Dunkirk Timeline [SPOILERS]

The 2017 World War II thriller about the evacuation of British and Allied troops from Dunkirk beach.
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Okay chaps, I'm basically stealing Wikipedia's plot that was written out for this film and trying to rearrange it so that we can later bullet-point this thing, perhaps even as an image (like the timelines I've seen for Memento, Inception and Interstellar... is there one for The Prestige, by the way?). There are some typos and I insert some of my own words into there, either for consistency purposes or because it was missing some info, but I will need you all to help me out here.

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Tommy, a young British private, is one of several soldiers who come under fire from German soldiers on the streets of Dunkirk. He is the only one to make it to the beach, where he finds British and allied troops staging for evacuation. He meets Gibson, another young soldier, who appears to be burying a friend.

They happen upon a wounded man who has been left for dead, and rush his stretcher up to the front of the queue, to a ship evacuating the wounded, about to depart. They are denied entry to the boat themselves, however, and instead hide on the mole, hoping to sneak aboard the next vessel. However the ship is attacked as it launches; in the chaos they save Alex from being crushed by it as it sinks.

They get on another departing boat that night, but it is sunk by a torpedo from a U-boat; Gibson saves Tommy and Alex. Floating in water, a soldier denies the boys access to their rowboat which is already at maximum capacity, and they instead make their way to shore. The next day, they join a group of Scottish soldiers who have located a boat abandoned in the intertidal zone, which they hide in, hoping to use it for escape when the tide rises. However the boat is not within the British perimeter, and Germans begin shooting at it for target practice.

Meanwhile on the sea, the Royal Navy is commandeering private boats to participate in the evacuation. Mr. Dawson cooperates without question, but rather than let a navy crew take his boat, he and his son Peter take her out themselves; their teenage hand George impulsively joins them as they leave, hoping to do something noteworthy.

They encounter a shell-shocked soldier on the wreck of his ship (same one who did not allow Tommy, Gibson, and Alex aboard his boat), the sole survivor of a U-boat attack, and take him aboard. When he discovers that Dawson is still sailing for Dunkirk rather than taking them to England, the soldier tries to wrest control of the ship from him, and in the scuffle George falls and takes a severe blow to the back of his head. Peter treats George's wounds as best as he can, but George can no longer see. Duty-bound to aid in the evacuation, Dawson continues toward France.

In the air, three Spitfire pilots – Farrier, Collins, and their squadron leader – are underway across the English Channel to provide air support to the troops waiting at Dunkirk, with instructions for how much fuel they can spend there before needing to return. They encounter a Luftwaffe plane, which shoots down the squadron leader. Farrier, whose fuel gauge is now broken, assumes command of the duo, and they continue toward France.

Farrier and Collins are successful in taking down a plane in their next skirmish, but Collins' plane is damaged and he is forced to ditch in the Channel. The members aboard the Moonstone see the Spitfire plane ditch, and Dawson steers for it just in case the pilot can be rescued. They pull Collins from the plane as it sinks; it is revealed that Peter's older brother was a Hurricane pilot, lost in the opening weeks of the war.

Back ashore, the tide eventually rises. The Germans left so many bullet holes in the abandoned ship that it cannot stay afloat. Seeking to reduce their weight, Alex accuses Gibson, who has remained silent throughout, of being a German spy, and demands he be put off the ship. Tommy defends him, but Gibson reveals he is French and had stolen the identity of the soldier Tommy had found him burying, to improve his chances of evacuation. As the ship sinks, Gibson gets tangled in a chain and drowns.

Alex and Tommy swim for a nearby minesweeper, but it is sunk by a German bomber (Farrier, in front of the bomber at the time, turns around and subsequently shoots it down). The Moonstone is nearby the minesweeper under attack, and dodging weapons fire from the fighters, they maneuver to take on troops fleeing the damaged ship, which is spilling oil, narrowly getting clear before the oil is ignited. They pull as many survivors aboard as can fit, among them Alex and Tommy. As the boat fills with men, the Dawsons learn that George has died. Peter takes pity on the shell-shocked soldier, however, and lies to him that George will be alright. They avoid one last bomber plane, which proceeds toward Dunkirk as it has "bigger fish to fry."

