The give away is how the save Ryan squad seem to have agency and do like cool self-govern manouvers, like the storming of the 80mm AA gun hill, etc. More like a teenage boy fantasy. Band of Brothers is another good example of cool agency.
The opening assualt on the beach is some sort of low point for things to get better and under the protagonists' control.
A true to history version would be soldiers getting shrapnel wounds from indirect fire and being shot at by soldiers they can't see. Then they redo it somewhere else becouse someone said so.
> Then they redo it somewhere else becouse someone said so.
Yes. You follow orders when in the military. Freedom of movement is one of the things you give up when you join. Or are drafted.
> The give away is how the save Ryan squad seem to have agency
They had orders direct from General Marshall (Army Chief of Staff at the time) to go get Ryan. That gave them a ton of agency.
No offense intended, but did you really watch Saving Private Ryan? Both of those things you mention occurred within the first 60 seconds of the start of the beach scene.
The point I am trying to make is that the opening is the 'low point' and then it becomes an action movie with the heroes in control.
To be quite candid, I did not appreciate the brutality of WW2 until I spent a few months a decade ago researching the progression of events from 1939 to 1945. I say this as someone who had a fairly decent exposure to WW2 (Gramps was a B29 bomber pilot). Even now, every time I do a little digging or reading about a certain WW2 event/battle/massacre, I am still left shocked by the absolute brutality that occurred on a large scale. Conflicts since WW2 have not approached the same level of killing intensity, thank god. Perhaps nuclear weapons are indeed proving to be the ultimate moderator of human conquest ambition.
Sorry for rambling a bit: Back to your quote about it being a hero action movie - in my opinion WW2 kinda was an action movie with many stories of heros who sacrificed themselves or risked their lives directly to save their buddies - on all sides. The reason we hear so many of these stories from that time period is due to the massive number of engagements and opportunities presented near daily for men to attempt extraordinary maneuvers (e.g. flank attacking an overwhelming force who has their squad pinned down).
Some of the stories you hear from WW2 are absolutely over the top insane (risky). You will never hear nearly as many "hero" stories these days in my opinion due to all professional militaries employing similar risk-mitigation strategies to avoid unnecessary losses. Times were different back then.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Quiet_on_the_Western_Front...
At least I got the same feeling of senselessness and morbid callousness from the leadership while watching it.
Watching the remake made it clear that soldiers were literally seen as fodder on all sides and nobody in charge cared how many died.