Accuracy
Some events shown in the movie never happened, as the director took artistic license with the original book, which was accurate.
- In reality, James Burton was a full colonel. His film counterpart's rank was changed to Lieutenant Colonel because director Richard Benjamin felt that Cary Elwes appeared too young to be a full colonel.
- One scene shows that, even as the dangerous, defective version is being produced for American forces, a different version has been designed for sale to Israel. In reality, Israel never acquired the Bradley, however it is true that United Defense did offer a version of the Bradley similar to the one portrayed, in that it did have external fuel tanks, as said in the film. While the film insists the Bradley was hoped to be sold on export market, this is either a misstatement, or a failed attempt, as the only foreign user of the Bradley is Saudi Arabia.
"How accurate was the movie? Not at all. I was driven to take notes after the first few minutes and got over sixty substantive errors. The producers took Col. Burton's simplistic but compelling memoir, dumbed it down, took dramatic licence with a lot of things that didn't need it, goofed around with the chronology, and apparently had a head-on collision with an office full of libel lawyers who demanded even more blurring than there already was. The result is a mockery both of the very real issues surrounding the Bradley, and of Burton's very genuine display of moral courage."
Read more about this topic: The Pentagon Wars
Famous quotes containing the word accuracy:
“The child who has been taught to make an accurate elevation, plan, and section of a pint pot has had an admirable training in accuracy of eye and hand.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“As for farming, I am convinced that my genius dates from an older era than the agricultural. I would at least strike my spade into the earth with such careless freedom but accuracy as the woodpecker his bill into a tree.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“U.S. international and security policy ... has as its primary goal the preservation of what we might call “the Fifth Freedom,” understood crudely but with a fair degree of accuracy as the freedom to rob, to exploit and to dominate, to undertake any course of action to ensure that existing privilege is protected and advanced.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)