Script Review: PEARL HARBOR - by Randall Wallace

Reviewed by Christopher Wehner

WARNING: MINOR SPOILERS!

Screenwriter Notes: You would be hard pressed not to include Randall Wallace in any list of top tier screenwriters. His credits speak for themselves: BRAVEHEART which some consider as one of the best films of all-time, and THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK.

(10/16/00)

Script Review:

Screenwriter Notes: You would be hard pressed not to include Randall Wallace in any list of top tier screenwriters. His credits speak for themselves: BRAVEHEART which some consider as one of the best films of all-time, and THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK.

"December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy" -- FDR

For weeks now I have been thinking about Randall Wallace's script TENNESSEE (named after one of the ships at Pearl Harbor), an early draft for the movie PEARL HARBOR, which only last month finished filming. As a student of history I want to thank Wallace for not taking his story down the desolate road of "conspiracy theories" and revisionist banter. Some of the worst history books I've ever read deal with Pearl Harbor: "Pearl Harbor, Mother of All Conspiracies" and "Day of Deceit." I won't even acknowledge their authors.

Revisionist interpretations of the Pearl Harbor attack hold President Franklin D. Roosevelt personally responsible for the debacle. Not only that, FDR is accused of getting the United States involved in the war on purpose. It is true that good men became scapegoats, like Admiral Kimmel commander of the Pacific Fleet, which was unjust. But heads always roll when something like Pearl Harbor happens, this unfortunately is to be expected.

Did Roosevelt know that a Japanese attack on American Pacific forces was highly possible? Yes. Did he even personally hope for an attack? Quite possibly he did. But, to say he knew that the Japanese were going to attack our fleet at Pearl Harbor is illogical and absurd. FDR wanted us to help the British, he understood the gravity of the situation, as did a lot of other people. He was in a position where he felt compelled to help, and wanted to help. But in order for the United States to go to war the U.S. Congress must declare war. An attack would certainly accomplish that.

We lost 2403 lives, and another 1,178 wounded at Pearl Harbor. But most importantly, in terms of our armed forces, 18 ships were sunk or seriously damaged including 5 battleships. It was an enormous blow. If FDR knew the attack was going to happen, and wanted it too, he would have had our Air Force bases on the Island on some kind of an exercise, and obviously a few more of our ships sent out away from Pearl Harbor on a training exercise. An attack is an attack. FDR would have avoided devastation. To say we knew and did nothing not only insults us, but the Japanese who planned and carried out an attack that was, sadly, perfectly executed and devised.

I'll keep the rest of my history lesson short. By 1941 the British were up against it. The whole of Europe was under Nazi control, London was target practice for German planes, and an invasion of England was a serious threat. They needed some help. Meanwhile, the United States was in no hurry to get involved. Why? World War I was still a fresh memory for a lot of Americans. We were in no hurry to go over and save their asses again. What I mean to say is, millions would die and don't think for a second that we didn't know that. Pardon us if we hesitate before committing to such a thing.

If you really want a conspiracy theory, I'll give you one. The British cracked Japan's JN-25 code and might have known days before that an attack on Pearl Harbor was going to happen and did not warn us. They needed us involved. So perhaps they held their hand, and let the house win. British code-breakers were the best. They cracked the German's code and the Japanese code, and did before anyone else knew. (By the way, code is the means by which they communicate during a war.) Final note, our code-breakers were very close as well, and some suggest might actually have broken the code before the attack.

Back to the script. For the first 61 pages or so I felt like I wasn't reading a script written by the same man who had given us BRAVEHEART. Wallace's interpretation of a 1940s love story was simpleminded and heavy handed. That's a little blunt, my apologies to Mr. Wallace. But, I was baffled by how poorly Wallace had written up to this point. If you look at Wallace's past achievements you can guess what the major elements of his story will be. A love story, and a tragic one at that. Desperate battles against great odds, and of course plenty of heroes. Enough said. But what I did not expect was how corny, and clich�ridden the script was.

The script opens with our two heroes: Rafe (to be played by Ben Affleck) and Danny (Josh Hartnett). Man does Wallace waste no time showing these two as the Luke Skywalkers of the 1940s. The force seemed to always be with them. High flying stunts, tricks, pranks and of course the good old buzzing of the runways and towers.

Danny's father is an alcoholic, and so Rafe and his family take him under their wing. They want to be pilots. The story moves to 1941, they're now training in New Jersey and Rafe volunteers to go off and help the British. Select American pilots were sent over to gain some experience. But before he goes he and Danny use expensive American planes (P-40s) for their own personal showoff routines. There is so much heroics and machoism during some of these early scenes that it was utterly dreadful to read. We get the point already!

But right away there is a problem. Why are we focusing on pilots? This is a movie about a naval attack. About heroic sailors who perished that tragic day. Wallace's focus is misguided and as a result the story never feels right.

I do like to read about heroes in believable situations, fighting against improbable odds, but at times this script was just pure drivel. As a matter of fact, there is a flashback at the top of page 61 that better be left on the editing room floor. I simply can not convey to you how contrived and lame it was.

