This is a slightly re-edited version of my video on All Quiet on the Western Front and anti-war cinema. It's only a few moments that have changed, but if you want to see the original, it's still up on Nebula: nebula.tv/videos/lsoo-a-perfect-antiwar-movie (using this link also gets you a personalized discount!)

The reason, I believe, for the "Hollywood action movie" style final battle scene was to show the cruel irony of Paul's story arc: That it was only at this moment, after having lost everyone, becoming disillusioned and accepting the pointlessness of the war did he finally become exactly the sort of selfless and remorseless killing machine that the had army tried - and failed - to turn him into through all of their indoctrination, speeches and propaganda. Their lies had failed to make him into a hardened killer and yet it was the truth which dispelled those lies that did it instead.

> ...all those who died in a war, that was so destructive, that their deaths weren't even noticed, > all those that were made to believe that they were going to write history, but ended up being violently erased from it. That was beautifully said.

As a French person this film hit me hard, especially in that crater scene where Paul kills the French soldier only to find a photo of his wife and child as well as his ID booklet. Three of my family members were killed in this war fighting in the French army. Two of them were twins in the 31st Chasseurs Battalion, died days apart in June 1915. I have their death card with photos of them in uniform. The third was my Great Grand-Uncle of the 99th Infantry Regiment who was killed in action on June 10, 1917. I am in possession of his Identity tag, coin pouch which was struck by shrapnel, letters from his fiancée, letters he sent back home, as well as photos of him in uniform. These items were retrieved from his body upon his death and sent back home to my family. You can see why this film is very personal to me. It tore a hole in my heart that has yet to mend.

One of the main reasons I loved this movie is becuase it takes place from a German soldiers perspective. That's something you rarely ever get to see in war movies. It's always from the American or British soldiers perspective. It's nice to look through the eyes of the opposite side.

I feel that the ending focusing on Paul's death is the essential factor in making us understand the selfless essence of the war: we start the movie following one soldier who soon dies, whose uniform is repurposed for Paul who used it throughout the film. By the end, as we empathized and connected with the main character, he dies an almost meaningless death, only to have his tag collected by the third soldier, who we start to follow as the story comes to a close. I got the feeling that this cycle repeated itself endlessly, and we only could feel how hollow it was by establishing that close connection from beggining to end with the main character only to realize he was only one of millions whose lives were wasted on the battlefronts.

9:40 Maybe the choice to do it in one continuous shot and the feeling it evokes were intentional in that Paul has gone through so much that his humanity has completely broken down by the battle, and thus he runs through the battlefield with a simple goal of just killing and fulfilling orders. Considering it that way, the entire film before that moment becomes a tragedy of Paul losing his humanity and ending up as a mindless killer - he has to, in order to survive - and that failure to protect his humanity, the same humanity that had him scarred and respond to the horrors in a reasonable way (fearful, disgusted etc), is punished by his death. Perhaps if he had not given up his more emphatic side he wouldn't have charged the bunker and get stabbed

People were killed right up until the end of the armistice, and the armies would change the death dates in order to prevent any embarrassment to the families that their sons were killed within 10 minutes of the cease fire.

The last scene showed to me that Paul was gone, that his only instinct was to kill and survive, his humanity was finally broken.

The ending of the book... that last line had such a matter-of-fact, devastating impact, like a slow-motion punch in the gut. I cannot understate the profound influence this book had on me as a teenager coming from a family of generations of sons who went off to war in Europe, Korea, and Vietnam; so much senseless loss... To this day, I feel as if I left part of the child I was somewhere in the mud with Paul. Another great video. Love and respect from Japan.

When I saw the flamethrowers show up to the fighting I remember being so frustrated. They had already been through so much brutal fighting, and seeing the flamethrowers seemed like an incredibly cruel twist. The movie is fantastic at showing the battle from a soldiers point of view, not one of power, but one of hopelessness and exhaustion. The tanks also really captured the terror of war. The moment where the main character freaks out over killing the other soldier in the crater really felt painful to watch. The terror on his face was hard to watch, even though youve seen him kills before. I think the regret on his face really captures the horror of it all. Before, everyone hes killed really lacks meaning, their deaths are just deaths, they stop mattering after the camera pans. But, now its like the full weight of his actions suddenly has consequences, but the hardest part about it all is that it isn’t his fault that hes been made into some killing machine. It’s so painful to watch and thats what makes it worthy of its Oscar.

