On the ethical issues of fictionalizing parts of a movie which claims to present true events.

It is impossible to recount history with perfect accuracy, no matter how hard you work. Even for recent history there are always things which the best research cannot determine. For events further in the past, there are often disagreements about how to interpret the primary sources, and even major uncertainties. You may have to choose which interpretation to dramatize. Whichever you choose, it may be mistaken or only part of the truth. One can only do one's best.

But that doesn't excuse intentionally choosing not to do one's best. I am deeply disappointed by gratuitous falsification of history simply to make the plot "more exciting". When I learned that The Great Escape was mostly fiction, I felt cheated by it. It presents a notice which tries to acknowledge that parts are fiction, but phrased misleadingly: the notice states that the way they dug and used the tunnel were accurate, but did not explicitly say that most of the rest was not.

Even in Midway, which is mostly accurate, some points have been made erroneous -- and it would have been so easy to get them right.