Rafe falls in love with Evelyn (Kate Beckinsale), personally I would have chosen Betty or Barbara. Man oh man. Anyway, Rafe goes off to fight the war. Danny and Evelyn have never met as they both end up being stationed at Pearl Harbor.

After saving what had to be half of the RAF, Rafe is shot down and the worst is feared. You would have thought the Brits had never met an American before the way Wallace wrote some of this. Let alone a hotshot pilot. With Rafe presumed dead, Danny and Evelyn get the news, and in their grief seek each other out. They fall in love. Guess what happens next? Uh huh, Rafe's not dead.

Finally the suspense starts to build. There is some nice exposition showing us how the Japanese plan the attack. This is where the script picks up and the real Randall Wallace shows up. His attention to facts and history are to be commended. As I said in the opening paragraph, for that alone he gets my thanks.

He also tries to bring into view what FDR and his staff were thinking. Once again he keeps the focus of this picture: the disaster at Pearl Harbor. He doesn't try to rewrite history. If anything his story is a little light in this respect. FDR is seriously undeveloped. But to do so would have meant a 3 plus hour movie.

Along with FDR Wallace takes us to Japan and what was happening there leading up to the attack -- as well as what was happening at Pearl Harbor. There will be some things that will surprise those moviegoers who do not know a lot about the events leading up to the attack.

A most intriguing person in military history is Admiral Yamamoto. A complicated man, and Wallace does a nice job of trying to portray that. But this story line suffered from a lack of development. I felt he made his points, but could have done a much better job. At times it seemed like he couldn't wait to get back to the love story. But, you must remember this is an early draft.

The attack starts about page 70 of this 140 page draft, and from there on the action is intense. The detail and attention paid to the battle is incredible. I was in awe of Wallace's ability to capture and present in words the action with such visual veracity -- I had goosebumps on my neck.

Something that would have been very cool to have included in the script, since Wallace does pay attention to Japan's use of their Type-A-class midget submarines (we actually sunk one at the mouth of the Harbor and nothing was done about it. Don't start blowing your conspiracy horn, it was incompetence, nothing more.) Around the time Randall Wallace was writing this script it was being discovered that these midget subs had fired torpedoes at the U.S. battleship West Virginia. This would have been a major coup to include in the story. But it's hard to fault Wallace here. I myself do not know much about this other than what I read in the Naval History Magazine.

But since I have thanked Wallace for his accuracy, I need to point out that the theme of his story, though understandable, is utterly and completely wrong. Stax in his very earlier review of this script rightly dismantled this prominent theme in Wallace's story: that America somehow lost its innocence with Pearl Harbor. Which is not true. Innocence was indeed lost, but years before during WWI. It was our scars from that experience that left us with deaf ears when Germany started raising hell in Europe. We should have been involved in the war a year earlier. This, to be sure, would have avoided the attack on Pearl Harbor.

One more thing on the script. I think there was an opportunity for a more powerful opening and ending. What Wallace has is fine I'm sure. Every year more than two million people visit the Arizona Memorial at the Pearl Harbor naval base. Though some criticized Spielberg for his opening to SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, William Goldman for one did unmercifully, I think it was a smart move to show the battlefield in the present. To connect those of us who did not live through the day to the event.

I would have opened this script with a shot of present day Pearl Harbor, and the Arizona Memorial. But instead of focusing on a family and their dear old granddaddy, I would have captured the sunken ship, the people slowly and silently walking over the memorial, and maybe show us a small group of veterans standing, motionless, peering out over the harbor. Then take us to the 1941 harbor filled with ships. Not directly to the battle mind you, but simply use that opening to connect us right away with the events that are about to be told.

I really hope this draft is tightened up, and a lot of the dialogue strengthened. There is a good story here, and one worth telling again.

What the attack on Pearl Harbor did was strengthen American resolve. When attacked or threatened we have shown, in our history, the ability to lash out with such power and force that no one on this earth could stop us. At the end of WWI we had more troops on European soil than did the rest of our Allies combined. We had more ships, more armor, more everything. We were bad asses. Today, I am not so sure. The Gulf War, for example, back in the day we would not have stopped until U.S. tanks were rolling down Main Street in Baghdad. Of course, back in the day we probably would never have gotten involved. We would have left that to the French and British.

The film is directed by Michael Bay (ARMEGEDDON, THE ROCK) who will more than likely take the film over the top with Wallace's heavy use of clich� and machoism. But let the jury wait until the final product is produced.

The rest of the cast breaks down like this: Dan Aykroyd will play Capt. Thurman, who is a code-breaker I believe assigned to monitor Japanese communications. Alec Baldwin will play the famous Lt. Colonel Jimmy Doolittle. Cuba Gooding Jr. will play one of the more intriguing, yet underdeveloped characters Dorie Miller.

Tom Sizemore will play Earl Sistern. Jon Voight took on the challenging role of Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR). There are a ton of other important cast members as well. See Upcomingmovies.com for more information.

Release date: May 23rd, 2001, which is the Wednesday before Memorial Day and is usually a blockbuster slot. A prediction is easy, PEARL HARBOR in a landslide.