12:50 Although, General Friedrichs is a fictional character there were real commanders on both sides who acted the same, such as American General John Pershing, who reportedly prevented word of the cease-fire from reaching his troops adding an extra 12,000 dead young men in the last day, almost 2000 in the last hour. There are numerous WWI memorials in DC and other cities named after him…

6:00 I think you are spot on with how making something “realistic” becomes a perversion in itself. I do appreciate the antiwar film series. It is giving me much to think about and how I interpret movies and violence.

it's really interesting that we both felt completely different about the final combat scene. to me, it felt so much like going through the motions in such a pointless way. he needs to run now, he needs to kill this person, he needs to keep moving. after the entire movie, i could feel how tired he was and how he has been doing this for all this time and it's all he can manage to get through the other side in such a mindless way, to allow him to keep killing human beings to fulfill his "duty" and get out alive. it really didn't feel like an action scene to me.

The book is so good! Wish they stuck closer. Like how it shows that there was nothing to go back home to. And also the train/hospital stuff.

I think the choice for the long shot format in the last battle scene shows how at that point its just about making it to the end. Before the last battle starts Paul asks about the time and the new young soldier answers that theres 15 minutes left till 11 AM. So we watch and follow along as Paul just tries to make it through the last 15 minutes, no matter the cost

While watching this, I kept thinking of the Wilfred Owen poem, 'Dulce et Decorum Est'. After describing a gas victim at the end, the speaker says, '...you would not tell with such high zest, to children ardent for some desperate glory, the old Lie - Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori.'

Maybe somebody already told about in the comments, but i think there is one very important detail that you might missed from the ending. When soldiers are collecting dog tags, the one who was about to take the Paul's one, got distracted and forgot about him. This adds another layer to his insignificance as yet another, forgotten soldier in my humble opinion.

When I saw this movie it left me speechless how meaningless war is as a soldier it truly shown that war is more meaningless than we ever think and people so simple like Paul can very simply be forgotten

Personally, I find the last fight scene very well realised. It shows how this young, highly motivated man has become a jaded tool of the army that only functions by killing, going forward, killing and going forward again. At the beginning he was still terrified when he had to kill his first enemy at close range and realised that this was also a human being, full of hopes, etc., like him, but through the loss of his friends, through all the killing and murdering he has witnessed AND this last order to attack, even though peace has already been negotiated and is only a few minutes away, he himself has lost all hope and yes...just functions on automatic mode. No thinking, just dull functioning. And that was perfectly shown in this scene.

You do not need any suggestions for me. One topic I would like to hear your opinions on is rebellion in movies and the desire to overthrow a central authority without any plans for what to do next. My first example is Star Wars where we all inherently support the rebellion, but we have no idea what they want outside of vague desires everyone uses.

Second times the charm 😬 YT is rediciulous sometimes!

I think the ending battle scene with paul in the remaining 15 minutes of WW1 is shot as if it is an action scene intentionally. Because its the last day of WW1 the last 15 minutes, paul's made it right? He's a soldier now all the way through right? He knows how to run and gun and kill not just the physical labor of doing so, but on an emotion level he's hardened to it all. He just lost his remaining brothers of war, this is what he is and he's going to make it out because war has successfully turned him into a soldier right? SPOILERS, but no. It brings all that last little bit of hope and momentum to a grinding halt when he faces that other soldier in the last 30 seconds of WW1. He didn't make it by mere moments, probably less than a second.

I really like the idea of the final sequence for Paul being that he is essentially dead. Similar to Winston from 1984 in the end. Paul is gone just like all his friends and all that remains is the killing machine

Thanks for the essay! I also had some mixed feelings when i watched the film. And "warfare turned into a spectacle again, albeit a more perverted inversion of the kind that heroically glamorizes." really hits that feeling. I both read the book and watched the (still great) film from 1930. More subtle parts, that touched me deeply back then, were left out or shortened. In the book is a scene where horses got wounded in by artillery in the night and scream in the dark for hours, driving everybody crazy. For me a much more impactful and less voyeuristic scene than a point-blank execution with flame throwers. Also the home leave was left out, where the protagonist felt completely lost all of a sudden and confronted his former teacher.

