Talk:The Beast (1988 film)

Untitled
The "Mi-8" used for filming may well have been a western helicopter (indeed most likely was, although the Mi-8 was exported widely throughout the globe). It is, however, worth noting that the helicopter is, I think, modeled on a helicopter known as the Mi-18, a version of the Mi-8 with a sliding door, fuselage extended by about a metre, and, if memory serves, retractable landing gear. Two Mi-18s were used for trials in Afghanistan; today they are either scrapped or serving as training units. See: http://www.fsdome.com/aviation-encyclopedia/helis/country/russia/helis/60.htm http://avia.russian.ee/vertigo/mi-18-r.html

Anyone who can provide further information, it'd be appreciated.


 * The helicopter in the film looks like an Aérospatiale Super Frelon, but I'm not sure if that's what it is.

GagHalfrunt 00:33, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

The tank
It would be good if someone with expert knowledge about Soviet tanks could settle the question of whether the tank in the film is a T-55 or T-62 and edit the text to identify it correctly thoughout the entry. At the moment there are several inconsistent statements about which type it is. GagHalfrunt 16:02, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Global Security.org has information on all military vehichles. The tank in the Beast is a modified T-55 just as Mr. Dye states. An Israeli modified T-55 is called a Ti-67. And if you want I will modify the article if someone else reads this agrees that this tank is a Ti-67 ( modified T-55) Goto globalsecurity.org to confirm what kind of tank this is.


 * The tank on the poster is clearly a T-55. Having seen the movie two times, I have the clear recollection that the tank used was a T-62 though — but we all know memories can be deceptive :o)--MWAK 14:49, 23 February 2006 (UTC)


 * The tank in The Beast is obviously an Israeli modified T-55 (Ti-67), hull and turret shape, bogie spacing (1st bogie spaced farther forward relative to last 4) are characteristic of the T-55 and the gun tube is obviously the Israeli variant...

Agreed, it's a Ti-67, but is the tank supposed to be a T-55 or a T-62 in the movie? The Ti-67 does resemble the T-62 far more than the T-55 it's based on.

Hello. I don't know how Wikipedia exactly works, so excuse me if I'm doing this wrong... The tank is said to be a T-54 in the movie. This can be heard after the attack on the village, when the tank the focus is on takes the wrong way, as the radio asks "T-54 #47, what is your position" or something. So either the article is misleading, either it was a mistake in the movie - if the case is the former, it should be corrected, if it's the latter, it should probably said that the movie features it as an innacuracy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.193.0.57 (talk) 16:44, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

The politcs
How about the politics?. Whether it was a T-55 or T-62 is a somewhat autistic perspective on the movie. I saw this film when it was released in 1988 or 89. It seemed obvious to me that the film was classically propagandistic. Whether or not the Soviet atrocities took place, the Soviets were presented in the worst possible light and the mujaheddin as romantic and honorable, if primitive, avenging heroes. No mention of flaying Russian prisoners alive of course. Was there an agenda behind the production team? Of course, other films of the time hewed to the same tenor, as in Rambo 3. And remember the Bond film from 1987, The Living Daylights, where the leader of the local mujaheddin band is actually a romantic westernised Oxbridge educated adventurer. Of course, Islamic guerrillas, in Afghanistan or elsewhere, do not evoke the same images in the West today. I suppose they are all completely different now, or perhaps it is because their Kalashnikov's and RPG's are pointed in a different direction?

172.193.251.136 Petroleum

The Soviets DID commit appalling atrocities during their occupation. No ifs about that!195.92.194.11 19:36, 12 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, because we can take your infallible and objective view on that. Obviously the man that co-wrote Red Dawn will have bias view on the Soviets. No reasonable person should take this film beyond fiction.

-G


 * Atrocities are unavoidable and are a function of the size of the military force and the length of the war. (The more people involved and the longer the war, the more atrocities will happen.) Americans have also committed appalling atrocities in Vietnam and Iraq. Just because things happen doesn't make them standard or sanctioned actions.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.181.58.51 (talk) 08:23, 9 May 2008 (UTC)


