What makes it to the screen is dramatically different from what's on the page. There's dialogue, but instead of being a pep talk with a touch of humor, you get Captain Miller and the Sarge giving the men very to-the-point directions about what happens when the craft hits the beach and that door opens. Miller's shaking hand is also one of the first shots, happening before he speaks. The real difference, however, is the silence and the POV. Where the script starts with the Germans (you don't see them, but you see and hear their firing guns, mortars, mines, and tracers) then moves the boat, what ends up on screen starts with the sound of the waves. We see the beach and the metal structures (kind of like big, black jacks) that the Germans have set up to prevent larger ships landing. Then we're inside the small landing craft with Miller and his men, who ride in anxiety addled silence (except for some puking) until Miller and the Sarge give them their instructions. A particularly effective touch is that the first rounds of mortar fire aren't seen -- the guns, nor the impact. Instead, Spielburg stays on a tight shot of a soldier's face, so we hear the first mortar rounds whiz by but are looking at the American soldier, really experiencing the escalation of the attack though him. All of this does one thing -- because we are really located in the boat, the opening of that door is a much bigger deal. It's the ticking clock at the end of the boat sequence, as the soldiers and the audience know that door is going to have to open. No one dies before it opens. There's a great shot of a pair of hands spinning the lock, then boom. The door drops open and all the chaos of Omaha beach comes rushing in. Tracer bullets, noise. A guy gets hit smack dab in forehead. Alive one second, dead the next. (Of course, if you really think about it, you know the Germans didn't wait until the door of each boat opened to fire into it. The guys heads were well above the landers' walls. There were probably bullets and mortar shells flying right and left as the boats approached, which is what the script portrays. The filmed version uses creative license to create a stronger -- and maybe more psychologically realistic -- effect. That little lander (flimsy compared to what's being thrown at it) is psychologically the last bit of safety for these men, the final scrap of calm before the storm.