I'm watching this video again even though I watched it before you removed it to re-edit it just to give you another view and support this channel - it's my favorite channel on KZfaq. Great content!

To me the final scene is an excellent extension of what we see happening throughout the whole movie: the slow progression of the men from humans to uncaring machines as they are exposed to more and more violence. I noticed it earlier, when Paul and Kat fire at the approaching French flamethrowers. They do it in perfect unison, fire, reload, fire, reload, and it’s a moment that feels “perverse badass”. The progression is impressive from the army’s point of view, but horrific to us. They have become so used to the rhythm of battle and death that it’s second nature to them now. That’s why the final scene to me feels less “Hollywood” and more like Walter white. Yeah, in a vacuum the characters actions look and seem badass, but in context it represents a great tragedy and the depths they have fallen to. I see the last battle as Paul’s final moment of giving in to what his army wants, just so he can get the fifteen minutes over with and survive to go home. I found it rather moving.

Growing up in Eastern Germany, the book was mandatory in school...

In All Quiet on the Western Front, when the general gives his final speech to his soldiers to once again go on the offensive just before the armistice, my mind immediately contrasted it with the speech Oskar Schindler gives to the SS soldiers minding the camp as the Russians approached, in which he offers them the chance to in some way reconnect with their humanity.

7:50 bro... that transition👏👏👏.

The end changing was poorly done in my eyes. I loved the end of Paul in the original and even in the first movie when he dies for no reasonable circumstances, no where near living, just dying for nothing. It shows the true horror of The Great War (WWI), and how no one survived, especially not their minds.

I liked how the ending showed Paul and the French Soldier looking at each other as people with a peace to it only for that peace to be so sharply destroyed suddenly and randomly.

Glade to see this back up. Same thing happened to me on a video I made about war. I don’t have the same following as you so I just left there in KZfaq purgatory. Just a hobby for me. Love your stuff.

Hey! First off, I just want to say I'm a huge fan of your channel. You guys do an amazing job breaking down movie clips, and I find it really insightful. I'm actually working on an essay about them, and I was wondering if you could share some insights on where you source the clips for your videos. It would be incredibly helpful for my research. Thanks a bunch! 🎬

Great vid! Luv from Portugal!

Now that I know how Paul died in the novel, I do agree with your critique of the film's ending. Imagine if instead of the ending we got, the movie just cuts to a quick shot of him dead in a pile of other men just as how the movie started. It would also reinforce this feeling of the cycle starting all over again and a message of how war was and is just this terrible factory churning out dead men as a product thereof. It'd also be terribly cruel for the viewers who had been with Paul throughout the whole movie to get such an ending like that. There wouldn't even be the closure of knowing how he died or what were his final moments like. I do understand that the film's actual ending also speaks of how he lost his humanity and succumbed to the toxic hero ideology you've also criticized in your other video. But it's also interesting to explore or discuss other possible endings such as that of the book.

Keep doing what you're doing man. 👌🏾

I decided to read the novel before watching this film. That was a mistake. The novel is completely devoid of sensationalism and has little to no attempt at poetic pros. It is simple, straight forward, even matter-of-fact. It is this dispassionate honesty that makes the novel relevant a hundred years later. On the first page Remarque writes, “this book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession…” But I think the novel ends up being exactly those things. Comparatively, I think the film is attempting to be an accusation, an “anti-war” film, but in that attempt I think if fails (at least in comparison to the novel). All the choices it makes to deviate from the text work against it. The scenes in the hospital and at home on leave communicate so much about what is lost in war, both physical and emotional. The scene in the crater with the French soldier is much longer with a far more effective arc. And Paul’s unceremonious death in the conclusion is far more powerful. If you are here it’s safe to say you’ve seen the movie. I hope you were able to appreciate it for what it is more than I have been. But if you haven’t read the book I suggest you give it a try.

Here to support after watching the first version of this video.

I really love the two aspects from the war, from the soldiers' side and from the one who hold the real power, a "puppeteer" if I might say.

I’m here to watch it all over again. 😊

Did anyone notice the similarities of that first overhead shot on the winter battlefield with a similar shot in Game of Thrones? The one where the bodies are formed in a starburst shape that recurs throughout the series? Except in this shot, there is no symmetry, just the result of a horrific battle.

