They Shall Not Grow Old

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⭐ 8.0/10

(Originally written by Joseph)

This is the Peter Jackson WWI documentary that got quite a bit of praise for his ability to restore century old video footage and compliment it with color and sound. It truly is an impressive feat and really brought it to life. I think this one did an amazing job of putting you right there in the trenches, experiencing the grotesque nature of what went down, and experience the anxiety that the soldiers felt. I myself feel I might have some PTSD after only watching.


I really have no true complaints. This documentary was incredible. The only minor nitpicks I have are that this movie is too short, and doesn't really give the full picture. The Netflix version is only 1.5 hours, and you really don't learn much in terms of history but rather you just learn about the soldiers' experience. Further, you only learn about the British experience. I get that this documentary is only focused on that, but it just seemed so out of touch to me. This war was so stupid and unjustified, and the British soldiers who speak inexplicably lack any type of depth or nuance, so I felt the least they could do was give a bit of the story from the German side. Again, the documentary isn't trying to send a message but rather just putting it all out there, and I get that. But for a movie in our time, I just felt there was a little too much chest pounding and worshipping of toxic traits that this documentary should have kept in check.

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