Which ending do you like better? Saving Private Ryan VS. War Horse

[Josh500 1,615]

Both endings are happy endings in a way (even though they're war movies), both are mind-blowingly well scored by John Williams (I especially love the French horns and the trumpet as well as string writings), and slightly corny which is not unusual for Spielberg. 

 

That said, which do you prefer, and why?

 

 

 

[Bespin 8,472]

How wow... that's so... specific!

 

I don't even remember if the horse dies at the end... 

[publicist 4,643]

Lacks 'none' option.

[Tom 4,631]

5 minutes ago, publicist said:

Lacks 'none' option.

You wanted the films to keep going?  You must love them both. 

[publicist 4,643]

Classic masochist.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Oh god I dont know.

[Joni Wiljami 1,206]

1 - 3. WH

4. Ryan

Both scores are bloody brilliant.

 

[Jay 37,250]

War Horse for music, SPR for film. 

[Tom 4,631]

I found the penultimate ending scene of Warhorse depressing.  The old man wanted the horse to connect him to his dead daughter (or granddaughter--I cannot remember).  Let him have the damn horse. 

[SteveMc 2,674]

1 hour ago, Tom said:

I found the penultimate ending scene of Warhorse depressing.  The old man wanted the horse to connect him to his dead daughter (or granddaughter--I cannot remember).  Let him have the damn horse. 

 

It would have been emotionally a touch less satisfying if the horse did not return.  But, I think it would have been a better film possibly if Albert would have let the old farmer keep the horse, as a matter of sensitivity and maturity, and then just have him walking back home at the very end.

Anyway, I think War Horse is a very good film for what it is.  The father-son aspect of the ending strikes a chord with me.

[Josh500 1,615]

2 hours ago, Tom said:

I found the penultimate ending scene of Warhorse depressing.  The old man wanted the horse to connect him to his dead daughter (or granddaughter--I cannot remember).  Let him have the damn horse. 

 

You obviously didn't get the movie at all.

 

The horse is not some toy you just "give" to somebody...

[artguy360 1,842]

I like the end music in War Horse more. 

[Josh500 1,615]

8 hours ago, hornist said:

 

Both scores are bloody brilliant.

 

 

I agree with you there! 

 

I think Saving Private Ryan is the slightly more superior score and movie.... But at the same time, somewhat paradoxically, it's also the less accessible score of the two.

[Lewya 360]

I agree with publicist here - I am not really a fan of either ending or the movies in first place, both are OK-ish, but nothing really good. I mean it is better than most film music, but not some of Williams's best material by any means nor does it represent film music at its best. Neither movie represents Spielberg at his best either, possibly the beginning of Saving Private Ryan excepted.

 

Both scores are solid 3/5 scores, ok maybe 3.5/5 at most. I agree with Alex Ross that Williams's ersatz English score for War Horse has massive flaws (to say the least). Totally agree with this review of the soundtrack which Alex Ross, perhaps the finest music critic around, seemed to endorse at the time when the film & score was released:

 

"John Williams has always been a master of the film score. His post-Korngold meets Holst (via Sibelius) approach to the space race defined the decade in which I was born. Equally, the sobbing melancholy of his Schindler's List theme provided a rare blockbuster's insight into what we lost in Central Europe during the 1940s. But while Korngold provided the impetus for those score, Vaughan Williams seems to have been the springboard for War Horse. Sadly, like Spielberg's direction, the score is a diminishing return.

 

The opening movement 'Dartmoor, 1912' uses myriad flourishes from VW's best. There's a cadenza  that's straight out of The Lark Ascending. Pentatonic melody and harmony dominates. The Tallis Fantasia pops up. Lombardic rhythms follow parallel fifths. You name the 'folk' touch and John Williams employed used it. But rather than the textural diversity of his previous scores, this is not a homogenous sound world. It's merely a smash and grab through purportedly English musical identity.

What Williams has failed to employ is something akin to Vaughan Williams' use of folk song or Tudor hymnody. People may carp and lob the cow pat moniker at his output, but the constant variation and development of themes such as 'Dives and Lazarus' or Tallis's Third Mode Melody grounds its gestures in a larger history. It's idealised, but at least it has something to say. John Williams uses the gestures without the signifiers. And as the score inevitably turns away from string-rich symphonics to synthesised sound, you wonder whether it would have been better to employ a composer versed in the native musical tongue. But that lack of understanding seems indicative of the film as a whole."

 

I mean, it is still respectable film music, but it doesn't in any way represent Williams at his best or film music at its best. It is masively flawed stuff to say the least.

[Joni Wiljami 1,206]

Music needs the (finest) music critic as much as a bird needs an ornithologist. 