Watched your analysis again just to honor its excellence

A comment for the algorithm! Hopefully this time the video stays and that it appears on peoples fyp :)

Good to see this again!

your videos are superb written!!!

I think the ending was shot like in this manner for the John Wick, Extraction, Atomic Blonde action fans who were eagerly waiting for “real action”. It served as a mechanism for dispelling notions that the hero would survive if he simply used his rage to propel his actions forward. His death was a gut punch that shows how meaningless the war and especially the final battle was and to show you how life and death in war is a vicious cycle. The guy he saved before dying eventually went on tag duty just like Paul did in the beginning. The focus on Paul immediately shifted to being just another body among the many. No one will know his importance in the battle or lack thereof.

Fantastic video. I get where you're coming from with the final scene (and with the part you talked about where you don't see the other soldiers falling) but I feel like the example you showed, even if it acclaimed, doesn't fit with the way modern cinema flows in any way. It throws you out of the action, whereas it feels obvious to me that the intent of this version of the movie is to pull you in to Paul himself, to reenforce your connection to him as the 'protagonist' in an extremely modern way that the modern viewer expects, so that you are slowly pulled deeper into his fear and grief and despair alongside him, and ultimately understand the pointlessness more personally. People these days expect the protagonist to have plot armor, so that every time Paul runs across No Man's Land you know he isn't going to simply fall 20 minutes from the end from a shot in the head like the other men, and demonstrating his death in those last seconds is imo an indictment of that sense of plot armor, and a necessary step to address modern audiences in their own understanding of the language of film.

God bless! Thank you for these reviews! Also prayer here when wanted loves!

I wished they kept the classroom scene, it captures the lie of war and heroism in a single scene

Really nice video. But I don't agree with your evaluation of the last battle scene. I think the reason, why it appears so random is exactly to show the tragedy in the routine of trench warfare. Paul has already lost his humanity and is beyond the point of obtaining the heroic status that he and the others were promised. Nothing is left of the innocent boy he was, when entering the war. All his friends are dead, he has witnessed gore, despair, suicide, hunger, cold and murder by his own hands so excessively, that he is permanently blunted. He is disconnected from all that is human and walks into the grinder bare of emotions or regard for himself or anything else. While watching it, I was so uncomfortable, that I was even hoping for him to get shot, so that he might be released from his devastated existence that is nothing but pointless suffering at this state. The way he goes out killing the French soldiers doesn't say: "Look at me, I'm a hero!" in a John Rambo kind of way. It isn't a glorious last stand with a tough punchline and doesn't feel like the formerly shown struggle to survive in terror, either, but far more like the state of acceptance of his fate to vanish in one of the mass graves of the Noman's Land, far from home, covered in dirt, behind enemy lines and all alone for no reason at all. I totally agree about Paul's death scene, though. It reversed the whole impression, that I previously described.

"A hero of war. Is that what they see? Just medals and scars. So damn proud of me. But I brought home that flag, now it gathers dust. But it's the flag that I love, the only flag I trust." -[Hero of War - Rise Against] (This is the 3rd and final reference to 'the flag' in the song but in this verse the singer is specifically talking about the white flag his fallen comrade waved before taking fatal fire.) This song single handedly made me rethink absent mindedly joining the military when I felt lost toward the end of high school. Might seem stupid but I really owe a lot to this song. Now that I'm older I realise I couldn't have handled losing brothers and sisters like that.

Amazing analysis from someone who has only experienced war as depicted on Netflix.

Hey, as always great commentary! I want to add another perspective on the part where we follow Paul in the last scene, where he goes in for the final push and the camera follows him around. Could it be that we as viewers are sort of 'abducted here' by this point of view? In the sense that, we saw Paul resenting his position and the force that was used to bring him into this last push. He has been formed into a killing machine by this point after years of war, arguably against his will, even though he would not like to be in the war anymore. And maybe at this point, something snapped inside him and he doesn't care anymore, he's completely dead inside. Thus, his mind and body are also abducted, as it were. Is it not that the camera follows him around, killing more people in this soulless way, to bring home this point? There's a certain professionalism here, and a certain aggression too in this actions. And we are forced to witness and live that perspective of being a mere cog in a war that simply doesn't care about anything anymore and just kills to say something like 'You want me to be like this? Fine.'

