USS Indianapolis: The Final Chapter

Just saw this on PBS, and found it to be a riveting documentary which was extremely well presented.

Contains archival footage, compelling testimony of some of the survivors of this WW ll naval disaster, modern day attempts to locate the ship at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, along with investigations as to what exactly happened and who was really responsible for this tragedy.

For those who like this kind of film, I can highly recommend it.

This is the ship sinking they talk about in the movie Jaws. The biggest navy ship disaster in US history. The documentary is about the search for the wreck. Then the history of the survivors. And lastly the captain's court martial and then in 2001 the captain being cleared of all wrongdoing as he was just a patsy. In reality the navy was fully to blame for this as bureaucracy somehow made this possible.

The looking for the wreck part is not too informative but still fun. The editing is a bit over the top for my taste though. And they never give a good reason for why they were looking for the wreck. They never pick any of it up. So why did they do all of this? At any rate it feels like it doesn't really go anywhere. It's exciting to see them find the ship but what now? Basically it's missing much more info about how their technology actually works. I need details!

The history is interesting. Nice to see some survivors still being alive. But it goes from vague nasty survivor stories to small recollections. It's nice for their families to see this but it feels hectic and out of focus for me. Because of the rushed nature of the documentary you never quite get the feeling for the details.

The last part about the captain is very interesting history wise. Probably the most important part here. It really should have its own documentary. I'm sure it's out there. But it too feels like something created in the editing room as history is just used a bit while the emotions of current time get to be in focus. It should be quite the opposite in a good historical documentary.

All in all it's a okay/good documentary for US Navy fans and military enthusiasts. I'm very much interested in WW2 but this felt a bit too modern and didn't have any great historical feel to it because they used modern editing. This modern editing doesn't really help it but it does look very pretty at times. So it's not a must watch but I'm glad the story is told. Or rather all 3 stories are told.

If you are an US military focused guy you probably already watched it. For non-US citizens it's not quite as powerful and feels a bit too impersonal and unfocused.

While this was a fine documentary and I enjoyed it, why wasn't Kyle Chandler credited for the narration? I've heard his voice plenty of times over the years to recognize it. This really bugged me.