A slight difference

Every now and then, I get in the mood for some particular historical era. It can be the renaissance, the 1920's, you name it. Lately, I've been looking into World War I, The Great War, or the War to end all Wars (yeah, right). 28.06.1914 – 11.11.1918. Four years that killed more than nine million people. And that's just the death toll from the fighting. Then you have to factor in the deaths from disease, starvation and bombing. The first really big mechanized war in history. Heavy stuff.

But I'm not writing this to contemplate the horrors of war. Others have done that far more eloquently than I can. No, this is about entertainment, believe it or not.

You see, when I get into one of my moods, I like to read books, watch movies and play games set in that specific era. It doesn't have to be historically correct either, as long as the ambiance is there.

That's when I ran into something interesting. Bookwise, from fact to fiction, there's a wealth to choose from when it comes to WW I. But when I looked into movies and games, I was quite surprised. Lets look at movies first.

According to Wikipedia, there are ninety movies set in WW I. Granted, the list is incomplete, but it gives a good indication of the amount of movies depicting the great war. Now, let's compare it to the Wikipedia page for WW II. That's 229 movies and TV series since just 1990.

And the same trend continues with games. Wikipedia lists 31 games set in WW I, and looking at WW II, we get through A, B and four games into C before thirtyone games are listed.

My question is, why? Why is the second world war so much more popular? Is it because it came later? Maybe, but only by twenty years. And considering that the Vietnam War was even more recent but get about the same number of movies as WW I, that can't really be it. Could it be because of the higher death count? Possibly, but I doubt it. To be sure WW II was bigger than anyhing before or since, but there has to be more to it.

Perhaps it is that WW II had clearer lines than most wars. It's easy to point at the nazis and say; there are the bad guys, let's all go shoot them in the face.However, there are some kind of bad guys in every war.

Or could it be something else that fascinates us so much about this conflict that we to this day can't let go? I don't know, but it is a really interesting question, don't you think?