What I liked about the end that you criticised is that "action sequence" and Paul's death being only about him. I interpreted the sequence as him still trying to survive this war. Him not ending up being one of those unknown corpses, which died in a horrible way. To the extent of killing others to reach that goal. He may be so numb to the point of seemingly not caring, but still he cares so much about himself that wants to escape that destiny. With the death, I like how his death is his own, without anyone else in the picture, in this moment. It's a moment where he is all by myself. His death would lose significance if there were others in the same picture, and as the main character, it's alright to have this privilege, as he was the one who we followed along. What I think would be worth mentioning in the video is that in the last hour of WW1, more people died than on any other day even since it started. It was a die or survive situation. What i can say about this movie is how great it is. As a German, its right to say that movies here are rarely masterpieces, or simply good.

I also appreciated that the film depicted the soldiers as the (very) young men that they were. It’s easy to watch films like Saving Private Ryan and forget that the men fighting were mostly 18-20 year olds… not 35 year old men.

Could you tell me how to avoid copyright on your a youtube video that is made by compilimg movies clips or others videos clips ? What are the rules, other than we need a voiceover on these compiled clips?

I liked the second version of this movie (1979) more then this remake, I haven't seen the original. My reasons for saying that the 1979 version was much better are this. It showed how the teacher and other people in the community were all for the war and sending the younger generation, to the point where they're being pressured to go up until it was their turn, they show the hypocrisy of some people who idolize war and want to go to war, as long as they're not the one getting sent. There is scene when he goes on leave, so he decides to go home and everything is the same yet very different. People are living their lives like nothing is happening, everything seems normal and to him it becomes sort of surreal because he will never be the same and he knows that, he knows that no one there understands what is going on or has witnessed what he has and that they probably never will. That part hit home, I feel like there are plenty of people who served who felt the same way when they came home. It showed the struggle of doing a lot and nothing at the same time and that also at any moment it could be your last, that its all about luck and that everything going on around you is out of your control. I felt like this remake, that they made it more of an action film, they left out the main reasons why he eventually becomes a cold, hardened soldier, he doesn't care if he lives or dies anymore he is literally tired of being tired and tired of being scared. He knows he could die at any moment and nothing he does can change that as he is literally the last one of his classmates left, his friends are all dead and somehow he has managed to survive for this long. He is now the grizzled old veteran who keeps an eye on the literal kids they have in the trenches And that's another reason why in the end, his death is so hard. Because he for a moment relaxes to sketch a bird that landed on a dead tree, and someone takes a random shot at him and kills him instantly. You don't see who kills him and he doesn't die in a crazy action scene. He dies on a nice relatively calm and sunny day, he just dies and becomes one of the countless many who died . No one will know the story between him and his friends, just another life gone, done and wasted.

Rarely can one view A Masterpiece on KZfaq. Thanks 😊👌

As others have (sort of) said here, I think the ending is more like the embodiment of what pre-war Paul and friends envisioned they'd be like in a battle: strong, heroic, indestructible, etc basically the heroic ideal. Obviously, what the military left out, was to achieve that ideal one had to go through hell. I also liked how it portrayed the general who sent them into the final battle. He clearly has an attachment to the war and the military and an idealistic view of glory as well, and yet he never sets foot on a battlefield, was never in danger, and only watched things from afar. I felt like the commentary was to reevaluate how much credit we give these military leaders who never shoot a gun or have their lives threatened.

I know I've seen this video already, why did it get banned? Or what happened?

I liked the movie as well, but didn't love it and this was very helpful in deconstructing why. I hope these modern takes of war movies actually have an impact on our society moving forward

