The Problem With All Quiet On The Western Front (2022) 

I wanted to love this movie so bad. But the ending absolutely wrecked it for me, personally. The book's ending is so powerful and heart wrenching. We spend the whole book with Paul as he slowly disassociates from his youth. We watch him kill. We watch him lose his best friends. We feel his soul leaving his traumatized youthful body. He soldiers on, breaking slowly. And "He fell in October of 1918, on a day so quiet and still, that the army action report confined itself to a single sentence: All quiet on the western front..." He dies a month before the war ends, and his death is meaningless. This boy we grew to know and care about falls, and it simply doesn't matter to the machine that keeps grinding boys like him and his friends without so much as a shrug. When I first read it it broke me. For me, I really found I resented the ending of the new movie. Him ramboing his way through the french soldiers is silly to me. Paul isn't supposed to go out in a heroic last stand. He dies on a quiet day, with no ceremony or fanfare, our only solace as the reader is that "his face wore an expression of calm. As if almost glad the end had finally come." Sorry for the rant. But this is one of the most powerful books I've read. And I wanted them to capture Remarque's meaning, and it didn't quite do it for me. I really love your analysis. You make really great observations, and I seriously appreciate your insights!

"We could be brothers. But they don't want us to know that" such a sad but true statement 😥

The issue is that it wasn’t All Quiet on the Western Front. It was a WWI movie that had some characters with the same names as in All Quiet. I was beyond pissed when they didn’t show the home leave and just had Kat talk about it. You can’t have All Quiet without that sequence, it is the crux of the whole story.

What I missed in all movies, but what was an obvious conclusion in the book, was the moment when they entered an abandoned British trench, and found an abundance of canned food that the British had left behind. Much of it had 'made in the USA' written on it. In the book, it was clear to Paul and all his comrades that Germany had lost the war. If the Allies would simply abandon such treasures, they realised they had no chance of winning. The fact that Germany had lost WW1 and that everyone fighting it knew it, was very much made clear in the book. That was the main reason the Nazis banned the book. It told the truth about the 'stab in the back' myth that got Hitler elected.

For me it just looks like the 2022 film doesn't have the guts to tell the people that the civilians in WW1 were part of the problem, that the war they "fought" was based on pointless and fake rivalries, that the civilians acted more like spectators watching as their friends and family members died and refused to listen to them, the people that enlisted kids for the war, or how they believed that their sacrifice was meaningful, that peace agreements were actions of cowards, that they needed to win the war or else.

I really preferred the '79 version honestly. Even if it was somewhat corny. From what I remember the battles had no music and it was just the blaring sound of machine-like gunfire and artillery, which is better imo. Even specific scenes like him in the crater with the French soldier and the ending are better in the previous versions. Thank you for this analysis dude!

The first version was made within 15 years of the World War. It was fresh in everyone's mind. My mom remembered how the future General MacArthur hosed down and burned the camps of the Bonus Marchers, the Veterans of the war who had been promised a substantial post war financial bonus by the Wilson administration and which they never got, part of the reason Hoover was hated and blamed for the Depression. But it was the unkeepable false promises that they made to keep the soldiers fighting.

I loved the 1979 one. The biggest things missing for me was the scene where Paul went back to Germany expecting a hero’s welcome only to find a ghost town with people indifferent and miserable. Also, the boot camp scenes were great, I loved the part where they pick on their old officer when he finally made it to the front. And his death too. It’s an oddly peaceful death. Sudden, gives the feeling he can finally rest after all the horror and loss. Kind of romanticises death.

I agree that the 1930 and 1979 versions are more true to the spirit of the novel. One of the worst offences of the 2022 version is the "one last attack" before the armistice. This is at odds with actual history as well as not part of the novel, though it does oddly allow Paul to actually see the end of the war while dying from it. The 1930 version is incredible for so many reasons. One is that it was made so long ago, when so many film techniques were new. Another is that in just 15 months the novel was published in German, translated into English, the screenplay was written for the film, then filmed, edited, and released! And director Lewis Milestone was only 35 years old. Furthermore, the 1930 film deviates from the novel by adding the "butterfly" ending, which is simply brilliant and extremely poignant. The final view of the enthusiastic young soldiers superimposed over a graveyard is chilling, memorable, and gets the intended message across. All other versions after 1930 can refer back to this film for inspiration, but the 1930 film was the pioneer. That it still stands the test of time is incredible.

