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Flyboys

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#43
By the way, the ground gunners have said they shot Richthofen down all along, it has always been considered a controversy that could have gone one way or the other.

That film, Richthofen and Brown is AWFUL. Most of the fighter planes are actually two-seater crop dusters with the front cockpit covered over and painted! My sister bought it for me on DVD, thinking I would love it, because I saw it when I was 10 or so. It is SO lame.

Only the Blue Max has done a decent job, even if it has a lot less flying than soap opera on the ground stuff. But at least he is flying a Pfalz before he crashes and gets a Fokker Dr.1. But the planes in his unit are ad hoc, with the CO flying a D7. Richthofen has a small part in the movie.

If you have never seen it, it is very worth it.

This was a time before CG when all the planes were real and the flying was too.

The Battle of Britain is another great one for real flying. WWII of course, but real Henkles, Spitfires, Hurricanes and ME109s, etc. Some models used for the Stuka attack and many bombers painted into the backgrounds, but for the most part the genuine article.
 
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#44
DieFledermaus said:
The critics have spoken:

"Near the start of Flyboys, the squadron's grizzled vet hands suicide pistols to the new pilots, to be used if they find themselves in a no-win situation. Unfortunately, the audience is offered no such option."

-- Bill Muller, Arizona Republic
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Muahahahaha!! that is the funniest thing I have heard all day. :D
 
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#51
What I find amusing about movies like this is that they totally lose their market. The base story is something for the military buffs - the story of the Lafayette crews in France. However, by dressing it up with such utter B.S. to draw in the ignorant "Fast and the Furious 3" crowd, the military fan is turned off.

I realize that movies are made to make money, but there should at least be some integrity to it when you're dealing with period pieces. There's nothing more dramatic to me than:
  • Climbing into an inherently unstable aircraft made of wood and fabric
  • Climbing thousands of feet into the air to take on enemy aircraft
  • Being armed with only one or two light machine guns that are prone to jamming and need to be manually cleared.
  • Flying relatively low and slow over battlefields bristling with enemy machine guns
But, as noted elsewhere in this thread, the aircraft in question are as maneuvarable as modern day fighters, appear to be flying hundreds of miles an hour, and are apparently piloted by beings that appear to possess a physics-defying bubble that encompasses them and their vehicle. I don't expect film producers and artists to have an innate knowledge of the inner workings of a Spad or DR1, but at least have a sense of what the thing can't do. Or if a DR1 should even be there at all, given the timeframe.

Now, I don't have a problem with fictionalizing a story for dramatic effect while keeping the accuracy of the setting and environment. "The Memphis Belle" movie is an excellent example. The 25th mission of the Memphis Belle was actually a milk run, but the film version shows it being an utter nightmare of action and drama. However, considering this "action and drama" is taken from real-life situations encountered by the B-17 crews - the flak, the fighters, the massive and senseless loss of life - it really showcases what those crews went through. While it may not have happened to the Belle specifically, it certainly happened to other planes. That way, the film Belle is a way of representing the real-life intensity and drama of that aspect of the war by having it all happen to one aircraft.

In the end, while The Memphis Belle becomes a fictionalized account of a real-world mission, it maintains its plausibility and integrity by keeping true to the history, people, and technology it is representing.

At least they didn't have B-17's doing loops...
 
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#53
WickedPenguin said:
What I find amusing about movies like this is that they totally lose their market. The base story is something for the military buffs - the story of the Lafayette crews in France. However, by dressing it up with such utter B.S. to draw in the ignorant "Fast and the Furious 3" crowd, the military fan is turned off.

I realize that movies are made to make money, but there should at least be some integrity to it when you're dealing with period pieces. There's nothing more dramatic to me than:
  • Climbing into an inherently unstable aircraft made of wood and fabric
  • Climbing thousands of feet into the air to take on enemy aircraft
  • Being armed with only one or two light machine guns that are prone to jamming and need to be manually cleared.
  • Flying relatively low and slow over battlefields bristling with enemy machine guns
But, as noted elsewhere in this thread, the aircraft in question are as maneuvarable as modern day fighters, appear to be flying hundreds of miles an hour, and are apparently piloted by beings that appear to possess a physics-defying bubble that encompasses them and their vehicle. I don't expect film producers and artists to have an innate knowledge of the inner workings of a Spad or DR1, but at least have a sense of what the thing can't do. Or if a DR1 should even be there at all, given the timeframe.

Now, I don't have a problem with fictionalizing a story for dramatic effect while keeping the accuracy of the setting and environment. "The Memphis Belle" movie is an excellent example. The 25th mission of the Memphis Belle was actually a milk run, but the film version shows it being an utter nightmare of action and drama. However, considering this "action and drama" is taken from real-life situations encountered by the B-17 crews - the flak, the fighters, the massive and senseless loss of life - it really showcases what those crews went through. While it may not have happened to the Belle specifically, it certainly happened to other planes. That way, the film Belle is a way of representing the real-life intensity and drama of that aspect of the war by having it all happen to one aircraft.