"All Quiet on the Western Front" made me re-evaluate one of the characteristics you mentioned that define an anti-war movie - and I think you should reflect on this, too. It's "Does the film question its own hero system?". Up until now I agreed with the formulation of this question, but actually it should be: "Does the film question the hero system of its viewers?" In any case, AQOTWF does not question its own hero system, because it has none. From the beginning, war is represented as only a senseless slaughterhouse, and soldiers, accordingly, as sacrificial lambs. But this is already an established view, at least in regard to the First World War. No one in the audience questions this, especially not in Germany, where this movie was made. There is no katharsis here, no revelation, for nobody in the audience. Having said this, AQOTWF also does not question the hero system of its viewers. The movie only confirms an established opinion about the Western Front in WW1 and the deeply-nationalistic, militaristic and masochistic society back then. No one in the audience will say: "Oh no, my opinion about dying a glorious death for the Kaiser were wrong!" The believe system of the people depicted in the movie is too antiquated for a contemporary audience. It's not their own. This world is not their own. On the other hand, movies that question a current, a "living" belief system will have a much bigger impact (or an impact at all). That's why "Jarhead", for example, was a much more effective anti-war movie. People could relate to it much more. "American Sniper" is a similar case. Also "Born on the Fourth of July". The message: "War is bad" is not enough. The message needs to be "Look! This is you. You would very likely act the very same in the same circumstances. Have you thought about that?" AQOTWF doesn't transport this message because it shows people from a very different time and culture than our own. (It's also extremely undercomplex and deeply unoriginal, but that's a another topic) (Also: The makers of this movie are, in a way, extremely lucky that it depicts the First World War (which in fact, had no one clear villain). Imagine they had made a similar movie about the current war in Ukraine and had not more to offer than "War is bad and both sides are wrong". This would be a total s* show, and rightly so.) I hope it becomes clear what I wanted to say :D

In my opinion, this was better than any of the previous iterations of the story, in terms of storytelling alone The imagery of the journey of a bloody coat from the dead guy in the first scene , Heinrich, to Paul Baumer was a powerful allegory of the continuation of the war and the effect it had on a desensitized populace

I think that they should have included the Christmas truce, as it would show what the soldiers lost

The ending made sense to me because it highlighted the contrast of the war ending at the 11th hour with unnecessary loss of life before it in the 15 minutes. They all became deprogrammed npcs after 11 am. It really highlights the pointlessness of it all.

The last battle scene as they were running across no mans land I thought of what a great ending it would have been if he was shot before even getting to the enemy’s trench with a fade out of the others running over him, no build up, no honorable last battle just a broken man running into the slaughter

I've recently finished writing my Master's degree dissertation on All Quiet (book and 1929 movie) and, wow... I brought up this 2022 adaptation on the third chapter and, watching your video now, it's so fun to watch how our ideas around the movie and the depiction of war in it really connect. You even brought up some amazing analysis points that I'll definitely make sure to add in my final draft before publishing it! (how should I cite you, btw?)

i thought the end was to show how he was now the experienced world weary solider , then contrasted with the new recruit who is very much like he was at the start of the film, months earlier ...still shocked by collecting name tags

I think the last scene is thematically consistent in that it flips our perspective. Sure, the movie doesn't take sides, but we ARE relieved every time Paul or his friends escape death by killing their French equivalent. So the last scene undoes this good guy / bad guy framework by showing the French as happy it's over, characters who mirror the ones we've been spending time with. When it shows Paul as some stylized Hollywood killing machine, we kind of... don't like him as much anymore. He seems almost enthusiastic about this last battle. He's finally become a jaded, cold asset to the war machine. Then, when he dies, we aren't left savoring his heroism or sacrifice, but are shown that all that we went through with him, all that it meant, was no less rich than the experience of literally any other background or enemy soldier. The movie says, "See how that made you feel? Multiply it by 10 million."

I see the final battle as a depressing culmination of everything thats broken down Paul. It’s his breaking point, where we finally see him transform into the careless/mindless killer the war had forged him into. He no longer has a soul or even hope behind his eyes, they’re cold and dead. Any chance at a normal life he would have had outside the army was completely gone. All the trauma, all the loss, all the anger finally pushed him into simply not caring anymore… which ultimately costs him his life. Right at the cusp of the ceasefire, and the end of the war. It didn’t matter, because whatever life he would have had after, was never going to be worth living after everything he’d been through. The young hopeful Paul we knew at the beginning was 100% dead before the bayonet even pierced his heart. To me that further amplifies the Anti-War message, because he’s not meant to be seen as a brave Rambo-esque character, he’s meant to be seen as a tragic figure that lost his soul. With the context they set up beforehand, the audience understands that every soldier he’s carelessly killing has families and lives of their own, just like he did. But in the end, it didn’t matter because the powers that be behind the war cared more about appearing stronger, than salvaging anymore life.

