“When our freedom was under attack one battle would turn the tide.”
The first official trailer for ‘Midway’ has been released, depicting the World War II fight in the Pacific from Pearl Harbor to Midway. Starring Luke Evans (Dracula, Fast & Furious 6), Patrick Wilson (Aquaman, Watchmen), Woody Harrelson (True Detective, everything else you’ve ever seen), and Mandy Moore (she’s missing you like candy), the film is advertised as “The story of the Battle of Midway, told by the leaders and the sailors who fought it.”
Midway Teaser Trailer #1 (2019) | Movieclips Trailers
Midway Teaser Trailer #1 (2019)
The trailer opens with the attack at Pearl Harbor, showing the devastation up close. “Pearl Harbor is the greatest intelligence failure in American history,” a voice insists. Hindsight proves how true this statement was. In fact, an American admiral planned the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1932, nine years before the Japanese carried it out, but the military failed to heed the admiral’s cautions, and the men and women there that day paid the price.
Also read: How the top brass actually tried to prevent the Pearl Harbor attack
The trailer follows the war in the Pacific to Midway, a battle that would change the conflict.
Six months after the Dec. 7, 1941 attacks, the Japanese fleet commander, Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku, devised a strategy to destroy the American aircraft carriers that had escaped Pearl Harbor. Instead, United States code-breakers allowed Pacific Fleet commander Admiral Chester W. Nimitz to launch a counterattack, ambushing the Japanese fleet at Midway.
Related: A Hollywood film director captured the actual Battle of Midway on film
Midway dealt a decisive blow to the Japanese and allowed American forces to deploy throughout the Pacific, edging close and closer to Japan. World War II battles really depict the raw, close-range danger that service members were in. Pilots were dog-fighting in vulnerable aircraft and facing off against the heavy firepower of naval ships, who, meanwhile, were turning cannons on each other that threatened to pull sailors with them to a watery grave.
It’s almost incomprehensible now, but films like Midway won’t let us forget:
“You’re gonna remember this moment for the rest of your life.”
Midway is set to release Nov. 8, 2019.