I only saw the 1930s adaptation once at 15, and the scenes where he goes home stuck with me for the rest of my life. The 2022 version is visually amazing, but it feels hollow. Whereas the 1930s version is so grim but emotional that it forever taught a grade 10 history class that the enemy in war are humans too. They aren't the monsters the propaganda make them out to be. We need to see things from their perspective to understand the conflict. It broadened my very young mind and taught me to see everything from multiple points of view. There's no way a history teacher can show the 2022 version to his class.

The worst thing about trauma is that it estranges you not just from the people around you but from yourself. If you recall from the book, young Paul is full of dreams and curiosity. By the time of his death all that is gone, buried under layer after layer of trauma.

This was exactly my problem with the 2022 movie. If you changed the title no one would ever know it was All Quiet.

The worst part about the 2022 movie is how it completely fumbled its message by making every single French character an inhumane murderer (or an аsshoIe if they can't be a murderer, like Foch). The whole point of that scene in the crater with the dying Frenchman was to show that the soldiers from either side were both just scared young men with no reason to fight beyond "even if you don't kiII him, do you trust that the guy on the other trench won't kiII you?", a sort of "prisoner's dilemma". The movie throws it all out the window by making even a French fuсking child more of a cold blooded kiIIer than the average German soldier. "Why are we fighting the French? Oh yeah, because they might as well be literal demons". Contrary to a lot of people, I also didn't like the ending. The point of the ending in the book is that in war, death just happens. No epic fight, no going out in a blaze of glory. Paul just dies and his death is so insignificant, the report of the day he died simply states that all was quiet on the western front.

Unironically i had the same experience after returning from Ukraine, we were having dinner in a restaurant and one of my non-combat friends corrected *me* in my statements about the conditions on the frontline. All in the year 2022.

There is definitely a major disconnect from the first two movies. This new one loses important elements while introducing new ones that fail to have any impact. Baumer's friends are not really "Personalized" so that when they die, it is much less traumatic. Basically "Redshirts" from Star Trek.

The Netflix film did not truly resemble the actual story. Granted, it was good at portraying the horrors of the war, and the attitudes of many commanders. But the book really aimed at showing what it did to the soldier. Paul comes home and cannot connect with anyone. The old man in the pub, for instance, arguing with Paul about the war Paul is fighting in. The interaction between Paul and the French soldier was nowhere near as personal as it was in the book.

For those interested, I also highly recommend Remarque's sequal to All Quiet: The Road Back. It follows the survivors after the war and delves even deeper in the themes discussed here. Excellent analysis of a somewhat disappointing film adaptation

I actually like the 1979 tv version of it. Yeah it was pretty cheesy sometimes, but it really is the best adaptation of it considering how it was made and what it included. This version left out A LOT of stuff.

I was disappointed they did not include the scene in which Paul returns to the school. It was very powerful in the original movie and had an important message that we should always be skeptical of state education. IMHO this was the most significant scene in the original movie.

As a WWI buff thanks for this. I still like the 2022 film immensely and would watch it again. But the original film and book really showed how Paul has changed and will never be the same again. I remember watching it as a teenager (I am American) and reading the book and I couldn't believe I felt bad for a German. The enemy. It really made me realize that the First World War had no winners just losers. No one was good, everyone was evil, and the poor soldiers and sailors just wanted to go home. Cheers from Nebraska, USA, Navy vet.

I feel like the people who made the 2022 version wanted to make a different movie but weren't allowed to

My father and I both enjoyed the book and we went into the movie enthusiastically but ended up extremely disappointed. The movie really began to flop during the later half. The absent of Visiting home segmernt, Kat's idiotic death at the hand of a child because he stole a goddamn goose and especially Paul's death in the movie. I cringe so hard at the end of how they handle my boys.

I audiolistened to the book in preparation of the much anticipated release of the the 2022 version. This video perfectly articulates everything I felt, one thing I'd add to your point is that the book compounds the isolation felt by having physical comrades depicted in close proximity to one another such as the bombings of the bunker, the diving into pits during gas, and Paul's fight with the Frenchman, but ultimately needing detachment.