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

What are the flaws? Did it fail to support what was on screen?

[publicist 4,643]

That it certainly did. Though in case of the mentioned scenes this might be a poisoned compliment.

[Brundlefly 2,385]

War Horse looks like Spielberg kitsch, but it's one of his best movies, because for the first time the director transforms his emotional storytelling into a visionary concept.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

1 hour ago, publicist said:

That it certainly did. Though in case of the mentioned scenes this might be a poisoned compliment.

 

What it do wrong? I thought it was alright.

[Josh500 1,615]

6 minutes ago, Brundlefly said:

War Horse looks like Spielberg kitsch, but it's one of his best movies, because for the first time the director transforms his emotional storytelling into a visionary concept.

 

You German? Are you just pissed because the Germans were villains in both Saving Private Ryan and War Horse? 😂 

 

But really, I have no idea what you just said.

 

 

 

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Just now, Josh500 said:

 

You German? Are you just pissed because the Germans were villains in both Saving Private Ryan and War Horse? 😂 

 

But really, I have no idea what you just said.

 

 

 

 

I remember watching War Goose with my mum once and she laughed when the horse "joined the nazis".

[Josh500 1,615]

Actually the Germans were also the villains in Schindler's List, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade...

 

11 minutes ago, Margo Channing said:

 

I remember watching War Goose with my mum once and she laughed when the horse "joined the nazis".

 

So your mom thinks the Holocaust is funny. That it? 

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

25 minutes ago, Josh500 said:

So your mom thinks the Holocaust is funny. That it? 

 

Sure! Haven't you seen The Producers or To Be or Not to Be?

[mstrox 6,637]

WAR HORSE

WAR HORSE

WAR HORSE

Saving private ryan.

[Brundlefly 2,385]

23 hours ago, Josh500 said:

You German? Are you just pissed because the Germans were villains in both Saving Private Ryan and War Horse? 😂 

 

But really, I have no idea what you just said.

1. I am German.

2. Neither War Horse nor Saving Private Ryan, let alone Schindler's List, depict the nazis as evil villains. The perspective of Spielberg's movies is merely very subjective.

3. Even if it was the case, it wouldn't bother me, because I honestly don't identify with the nazis, when I'm watching these movies.

4. I just wanted to say that War Horse is a great and underrated movie.

[mstrox 6,637]

WAR HORSE took place during World War I, in a time where Nazis barely existed and certainly before they gained favor/power in Germany.

[Nick Parker 3,040]

15 hours ago, Lewya said:

And as the score inevitably turns away from string-rich symphonics to synthesised sound, you wonder whether it would have been better to employ a composer versed in the native musical tongue. But that lack of understanding seems indicative of the film as a whole."

 

I have a lot of respect for Alex Ross, but was he fogged up on nasal decongestants when he wrote this review?

[publicist 4,643]

34 minutes ago, Brundlefly said:

4. I just wanted to say that War Horse is a great and underrated movie.

 

Emphatically not. 

[Lewya 360]

46 minutes ago, Nick Parker said:

 

I have a lot of respect for Alex Ross, but was he fogged up on nasal decongestants when he wrote this review?

He didn't write it, he endorsed another guy who wrote that.

[mstrox 6,637]

^^

What pub said.

 

As WAR HORSE is considered the greatest movie of all time, there is no way it can be considered "underrated"

[Bespin 8,472]

I really don't know if I like more the privates of Ryan more than those of Narracott. 

[Nick Parker 3,040]

3 minutes ago, Lewya said:

He didn't write it, he endorsed another guy who wrote that.

 

Thank you for pointing out my lapse in understanding, that makes much more sense.

 

Was the guy who wrote that review sniffing Sharpies?

[Josh500 1,615]

1 hour ago, Brundlefly said:

4. I just wanted to say that War Horse is a great and underrated movie.

 

I agree with that!

 

I don't think this is among Spielberg's Top 10 best movies, but it's still underrated, in my opinion.

 

The score too, but that's a given.

1 hour ago, mstrox said:

WAR HORSE took place during World War I, in a time where Nazis barely existed and certainly before they gained favor/power in Germany.

 

You mean before the Americans, or the elites ruling Washington (Wall Steet, the military-industrial complex, etc.), decided to financially support and prop up the Nazi party in Germany and bring Adolph Hitler to power... 

 

Now, that's a Spielberg movie I'd like to see! 😂 

1 hour ago, Brundlefly said:

2. Neither War Horse nor Saving Private Ryan, let alone Schindler's List, depict the nazis as evil villains. 

 

Oh, yes they do. Of course they do.

