The Imitation Game

[hbtcoveralls]

You heard it here first on the USMF!

[gwb123]

Just watched this yesterday along with the wife and I have to agree it is a great movie.

 

However, we then took turns researching it on the internet.

 

Not surprisingly, it simplifies much of what happened at Bletchley Park. It also apparently takes artistic license with a number of the main characters in order to weave the story.

 

However the main points of the movie... that the machine generated Enigma code, changed on a daily basis, could only be broken by the use of another machine are well conveyed. Just watching the mechanics of building the code breaking machine were fascinating enough. Apparently the model that was built for the movie was accurate enough it is now on display at Bletchley Park.

 

The moral message of the movie is quite clear... when you ostracize members of your engineering and scientific community because of their gender or lifestyle choices, you run the risk of overlooking or losing the very resources that could save your nation.

 

The Polish are mentioned for having obtaining an example of the Enigma machine early in the war, but their contributions as code breakers are absent from the movie.

 

Despite its shortcomings, it is well worth the time viewing. I am ready to watch it again.

[Patchcollector]

It's funny that this thread has come back up,I'm in the midst of watching it right now;a bit more than halfway through,in fact.I keep pausing it to get other things done,but from what I've seen so far,it's a finely crafted movie that lives up to it's critical acclaim,IMO.It's a view of the "cerebral" war effort that few even knew existed for a long time.

Alan Turing,and his team,were just a few individuals,and yet they are probably some of the most responsible for the Allied victory.They achieved what the Germans(and many others)thought was impossible.I found the details of the codes and the making of the machine to break them fascinating,but I must say though,I did find the intermixing of the "personal" aspects of Turings' life,along with the "back and forth" prewar and postwar flashbacks to be somewhat distracting.I would have preferred that the movie just focus on the making of the machine and the race to beat the Germans and save Britain(and the Allies)from defeat.Just my opinion!

 

But overall,I'm finding this to be a great film,and would recommend it to anyone.

[dustin]

It was a great movie and interesting and as mentioned I think some of the movie was geared towards the political climate of today with gay and women equality, they really wanted to highlight those aspects kind of pounding it in there. In a way it was suspenseful not only working in secret in code breaking but hiding the personal life, it was the back story that I think had the interest of producers. The movie covered the little known story of breaking Enigma and wanted to illustrate social injustice as well.

[Patchcollector]

It was a great movie and interesting and as mentioned I think some of the movie was geared towards the political climate of today with gay and women equality, they really wanted to highlight those aspects kind of pounding it in there. In a way it was suspenseful not only working in secret in code breaking but hiding the personal life, it was the back story that I think had the interest of producers. The movie covered the little known story of breaking Enigma and wanted to illustrate social injustice as well.

 

 

I just finished the movie and I enjoyed it.Dustin I too sensed the "duality" of the plot.I believe that the movie is based on a book.I'm not sure how much the book delves into Turings' personal life as I have'nt read it.I really enjoyed the part when they finally figured out how to set "Christopher" up so that "he" would operate properly.I was drawn into the scene and was excited for them.That is a mark of a good movie.All in all,well worth a few hours to watch.

[VMI88]

I thought it was an excellent movie but the technical details of the codebreaking were greatly dumbed down. The most glaring example was that after months of working on the code without success the team finally had the revelation to use a fragment of known text to narrow down the possible solutions! That's pretty much the most basic tool of codebreaking, something anyone with any experience or trading at all would know.

[Patchcollector]

I thought it was an excellent movie but the technical details of the codebreaking were greatly dumbed down. The most glaring example was that after months of working on the code without success the team finally had the revelation to use a fragment of known text to narrow down the possible solutions! That's pretty much the most basic tool of codebreaking, something anyone with any experience or trading at all would know.

 

 

Here is a link to a well written Wiki article about the subject:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptanalysis_of_the_Enigma

 

After reading through some of it I can understand why the movie was "dumbed down"

[gwb123]

I think a better term would be "simplified". You could have made a three hour movie just to explain the state of the art of code breaking in WWII.

[Eddy.502]

Bit annoying they had to emphasise the gay/equality theme, would have been even better without it in my opinion

[kammo-man]

The whole film is like a bad BBC 2 play.

 

 

owen