World Wars (series of movies)

World Wars is a serie of films that have engendered a cult following over the years. The first movie was released under the name World Wars in 1977 as a stand alone project but was later renamed World Wars chapter 4: A new Conflict.

The first movie produced take place during the Second Great War. The story follow the adventure of a young North African farmer who, after saving the life of an Andorran merchant navy man, learn that the Andorran princess (who was traveling on board his ship) had been taken prisoner by Graf Wasser, an agent of the German Emperor. Having promised the dying man to rescue her, he enlist the help of his two cowardly shipmates as well as that of a few characters he meets along the way.

Having rescued her, he learn that the Princess is in fact helping the resistance fighter of a few countries who government went into exile in Andorra after the German invasion. Having found a purpose to his life, he join the resistance has one of its commanders.

While the World Wars series is probably one of the best known exemple of its genre, many critics have contended that the films have in fact very little to do with serious war movies. They point to juvenile plots, glaring mistakes in weapon's use and capabilities as well as a failure by the writer to grasp basic battlefield tactics.

The series is also famous for the number of versions that exist of its individual chapters. Chapter 4 is one of the few movies avaible in every storage formats that were created after it was released with new formats becoming available every few years. In addition, "revisionist" versions have been release with some modified content. While some simply correct production mistake (such as flipped negative) others have been made that change some aspect of the story itself.

One famous exemple of revisionism had a line from one of the main protagonists being dubbed in a later version. Originaly, the character had said:

"Those german monsters, they all deserve to die !"

In all later versions, the character now said:

"Those who helped Hessler, they all deserve to die if found guilty of a war crime"

Officialy, the writer had stated that these represented his original vision of the dialogue and was not in any way related to the impending release of the movies in Germany.