Finally, this film is getting the criticism it deserves

The "return home" arc is a must have. Also, too much emphasis on battles, too few on dialogue behind the lines. The ending is Hollywoodian... specially the death at the hands of the boy. The peace treaty arc is supposed to tell us that all the fighting is useless, because the war is lost. In the book, they realize the war is lost (I don't remember any hints about armistice) because of lack of supplies, uniforms and material, and the fresh troops are sent to the front with no training, just to get killed instantly. I guess I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't read the book before.

I thought I was alone in this opinion when I watched this movie with my friends. My friends had never read the book or served in the military, and they were confused why I was so pissed off at the remake. The hatred towards civilians is not only prominent in the book, but it's a topic very very rarely covered in war movies. It's usually glossed over if directly addressed at all. It's an uncomfortable topic, which I assume is why they removed it from the movie and instead gave us the unnecessary B plot line. Thank you for making this video.

One of the worst things that the new movie does is follow the proceedings of the Armistice and make it seem like the war is about to end. Even from a historical perspective, it is incredibly offensive how they portrayed the German government suddenly deciding to end the war because a certain number of soldiers were killed, in fact the way the movie shows the proceedings is actually a post-WW1 myth created by the Nazis to blame the civilian government for why the Germans lost WW1, something the movie perpetuates by never showing the slowly degrading conditions the audience is exposed to in the novel and previous movies by skipping major scenes like the training, the leave back home, and the students in the same position as Paul in the beginning. In short the movie kinda spits in the face of the original intent of the book and instead only reinforces the misconceptions it was created to combat and ultimately led to an even greater and more pointless war.

Personally I think the conversation with the general and his assistant at dinner was a really critical part of this movie. Part of the reason the home front thought it was so honorable to fight and die for your country was that before 1914 war was fundamentally different. His father and grandfather fought in highly consequential wars that forged the German Empire and the stories of those men elevating their country are what the citizens thought their boys were doing from 1914-1918. They had no clue the horror of mechanized, industrial war. That is why the general clinging onto those memories and sending more men to die for the same honor his father fought for really sticks out to me.

Despite the name, it was not All Quiet on the Western Front. I felt like I had been invited to see Lord of the Rings, and then spent two hours watching Gandalf and Frodo fight storm-troopers through Hogwarts. It was probably a well made movie, but I could never get past the fact that they pretended it was something it wasn't just to get me to watch it.

I served as a soldier for 36 years. Nobody can know what it is like to be a soldier until they serve as one. Once you serve you will live with it for the rest of your life. There is no way to escape it or run away from it.

I couldn't believe he didn't go on leave in the remake. That was like the whole point of the book.

I really like this analysis. As a fan of the book and this movie, I do understand a lot of the frustration regarding the way the 2022 version deviated. But one part I felt this version captured amazingly was the scene in the crater where he kills the french soldier. Unlike the monologuing in the 1930s "we could have been friends if..." The 2022 version shows rather than tells what Paul is thinking without him muttering more than just a few words. They definitely did that spectacularly in my opinion

The 1930 version will always be my favorite. I think the fact that so many WWI veterans worked on the film gave it an authenticity that no later adaptation can match.

Brilliant book and I enjoyed the movie but hated how they changed the ending. The ending of the book was so poignant that the main character that we had become so attached to died on a random day and his death seen as so meaningless that all that was reported was “all quiet on the western front”

All the movies miss a huge point of the book by changing the ending, that they have become soldiers that war is an important and integral part of them. The sequel 'The Road Back' expands on this and the soldiers' tough time of switch back to civilians. There is a passage in it that I love and hits home being a veteran myself, "Every man has been tempered through countless, pitiless days; every man is a complete soldier, no more and no less. But for peace? Are we suitable? Are we fit now for anything but soldiering?"

Being the only one who has read the book out of my friends, I have had so many debates with them, talking about how it was disappointing to me, because these aspects weren’t shown in the movie. I’m actually so happy someone else is saying the exact way I feel.

The hubris of the screenwriters and producers to think they could improve on a timeless masterpiece. Like a masterpiece of canvas or stone, anything you do to it other than lightly clean it can only detract from it.

Thank you for an outstanding video essay. Your insight and articulation were wonderful and helped clarify to me why the 2022 movie just didn't ring as true as it could/should have, despite some great acting and story-telling. The side stories and lack thereof were its weakness.

