MovieChat Forums > The Last Days of Patton (1986) Discussion > Maybe its just as well that he died when...

Maybe its just as well that he died when he did.


It was said by a German officer in the first film; "This war will be the end of him as well. There will be no room in the new world for men like him."

Patton Died with a final victory under his belt and so did not live to be a doddering old man and went out on a high.

Even Patton would have probably agreed that if he were to die on German soil at least he died on soil that he liberated from the Nazis.

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You have adopted a very romantic view of Patton. That is not a bad thing. But did he really die with that final victory under his belt? He was pretty disgraced by being moved to the 15th. So disgraced he decided to quite the service. That does not sound like going out on a high to me.

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I tend to agree. Sure we can choose to take an optimistic, romantic view of Patton's ending... but if we're trying to guess what Patton's last thoughts were, I think the movie seems realistic. His last days were full of political frustration, if not outright disgrace, in the wake of Washington politics that swept him underfoot. And on top of it all, something as stupid as "falling off a car seat and breaking his neck" as he laments in the movie, had to be a real ball breaker. I view the story as a tragedy, or at best, dignity while falling from grace.

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