Music N' Other Drugs

Had Steven Spielberg released “Saving Private Ryan” on July 24, 2025, instead of July 24, 1998, its reception would have been a lot different. Sure, the film’s punch is undeniable whenever or wherever one is able to experience it, but the fact that there were still plenty of D-Day survivors alive back then mattered more than any weekend box office totals. They finally saw their story being told in uncompromising fashion and appreciated that Spielberg wasn’t making a movie as much as he was writing a love letter to a generation that understood all too well what real sacrifice looked like.

I was a 10-year-old cinephile when I began hearing how disorienting the first 20 minutes of the film were, and all that word-of-mouth marketing only made things worse when I was deemed too young to go see it on the big screen. Despite feeling left out, I devoured every ounce of press on the film that I could find, which included multiple reports of veterans walking out of screenings early due to the memories of Normandy being too hard to handle.

The feelings were palpable, and Hollywood didn’t have to manipulate any details to elicit an emotional response. When I found out years later that I had a relative who actually made it home from the beach, my bond to the material grew every time I watched.

While Spielberg and cinematographer Janusz Kaminski’s recreation of the invasion created a buzz, the moral complexity of eight guys coming together to rescue a complete stranger provides the rest of the 169-minute running time with an added layer of significance. They put their personal differences aside in pursuit of a common goal, which is a concept that today’s generation appears to have little interest in. There’s a lack of humility as well as an overabundance of performative outrage that blind them to the reality that the so-called “Greatest Generation” faced the shit head-on so that their descendants wouldn’t have to.

Then again, I’ve always been a millennial whose cultural connection to my peers is tenuous at best, so maybe I’m the problem. But judging from how there were only six people other than me inside Regal Cinemas on Saturday night to soak in “Saving Private Ryan” the way it was meant to be seen, maybe not.