I love this video! the 2022 adaption never sat right with me, and you were able to perfectly put into words why.

THANK YOU! I thought I was crazy for seeing all the glowing reviews of this film and feeling like one of the only people disappointed with it. I too felt that the film was severely hurt by the removal of the civilian scenes as well as how it portrayed Paul’s and Kat’s deaths. Kat dying to some random vengeful kid and Paul going out in a completely made up final charge felt incredibly contrived. The film already set up the fact that many German units were mutinying, but they want me to believe that the regiment would follow suicide orders that close to the end? If anything it should have been the French doing that because that’s what actually happened.

The problem with All Quiet on the Western Front 2022 is the title! It ends on armistice day! The book ends on a random day in 1917, when thousands died but there was no news… and the killing continued.

Main issue for me was the 2022 movie drifted off into WW1 meta (e.g. the politics of ending the war), which was never the point of the book. The book is firmly grounded in humanizing the suffering of individuals caught up in the horrors of the Western Front. Remarque's follow up book, 'The Road Back' follows the travails of the troops trying to re-intergrate into society bearing the wounds of their service at the front. Also a great book.

THANK YOU. Finally someone else understands why this new film just doesn't work.

I'm surprised there was no mention of the ending of the 2022 movie vs novel.

I watched the 1930 version as a six year old with my grandfather. In 1930 my six year old future grandfather was taken to the cinema to watch it by his WWI veteran father. He told me that there were lots of veterans there with their sons, and no kids played war games after the film.

I think it should be taken into account that today's cinematic capabilities are much greater than they were in the past, and as a consequence the focus of storytelling has shifted as well. Older movies perhaps had to derive their emotional engagement and how they transport a message from a wider variety of techniques than today's, which almost by necessity made them touch a wider array of topics, especially when making a film of a novel. Today's films are narrower in their storytelling, but use visuals to greater effect I think, which aids the messages of a film in its own way. More things can be left unsaid, they are shown instead. But some things that cannot be shown are left out as a consequence. So it's perhaps not completely fair to lump them all together. Each film (or work of art, for that matter) is a child of its time, and should be judged as such imho.

I am so relieved to find this video. I was arguing many of these exact points to several friends after the movie came out, being the only bookworm. And then I was told I had misunderstood the movie... Its really soothing to see that there are people agreeing.

The German title is "Nothing New on the Western Front", with the connotation of "Nothing out of the ordinary" or "Business as usual on the Western Front". It was very much not quiet, lots of people died. But that was a day like any other.

My grandfather volunteered and fought in WW1 and WW2. He was already working in a mine at 14 years old and ran away at 16, lying about his age, to volunteer for the Seaforth Highlander Regiment. He was shot and laid on the battlefield for seven hours. Working-class British men didn't even have the right to vote in the UK until after the war. The Germans did. That war won working-class men the vote as they were battle-hardened and angry and would not go back to being told they were not worthy of a vote. They gave wealthy women the vote at the very same time in 1918. In 2018, they celebrated 100 years since some women got the vote but didn't even mention what those men had won. I saw female British Members of Parliament talking about it and they didn't even realise that working-class men like my grandfather had no rights at all in the UK.

The worst thing is at the end of that movie you don't understand why it is called "all quiet on the western front" in the first place. I like your analysis and totally agree. The movie misses the point.

From a historical point of view, you also have to remember that war on the scale of WW1 had never been fathomed by past generations. The biggest wars Europe had endured before then were the Napoleonic wars which were literally 100 years in the past. No one understood the level of destruction that belt-fed machine guns and nonstop artillery barrages could bring. I mean, France literally was still doing Calvary charges on horses when WW1 began because they had no idea how outdated such a type of attack would be. This isn’t to say that war has never not been devastating on the minds of bodies of soldiers, but that the civilians literally could not understand the depths of horror their soldiers were experiencing.

I think Arkady Babchenko's A Soldier's War in Chechnya hits on many of the same points as All quiet on the Western Front, especially the last story about how veterans were treated once back in civilian society.

Ive seen this too many times with modern filmmaking - they simply miss the point. That’s not to say the 2022 vers is not a bad WW1 film, it’s great. It’s just not a good or faithful interpretation of what is a truly masterful, intrapersonal telling of squad life novel.

