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RetiredRanger
Reviews
Fire Country (2022)
Lacked realism and poorly written
I'm retired from a large federal agency that, among many other activities, manages/fights wildland fires. I have worked on fires with California inmate crews and have had them perform project work such as rock retaining walls, building campground sites, fences and trails. I was assigned to over 100 wildland fires in my career. I found the following to be shown/written in a manner that is not close to realism.
1. Cal Fire is not "hungry" for inmates. Getting assigned to a camp is competitive and time off a sentence is involved.
2. Crew members arrive at camp individually not as a whole crew of beginners as shown.
3. Inmates with a history of violent offensives are not eligible so the primary character in the show would not be on a camp crew. The main character is shown to have committed robbery with a gun on a citizen. He would not be eligible for a crew assignment as a result.
4. Get over it Hollywood, cars don't fully explode when they burn.
5. Inmates are shown committing all sorts of insubordination and getting away with it. The slightest infraction results in being sent back to prison and all the credits to the sentence being wiped out. On one fire I was on an inmate complained about his sack lunch and said he wouldn't work until he got a decent meal. This at 2 a.m. A Corrections van was sent and he was driven back to prison, right then and there.
6. This shows a crew go out on a large fire with virtually no training when the opposite is true.
7. Cal Fire is shown to evacuate part of a city and making those decisions. Wrong, the country sheriff makes those decisions and accomplishes getting people out.
8. A Cal Fire is shown with his shirt and pants on fire. They wear flame retardant Nomex on fires. A fellow firefighter is shown throwing dirt on the person's clothes. Training is to drop and roll to the point it's automatic.
9. The initial attack of a fire is shown in the incident command post just a few hours after the fire is started. They show a map posted of the fire that takes a huge printer (3-4 feet square) to print. The information shown and the quickness of its printing doesn't happen until 3 or more days on the fire.
10. Fire shelters are shown deployed in very close, intense burning conditions with a wealth of fuel. A fire shelter will fail to protect its occupant in these conditions.
11. The pistol shown shooting a "flare" to begin a burn is shot into a portion of the fire already fully involved.
12. Fire was put out in just a few hours, nothing of that size and intensity can be "put out" in that timeframe.
13. An inmate would not be assigned when his parents work for Cal Fire in the same operational unit. Conflict of interest prevents this.
14. Cal Fire does not overrule Corrections when it comes to inmate behavior. This episode shown the main character's parents throwing a Corrections officer out of a room.
15. The inmate crew is shown in a town parade just after the miraculous and unrealistic extinguishment of this fire. Inmates are not allowed to be at such events where the public is present.
16. Inmates are shown building line standing nearly shoulder to shoulder. At fires 8-10 spacing between people is reality. This is a safety issue.
I know this is a pilot, maybe the writers will rescue this series, but I doubt it.
6 Below: Miracle on the Mountain (2017)
Movie Did Not Relate to the Location Where This Search and Rescue Occurred
Eric LeMarque's search and rescue occurred in the Sierra Nevada of California, not the implied Utah location shown in the movie. It occurred at the Mammoth Mountain Ski Area which is located on the east side of the range. LeMarque skied off the top of the mountain's "backside" or west side down into the valley where the Middle Fork of the San Joaquin River is located. Why the producers chose to not only use Utah to film this and not even try to represent the actual location is a mystery to me. The movie departed from reality in several ways:
1-His father notified law enforcement on February 11, 5 days after LeMarque got lost. A full Mono County, California search and rescue was initiated. Mammoth Mountain's Ski Patrol found the location where LeMarque had tried to build a fire on the 13th, and his tracks led from there. A CHP helicopter was on the search starting on the 11th. A National Guard Blackhawk helicopter with Mono County SAR members on board followed his tracks to a location part way up a feature called Pumice Butte, he never reached the top.
2-Wolves are shown approaching him. There are no wolves in the Sierra Nevada. Movie producers usually show aggressive predatory behavior by wolves when interacting with humans. This a an extremely rare occurrence worldwide in recorded history.
3-The movie showed some type of radio signal received at the ski area ski patrol facility. This never happened, LaMarque had an MP3 player, which is not capable of transmitting anything.
4-LaMarque never reached the summit of Pumice Butte, he was found in forest vegetation part way up the butte.
