Monday, May 12, 2008

Captain "Miller", US Army 2nd Ranger Battalion, WWII

Read an interesting article today

Young Forrest Gump has grown up. The film "Forrest Gump" is the story of Forrest Gump's epic journey through life, meeting historical figures, influencing popular culture and experiencing first-hand historic events while largely unaware of their significance, due to his lower than average intelligence. Humphreys played the young Gump and Tom Hanks won an Oscar playing adult Gump. Hanks later starred in "Saving Private Ryan" and produced "Band of Brothers", a 10-part World War II miniseries based on the book of the same title written by historian and biographer Stephen Ambrose - two GREAT MOVIES and one GREAT series, a MUST WATCH!!!

In "Saving Private Ryan", Tom Hanks played Captain John H. Miller who receives orders from Lieutenant Colonel Walter Anderson (Dennis Farina) to find Private Ryan (Matt Damon), and assembles a squad of seven Rangers, plus one man from the 29th Infantry Division (Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns, Barry Pepper, Vin Diesel, Giovanni Ribisi, Adam Goldberg and Jeremy Davies as the man from the 29th) to accomplish this task. This film is particularly notable for the intensity of its opening 24 minutes, which depict the Omaha beachhead assault of June 6, 1944, D–Day.

Dragon's US Army 2nd Ranger Battalion Captain Miller (Omaha Beach). This “Miller” by Dragon released in 2002 BUT with customized Tom Hanks head sculpt, is a Captain of the US Army 2nd Ranger Battalion and comes with M1 steel helmet with Captain’s bars, M1941 field jacket with Ranger insignia worn over wool shirt bearing Captain’s bars and officer’s insignia, trousers with cargo side pockets, Ranger assault vest with two MkII fragmentation grenades, M1910 entrenching tool in holder, M5 Gas mask pouch, M26 life preserver, web belt, Colt .45 automatic pistol in holster, spare clip pouch, first-aid pouch, water canteen with holder, M1 bayonet in scabbard, Thompson M1A1 SMG, slung ammo bag with three spare clips, leggings and boots.

Tom Hank's head sculpt is NOT by Dragon but a customizer's

Miller comes fully loaded!!




Spare clip pouch for his Thompson M1A1 magazines

He's got his entire wardrobe and kitchen sink on his back, and he's gotta lug it ashore





The original head sculpt (can be seen here) looked more like Bruce Willis

UPDATED: Pictures of Private Ryan here and both of them together (see my post here)

There's also a post of DiD WWII US Army 2nd Ranger Marksman "Private Daniel" HERE
and a G.I. Joe "Saving Private Ryan" Tom Hanks as Captain Miller HERE

UPDATE May 4, 2010
: The ULTIMATE 1/6 scale 12" Captain Miller figure has to be DID Captain "Millers" from the United States Army 2nd Ranger Battalion, WW2 - pictures HERE

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

thats wrong, miller didnt have the t handle shovel

alex teo said...

hi anonymous, it's just a Tom Hanks head sculpt plonked on a Dragon WWII 2nd Ranger "Miller" figure and not meant to be screen accurate ;P