Hollywood's blockbuster for the year 2001 is said to be a follow up - though not a sequel - to Titanic. In one way, it is certainly following a path marked out by Hollywood's most successful film; Pearl Harbor has set a new record in big-budget films; but the movie may not have the same worldwide success as the 1998 megahit.

As soon as the film Titanic showed itself to be the enormous hit that had been hoped for, the search for a sequel was on. But Titanic II being a somewhat improbable proposition,  it was towards other defining moments in recent history that Hollywood ideas-men turned their attention. Now, the result of their active thinking is about to hit the screens .Pearl Harbor, a love story set against thebackdrop  of another great catastrophe, had an initial budget of $145 million - 45% greater than that of Titanic. The movie opened in the USA in Spring, and will be on screens in Europe a few weeks or months later, depending on the country.

As in Titanic, the love story element of Pearl Harbor is fiction; but as with Titanic, the historic background against which it is set was a very real event; even more than the loss of the Titanic, it was an event which helped to determine the direction of world history in the years that followed.

Pearl Harbor is unlikely to have quite as much impact across the world as Titanic did: the enormous success of the latter  was due partly to the fact that it was not essentially an American story, but a story that belongs as much to United States history, as to European history. When the Titanic set off on that fatal journey in 1912, she  was carrying an assortment of people from different nations; she was a British ship that took on passengers at Cherbourg and Cork, before setting off for the USA.

Though the tragedy of Pearl Harbor was to be a determining moment in the history of the 20th century, the story does not conjure up  the same kind of memories in Europe; and although it also involves two nations - the Americans and the Japanese - and was really a tragedy for both, it is unlikely that Japanese movie-goers will be as keen on the film as Americans - particularly coming so soon after the accidental sinking of a Japanese ship by an American submarine earlier this year, in the waters not far from Pearl Harbor.

    That being said, as a major Second World War action movie, filmed with all the sophistication that modern technology can offer, Pearl Harbor is certain to be a big movie, and possibly the biggest movie of 2001 - at least in the USA. If the movie itself does is not enough to make sure of that, the Disney advertising and media departments will do so.

    As an event, the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japanese warplanes on December 7th 1941 was one of the most significant events in US 20th century history. Until then, the United States, though on seriously unfriendly terms with Japan, had managed to remain outside the Second World War. Since the tragedy of the First World War, there had been a strong feeling in America than the country should never again get involved in conflicts in other parts of the world. The attack on Pearl Harbor changed that. By killing over 2,000 Americans - mostly sailors - and dealing a serious blow  to American pride, Japan did in two hours what Hitler's war in Europe had not done in two years. By one short act of military aggression, it totally destroyed the strong pacifist and isolationist movement in America - with its powerful pressure group called "America First" - and united Americans in a desire for vengeance. In short, it brought the USA into the Second World War.

    As for the raid itself, the irony is that the American high command suspected that it was coming... but nothing was done to stop it. This failure to prevent a predictable attack must surely be one of the most inglorious moments in American history, and one which the American military would surely love to forget....
    On Dec. 7th, General Marshall in Washington sent a telegram to Hawaii, warning of an impending  attack. But as it was Sunday, and as America was still theoretically at peace - even though the Second World War was already raging in Europe -  the US military telegram system was shut for the day. Marshall therefore used a commercial telegraph company, Western Union, that offered a Sunday service. However Western Union's Sunday service was not particularly rapid, and when the telegram reached its Honolulu office, there was nobody there to deliver it. In the end, the telegram was given to a boy to deliver to the naval base by bicycle.... When he was half way to the base, the teenager watched as the first wave of Japanese bombers appeared in the sky.
    It is unlikely that this incident will feature in the movie! It is one of the events of December 7th 1941 that Americans prefer not to remember - unlike the attack itself, which is an event they will never forget.
 
 
 

WORDS: backdrop: background - blockbuster: very successful film, designed to be very profitable -  blow: hit, damage - hit the screens: be shown in cinemas - impending: imminent, coming - a somewhat improbable proposition: something that could not be very realistic The latter: the second of two things (compare with the former )