5-LaMarque found a creek, likely Crater Creek where he fell in. He did not break through the ice of a lake and become fully immersed.
6-After picking up LaMarque the National Guard helo landed on the south side of the town of Mammoth Lakes and then transported a little more than a mile to the hospital in town. He was later transferred to a burn center in southern California.
7-The showed the ski area ski patrol as being the primary force on this search and rescue, making the key decisions. In fact, the county sheriff is in charge and the ski patrol is a partner in the effort. The SAR operation was not going to be shut down the day he was found.
8-I've lived in Mono County for nearly 40 years and don't remember a female in charge of the ski patrol at Mammoth Mountain. I'm not sure why the producers decided to inject this into the story.
This movie could have been filmed at Mammoth Mountain, with the exception of the ground scenes, located in both the Ansel Adams and John Muir Wilderness areas. However, there is plenty of non wilderness areas nearby that could have been used. Why they chose to film in Utah and not even mention the actual ski area LeMarqaue was at is a mystery to me.
Space Force (2020)
I Liked It
I liked it. First of all they have purposely thrown in some corniness. One of the last scenes shows some bad guys on motorcycles chasing a girl on a bicycle. Notice that they purposely throw continuity mistakes in, an aerial shot of her on a bicycle on pavement, followed by her on a dirt road, a scene of the motorcycles coming for her with the dust of the camera vehicle getting in their faces. Second, I thought it was a parody on Trump creating the space force. It is that but in the last two episodes it appears to be very sarcastic as well. Third, they are throwing in images in the background, a missing person poster in the last episode that you would have to be blind not to see. However, I think I need to rewatch to look more carefully at the pictures of people on the walls in the Chief of Staff room in D.C., the Space Force General's office and the Space Force conference room. Forth, the actors are outstanding, great picks in Steve Carrel, John Malkovitch, Lisa Kudrow, the late Fred Willard, all of the Chiefs of Staff actors and more. I think the writing could be better, but this is meant to be a sarcastic parody and a bit zany, but not too zany. It is a serious political jab and maybe some don't like that, but we are living in a surreal situation right now that seriously needs to change.
Gone Girl (2014)
Intense
The entire staff on this film (director, producers, actors and all others) should be applauded for creating one of the most intense movies I've seen in several years. They all "spun quite the yarn" on this one. My wife and I decided to watch this on video at home and chose a dark, rain and snow type day to watch it. I think that added to the power of the experience watching it. I highly recommend watching this movie, unless you are married to a highly manipulative spouse.
Police Story (1973)
One of the Best Ever
The all star cast in this show was excellent. Some of the best TV actors of the time wanted to be on the show. This show allowed more gritty TV shows that came later. Up to that time police dramas followed a party line. Jack Webb's shows are the best examples of that genre. I think "Southland" was a much more realistic and gritty show, but for its time in the early 70's "Police Story" was on the forefront of gritty shows. People were not used to seeing blood and guts and that is lacking when this show is viewed, but it was likely something the viewers did not want to see depicted at the time.
I would buy every season of this show, minus season one, which I already own. The show started while I was in college and I didn't have a TV until after graduation so I missed three seasons. I would really like to see seasons 2 and 3 having not watched them at all, I would like to see the last seasons as well.
This show is definitely one that people who like to watch police dramas need to see.
The Watch (2008)
Terrible
This movie fails in every way possible. The "fire watch tower" is some old cabin with a few windows that isn't tall enough to see over the trees. The depiction of how lookouts and a National Forest operates makes me think that the writer has not finished elementary school yet or is someone that has lived and worked in the nature vacuum of a large city in the eastern U.S. The producers could not even arrange to use a real lookout tower, which would have helped. But in the end nothing could have helped this movie. The individual scenes are poorly connected and when added together in the end, fail to tell any type of cohesive story. If this site had a negative rating option I would use it for this movie.
When my wife and I are in a theater viewing movie previews and see one for a movie that looks like a complete waste of time we turn to each other and say "lets wait until this movie comes out on video and not rent it." My recommendation for this movie is "lets see when this movie is aired and not watch it."
Fireproof (2008)
I liked this movie
This movie addresses the importance of marriage and why it is necessary to work hard to save and/or maintain it. I've only rated it a "6" because some of the acting is not great, especially the man who plays the father of the character Kirk Cameron plays. I would rate the message of the movie 10/10. I am a Christian man who considers marriage very important, probably number two on my list following my faith in God.
