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Summary: Gripping, realistic, awesome
Review: Incredible retelling of life aboard a WWII German U-Boat. As a submariner in the modern nuclear navy, it was incredible to see the attention to detail aboard submarine life that still applies today (cramped quarters, lonlieness, etc.) **Note**: I own both copies of the director's cut (widescreen & adapted for television), and the widescreen is the subtitled version. The dubbing in the adapted for television version, while usually on, is not as accurate as the subtitling, nor does draw you as well into the atmosphere.
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Summary: This film is presented in 1.85 anamorphic and letterbox.
Review: This film is presented in 1.85 anamorphic and letterbox. It is one of the best movies for 16:9 television demonstrations. The 1.85 anamorphic side is very close to 1.78 (16:9).
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Summary: The only version worth watching...
Review: I have seen this DVD thanks to a local rental. I am quite disappointed that it is out of stock at this moment and plan on purchasing it at my first opporunity. Viewing the director's cut is vital; the extra scenes/length produce the tension that causes ANXIETY. During a scene involving the u-boat crew helplessly outwaiting a depth-charge attack a friend had to leave the room- he mumbled "way too tense" as he got off the sofa. Watch this with the lights off and the sound up.
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Summary: Non stop action, the extra footage wins extra points.
Review: A great movie, action , well acted, good story. What more can you ask? good music too. Plenty of nail biting scenes. I have both versions, the Laser disc and DVD, the sound on the laser disc is bad, the DVD a vast improvement. This really comes across as a "true story", whereas "The Hunt for Red October" and "Crimson Tide" seem more like great adventure stories. I guess I like these submarine stories, why I am not sure, maybe they are better movies. In any case "Das Boot" is really good, buy it, you will not be disappointed.
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Summary: The best submariner movie ever made.
Review: While the content of this DVD is excellent, as I have noticed on several occasions with DVDs, the picture and sound become fragmented (picture stills, sound stops)when the movie approaches the end or when it goes to the second layer on the disc. Is there any quality control in production?
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Summary: Very good digital sound, feel the real tension in the sub..
Review: I saw and heard the movie 3 times! On the back left side i hear the drips of water, on the back right the clicking of a watch. Complete tension, you are amoung the cast in the sub. Deep sounds from my subwoofer. A complete satisfaction of my senses..........
Rating: 
Summary: Pretty good.
Review: I have seen this movie many times, and the DVD is a pretty good reproduction. Das Boot has many very obvious special effects. The destroyer that nearly rammed them look real fake. The burning oil tanker looks like it's about 3 feet long with kerosene splashed on it. The dive bombers towards the end were a grainy clip from old war footage or an old movie. The convoy looked like a collection of plastic ships on a duck's pond in the fog. The other u-boat in the storm looked like a submarine bobbing up and down in my son's bath on a saturday night (in slow motion of course). Many of the translations were very loose, and occasionally inaccurate. For example: "Unnötiges Licht aus" means "switch off all unnecessary lights" but was subtitled "kill the lights", which must make viewers wondering why only a couple of lights were switched off. And so on. All the same, it is worth the money. Do watch it in German if you can, and follow the subtitles for the best atmosphere, even if you don't understand the German.
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Summary: As Good As Both Books Were...
Review: An outstanding cinematic version of Lothar-Gunther Buchenheim's novel "Das Boot", which was in turn based upon his non-fiction book "U-Boat War". DAS BOOT serves to remind the public that tragic novels like this are not merely fiction. No one "writes" stories like these -- someone had to have actually LIVED the horror. DAS BOOT brings the horror, the boredom, the dirt, the sardonic humor, the frustration, the exultation and the human reality of combat to the screen. The submarine arm of the Kriegsmarine suffered 75% fatalities during WW II. By the end of the war, the average age of a U-Boat captain was about 20, and crews were often pre-pubescent children -- too young to even grow beards. Brave, inexperienced children in outmoded boats, with heads filled with Nazi Reich propaganda, who faced battle-hardened Allied commanders more than twice their age. They were little more than depth-charge fodder. As a journalist for that propaganda ministry, Buchenheim came to know the real truth and the real horror of submarine warfare. U-Boat crews have been maligned in history. Buchenheim reminds us that, like submariners of all nations, they were exceptionally brave young men who often went to sea knowing they had little or no chance of survival. I saw the original 1982, subtitled cinematic release of DAS BOOT, and returned to see the dubbed cinematic re-release in the 80s and returned once more in 1998 to see the cinematic release of the Director's Cut. Bringing this movie to DVD is an experience that leverages the best aspects of all of the above. It remains as one of the best technically dubbed movies I have ever seen. Dubbed English dialogue has been cleverly rewritten to convey the essence, spirit and emotional impact of the scene, as opposed to simply just translating the German to English and hiring actors to speak translated lines. The effect is that, even when dubbed, the viewer's movie experience is not spoiled by any obvious scenes where spoken dialogue does not match gestures and mouth movements on camera. Das Boot provides the "feeling" that the actors were really speaking in English, instead of German. (When I bone up on my Spanish, I'll tell you how good the translation was). This type of cinematic craftsmanship is extremely unusual for any movie! The Director's cut moves a little slower and subtitles from the original German version have been made more "polite and politically correct". The original subtitled version had a few spelling errors in the subtitles, which were gone from the Director's Cut. This movie is true to the original works that inspired it, and it is equally powerful in German as it is in English. This is as it shuld be. The message that "War is Hell" should be made with equal power and eloquence in every language. This was obviously on the minds of Wolfgang Petersen and the cast and crew of Das Boot.
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Summary: The best antiwar, war movie I've ever seen.
Review: The story has alot to say about the utter futility and stupidity of war. Why would anyone in their right mind ever participate.This is a movie for all those who ever served in a combatant vessel or a submarine. The engineering detail is first rate. YOU are a member of the crew struggling to keep your ship from sinking. You are on the edge of insanity as the depth charges explode around you and struggle to stop water leaks at a depth of 300 meters. The air is foul with the smell of diesel fuel,hydrogen sulfide and you can't get your breath because the carbon dioxide level is dangerously high. The smell of vomit is everywhere.What these young men went through whether they were German or not is absolutely mind boggeling. I was amazed by the accuracy and the attention to detail as far as the daily routine of these doomed sailors was portrayed.It's a must see for the technically oriented naval history buffs.The scenes during a rendezvous in the North Atlantic are positively gripping.It's a nail biter from start to finish.
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Summary: Did you ever wanna know how it felt to be in German U-Boat?
Review: Movies that seem to put me in a situation that I could never fully imagine hold a special place in my heart. This is one of those movies. Don't be looking for special affects that blow your mind. In fact, expect it to look weird because it's in German. Not near as bad as the old Godzilla episodes, but along that line. Don't let this stop you! For me this movie put me in the driver's seat of a World War II German U-Boat. Don't miss it!
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