 * G, have you actually seen this film? I was knocked off my feet when I realised that this brutally honest picture had been made by one of the fools who made 'Red Dawn.' Keep an open mind. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MDunn1937 (talk • contribs) 16:11, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The events take place during the release of Soviet troops from Afghanistan.
 * A group of Mujahideen smugglers destroys a detachment of Soviet infantry that they have come across. A detachment of paratroopers arrived in time under the command of Major Bandura smashes them themselves. Having figured out the bloodied hands of a dushman seeking the wounded, Sergeant Arsenov pushes him into a pickup truck and undermines him with explosives.
 * Returning from the mission, Major Bandura meets a young newcomer, senior lieutenant Nikita Steklova, the son of a high-ranking military man. The regiment commander entrusts Bandura with patronage over Steklov and allows them to go to the dukhan for scarce goods in the USSR. He also offers Bandura from the reception to the commander Adil boxes with the required and 10 bags of flour, in order to pay off and leave without loss. Intermediary engineer Gulakhan, a graduate of a Soviet university. A company of women with a base guarded by soldiers entered the dukhan. However, they are not going to buy, ordinary Ivanov, standing on the clock due to inexperience, shoots an eccentric dwarf merchant. An angry crowd gathers around the Soviet people, but they manage to get away.
 * In the evening, Bandura and nurse Katya, with whom he lives, are invited to visit Steklov and Tatiana, Katya's friend. Behind the surrounding people, events in life in the Union take place. Steklov talks about the latest events in the Union. After the feast, Steklov provokes Tatyana and has sex with her. Katya is jealous of Bandura for his wife who has remained in Moscow, and in tears she loses her overnight stay with the regiment commander, who has not moved to her for a long time. Soldiers in the barracks are tattooing a drunken Ivanov, while drunken officers are having fun shooting flies. Meanwhile, the Peshawaris came to Gulakhan and threatened to demand some information.
 * In the morning, a detachment of the regiment handed over boxes of necessities and flour to Adil. Meanwhile, part of the Mujahideen under the command of Peshawaris depends on the height and fires at the column of the regiment returning to the base. Burning fuel trucks block the movement of the column. The brave Bandura pulls out a wounded soldier (whom he sent with an order to the tankers) from the place under fire, then, running through the places under fire, gets to the head of the tank and pushes the wrecked fuel trucks into the abyss, the column can move on. Glass lifts a soldier on the attack, picturesquely runs out from behind cover and falls, struck down by machine gun fire. The tankers fire at the positions, the detachment of dushmans is completely defeated, one of their commanders is killed, the second is wounded and sent to Adil. He calls on the Peshawaris to share the bread with him. Gulakhan, who arrived at the base, says that the Peshawaris wanted to frame Adil.
 * Steklov is seriously wounded, the military base is evacuated. The Lieutenant Colonel chastises Bandura and threatens him with a court martial. The regimental commander presents the general plan of the operation: the paratroopers must cut off the outskirts of the village where the Peshawaris are and destroy them, avoiding the ejection with the detachment of Adil, who remains neutral. The regimental commander is discovered with the use of Bandura, but at the last moment he deceives the commander of the detachment and takes his place. The landing party goes on a campaign, one soldier is blown up by a mine. The paratroopers remove sentries on the outskirts of the village and throw a grenade into the house, where the commander of the Peshawaris dies, while Adil dies. His squad is on the attack. Private Ivanov runs away to the village, Arsenov rushes after him. The paratroopers do not want to leave their comrades and are combing the village without loss. Gulakhan's son fires at Bandura, who dodges the shots, bursts into the engineer's house and shoots his entire family. Bandura finds Arsenov and lost Ivanov's eyes. Combat helicopters arrive and once the whole village appears, as a result of which peaceful landscapes die.
 * Bandura walks along the village destroyed by the avai strike and stumbles upon the surviving Gulakhan. The major, without turning around, passes by, thereby dooming himself to certain death. The boy stitches his turn, Bandura dies, rolling in the dust in agony. Цйфыву (talk) 09:27, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Why did you copy and paste a plot summary of Afghanskiy Izlom, a completely different film, into this discussion? 74.15.83.212 (talk) 20:27, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