I highly recommend watching All Quiet on the Western front 1979. It's worth a watch just for Ernest Borgnine

As a German I do prefer the 1930 version. An anti war movie which could not be done better. The German 2022 version is a joke compared to this masterpiece. The reasons have been explained...

0:19 ah yes the old hollywood tradition of casting 30 year olds as 'schoolboys'

I watched it a couple weeks ago, it left something to be desired by comparison with the 1979 film that I watched many years ago (I haven't seen the 1930 film but would like to). This one I thought was lacking in terms of exploring deeper themes like the earlier films. I did appreciate that it had a distinct anti-war sentiment and showed the gruesome brutality and depraved nature of the war in such grim detail. The opening scene with the uniforms was a great hook to start out the movie. Unfortunately the plot was just too unfocused and inconsistent with all the outside subplots that didn't add much or really tie back in to the main plot thematically, and the dialogue was lackluster at times. Ultimately I was dissapointed, but still glad I watched it.

The 79' version certainly hit the sweet spot between these films. It's a damn masterpiece

After getting two films that follow the book perfectly, I was perfectly happy with a different telling. It could have probably gone by a different title though.

I read the book when I was in Jr. High School in the 60s and was really stunned by it. I also saw the 1930s film, parts of which were film in the area where I was living at that time. Between the three films, I thought the 1930s film was closer to the book than the other two and the charging scenes of soldiers was really horrific. One thing should be mention, in the 1930s films many of the extras in the battle scenes were veterans, both American and German of the conflict.

I've read the book and watched all three (I think there are only three) film adaptations. I recommend you do the same. They're all good. They all have something worthwhile for you to hear. My favorite part of the book is at the beginning when Paul says how, although we made fun of our fathers' generation, deep down we respected and looked up to them. Yet, they led us so badly astray that in the end we felt betrayed by them. This is very close to my feelings as a veteran of the Bush-era invasion and occupation of Iraq. I've had quite a while to think on that one and I cannot escape the conclusion that it was a colossal blunder. The trust that I placed in my leaders when I enlisted was betrayed by their bad judgement and people I served with paid with their lives.

My one gripe with the 2022 version is that they shoot his death as a cinematic scene where he is witnessing and reflecting on the war. Originally he was shot like anyone else and just died. No cinematic scene or chance to reflect just a meaningless death. And it hits so fucking hard

I'm amazed that this movie looks so good, and they didn't bother making sure the actor displayed gun recoil. Immediately takes you out of the film.

The 2022 version of this movie didn't show the camaraderie and pain of loss of losing each friend slowly, one by one, the pain Paul suffered from going back home on leave and seeing his family. He never got to leave, and all of his classmates were killed immediately when they all got there. For as low budget as the 1979 version was, it was still superior.

I saw the 2022 film a few months ago, and I now finished re-reading the book (I had somewhat read it in school years ago). Your analysis has made me think of the book more and the different focuses of the 2022 film, differences which I too took note of when reading. I am going to watch the 1930 film, as it seem to be a much closer adaptation to the book. Great video essay.

As someone deeply familiar with the raw portrayal of war in the original “All Quiet on the Western Front” novel and its earlier film adaptations, I approached the 2022 version with high hopes. Unfortunately, it left me deeply disappointed. The film rushes us into action scenes without adequately introducing the characters, a move that undercuts the potential for deeper emotional impact despite the commendable cinematography. The 2022 version, despite having very graphical scenes, didn't hit as hard as the earlier ones due to poor character development.. Also, something was off, making it feel less authentic.

The ‘22 version felt so empty without the return home and the ending. It’s like they took the best parts of the book out to replace it with generic ‘war is bad’ social commentary. Hollywood cannot create anymore.

Exceptional work

I have not read the book, or watched the other adaptions of All Quiet On The Western Front so my perspective is perhaps different as I am not able to compare it. I found this to be a really powerful film, I don't think I have ever seen a war film that was truly anti-war until I saw this. People like to point towards films like American sniper or 1917, but both have the hero being brave and saving the day. All Quiet On The Western Front by contrast truly shows what a horrible existence life in the trenches was for millions of men, it shows how pointless the death was and how the men really were just tiny cogs in a very large killing machine controlled by disconnected mad men.

