8mm Forum: The Imitation game

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Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on January 26, 2015, 06:24 PM:

Went to the local Bijou to see The Imitation Game, the story of the breaking of the German Enigma code by Alan Turing and his team of mathematicians and scientists at Bletchley Park England during World War 2. A superb movie about real hero's who saved hundred's of thousands of lives and shortened the war by at least two years. Turing was a homosexual and was hounded after the war by the police in the UK, with his immense contribution to the defeat of Germany not being recognized until very recently.
I cannot recommend this film too highly. First it is a true story of real people in real situations, and the whole real story will grab you from the first frame of film. Don't miss this one!

Posted by Andrew Woodcock (Member # 3260) on January 26, 2015, 06:32 PM:

Rave reviews I know Paul, but somehow don't fancy it despite living in his home town and passing the sign every time I go and watch MCFC at home.

Somehow, it just doesn't appeal to me despite all the awards, acclaim and histerria!
I suppose it's a little like Rainman. No doubt the acting and storyline are brilliantly portrayed. It's just that for some reason, I find these characters really awkward to watch somehow.

Next film for me at the cinema is 50 shades, as per wife's instructions on Valentine's night! Haha

[ January 27, 2015, 04:53 AM: Message edited by: Andrew Woodcock ]

Posted by Janice Glesser (Member # 2758) on January 27, 2015, 03:30 AM:

I saw this movie Paul and it is excellent. It's been criticized for some historical inaccuracies, but then what movie hasn't taken creative liberties. Benedict Cumberbatch does a terrific job. As much as I liked this movie I also saw Birdman and I think it will run away with the Oscar.

Posted by Guy Taylor, Jr. (Member # 786) on January 27, 2015, 08:57 AM:

Look forward to seeing this on Thursday.

Posted by Mark Todd (Member # 96) on January 27, 2015, 09:05 AM:

Fantastic film, and Benidicts performance is really superb. That is character acting for you.

But let itself down a bit at the end by rushing how he was treated after the war, it didn`t really show much about that.

I feel ashamed learning about it now.

Best Mark.

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on January 27, 2015, 01:26 PM:

What was acheived at Bletchley Park is truly amazing. The German High Command changed the order and numeric settings of the four wheels on the Enigma machine every 24 hours, essentially wiping out any decoding progress made by the British on a daily basis. Even though the British managed to capture an Enigma machine, it was useless for decoding unless you knew the wheel settings used by the Germans for that particular day. Alan Turing designed and built a machine called a Bombe which was essentially an electro-mechanical computer, and it cycled through all the possible combinations of the four wheel settings on the Enigma to determine the ones that enabled a known word or phrase, transmitted by the Germans on that particular day, to make sense. When the wheel settings were determined by the Bombe machine, an actual Enigma machine could be configured to those settings and the full messages for that day could be decoded. The next day, a whole new cobination of the wheel settings had to be determined.
The number of mathematical combinations of letter changes by the Enigma machine were 15000,000,000,000,000,000! It would be impossible for one person to decode a single message in a lifetime! The Germans knew that, and that is why they were confident that their Enigma coded messages were secure for the duration of the war. As the movie points out, the Allies had to be very careful not to demonstrate too much success with their code breaking, in case the Gertmans became suspicous and redesigned their Enigma machine. The addition of a couple of more encoding wheels by the Germans would have made the decoding task insurmountable at the time.

Posted by Ken Finch (Member # 2768) on January 27, 2015, 03:03 PM:

I have also seen it at our local the "Kavanagh" in Herne Bay. Yes it is excellent. Also saw "The Theory of Everything" there last week about Stephen Hawking, played by Eddie Redmain (may not have the correct spelling!) This was even better. His portrayal of the part was uncanny and brilliant, deserving of best actor award in my opinion. Ken Finch.

Posted by Jonathan Trevithick (Member # 3066) on January 28, 2015, 05:00 AM:

It's a great movie which works on so many levels. It's exciting, moving and also surprisingly humorous in places.I saw it on New Year's Day and at the end the audience clapped. I can only remember that ever happening in a cinema two or three times before.

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