as a film...
This movie is not quite about the righteousness of one side in a military struggle over another. Rather, it appears clear, no matter who wrote it, that it is about the emotional weight of foreign combat and the kinds of relationships which are constants in all human interaction. And considering when it was made, I don't think anyone can fault it for having portrayed Soviets, at least one Soviet officer, in a poor light; the Cold War was still technically "on." Further, despite the insanity of Daskal, there are elements of his character which inspire compassion: his passion as a former Red Army hero, his dedication to military-political authority, however malformed, and his will against understanding that he has obviously abandoned his duties as a commander in the midst of the moral schizophrenia that is war. War is war, war is war--and it is one of war's many ironies that it is almost compulsory that combatants commit atrocitaries against one another, whether Russian, Afghan, American, Japanese, German, Angolan, South African, etc., etc, ad nauseum. Soldiers are put in a position of alternate power (their rifle, their tank) and subordination (an officer, perhaps psychotic like Daskal, or the very fact of the war itself controlling their lives), which is somehow both compelling and dissonant in the way it upsets people's moral groundings. If there is one thing this film tells us about war, agency, and human emotion, it is that war has been most often fought by men little more than children, who are given only a vague understanding of what they are fighting for, and are led in a hugely variable and haphazard set of ways (i.e. the next tank over might have a completely different type of dynamic; soldiers, even in lock-step, are still individuals). It is unclear to me why we must constantly size the sides up against each other as if it were some kind of enormous murder mystery, where we search and search for who was the one did the most dirty deeds and then put the entire onus of the war's impact on them. Rest assured both sides did horrible things, and as we uncover these things the recognition of the significance of the fact of mutual sin and abuse (which is a taske that has been far from mastered) is the only path to reconciliation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lrschum (talk • contribs)

140.77.129.213 22:42, 7 August 2007 (UTC) I saw just only 5 minits part of this film. And I saw 5 stupid things: 1. Soviet forces have never using the tank for destroyng the village. Only helicopters and aviation! 2. Why tank went to the village without motorized forces or paratroopers? Its impossible. Read the soviet war instructions. 3. Soviet soldiers have never using a poison gazes in Afhanistan. 4. Tankmans weared as motorized forces. 5. I have never hearing about situation, when soviet soldiers used tank for punish. Soviet soldiers wasn't beasts. They was normal mans.

I think film is stupid american propaganda. Why you don't saying something about it?

Though it was a fictional account, not a documentary, that's not a bad list.

6. Seems unlikely that the rest of the "tankmen" would simply not notice that one of the tanks had fallen behind the others. Were they in that much of a hurry? C d h (talk) 12:55, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Pashtu
Some years ago when I saw the film the first time I asked a co-student of mine who was of Afghan origin and had also seen the film about the language. She told me that they didn't speak any Afghan language in that film! Nor Pashtu nor any other language, it was just some fantasy language just like those ‘African’ or ‘Indian’ languages you can hear in many Hollywood films. So it would be good if someone who speaks Pashtu could confirm this. Based on my meager knowledge of Persian I can at least confirm that they don't speak Dari the major Afghan language of the region of Kabul. Driss 23:23, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Thebeast.jpg
Image:Thebeast.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot (talk) 10:38, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Insignia
First of all, let me say that the critical remarks on this page are absurd and hold no water. It's not propaganda, neither side is portrayed as evil or heroic, and it seems reasonable to believe that the Soviets used a number of grotesque weapons, including poison gas, and the Afghans were no less brutal. The first comment in the 'as a film...' section was intelligent and well thought-out. I enjoyed reading it. The issue I have to raise is, 'Commander' Daskal's epaulettes are black with two stars. So, according to the Soviet rank system, he could be a midshipman, praporshchik of aviation, or otherwise praporshchik. Since he's obviously in the Soviet ground forces, I think we can rule out midshipman and praporshchik of aviation. While it seems plausible that he's an army praporshchik, why is he called 'commander'? Is it just referring to his position within the unit? Also, weren't Soviet armored/cavalry troops' epaulettes red? Let me know. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MDunn1937 (talk • contribs) 16:05, 21 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Tank and Artillery personnel wore black shoulder boards. His rank is indeed "Praporshchik", but his position would be "Komandir Tanka". 216.254.164.191 (talk) 19:41, 27 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Nope. Look at the wikipedia article on Soviet ranks. Red was clearly used for armor, cavalry, and artillery. Black was for technical personnel and the navy. You may be confusing that with the western tradition of black as a tanker's color, particularly for British tank crews' berets, which were made of black wool to hide oil stains. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xenophonscitroen (talk • contribs) 06:35, 28 May 2011 (UTC)


 * That wiki page indicates piping colours but not the inside colour. These are the collar tabs and arm patch of a tank crewman: [Insignia"]. The Red Army had used black for as long as they had used tanks:[Insignia"]. These of course ideally become khaki in the field. I would have to rewatch the film again, but at a glance I think you'd quicker say he had black shoulder boards than crimson. 216.254.164.191 (talk) 04:04, 29 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Tank and artillery crews could also wear red shoulder straps when they belonged to the tank battalion of a motor-rifle regiment. 74.15.83.212 (talk) 21:57, 28 May 2023 (UTC)