Farrier continues alone, and switches to reserve fuel, having burned his entire ration in maneuvers along the way. He finally reaches Dunkirk, where evacuation efforts are being attempted under enemy bombardment. He takes out the incoming bomber, saving ships and troops. Out of fuel, he manually cranks his landing gear into position and glides for a landing on the beach. Grounded beyond the Allied perimeter, he sets fire to his plane, and is taken prisoner by the Germans.

Sailing into the night, the Moonstone reaches Dorset, where Dawson is congratulated for the number of men he has saved, as George's body is carried off the boat. They return to England, where they receive a heroes' welcome from the public, but Alex does not feel like one. Around the same time frame, Peter brings a photograph of George and a report of his participation to the local paper, which lauds him as a youthful hero. In the same paper, Tommy reads an article out loud in front of Alex containing portions of Winston Churchill's speech, recognizing the event as a moral victory to inspire England to continue pursuing the war with optimistic momentum.

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Feel free to poke holes into my arrangement of the timeline. We can work on consolidating this to a clearer summary as bullets rather than in paragraph form, and eventually possibly create a visual out of it.

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Reposting here in case useful. I definitely would have found the "spoiler-free" tweet about the timelines useful before seeing the film.

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Here's a pictures-of-text tweet I saw explaining the timelines.
SPOILER FREE INFO ON UNDERSTANDING THE TIME LINE OF DUNKIRK.Might help if the story left you confused or you're seeing it for the first time
https://twitter.com/stolenconcert/statu ... 8437264389

For convenience, here are the actual pictures of text from the tweet (helpful and not spoilery - explains timelines) Spoiler'd only for slow connections because it's a group of images:
Image
Image
Image
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And an article by Screenrant that covers the following (and has Spoilers):
The Timelines Explained (This Page)
The Mole and The Sea Ending Explained
The Air, Tom Hardy's Fate and Historical Context Explained
http://screenrant.com/dunkirk-ending-ti ... -captured/

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The only thing I take issue with on that is where they say that The Sea and The Air take place in the latter half of the week. It seems to me like, at the latest, it takes place maybe on Day 3.

Tommy, Gibson and Alex swim back to shore in the morning after Day 1, and unless they slept on the beach forever, that means that they eventually found their way to the abandoned ship by the second or third day.

My take is that the evacuation took place over the course of multiple days. I have not yet included that in my timeline ideas, though.

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Timeline is this. Action occurs in...

60 minutes
24 hours
7 days

Problem solved boys.

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RIFA wrote:Timeline is this. Action occurs in...

60 minutes
24 hours
7 days

Problem solved boys.
How very contributing, thank you.

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I'm planning on watching Dunkirk for a second time next week, as it's all becoming a bit of a blur, but there's one thing about the timeline that is bugging me. The events on the beach were supposed to represent one week, but we saw like what, two days at the most?

I might have missed something.

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Innovator wrote:I'm planning on watching Dunkirk for a second time next week, as it's all becoming a bit of a blur, but there's one thing about the timeline that is bugging me. The events on the beach were supposed to represent one week, but we saw like what, two days at the most?

I might have missed something.
See my second post in this thread.

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Image

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Again, no shit. (no offense as well)

What I'm talking about is if we had a chronological edit of the film with no repeated visuals, how in actuality it would turn out.

I know some are trying to help, but let's not state the obvious here please.

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I'm moving a little conversation from the general discussion thread as it seems to fit in here. I really felt something is off about the time on land and it seriously bugs me.
okungnyo wrote:
Cocal wrote:
It kinda ties in with one problem I had with the film - The feeling of time passing, or rather lack thereof. It's stated that The Mole part is a whole week but to me it felt like a day, maybe two. Was there like a little timejump when they were sleeping on the beach or what? To be fair, I only watched it once, but I can't tell when one day was supposed to turn into the next.
Did anyone else feel like what was shown didn't really match up to the timespan it was said to cover?
I agree that the sea portion felt like a day, and the air portion felt like an hour, but the mole portion felt like only two days, not a week.

Maybe the time skip occurs when that private wakes up and is taken aboard on the officers' ship?

That scene is probably the last day of the evacuation, i.e. like five days later in the chronological timeline.

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