The movie itself is great and I have nothing to add that hasn't already been said by thousands of others. My "review" is entirely about the time period in which the story takes place. This is a ridiculously long explanation for such a seemingly inconsequential subject, but it somehow feels appropriate for a Tarantino film, where brevity is a sin.
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If you google "When does Inglourious Basterds take place?" all the search results will tell you "June 1944, after the D-Day landings but before the liberation of Paris". I assume this conclusion is based largely on the hint that the Basterds were parachuting in ahead of the Allied armada and by the end were to drive over to Allied lines - meaning drop in before D-Day, complete the mission, then drive over to Normandy after the Allied landing. Sounds nice but it's simply wrong, and contradicted by all the evidence within the film.
1) Michael Fassbender at one point mentions not being able to see any films produced in Germany for the past 3 years, obviously implying an embargo due to the war. This places the story in the latter part of 1942.
2) An even more precise clue is the giant wall map at Nazi HQ during the Hitler scene. It shows the maximum extent of German conquest (achieved by late August 1942). If you know your WW II geography, you'll notice they've reached all the way to Stalingrad and the Caucuses, and still control all of North Africa except for British-controlled Egypt. You may even have noticed that the Vichy Free Zone still exists as a distinct entity, prior to it being fully absorbed.
In November 1942, four things happen: a) a masssive Soviet counteroffensive encircles the German army around Stalingrad b) the British army in Egypt defeats Rommel's Afrika Korps at El Alamein and drives them west across Libya.
C) Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of Morocco & Algeria happens. (The "Armada" that Brad Pitt mentions is 1942's Operation Torch, not 1944's Operation Overlord) d) in response to French forces in North Africa switching sides and joining the Allies, Nazis take over the remainder of France, effectively ending the Vichy state.
The wall map makes sense ONLY from about late August to early November 1942. A June 1944 map looks RADICALLY different from this.
3) The bit about driving to Allied lines isn't about getting to the Normandy beachhead and instead is almost certainly referring to crossing over from Nazi-controlled France into the Vichy-controlled "Free Zone".
4) The story also works much better in 1942. The Nazis you see on screen are oozing with egotistical hubris, perfect for 1942, at the height of their power, but completely misplaced in 1944, by which time they'd become jittery paranoid basket cases.
5) Italy's king and Grand Fascist Council had ousted Mussolini from power in July 1943 and the new Badoglio government surrendered to the Allies in September. By summer 1944, Germany was treating Italy as just another vassal state with a puppet regime, and shipping Italians back to the Third Reich for slave labor. Random Italians would not have been invited to an exclusive Nazi gathering, much less greeted as welcome allies, in summer 1944. In 1942 yes.
Conclusion: You should never blindly accept what you read on the internet.
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If you google "When does Inglourious Basterds take place?" all the search results will tell you "June 1944, after the D-Day landings but before the liberation of Paris". I assume this conclusion is based largely on the hint that the Basterds were parachuting in ahead of the Allied armada and by the end were to drive over to Allied lines - meaning drop in before D-Day, complete the mission, then drive over to Normandy after the Allied landing. Sounds nice but it's simply wrong, and contradicted by all the evidence within the film.
1) Michael Fassbender at one point mentions not being able to see any films produced in Germany for the past 3 years, obviously implying an embargo due to the war. This places the story in the latter part of 1942.
2) An even more precise clue is the giant wall map at Nazi HQ during the Hitler scene. It shows the maximum extent of German conquest (achieved by late August 1942). If you know your WW II geography, you'll notice they've reached all the way to Stalingrad and the Caucuses, and still control all of North Africa except for British-controlled Egypt. You may even have noticed that the Vichy Free Zone still exists as a distinct entity, prior to it being fully absorbed.
In November 1942, four things happen: a) a masssive Soviet counteroffensive encircles the German army around Stalingrad b) the British army in Egypt defeats Rommel's Afrika Korps at El Alamein and drives them west across Libya.
C) Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of Morocco & Algeria happens. (The "Armada" that Brad Pitt mentions is 1942's Operation Torch, not 1944's Operation Overlord) d) in response to French forces in North Africa switching sides and joining the Allies, Nazis take over the remainder of France, effectively ending the Vichy state.
The wall map makes sense ONLY from about late August to early November 1942. A June 1944 map looks RADICALLY different from this.
3) The bit about driving to Allied lines isn't about getting to the Normandy beachhead and instead is almost certainly referring to crossing over from Nazi-controlled France into the Vichy-controlled "Free Zone".
4) The story also works much better in 1942. The Nazis you see on screen are oozing with egotistical hubris, perfect for 1942, at the height of their power, but completely misplaced in 1944, by which time they'd become jittery paranoid basket cases.
5) Italy's king and Grand Fascist Council had ousted Mussolini from power in July 1943 and the new Badoglio government surrendered to the Allies in September. By summer 1944, Germany was treating Italy as just another vassal state with a puppet regime, and shipping Italians back to the Third Reich for slave labor. Random Italians would not have been invited to an exclusive Nazi gathering, much less greeted as welcome allies, in summer 1944. In 1942 yes.
Conclusion: You should never blindly accept what you read on the internet.