In the end, while The Memphis Belle becomes a fictionalized account of a real-world mission, it maintains its plausibility and integrity by keeping true to the history, people, and technology it is representing.

At least they didn't have B-17's doing loops...
Click to expand...

Aye, good post.

What turned me off most of all was the Zeppelin clip, you could make a great movie about WWI air combat, thats dogfighting at its very roots, but they would rather cheapen the whole affair to the level of a common action flick with hollywood trash like this.. You'd think this was the new Mc. Bain movie.. Zeh goggles! zeh do nasing!


And how bloody hard would it be to make belivable CGI planes? they have demonstrated that they can make them look real enough, ok, so why do they insist on "shooting" thease scenes the way they do? they make the combat look like something out of an Anime cartoon because of the angles and shoddy effects they choose, they could make it look propper if they really wanted to (well ok, we might still be able to see that the planes are not real, but atleast they could make it look belivable! besides i dont mind CGI planes, its better than risking the health of real flyable classic mashines just for the sake of a movie).

Seeing Spad's and DR1's fly like F-15's did not help my impression about the movie either, though.
 
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#55
WickedPenguin said:
In the end, while The Memphis Belle becomes a fictionalized account of a real-world mission, it maintains its plausibility and integrity by keeping true to the history, people, and technology it is representing.
Click to expand...

Good point! Out of curiosity, how did you feel about "Enemy at the Gates"? At first I was ... annoyed. Then I realized that it really was pulling together a great deal of real-life happenings, even if they happened to other people. There were many ... liberties taken along the way, though.
 
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#56
Boogerhead said:
Good point! Out of curiosity, how did you feel about "Enemy at the Gates"? At first I was ... annoyed. Then I realized that it really was pulling together a great deal of real-life happenings, even if they happened to other people. There were many ... liberties taken along the way, though.
Click to expand...

I like Enemy at the Gates. I actually bought it a few months back for like $9.00.

Yes, yes, there are inaccuracies in the weapons, uniforms, and many, many other things. There's an entire site dedicated to cutting it to shreds, and I definitely agree with it. Now, I'm ok with some technical errors; a T-34-85 being used instead of a -76 is not going to ruin the movie for me unlike the person in that site above. However, HE-111's doing a low-level strike 30 feet off the city center is just utter B.S.

The movie overblows the whole "human wave" attack thing, the trigger happy commissars, and overall makes the Soviet army look almost cartoonish with its banners and whistles. Even the very existence of Major Konig has been questioned (and I agree that there's little chance he ever existed). It's definitely possible that this entire sniper duel was of course just a figment of the Stavka's imagination designed to motivate the people with a tale of simple farmboy taking on the enemy's most decorated "king" (konig) sniper.

However, I did like it as a movie, as a battle of wits between two expert weapons masters. Maybe I'm just weird and like to see the silver lining of things, instead of dismissing the whole. I felt that the settings and environments were very well done. It really felt like bombed out Stalingrad, from the shattered department stores to the wrecked factories. Also, the Soviet propaganda machine was extremely well represented, showing how the Soviets could "spin" anything to suit their needs. Plus, it's just cool seeing a bunch of Mosin PU snipers on screen... :)

Even the prerequisite romance didn't feel too tacked-on, and I liked the presence of female snipers throughout the movie showing that both sexes did their share of the fighting.

In all honesty, it's about as accurate a WWII Eastern Front film as we'd ever see come out of Hollywood. I was just glad that one was made, period. The fact is, too many people don't even know Russia fought in WWII, much less was the main force that broke the back of the German war machine.

Inaccurate or not, I appreciate the fact that Enemy at the Gates exists and hopefully opened some eyes to that part of the war.

However, if I was asked what war on the Eastern Front was really like, I'd recommend Come and See or Der Untergang. Both are infinitely better films than Enemy at the Gates.
 
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#57
[5.SS]Strother said:
The movie is good enough for me to poop on. No realism at all, did you see the part where the guy was running on top of the blimp and jump off as the plane crashed into it? :eek: WOOOOO COOOLNESS!!!! :rolleyes:

It says based on a true story, that true story is the fact that WW1 happened.
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lol, who knew WW1 was so cool? I wish I was born sooner so I could've been in it!
 
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#59
Tak said:
No, you would have died if you weren't the main hero. Them's the rules :( Hollywood says so!
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Hmmm, yeah you're right, how could I forget Hollywoods#1 rule? *smack my forehead*. [Serious] I just watched the trailer, good job LOLLYwood that was about as unpredictable as the day monday. Well done! You've produced another finely crafted slab of pure horse**** to add to the pile *applause*
 
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