The problem is, that the dog does give another angle to the raid story, by virtue of the fact that it is seriously injured / killed (it get run over IIRC) just on the verge of Gibson and the rest of the crews setting out on the raid.

Why?
Did the dog bounce?

Indeed.

And there is no need whatsoever to edit history because the name of the dog is now not considered an appropriate one. Any more than editing history so that we did not set out to drown a load of Germans and flood their towns, but instead just to make a symbolic gesture.

Salt wasn't it?

Dog: integral part.
Name of dog: not.

The problem happens when you mess with history you end up with a situation as occurred in the film "Zulu".
In the film Henry Hook is portrayed as a drunken malingerer, anybody who as seen the film will assume that is what Hook was like in real life.
In fact Hook had just received a pay award for meritorious behavior, was a teetotal, devout Christian and family man. Is it ok to portray a VC winning hero in such a bad light for the sake of entertainment ?
In "Titanic",if my memory serves me right the film makers had to make a substantial payment to the family of a crewmember who was shown to be a self serving coward in the film, but who had actually acted with great courage in real life.
If you are making a film about a historical event,naming specific people (and dogs) you should have a duty to portray thing as true to life as possible, warts and all.

Since when have films had any factual representation of historical events?

Braveheart anyone?

Yes, but in doing that you have the opportunity to remove something that inclusion of would be seen as gratuitously offensive and you also have a duty to do that.

I see the issue a bit like this. If you are making a film about a factual historical event, then you should make the film as close to the actual events as possible, or it's simply not retelling the details of that actual event, and shouldn't be advertised as such.

If you start changing some of the details then that is bordering on censorship, which IMHO is always a bad thing. The only time that events shouldn't be retold with exact detail is if that detail includes breaking the law.

I have no issue with the dog's name in this particular case, and nor, I suspect, would most people who "others" feel would be offended. Would there be the same outcry if the dog was called "honky"?

Its a film not a documentary. As GCH pointed out much earlier on the portrayal of events will have been toned down before and will be again - oddly enough people don't get so animated over that as they do for the removal of a fairly irrelevant racist name.

That said, were major historical events removed, whether vital to the plot or not, I'd be peeved - see Operation Burma (a film that was withdrawn in the UK for provoking unrest in cinemas) or U-571 for example - but the name of the dog is irrelevant.

The dog's name is symbolic of attitudes of the time - attitudes that could be difficult for some to square with the film's hero: Guy Gibson, incredibly brave war hero and racist (though during a time when racism was considered right and normal).

There'll always be one in the woodpile as far as Hollywoods concerned.

For chuffs sake Duncan are you on drugs?

This is just the standard racist apologist line....'them p[iak[/iis love being called nig[ig[/iers, they're laughing with me...its just them wooly Guardian reading liberals* who stop us and the pa[iki[/is having a good old laugh together...I mean...they'd not be complaining if white people called each other whiteys eh...just when we call sambo a nasty name"

*Who, of course are the main demographic for a war film so its bound to be down to them and their Zionist co-conspirators in the media that'll prompt this terrible affront to the story of the Dambusters.

No, I'm just making reference to a word which, should the boot be on the other foot, I would not find offensive. I am pointing out how ridiculous it is to "change" historical fact for fear of offence when in actual fact there probably wouldn't be any.

One thing I can say with certainty is I am offended by those who claim offence on behalf of others.

ps, thanks for inferring I am racist, if there was something to get offended about on this thread, I think that would be it...

For what it's worth I agree with the earlier post (McF) I think. The "Dambusting" raid wrought untold misery on thousands of civilians. (And the families of 53 of those who took part (40% casualty rate) Drowning children in their homes and killing in all a good 1500 to 1600 people. Something serious enough to cause an alteration to the Geneva convention forbidding the bombing of dams.

We seek to glorify that effort that we went to to achieve said sufferring (considering that in the great scheme of things it did precious little else other than boost morale), but wish to whine about the changing of a dogs name.

Perspective people, perspective.

How many dogs do you know called "honky" around your way ?

OK, don't answer that question...