There are some problems with the fire scenes, but they did depict the Incident Command System implementation accurately. ICS is the nationwide standard incident management system. I am retired from a career that involved wildland fire fighting among my many duties, I served on a volunteer fire department as well and I'm critical of how fire fighting is represented. The biggest problem is when a red hat, Kirk Cameron as an engine captain, enters a burning home to save a child without a partner and without a hose or a line to guide him out again. Almost every movie about structural fire I've ever seen does not show the incredible amount of smoke involved and how low the visibility is inside a burning structure. You either tie a line, fire resistant rope, or use the hose you are pulling to help guide you out. Staying with a partner is a rule not to be broken. Captains rarely take on direct fire fighting as they are making command decisions and keeping track of the crew's safety. This until they are relieved of command by a higher qualified officer who takes over incident command.
I really should not dwell so much on the technical details of fire fighting as the story and moral of the movie is excellent. I needed the message of the movie for something I'm experiencing in my marriage right now even though my wife is not going to leave me, as I need to bring more energy and commitment to the relationship.
Even if you are not a Christian the message of this movie is relevant and useful. Don't be turned off by the religious setting of this movie. God gave us a good plan and it is up to us to follow it.
Firestorm: Last Stand at Yellowstone (2006)
This one is really poor
I've always considered Irwin Allen disaster movies to be the worst movies about disasters ever made. Among these was "Towering Inferno," which depicted structural firefighting so inaccurately that it seems if was purposely written to be as far from the truth as possible.
I spent my career with the U.S. Forest Service, which is not the agency represented in the movie, rather it is the National Park Service (NPS) that manages the National Parks. I worked closely with the NPS as the National Forests I worked on bordered National Parks and have had a interest in fire ecology since high school, with a career that allowed me to gain a great deal of knowledge and experience on the subject from 1968 to the present.
It is a misnomer that the NPS had a "let burn" policy, in spite of it being widely reported that way. The fires of 1988 were being managed under a natural fire policy and fires were only allowed to burn under prescribed conditions. This policy had been in place for 16 years prior to 1988. During this period only 15 fires became larger than 100 acres. All of these went out on their own. As a Park Ranger I worked with said, who had spent 10 years at Yellowstone, you could not have burned 1/4 acre with a 55 gallon drum of fuel mix (used to start prescribed fires). This is because the Yellowstone Plateau is normally wetter than the rest of the west.
The spring of 1988 was wetter than average. On July 15th 11 of the 20 early season fires had gone out and only 8,500 acres had burned. Then the driest summer in the park's history began, a event no one could have predicted.
I spent five weeks in Yellowstone in 1988 as a crew boss, supervising an Army fire crew.Within two days of arriving there I had the same conclusion the other other 2 crew bosses and the leader of our strike team did. By looking at tree species composition and their ages it appeared as though most of the park had burned naturally 300-500 years prior. All of us had enough education and training sufficient to make this situation as obvious as reading a sign place in front of our faces. Subsequent research has shown 3 cycles of natural widespread, high intensity fires burning every 300-500 years, evidence of fires prior to those three cycles is no longer available. From this one could conclude that dry years like 1988 occur once every 300-500 years. These large fires are very important for wildlife habitat as large, thick forests of Lodgepole pine are not beneficial for the large mammals in the park, particularly elk. The 1988 fires and the reintroduction of the wolf, the natural predator of the elk, has reduced their population to a natural level and the culling of weaker animals has increased the health of the entire population.
The largest of the 1988 fires, the North Fork fire, was over 500,000 acres in size. Unlike the remainder of the fires that summer, this one was human caused. A woodcutter on the adjacent Targhee National Forest threw out a cigarette started the fire. A full suppression (put it out now) response began immediately. Due to the dryness of the summer those efforts were in vain. This is the fire I spent my five weeks on. It was the largest of the summer and had nothing to do with a "let burn" policy.
This movie shows that the producers are completely ignorant of any of this. I would be very surprised if they even cared.
Atomic Train (1999)
Does Hollywood ever get it right?
I'm retired from 25 years with the U.S. Forest Service and was on 108 wildland fires and scores of other incidents in my career. From that perspective I found this movie lacking anything close to a representation of reality.