The camera on Paul in the final sequence made sense, because it was the only way to hit home how throwaway those young men were to the elites. We followed him throughout the film, watched him lose everyone, watched him deteriorate physically and witness the most horrifying scenes. We watched him go through loss after loss until the end of the war, where he of all his friends, is the last one standing. And then because of one man's ego, he is sent back into a useless battle. In that final nationalist speech, the look on his face is unlike what it was before - he is utterly defeated. And in that state of disbelief he must now endure the last 15 minutes before the armistice, and every moment that we spend with him in the battle gives us hope that he might just make it... The moment that he gets stabbed weighs so much more heavily because we were with HIM in the final battle, not with everyone else. Being the witness to his life made it that much more precious. And through his final moments we come to realize how precious every other life in that battlefield was.

I have to disagree on the ending sequence. I believe it was filmed that way to show how in the end at the final hour of the war he became a killing machine and a cog of the war. The filmmaking radically changes for that scene for a reason and culminates in him losing his life and everything calming to a absolute stop. It really illustrates what countries want the soldier to become, He became that vision of a soldier for a brief time and killed many men out of spite for his last second call to war and it ended with him never seeing the finish line.

I wrote a story inspired by this film, but I did my best make the, year, day and month even to be as unknown as possible, Infact even the side of which the perspective is, to resemble the confusion of the war, and much like the film the man character of my story dies, but to a comrade, which did actually happen often, as gas mask designs weren’t very set, some times men when they knew their gas mask was about to fail they took a deep breath and put on an enemy gas mask, and the ending paragraph was the exact same as the beginning paragraph,”the early morning sun rises, bringing the sign of a new day, trucks can be heard coming from the distance, as they arrive men get off of the truck, as they begin to walk down into a trench, with clean boots soon dirtied to the mud that has never seemed to dry into dirt, as all is quiet in the western front.”to resemble the constant repetitiveness of the war, and the meaningless of a death during the war, as there’d always be a body to replace that death

I would suggest that we all go watch "Western Front 1918". It is on KZfaq and is worth the ninety minutes.

The 1979 version is better, not by visuals, but by story telling and character development.

My grand pa is a ww2 hero. He was at pearl harbor during the attack and went to attack Japan after getting a few medal for it. However he never seemed to find glory in it, he even was part of the clean up effort after the nukes. He died in the mid 90s of cancer from the bombs I think, the things he saw and the sounds he heard and the smells he endured. Ww2 wasn't any better or any less cruel then ww1, no I would argue it was far worse given the technology. He never told my mom what he did nor did he display his many medals. After he passed, my grandma placed his medal, his flag, and his picture on the wall above the TV. She told my mom the story of pearl harbor, it's not pleasant. He was in his bed early when he was flung out of his bunk and the ship begun to turn sideways. He got halfway out before he heard his friends trapped, some how he became injured. My grandfather never told anyone how but my grand ma told my mom he a large star shaped mark on his body.... it was very big like a very large bullet hit him. He said he got it "that day", she always believed a Japanese fighter had shot him. He told her very very little of Japan only "it was like the rain it's self was at shooting us". He never spoke of Hiroshima he would kind of go silent. So no one ever brought it up. He was a hero but he never wanted to be praised for it. Idk if he felt guilt or maybe sadness I will never know.

The perspective of the politician wasn't in the original book, not because it was written before WW2. It's because the book is based on the personal experiences of Erich Maria Remarque, who most likely went through every single experience detailed in the book during his time in the trenches. Why would a book based on his personal account also have some random politician's perspective?

Whilst I do agree that juxtaposing the life of the average soldier to the people that are in charge. I do believe the book already kind of did this through the character of Himmelstoss.

