Pearl Harbor - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of Pearl Harbor or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to Pearl Harbor

[duane]

During a 2012 "Hollywood Reporter" Directors' Roundtable, the group was asked about their weirdest or most interesting note or letter ever from a fan, and Ben Affleck told a story about getting a letter from someone in China that said "they were glad about 'what we did to the Japanese at Pearl Harbor', and I wasn't sure if they understood that it was a historical movie, or why they watched the movie."

[chad]

Visual effects supervisor Eric Brevig had to write an entirely new piece of software to create smoke plumes for the film, as the amount of smoke needed was not allowed to be shot for environmental reasons.

[nicholas]

Kevin Costner turned down the role of Colonel James Doolittle.

[eli]

Wes Bentley was offered the role of Danny Walker.

[caroline]

The film's premiere was held at Pearl Harbor, aboard the carrier U.S.S. John Stennis. Bleachers were set up on the flight deck, and the hangar bay was converted into a 1940s-style nightclub for the after party.

[chris]

A navy officer who states that the planes are bunched together to make it easier to guard against sabotage. While this did happen with some navy planes, this was actually the policy of General Walter C. Short regarding the Army planes.

[elmer]

The ultimatum from Japan to the U.S., which was for all practical purposes a declaration of war, was to have been delivered in person to the U.S. Secretary of Defence Cordell Hull thirty minutes before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Because of extreme security measures, skilled embassy typists could not be used to prepare the document that would be presented to the Americans. This caused a delay that resulted in the sneak attack taking place nearly an hour before the message could be delivered.

[kristina]

Charlize Theron turned down the female lead, to star in Sweet November (2001).

[darrell]

The film has four pure CGI shots: the bomb falling toward the U.S.S. Arizona, two shots of the Arizona exploding as it jumps up in the water, and the two Japanese Zeroes pitching down towards Battleship Row.

[bryan]

Planes were flown over the disused Marine Corps Air Station Tustin base in Tustin, California, to be composited into the film. This caused some residents in Orange County to believe that a war was starting, and they were being attacked.

[tom]

Michael Bay's least favorite shot in the movie is the cutaway during the Doolittle Raid to the Japanese women turning and seeing the attack in the distance. On the DVD commentary, he admits he has no idea why this shot is in the movie or what he was trying to achieve in shooting it.

[christina]

Earned a place in the "Guinness Book of World Records" for the movie with the most explosives used.

[miriam]

To a certain extent, Rafe McCawley (Ben Affleck) is based on real fighter pilot Joe Foss, who had thirty-two confirmed kills during the War, and many more probables. McCawley's speech about the plane feeling like an extension of his body was taken almost verbatim from a conversation Michael Bay had with Foss.

[bernice]

Thurman explains to Nimitz how they fill in the blanks in garbled Japanese messages by using intuition. This scene is lifted largely from a similar scene in Midway (1976) in which the chief intelligence officer at Pearl Harbor makes a similar statement, but resents the word "guess", preferring to call it "analysis". It should be noted that Admiral Nimitz was a much more reasonable man than is depicted here, both in this scene and in the depicted pessimism in the meeting with FDR.

[ava]

Filming of the bombing sequence was overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency.

[dustin]

Up until 1943 military nurses did not require formal nursing training before enlistment but were trained afterwards. Navy nurses were given the initial rank of ensign and army nurses the initial rank of second lieutenant. This was largely to prevent fraternization between the enlisted men and the nurses.

[morris]

In the camera shots during the Doolittle Raid, where it appears the actors are actually flying the planes, they actually are. No CG was used. Alec Baldwin, Josh Hartnett, and Ben Affleck were all given basic flight training, so they could handle the planes. To get the various shots of the actors in the pilot's seat, the "real" pilot would simply pilot the plane to the desired destination and then the actor would take over while the camera crew moved alongside to get the shot. After this the real pilot would take over.

[veronica]

Ben Affleck and Michael Shannon would later appear in the DC cinematic universe

[phyllis]

The bomb that set off Arizona's forward magazine did not start of as a bomb. Rather, it began as an armor-piercing artillery shell to which fins were added so it would be dropped from a plane. The CG shot was not of such a modified shell, but a proper bomb.