MovieChat Forums > Below (2002) Discussion > The Sub was tooooooooooooo big

The Sub was tooooooooooooo big

posted 19 years ago by rstySp00n
34 replies | jump to latest

I've seen Below yesterday, was a fun movie to watch, but had some flaws in it.
The grabling hooks??? Like a medium sized destroyer would thow out hooks to dammage a submarine?? Yeah right and getting caught in something else or being pulled down by the submarine itself...

But the funniest thing, the submarine was like a castle, it was so big, the crew had so much space, complete cantine build in....even modern submarines are smal and cramp. In the movie/series "Das Boot" they really make you feel claustrofobic being in a sub, but in Below they really missed that.

[–] hlsamson 18 years ago

i was in the actual submarine used as a model for this movie (and used in the deck scenes) and it is quite dead on... i could recognize every room in the film as one of the rooms i was in on the sub itself. the galley was exact and actually could hold up to 24 men at a time, eating in shifts. some of the other rooms were a tad larger than the real ones but the details were perfect... im sure they had to make them larger to fit equipment, etc. on the set... our tourguide on the uss silversides told us they wanted to film inside the actual sub but the cameras and equipment wouldnt fit down the hatches/doorways.

[–] John_Dee_007 18 years ago

Well I think the original poster of this thread, rstySp00n, has eaten their words (in a "proportionate" galley) and is now cowering in a dark corner. What's that next to you in the shadows, rstySp00n? Sounds like... Breathing!

[–] IonicBadger 16 years ago

The german submarines where really cramped and the type 7c or VIIC submarine we see in das boot is just like the real one.

American submarines however was pretty roomy and had alot of space for the crew.
With the exception of the old s-class submarines (think those where british but the us navy used the aswell)they where really cramped.
But Balao class submarines and Tambor class had alot of space really.

[–] ganda1f 15 years ago

From memory the S-class boats were built by America towards the end of WWI, and the survivors were sold to Britain as part of the Lend/Lease arrangement in WWII.

WWII American subs were rather roomy compared to their German counterparts. It seems that this was because the ballast tanks were kept outside the inner hull, improving inside space. (I'm not sure why/how this was done - someone who knows more about submarine design can no doubt answer this!).

[–] uruseiranma 15 years ago

I was thinking the same thing as the OP.

I've been in the U-505 sub at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry, and recall the look of the sub used in U-571.

Even if the American subs were roomier, I still think a more cramped and claustrophobic atmosphere would have helped heighten any type of fear or tension.

"HAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMMM!!!!"

[–] monsterkatt 15 years ago

Why is it mythical if few of those were built, hmm?

If they built ONE that meant the germans had a superior submarine. It doesn't become a better model depending on how many you build.

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[–] Gatorman9 14 years ago

Except for the small number of Type XXI boats they built at the end of the war, U-boats were certainly no faster on average submerged, and were never as fast on the surface, the Type XXI notwithstanding.

Bolillo Loco's use of the word "mythical" in his post is regrettable, because everything else he said was dead-on correct. Unfortunately, rather than mythical, the Type XXI scared the pee out of everyone and worked a revolution in undersea warfare once the war was over and we realized that *Russians* were going to set out to build about 400 new submarines derived from the Type XXI design! The ultimate result was the invention of the modern "fast attack" submarine.

[–] 11 years ago

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