Watched this on DVD last night on the home theater system. A most excellent movie. I've been meaning to see it for a long time but only now got around to it. I'm not a big fan of war movies in general, but Saving Private Ryan was definitely worth my time. I particularly enjoyed Vin Diesel's performance.

Saving Private Ryan is a must see for those in the age group 25-35. It gives you a great perspective on what took place in those days.

I am not a huge war movie fan either but I thought Saving Private Ryan was a great flick.

I watched again it recently myself. I found it more powerful the second time around.

I remember a class I had that touched on D-Day and Omaha Beach. Fascinating stuff.

The beach was curved. The Germans were able to put gun emplacements on either end of the beach. They could shoot straight down the beach from either end, essentially creating a horrific three-direction crossfire.

It was not supposed to be that way. The guns played such a huge role because of a blunder on the part of Eisenhower and his lieutenants.

The generals had two choices.

They could land under the cover of darkness around 3:00 a.m. or so, relying on the element of surprise and poor vision to keep down casualties.

Or they could wait until mid-to-late morning, giving their bombers time to pound the beach fortifications. This would ruin any element of surprise they might have, but hopefully wipe out the major resistance points.

Eisenhower chose to split the difference. They sent their bombers in for a thirty minute pounding, which didn't get close to doing the job right. All it did was alert the Germans that an attack was coming. To make matters worse, the first wave went in at dawn, so the troops were not covered by darkness.

The film (understandly, due to time constraints) has the first wave get chopped up, but take out the German positions within a half hour.

In truth, the first and second waves were pinned on the beach most of the first morning. There was some discussion among leaders about aborting the Omaha landings. But they decided the assault had to continue and moved in more waves of troops.

Helping matters, several destroyer captains disobeyed orders, taking their ships in beyond where it was safe for them to travel. The destroyers' guns knocked out many of the German gun emplacements, allowing the troops to get off the beaches.

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A (now dead) relative of mine was part of the Omaha Beach landing. He said that you could walk in any direction and never actually touch the beach because of all the dead, dying, and wounded covering the ground.

I remember when the movie came out. A lot of nursing homes and veteran centers would shuttle WWII veterans to the movie and the theatre would let them see it for free. Afterwards, many were interviewed by television and newspaper reporters. To a man, all those I saw interviewed claimed it was the most realistic depiction of WWII that they had ever viewed.

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I disagree with the limited age group as it can be seen by anyone mature enough and above 13 years.
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Thanks, I really enjoy it.