My grandfather William was born in 1887. Italian front, Alpini Fiamme Verdi. From Isonzo to Piave, Caporetto, Vidor, Solstizio in first wave bayonet assaults. The hell on earth. He was a survivor. Rip. MV

So happy this video exists. I think the 2022 was good but there’s main thematic elements missing the full purpose of the source material.

My opinion on why you require the "zoomed out" approach as it were, is because we are now too well aware of PTSD etc. In the 30' and even as late as the 90s we were not really taking this seriously. We get it. The watchers of the series get it. The Director gets it. What is lost... after a generation brought up on the war on terror, remote killings and CNN/BBC sanitized War reporting, the true horror of the first and second world wars needs repeating (unfortunately). We don't need the subtlety here.... we need the horror. Now, as we see similar warfare being borne out in Ukraine, the fact that the big nation state warfare was essentially removed from doctrine is being shown up. This is the right series, at the right time and done in the right way.

Glad my World History teacher showed me the original a few years before this came out. Watching this with my friends I couldn't help but keep comparing the two. While this one's ending was well done (I never personally knew about the "last minute battle", so seeing it in film and then looking it up to read the actual event was certainly an experience.), I still prefer the original, the quiet almost peaceful mood and atmosphere with Paul finally, FINALLY taking a moment to remember his innocence with his art...only to be cut short by a enemy sniper. It just hits that mark and still haunts me to this day. I respect and enjoyed the new film. But I encourage others to watch the original and compare with version you like more. If nothing else, they both will defintely reinforce the point of how meaningless the entire war was (in terms of life lost and potential futures squashed for so many talented youths)

Thank you Jake. I am a child of the GWOT, I signed on the dotted line in 2008 and swore my oath to the country. I cannot tell you how much I despise civilian discourse, they will do anything other than just love their fellow human. They will choose to hate because of gender, race and sexuality instead of appreciating what many of my friends died for. I cannot tell you how much I truly hate most left wing and most right wing politicians as the preach to me about identity and seek to make me hate my brothers and sisters. I know you haven't solved anything today, but I feel like a scarred digger millennial is less lonely for a moment.

What a fantastic analysis. As someone who knew of the previous film adaptations but had only seen the new one this puts things into a greater perspective. I think that all of the versions are important in their own ways. However I will agree that the previous adaptations did a better job at portraying the conflict from a more common perspective rather than that written on the history books. Most men involved with the conflict weren't there when the peace treaty was signed, or when the military leaders themselves made decisions for the lives of millions. It would be nice to see our species learn from the subject that most people fall asleep to during class. I understand why that happens, the faults of the educational systems generally teaching the subject in a less interesting and engaging way and most people's general grasp of history's actual importance. Learning from our mistakes is one of the key elements in improving our selves as a species yet most people don't seem to give a dang about it. I understand that the matters in our personal lives probably don't get us all that interested when it comes to learning about some of the most horrific events in human history but I'd argue that people shouldn't be afraid to confront reality.

I wanted to say that my father said my grandfather was damaged for his entire life by what he had been through. The horrors of WWI and WW2. The trenches was something above and beyond WW2 though. Going over again and again and watching all your friends die and being forced to form together with whoever was left from other groups and told to go again. Even my mother and father went through the bombing in WW2 and it was something that marked that entire generation. Strangely, British civilians remembered those times with a sort of nostalgia. I am glad I got to know that generation so well.

A lot of interesting videos have been coming up for me lately. I'm new to your channel but do whatch several history channels, covering many eras. I remember briefly touching on All Quiet at school, but it was only a side note. This has been such an interesting comparison and you have a real gift for storytelling.

One thing that has always struck me is how evocative and utterly perfect the book's title is in English- which it is not in German! Because the German title is simply "Im Westen nichts Neues", which literally translated is, "In the west nothing new." Not "An der Westfront ist alles ruhig". The English version takes a great liberty with the translation, and is incredibly poetic, where the original is not.

I hate this trend of making a new movie with the same title as the old one and yet making it fundamentally different. They wouldn't even have needed to change anything about the movie itself, just given it a different name and let it stand side-by-side with the previous movies, to complement each other with wider perspectices, rather than trying to replace them.