1) The way they depicted the U.S. Forest Service with the "ranger" walking around an obvious Forest Service ranger station site just pick up and fly a helicopter without any support personnel is ludicrous. Except when working a water bucket a helicopter always has at least a spotter on board. The pilot did not have on a helmet or the required flame retardant flight suit. Then as many movies show, a ladder was lowered from the helicopter and this doesn't happen. Additionally people who work around helicopters never call them a "chopper"; rather they call it a helicopter, helo, bird, or ship. The latter 3 words are not used during radio communications or during actual operations as strict equipment, apparatus, crew, and position nomenclature has to be followed to avoid confusion. Only Hollywood and news broadcasters use the word chopper.
2) How do you like being shown a major incident without a single person on scene in charge? Almost every emergency management organization in the U.S., be it law enforcement, fire, highway departments, utilities, etc. use the Incident Command System (ICS), which contains common building blocks of staffing and functions to manage every type of incident. ICS is used on fires in pans on a stove, to hurricanes and earthquakes. To have a major incident of incredible consequence with the President and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs involved without clear lines of authority being used at the scene is not realistic.
3) Under ICS the person in charge is called the incident commander (IC) and everything on an incident it is at the orders of the IC. Becoming qualified to be an IC is difficult. There aren't free-lancing helicopters flying by dropping water without the permission of the IC or another position below the IC. When aircraft are used on an incident there are specific supervisory procedures in place and not at all shown in this movie. There are multiple aircraft shown (three helicopters next to each other along with an air tanker) working together without an Air Attack Supervisor flying in a fixed wing above them, which is required every time more than one aircraft is working the same or nearby incidents where airspace is shared.
4) If an aircraft working a fire does not have a functioning radio there is at least one backup and if communications are not clearly established the aircraft returns to the nearest landing facility, no exceptions. If an aircraft fails to establish communications every 20 minutes during routine flight it is considered overdue. This helicopter was shown flying around with a radio not working with on board people brushing it off.
5) It is exceedingly rare to see fire retardant used in a bucket drop, as the helicopter would have to hover with its bucket on the ground at a retardant base while the stuff is mixed and pumped into the bucket. Buckets use involves the closest available surface water source. Did you also notice that the buckets were spraying out clear water while en route and then dropped obviously red retardant on the fire? 6) Retardant is water, salt (about 7% which retards fire after the water has evaporated), dye (to mark where it was dropped), and a thickening agent (to add viscosity slowing evaporation). With some chemical fires, adding water rather than foam can spread the fire and that is what retardant does as it is mostly water. Foam is a totally different chemical in composition and does not have a great deal of water in the mixture. The movie showed water causing an explosive type escalation of a fire when the chemical inside the boxcar was involved as if it were some very unique type of substance when in fact many substances can spread a fire when water is used.
6) Then there is the retardant drop made by an air tanker at a low elevation on a structure. I can tell you that at the elevation shown in the movies that retardant acts like a huge bomb because it hasn't had a chance to exit the plane and turn into a fine mist which dropping through hundreds of feet and the speed of the aircraft accomplishes. This huge bomb would knock over a structure leaving nothing standing.
7) It is inconceivable to me to have a freelance locomotive engineer turn his radio to some alternate channel so he can ignore instructions. Then there is the unrealistic way that the use of radios and other communication protocol are shown. Having worked with a radio with me most of my adult life and as an amateur radio operator (ham) it amazes me how poorly TV and film botches this up.
I don't expect movie producers to get every detail fully accurate, as some details can be esoteric to all but a very small number of viewers. What bothers me is that if a movie is so badly done on the things I know something about, then how inaccurate are movies that involve something I don't know much about? Pretty soon they will have us believe that Naval JAG officers travel around in combat zones unescorted, that police officers can shoot guns out of people's hands, that there is no smoke inside a burning building, that cars rear ending another car spin around in the air, that law enforcement officers shoot suspects and walk away to go on to other things before an investigation is done and they are placed on automatic administrative leave,
The real reason I kept watching the movie is that I had never seen Kristen Davis before and I found her very attractive.
Lost (2004)
A good show, but please lose the "monster"
I watched the first episode and thought that it would be a great start to a TV show with lots of opportunity for character development. I was not disappointed! My wife saw parts of it and thought it was going to be hokey.
