officer in the beginning), a regiment that actually did serve on both the Western Front (and the Eastern Front as well at one point.)

Another interesting tidbit is that "Heinrich Gerber" from the very beginning of the film is also a member of the same regiment, which you can see if you zoom in closely enough on his uniform's clothing tag.

[jchrome]

"In another life, we could have been friends." - A wise man

[robr]

Honestly the tank scene in the film is one of the most frightening and harrowing scenes I’ve ever seen on film

[annar.]

Often times, us Germans tend to dislike most German movies. Bad German shows are like a running gag in Germany. But on Netflix, I have seen so many good German movies/shows. They are really improving! This movie was awesome and so sad

[JabbaDesiljic]

A few things:
First of all, Paul’s friend who is named Tjaden, states earlier in the film that he wishes to be a corporal when he returns from the war to which Kat jokingly tells him that he won’t. The injury he sustained later appeared to be a wound to the upper thigh which likely would’ve caused amputation, and Tjaden even states himself that he will never be accepted as a corporal now with such a disability. You’ll also notice that when Paul brings him the soup later, that the first thing Tjaden asks about is cutlery, showing this was likely a decision he had made rather than an act of emotion. To me that exemplifies the utter waste of life for often extremely little which really was the entirety of the western front. Even the survivors are broken as Tjaden, despite surviving, is now unable to follow his dream and feels lost, or the other millions affected by physical or mental trauma. Secondly, the German general at the end who orders the final charge is indeed fictional, however I think that’s kind of the point; The soldier we see die at the beginning, Heinrich, dies which causes Paul to inherit his former uniform, with the name tag being dropped to the ground. All of the named soldiers with their individuality end up dying in the machine, Ludwig, Franz, Paul… all individuals who died for an unnamed general trying to fight over inconsequential areas of land. There is no deeper meaning behind the war or it’s architects, no real reason for why these men died, instead just a machine that determines a cost but which doesn’t understand the importance of that cost. Thirdly, why does it matter if the movie deviated from the book? Were any of you on the western front? Did any of you experience it’s horrors? When the author wrote the book, I don’t think he intended it as some classic novel that tells a story. He wrote a story that makes a point, a point that he came to when he was on those front lines. Despite enlisting with the idea that they were fighting for life, they realized they were instead fighting with life, senselessly dying for a cause that didn’t even exist. I agree that the movie should’ve kept the portion where Paul returns home to his family because it shows how the war has ruined any chance of normal life, however as I mentioned with Tjaden and the other characters, this same point is still expressed, just differently. The point of this movie wasn’t to recreate the book because of how great of a book it was, but to recreate the message of the book in a more modern way. Yes changes were made and you can have your opinions on whether or not you think they were justified, but “not following source material” really isn’t enough of a critique to make here. The source material was a soldier recounting the terror of war and the effect it had on him. He writes Paul as a stand-in for himself who, regardless of the version, dies ultimately for nothing. Clearly the author didn’t die in the war, but you could instead say that a part of him died, that part being represented by Paul. When you consider the intentions of that novel, and the way you are left feeling afterwards, I think this film did a fantastic job as it portrays war as the brutal and unforgiving monster that it is just as the novel did. So instead of complaining that the film deviated from the original, instead understand why it deviated, and what these changes actually meant for the overall theme of the movie.

[holtonciopy]

The movie reinforced my idea that war is the apex of human stupidity and cruelty.
So many young man dying for nothing in a cruel and terrible war.

[georgeschaut]

I had a paternal grandfather who fought for Germany in the First World War--on both fronts. He told stories to my dad about having to survive on the eastern front by eating rats--so the scarcity of food depicted in the film was a constant disadvantage, which ultimately contributed to Germany's defeat in 1918. Regarding the tragic last day of the war, my understanding was that the majority of unnecessary attacks were perpetrated by the allies, looking for a last chance at glory. I've seen the 1930 & '79 versions. This latest one might be too graphic for me to handle. George, Canada.