I’m happy this movie got a remake. The original was good and so is the remake, it helps bring the story to new audiences

I always thought that the last combat sequence focused on Paul is intentionally making us focus on the pointless end of his life rather than trying to be a homage to action movies. And I felt that showing how he dies so meaninglessly was meant to use him as an example of “every man”, but I do understand the criticism provided here

Have you seen generation kill? is an HBO miniseries, a good example of anti-war art

When I watched this, I remember a part where my friend and I wanted to eat ice cream in the middle of this movie and I felt bad cause it's in this war movie but we did it. I don't think there can be an effective anti war movie, because movies are for entertainment. The best way to have an anti war movie is to have bullets come out of the screen at you. Nothing more anti war than that. The movie was a beautiful piece of art, amazing cinematography but even anti war movies can convince some to go to war.

bro i found out that it got an oscar when in crafts in school i saw on a newspaper "the first german movie that got an oscar" in german

I disagree, the speech that the general forced every soldier to fight because those who refused were literally shot on the spot. Furthermore, I think that this long seemingly one take action shot was very smart and (at least for myself) a very meaningful scene because it completes the message of anti war because all Paul's friends died, with multiple emphasizes from people like doctors saying how unlucky it was for someone to die so close to the end. Finally, I also think that the director was trying to show how Paul knew that he would not survive the battle, even though there was only 15minutes left. I also think that Paul knew that he even if he survived he wouldn't be able to live with himself after all of his friends died, so there fore, he made one last effort to fight.

Great video and analysis, I disagree with your perspective on the ending. I found his death to be while impactful still insignificant, him dying shows us that even as the main protagonist of the film he nor anybody is safe from war and he is just another body

15:44 hits differently

i personally think it deserves every single oscar it got

Wait, didn't you uploaded this before?

I sometimes wonder if being fluent in the language of a film diminishes it, or conversely if not understanding elevates it. I find that many films not in spoken English are critiqued much more harshly by the native language critics versus the typical Hollywood English speaking critics. Might make an interesting premise for a future video. Probably goes beyond simple language and could include cultural fluency.

u speak the truth

I find the main issue with anti-war films is that they don't tell the whole truth. This has become much more noticeable in the last year with the War in Ukraine. That war has clearly shown how the fate of an entire country and its people can hang in the balance in a war so it becomes impossible to see the violence as senseless. The reality is that anti-war films show what happens when you don't win. Losing a war or ending in a stalemate is one of the worst fates a country can face because it meant its people sacrificed a great deal to not achieve any of the aims those sacrifices were for. The truth is there are things worth fighting and dying for, the problem is that its only worth it if the desire outcome actually happens.

All Quiet On The Western Front truly deserved to win. Easily the most brutal war film I have ever seen, it pulled no punches at showing the horrors of men in battle. Only "Come And See" has matched it. There are no winners, only ruined souls on both sides.

going for the adaptation of the original

I liked the juxtaposition of the soldiers fighting a senseless bloody war with the people in power sitting in neat lavish rooms, not caring that every moment they stall costs lives. However i dislike the ending. I wish it was emphazised more that the german military leaders too agreed the war is lost, but *they didnt want to be the one to sign.* So they sent a liberal politician as a scapegoat, who had nothing to do with causing the war, but now had to fix the mess. Like this the military undermined the new government to come before it was formed. Adding that general who was so upset undermined that for me. I think it would have been more powerful if the generals knew the war was lost but cared more about saving face than men dying. Also it takes away nuance from the Allied Forces. They wanted the armistice to be at a pretty looking number, even if people continued dying. and it was majority *them* who fought last minute land grabs. In that regard i think the ending greatly diminishes any nuance. It feels flashy and too performative. I think what would have been more meaningful instead is shots of soldiers fighting and dying all around Paul, randomly cutting away from him and going around the battlefield to back to him, interspersed with images of a clocks hands moving closer towards 11

i gotta say, i have no film education in any kind of way s i can only speak from what i was feeling during tat last scene. that last scene for me just felt entirely hopeless. after all paul has went through, he had giving up. knowing how incredibly pointless all that, the last mission, all these deaths are. it feels like he is just a shell of a man shaped into what his upper men wanted him to be. i of course have no clue if that was the intention, but i am sure that if this scene had more focus on the individuals death, like the video said other movies had done, the feeling of machine like acting for war would not have been the same. i really like the last scene and how they did it, simply bc it showed how incredibly pointless everything was. it showed that there is no humane way out of this and just lead to the unavoidable end.

all quiet all recommended movie historical accuracy almost accurate except for the barrage pretty inacurate on the bunkers getting rekt more than it normally would Overall good movie touching movie and pretty realistic POV

yes

Wars are different. Some are stupid as WW1, but some are not

Yes.