Having Paul death occur moments before the end of the war was a bit on the nose. It diminishes Remarque's depiction of the randomness and absurdity of war. Edit: yakhooves makes this point more eloquently than I did, below

I found the 2022 film to be beautifully shot and directed, horrifyingly brutal, but totally devoid of the charactisation that the story needed in order to land. I feel like they had a list of plot points they wanted and didn't realise how that actually undermined their own story. For example: They wanted everything to take place at the very end of the war, so they could have that final fight before the whistle blows on the armistice. So they add the time jump of like 9 months between Pauls arrival at the front and the main action of the plot. But they don't change the contents of that plot from the original which makes them less impactful. As paul is now a hardened veteran at the time of the movie, and they skipped the bootcamp scenes, we don't see a transformation from a young hopeful man to a traumatised shell. It all happens off screen. Then scenes like the frenchman in the shell hole feel less impactful, in the 1930 film that happens in one of pauls first combats. Here he's been a frontline soldier for close to a year presumably seeing untold suffering and death already, it's not the same. The time needed for characterisation and character driven commentary is spent instead on plotlines like the general and the treaty of Versailles. Which add nothing to the story of the soldiers' experience. If those had been cut there might have been time to charactise the soldiers more, to spend time learning their personalities before the war messed them up. And actually see the dawning understanding of their reality. I enjoyed the movie but felt frustrated with it. I spent a lot of time watching it wondering what the movie was trying to say specifically. It was beautifully shot and edited which shows thought and effort. But the ultimate message just seemed kind of hand-wavey and "war bad". It didn't explore the effect on a person beyond "Wow I'm really rather traumatized being here." Because it didn't set any of these characters up in order to take them down. Hell, we learn more about the General (who is just a cartoonish charicature of the lions led by donkeys idea) than we do about any of Paul or his friends. Particularly because Paul doesn't talk or show much emotion about anything, acting more as a blank, traumatized, viewing piece of the horror for the audience than as a character.

Good video. I just wan to add that Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum est" is one of the finest poems written in the English language and the best encapsulation of the horror of modern war that I've ever seen.

I couldn’t get into this. I loved the book for its quiet horror and subtle homoeroticism, for the contrast between the pretensions and anxieties of the homefront and the grinding evils of the trenches. The movie gave me fake french tanks and flamethrower soldiers and a nothing b-plot about peace negotiations.

After reading Professor Mosier's books on WW1 and then watching this movie, it is actually a movie about the French, not German army. The actors are wearing the wrong uniform. Mass human wave attacks without concern for casualties, uncaring officers sitting far in the rear dining on fine food (Joffre was a good example of this), a pointless attack right before the end of the war - the only example I know of this was US Army officers who had recently arrived in France ordering pointless attacks on the Germans to be able to say they had been in combat . . . The artillery precision was a German Army specialty, known as "nibbling" not something the French Army was capable of due to their lack of mass production of hydraulic howitzers . . . Read Mosier's book on the Myth of the Great War where he breaks down the German vs French/British casualty statistics and concludes that the German army was a well trained killing machine. Mosiers' opinion and Hindenburgs opinion was the same - it was the US Army that broke the German will to keep fighting.

‘79 is far superior. You should cover the book storm of steel by Ernst junger. It gives another very interesting perspective to the war

From what I recall the 30's film made quite a few changes, although small, they where not in the book, the director and producers allowed this as the changes where from actual ww1 veterans that made up the actors, and background actors, the one of the top of my head is the hands hanging onto the barbed wire, a french machine gunner remarked recalling a gy getting blown up by a shell and all that remained was his hands.

The thing is, I haven't read the book or seen the earlier adaptations. If I had, I probably would've seen the 2022 film the way you saw it. You bring up excellent points and you really made me want to read the book, but I still think that the 2022 film is a good one if you don't expect it to be loyal for the book! It must be seen as an independent work of art

That was an excellent analysis! I had the impression, the director/writers of the 2022 version had no real understanding what the book and the older movies were about, really. They made up stuff that felt detatched and contrieved like the weird end scene.

I enjoyed your video and agree with most of the points you've made. I loved the 2022 version but not really in comparison to the previous ones. What I mean is, in 2022 there have not been many good war movies for awhile (1917 had some good moments but overall was a bit wacky). I think I enjoyed it so much because it was a war movie that did an excellent job showing the chaos and overall negativity of combat. It may not be the best version but it was a much needed departure from the usual cheesy/proud war movie that comes around every year or so.

