After seeing Terrence Malick's THE NEW WORLD in 2005, I understood why English settlers would contemplate their place in nature and the order of the universe...mostly because they were integrating themselves into the world where Native Americans seemed so knowledgable about such musings.  The same can't be said about his THE THIN RED LINE.  It is a compulsively watchable movie, especially since it is 3 hours long and has some very slow points...but to believe that soldiers were thinking about THEIR place in the natural order while participating in the Battle of Guadalcanal...stretches credulity.  I was reading Roger Eberts account of the film and he was exactly right.  The thoughts and philosophical rants about the universe in such a movie are shared by scholars and philosophers...not by the soldiers themselves....and thus the movie is incredibly uneven.  That being said....it IS enjoyable to watch because Malick is a master photographer and the performances by the ensemble cast are superb.