I watched the movie reluctantly because I have heard so many over the top rave reviews about it that there was no way that it was going to live up to it. Also I had heard enough negative reviews about how annoying the obvious preaching was about American imperialism and how obnoxiously they portrayed the military that I was prepared to be dissappointed and entertain myself by rolling my eyes.

Where reading the book may have helped was that I had already been thinking about mankind's history of dealing with other cultures and people and how that translated even to a personal level of how I deal with people that are different.

So instead of seeing the movie as being a thinly veiled piece of "Anti-American" propoganda, I saw it more as just a fun (although predictable)movie that was only making observations on what has happened for centuries when one culture discovers another which it considers inferior. It is a natural though not pretty reaction.