Movie portrayal WIs

WI certain major movies portrayed certain things which OTL were omitted ? Such as if SAVING PRIVATE RYAN had included some scenes of African-American soldiers at Omaha Beach in possible positions like Coast Guardsmen manning the Higgins boats, supply personnel unloading stores on the beach, or the 320th Barrage Balloon Bn (the only colored combat unit landed on D-Day) setting up their equipment ? Would the public perception and appreciation of the black contribution to WWII have been significantly heightened ? Or with GLORY- WI Edward Zwick had decided to conform more closely to hist accuracy by having his 54th Massachusetts characters be more like Thomas Searles as Northern-born free blacks instead of the predominance of the freed slaves such as Trip, Rawlins and Jupiter Sharts as portrayed in the film ? How about if the cutting-room deleted scene of Shaw's parents being informed of their son's death had been included at the movie's climax after the Fort Wagner scenes ?

SPR- British portrayal

Oh, how forgetful of me- what about re SPR if there'd been also some portrayal, however token, of the British contribution to D-Day instead of Spielberg's total exclusion of any significant acknowledgment of the landings at Gold, Sword and Juno ? Would this have improved the public perception re the fact that British servicemen in addition to Americans also fought and died at Normandy ?

My favorite in this context is the depiction of war in general, and WWII in particular, on the movie screen between 1940 and 1960. THe Sands of Iwo Jima is the test case, so to speak, but it describes an entire genre of movies that was very popular with young people. What if the style of depiction had tended more towards the realistic? Not only budget-wise (that was largely a no-go) but also in term,s of battlefield conditions, the fears, anguish, and suffering of soldiers, and the confusion and terror? Would this have changed the expectations ofd the generation of young Americans that went to Viet Nam?

It is an interesting point that WWII Pacific veterans who saw Viet Nam or read the descriptions often stated that 'that's what it was like' while Viet Name combat soldiers, whose image of war came largely from the movies (and who dispropprtionately often mentioned the Sands of Iwo Jima in the context), were invariably deeply shocked by the disparity between the 'honest' war they expected and the confusion, fear and slaughter they encountered. Could 'honest' moviemaking have changed the course of American social history (If not Vietnamese)?

or what if in spr they decided to base it on realism and show how ryan (real name niland) walked back to his lines and was then driven to the beach by a chaplin where he was later evacuated? so there is no squad of rangers or last stand? would it have been interesting to watch someone evade capture for 18 days, or would it have bombed because of a lack of action?

source http://www.valourandhorror.com/DB/BACK/Ryan.htm