We are crossing the threshold into the 1930’s, a period of escapism and the Great Depression. This film uses sound to further emphasize the anti-war points of films like The Big Parade. The storytelling is epic, this film feels like the first real War Epic, unlike the previous epics of the day that relied on sets and Hollywood glamour to make them feel that way, the epic nature of this movie comes from the length of the plot and how that gives time to see the character gradually undergo his transformation in the trenches to come back with his new attitude that stand directly against the attitudes of the men in the German towns who never went to fight.
The film shows the ability to be simpler in shooting with more use of on-location filmmaking and especially dialogue to create realism rather than glamorous spectacle.
The final shot of the butterfly and the hand outstretched is a classic in film history. You see this film sitting on the line between the realism and dynamic filmmaking of the twenties and the escapist flourishes and lavishness of the 30’s. It's hinting at the possibility to have an epic film also be highly realistic and hard hitting, a merger that would pave the way for a later 1930's war film, The Grand Illusion.
It should be noted too that this film is pre Hays Code and thus able to depict such harsh realities of warfare and how it affects the human psyche. The Code will limit how hard hitting war films or films of any kind could be. So this film makes a major statement about the nature of man in a very unique period where filmmaking was beginning to find it's footing in terms of both sound and technical possibilities of camera movement and on-location filming right before moral censors started limiting what the content of those highly effective films could be.