The Book Was Better discussion

I read the book back in December and while I found it a bit dry and difficult to get through at times, I enjoyed learning about a side of WWII that I never considered and would recommend this book to others. It was a great reminder of the importance of artwork to our past, future, and even our daily lives.

Based on the trailor I was already expecting the movie to be funnier and hopefully less "text-bookish" than the book. So, I did appreciate the humor and faster pace of the film. However, I am very confused and disapointed that they changed the names of the real heroes to fake names. A) I don't understand why. What good reason? I'm pretty sure all these men are dead and its not like they need protection...soo...what good reason was there for the name change? B) It frustrated me because I feel like these men deserve the credit for the work that they did. More people are going to watch the movie than read the book so they won't know or remember the real names. That ticks me off.

There were some other changes to the historical accuracy that didn't bother me as much. For example the real monuments men didn't really interact much with eachother but in the movie they are like a gang of friends on a mission. I completely understand its easier for a movie audience to follow one story than a few seperate stories that never/rarely intertwine...so I'm not really upset, but it is a historical inaccuracy nevertheless.

Also the music was odd. I'm not sure if I liked it or not. It almost reminded me of older WWII movies.

It was more Monuments Meh for me.

Yeah I know what you mean! I had such high expectations...

This could have been a Redbox rental for sure...not worth the theater tickets

The cast was fantastic though. The material... it should've been a documentary-type or mockumentary if they want to use all those actors.

It was an amazing cast! Part of the reason why I had such high hopes for the movie. I guess George Clooney wrote and directed it too.

Do u think they changed the names because of still living family? Are the real names in the book?

All the real names were in the book...so why would they hide names in the movie but not in the book? Its jsut so weird!

And it was very confusing for me at first because they kept calling eachother weird names and it made it difficult to connect things with my knowledge from the book

Totally agree about BBC! Love how they make most documentaries and even TV dramas! I find the British humour similar to the Aussies.

Sorry it took so long...but I finally went through and got ride of some of the rude comments posted on here my former group members... Kind of forgot about what all was written after he was gone and no longer here to add more "criticism" to the group....

I really enjoyed the movie when it came out. I felt it was a crowd pleaser, and a great story to tell about World War II. The book that is about the Monuments Men was put on my TBR list after I saw the film.