Exactly right! The 2022 version is less personal and, therefore, less moving. Watch Richard Thomas play Paul returning home on leave in the 1979 version. You know right there, he can never get back. Heartbreaking.

The combat scenes were the most realistic I've ever seen. This new version is a great interpretation. As are the others. Each captures the essence of innocence lost, as well as the cost of war. Each has its own nuances and this is a great addition to the title.

I think there’s is something missed here in the misunderstanding of it all. The Great War was something that the world had never seen the likes of. It was men with modern weaponry trying to fight a war like they were from the Napoleonic era. Many well studied men of the time likely would have no reference to what that war truly was beyond looking at the battle of Gettysburg and Pickett’s charge where the US learned not to group up and charge artillery and machine guns in lines on the open field. But even that was nothing like this war. Not a fighting force in the world up to that point had seen anything even close to its likeness. All these older men, including the Veterans of past wars, could’ve possibly understood, this war in particular. Honestly, not even modern combat vets have seen such a thing. Because at the very least, our tactics have adapted to fit the weaponry being used. I can’t even begin to imagine the hellish sight a WW1 Battlefield would be.

Having watched all 3 film adaptations and read the book, I firmly believe that if the changes you discussed weren't made in the 2022 version it could very well have been a real masterpiece. Visually it's stunning, the acting is great, and the crater scene is every bit as gut-wrenching as I'd expect. But it's missing quite a bit. I will say that every adaptation, as well as the book, miss out on a few significant factors in the decline of the German war machine, such as mutinies among the navy, growing political turmoil across the country, and the impact of blockades, but those omissions are understandable since it's supposed to be Paul's story, not Germany's. That's the biggest mistake of the new version; it tries to tell Germany's story instead of Paul's, and while there's an avenue for that (they were way too kind to German High Command and the politicians negotiating the armistice imo), it's not this book.

The scene of the gas attack of the 1979 version was not depicting the German soldier being too slow to put on his gasmask: He took of his mask too early and then fell into a bomb crater still filled with poison gas.

We need a storm of steel movie not more all quiet on the western front . That is the biggest problem with this movie

on the one hand your point about the lack of 'soldiers vs civilians' is correct. on the other hand it's missing an important perspective: it's a _german_ movie adaptation of a _german_ novel mainly targeting a _german_ audience. so what is it, that makes the german experience so 'special'? after WW1 and before WW2 the german soldiers knew what fighting a world war meant, while the german civilians didn't (unlike e.g. french or belgian civilians, because WW1 was fought on their territory). during and after ww2 however the german civilians _did_ and _do_ know what it means, because the war was brought to german soil. so, the experience of 'post-WW2-germans' was and is completely different from 'post-WW1-germans'. unlike the times the novel was written and the first movie was made, there is no need to tell 'post-WW2-german civilians', that war is horrible. to this day there is basically no bigger construction site (or archeological site) in german cities, where you don't need a 'bomb defusing team' to get rid of old bombs from WW2. germans of today are aware, what 'dresden 45' (and basically every other bigger german city) stands for. the discrepancy of 'soldiers vs civilians', that was an important topic between the world wars, isn't anymore. and hence you can skip this part in a _german_ movie for a _german_ audience. plus the two older movie adaptations have _way_ too long and cringy dialogues and monologues (e.g in the ditch with the french soldier). that might work in a novel, but it's completely out of touch in a movie. an average german (pre-gen-z male) wouldn't talk that much (let alone a traumatized soldier); maybe think, maybe write, but not talk. and that's what the 2022 movie does _way_ better than the older ones. the lines of paul and esp. kat are way more rare and shorter - and in the case of kat btw almost unintelligible even for native german speakers, because he only mumbles his lines barely moving his clenched teeth while talking. this adds so much to the authenticity of these characters.

I’m glad this movie was re done again. It may not be perfect, your analysis is excellent, but, it keeps the message fresh for a new generation of viewers and will foster a new generation to read the book and explore its themes. The message of the book, war, trauma, grief, are timeless. And, we need the reminder.

A crazy detail of the 1930s version is that some of the extras were actually German and American veterans from WW1

There's adaptation, and then there's cynical use of a famous title to tell a different story.

They skipped the part where he returned home after fighting and sees war vigor with different eyes... and knows he has changed... it was an important part. It was the first thing I noticed when I watched the Netflix version. It shows writers don't understand stories anymore