I told her it was very good, but I had this sneaking suspicion that the movement in the bushes was going to be a monster and that the monster would not be revealed. It is a natural story line as tension is used by creating fear, which in turn is created by the unknown. I told my wife I would not watch the show if the producers included a monster in the show. Well they did and I told myself I would not watch the show again. Why? Because I felt the show had a great deal of potential and I like some measure of reality in what I watch.
The next week found me watching the show anyway. Why? The character development not only had potential, but began to quickly hook me. I felt I needed to keep watching to learn about the character's pasts, their situations at the time they took the flight, and how they handled crashing without the possibility of a quick rescue on an island where most of them had nothing close to any experience to prepare them for such events. My career and personal life has included a great deal of travel and work in primitive, wilderness settings. When flying in commercial aircraft I often look out the window and find myself wondering how I would handle crashing onto the terrain below if rescue was not imminent. Before 9/11 my carry on was always the day pack I use on personal hikes in the mountains, containing what I feel is a minimum of survival gear. I always carry one hand-held and one portable Ham radio in my pack as I don't like to put them in check on luggage. I often wonder if any of this gear would make a difference after surviving a crash, where hopefully everyone or almost everyone survives. So for me, the story line of Lost is very intriguing. Although this show puts many of my daydreams on film, I would not at all relish being challenged with a aircraft crash.
The character of John Locke as played by Terry O'Quinn is especially interesting. He seems to be a natural at surviving with good orienteering skills, ability to make tools and weapons from natural materials, a good observer of the land around him, knowledge of natural processes such as weather, and the ability to stay calm. I relate to my own skills in these areas and enjoy how Locke uses those skills to help the rest of the characters get through the challenges they face. He also has a good deal of wisdom concerning life and offers good counsel for almost everyone. I can only wish to have a small measure of such wisdom myself.
The doctor gains leadership by default very quickly and must suppress his own shock and pain to remain calm as medical needs would not be addressed well if he didn't draw upon his training and experience. This situation challenges everything he has learned up to this point. Having worked on over a hundred wildland fires and scores of other types emergency incidents where I was challenged, I like to see fictional accounts of others challenged by emergencies and try to walk in their shoes. The doctor's tough choices using the protocol of triage were very well presented and the tough ethical and moral dilemmas which follow are also very interesting. All in all there is some measure of reality and themes I can personally identify with.
As the show has moved on the character development has been very well presented and is very interesting. As someone else said already, every scene is important. If there is a down side to this show, it is in the inevitable missing of a night, which to someone with a non-functioning VCR at this time, makes keeping up with the story line a bit challenging.
I have found some things in this show to relate to. I think a lot of people will also find things they can relate to as each character is further developed. I think there is something for almost everyone in this show. I have not seen such good character presentation on a TV show in a very long time. In short I think the show is excellent for TV. Twenty or more years ago this much effort and talent was not put into high profile mini-series.
The one thing that will cause me to lose interest in the show is "the monster". Putting a monster in a story negates mucy of the otherwise good work done. Without some sense of realism the show has nothing to offer. Some sort of prehistoric animal will ruin the whole thing. It reminds me of the weekly monsters on the old and poorly done TV series "Lost in Space" with a poorly done robot always moving his vacuum cleaner hose arms up in the air saying "warning Will Robinson, warning". So ABC, keep a good thing going by losing the monster. There is enough tension and challenge on the island for these folks and there is a lot of tension added in more realistic ways. I hope that ABC, the show's producers, and you will agree with me.
This show gets a tentative two thumbs up from me and should go down as a classic if only they get rid of that . . . . . . .
Fire on the Amazon (1993)
Bad Clichés
This movie is so full of over used clichés it is pathetic. Sandra Bullock is beautiful in the movie, but even her acting is very poor at times. Apparently a bad story, bad writing, and the poor acting by others got to her. There is a scene in an office with Ms. Bullock, the obnoxious reporter, and Bullock's boss where it seems like everyone is reading flip charts. The clichés about the evil lumber companies, cattle ranchers, and corrupt law enforcement are about as bad as a Miss America contestant saying she is throughly behind world peace. If these clichés have some thread of truth to them, ignoring the entire movie because of feeling manipulated with them is very likely. I haven't seen something so poorly done since "Billy Jack". If you are especially interested in the real crisis occurring in the Amazon, I recommend that you don't watch this movie.