[mstrox 6,637]

9 minutes ago, Josh500 said:

You mean before the Americans, or the elites ruling Washington (Wall Steet, the military-industrial complex, etc.), decided to financially support and prop up the Nazi party in Germany and bring Adolph Hitler to power... 

 

Well, I didn't mean that because it didn't pertain to my discussion of WAR HORSE, but yes.

 

Also, like many popular European things, a gritty American reboot/remake is in the works.  Keep your eyes on the news.

[Josh500 1,615]

17 minutes ago, mstrox said:

 

Well, I didn't mean that because it didn't pertain to my discussion of WAR HORSE, but yes.

 

I only said that because you made it sound like the Nazis sprang up in Europe in the thirties, all of a sudden, out of nowhere.

 

Somebody was financing them, supporting them, mentoring them, pursuing their own nefarious agendas.

17 minutes ago, mstrox said:

Also, like many popular European things, a gritty American reboot/remake is in the works.  Keep your eyes on the news.

 

It's already too late.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

I wonder if the baddies in Star Wars 9 will be the interstellar banking cartel whose members have been financing the war effort on both sides? We'll find that none of what happened in the previous movies really mattered, it was all for war profiteering.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Lets hope!

[Josh500 1,615]

2 hours ago, Margo Channing said:

I wonder if the baddies in Star Wars 9 will be the interstellar banking cartel whose members have been financing the war effort on both sides? We'll find that none of what happened in the previous movies really mattered, it was all for war profiteering.

 

I guess that'd be too close to the truth for comfort.

 

 

[Naïve Old Fart 9,488]

Scene 197 

Bedroom interior.

James Ryan wakes from his sleep. He senses something he can't quite put into words.

He senses...a curious, hot wetness. Ryan slowly pulls back the duvet, the underside of which is now drenched in warm, thick, sticky blood.

It's about now that Ryan regrets that he sleeps in the nude.

Ryan pulls the bed clothes fully back to reveal the freshly severed head of his favourite horse, Joey, black eyes staring accusingly, at him.

Ryan starts to scream...and scream...and scream.

 

Fade to black.

End credits.

The end.

 

[Brundlefly 2,385]

7 hours ago, publicist said:

Emphatically not. 

Of course you don't like it. You are the most reliable member here, regarding the evaluation of movies and scores, except this kind of (overly) emotional movies.

7 hours ago, Josh500 said:

Oh, yes they do. Of course they do.

Spielberg is not as differentiated as Kubrick, Tarantino or Cronenberg, but his depiction of the Germans is still fair and not only black and white (excluding IJ).

[Josh500 1,615]

1 hour ago, Brundlefly said:

Of course you don't like it. You are the most reliable member here, regarding the evaluation of movies and scores, except this kind of (overly) emotional movies.

Spielberg is not as differentiated as Kubrick, Tarantino or Cronenberg, but his depiction of the Germans is still fair and not only black and white (excluding IJ).

 

Granted, most of the villains in Spielberg's movies are not cardboard characters, but they are still villains for all that. They're three-dimensional villains, if you will. Makes them more real, or realistic... thus even more horrible.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Relatable.

[publicist 4,643]

5 hours ago, Brundlefly said:

Of course you don't like it. You are the most reliable member here, regarding the evaluation of movies and scores, except this kind of (overly) emotional movies.

Spielberg is not as differentiated as Kubrick, Tarantino or Cronenberg, but his depiction of the Germans is still fair and not only black and white (excluding IJ).

 

Only that 'emotional' is an euphemism for mawkish. The problem is not the old-movie schmaltz (which was done ten times better in MGM movies like 'National Velvet') but how badly it clashes with WW1 atrocities told through the eyes of a horse that meets people and situations that are also old movie clichés. It's such a bad idea and it's clear Spielberg doesn't have any idea why this story must be told and filmed at great expense, either (beyond relishing the thought of raiding old movie shots).

 

A nice sunday afternoon watch if you completely switch off your brain, but all those resources to put such a turd on-screen. 

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

This is HORSE SHIT!

[publicist 4,643]

It sure is. 

[Serafino 8]

OP:

 

Conceptually SPR is a better ending IMO, it unites the preceding story into a single issue Ryan is facing in that moment.  It wouldn't be hard for the movie to be better in that way too, but I haven't seen it.  The style of the scene and the score supporting it is more on Spielberg's naturalistic side than War Horse, so there's a bit of apples and oranges in the comparison.  I loved the ending of War Horse for its grand musical and cinematic treatment.  It shamelessly celebrates the value of the moment for those involved, and for that I typically forgive many sins.  It is not a very deep ending, arguably too appropriate to a movie that is fragmented and let's say a bit more suited to the consciousness of a horse than that of a human.

 

Imagine those endings with their styles reversed, to get a feel for how much style impacts these things.