oddball question for Iraq vets

R

RH

Joined
Jan 31, 1999
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Do the active military in Iraq get to see movies before being released in US theaters? Someone told me he had seen a movie in Iraq months ago that has only been out here a few weeks? Possible, or B.S.?
 
It's happens, but it probably involves someone having a pirated copy of the movie.

Nick
 
I go to University of Texas and sometimes they will have a huge showing of a movie in the theatre that is projected onto a huge screen in large open field. Its free for university students and I would also assume the military may pay for a copy of the film to use just like the movie theatres do.
 
Not an Iraqi vet but a movie review I read stated that the military contracts at the start of the year with the big companies to show the troops the movies overseas. So I think it could be very possible that the military would see movies before the US.
 
Jeez, sand, heat, crazed terrorist bombers and now subjected to hollyweird before the general populace. Those guys deserve more medals...:)
 
Can't speak for Iraq, but during the early build-up in RVN a lot of us went over in WWII troop ships. When I went in 1966, there were some films that were sent with us for entertainment. One of them, I can't remember the title, was about the wife of a guy who was overseas duriing WWII, who was having an affair with someone while he was gone. That was certainly a morale builder.:D
 
durring the gulf war we got a couple first run movies on the carrier directly from the distributors before they hit the theaters, Flight of the Intruder was one of the movies.
 
flownosaj said:
Most of it is from pirated DVDs (most are bad copies too) :(
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I doubt that very highly. When I was in the USAF in Saudi Arabia we got to see major films before they hit the US theatres. Most distributers have contracts with US military installations to get movies before the general public. This does not go for all films. The blockbusters will hit US theatres before a military installation due to public demand and movie studio hype.
 
flownosaj said:
K.V. Collucci said:
When I was in the USAF in Saudi Arabia...
Air Force...there's your answer :D

I'm talking about Iraq, specifically OIF 1 and 2.
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Your logic is a bit flawed then. For the film to be a pirated copy it has to have been distributed to the public theatres for the person to make the copy. There is no way around that. Now if it's a pirated DVD then the film has been shown in public theatres and has been released on DVD which is then copied.
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Sorry, I should have been more specific.
Mosul, Iraq, OIF 1 and 2--there were no theater style projected movies to be had. "Movie night" consisted of 10-15 troops gathered around a laptop. They might have the facilities now, but I don't know. :confused:

There were a bunch of pirated movies (in DVD formats) from the 'vendors' allowed on post. Maybe they got them from Korea. Maybe my next door neighbor's kid who seems to see a lot of movies on his computer before opening night was providing for them. :D


RH--I have no clue when the movies were actually due to be on screen or if they had already been, but many of them were out well before families got them on DVD at home.
 
Man, some of you guys had it pretty good. On my ship, we only had movies that we brought aboard ourselves. And let me tell you, "ShaoLin Drunken Monkey" gets pretty stale about 2 months into the deployment. :(
 
Military theaters occasionally get new movies a week or two before their general release. I saw "We Were Soldiers" and "Terminator 3" on Army bases before their public releases. So to answer your question, yes. It doesn't happen too often though.
 
flownosaj said:
...pirated DVDs (most are bad copies too)
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Don't you wish that film audiences would go for a pee before the film starts?

All those moving silhouettes in the foreground of my pirate DVD really reduces the quality of the movie experience.

:rolleyes:

maximus otter
 
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