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carrick58

Flyboys vs Red Baron

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Don't even have to watch - I remember, that the aircraft in "Flyboys" were too fast all the time,

and those in "The Red Baron" part of the time, too - especially in dives.

 

One should think, it wouldn't be too hard to find advisors, who KNOW how those craft did fly.

They could even only watch some of Wanaka Airshow to get the idea.

Do they think, people today would not like watching any craft flying below jet speed?

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I think its to give the idea of speed and produces think that if the plane isnt going mach 2 its not fast enough...

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I think its to give the idea of speed and produces think that if the plane isnt going mach 2 its not fast enough...

 

 

Exactly, I'm convinced that the producer/consultant conversation goes something like this;

 

Consultant = "These planes are too fast, their speed needs to be cut in half to better reflect the true characteristics of aircraft flown during this period."

 

Producer = "GREAT suggestion, we'll get right on that, and here is a check for your services, thanks for coming in!"

 

Consultant = "Gee thanks, it was great working with your team." [walks to exit]

 

Producer [to Director] = "Don't change a damn thing, the faster they are the cooler they are and the audience won't care anyway. Oh, and punch up that love story, too much war stuff is a real downer!"

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:blink: Sounds like my goverment Reps . Dont change anything. Take as much as you can, the people dont care about where their money goes, Punch up how much we care about the earth and not about how business companies control us, Connecting the dots is too much a downer for people. ( Thats the lonest and last Political statement I will ever make)

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One thing that always bugs me about Flyboys (and other aerial movies) is how the pilots react when they're fired upon

They just keep on flying and take a long and dispassionate look behind ...then make a manuever

Hollywood seems incapable of showing fluid combat, not thinking, reacting as you look ...or you're dead

And show some terror and panic in their eyes

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Well hate to say it guys, but actually Flyboys is much more realistic then The Red Baron from a flight point of view. Flyboys director Tony Bill is actually a pilot himself. Special instruments were placed in the aircraft used for the movie and all the flight data from the aircraft was recorded and used for the CGI scenes, The Red Baron used no such devices to get actual data that I could find. I think the sense of aircraft speed in these movies is exaggerated not because of the aircraft themselfs but the cinematography. Remember most movies are only 80 to 120 minutes long, so how much time does a director want to waste showing an WWI aircraft taking 5 minutes or longer to get from 100 ft to a couple of thousand? WWI aviation buffs would have loved it, everyone else would have left the theater bored out of their skulls.

 

Some interesting facts about Flyboys is all of the aircraft in the non CGI flight and CGI scenes are either vintage or replicas. There were quite a few used in Flyboys, 4 of the Ni-17's were replicas (from Airdrome Aeroplanes), 1 or 2 Ni-17's were vintage (one is owned by Kermit Weeks). The Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter and the Bristol Fighter might have been replicas also, all the DrI's used were replicas. If you go to Airdrome Aeroplanes website you can actually see the planes used in Flyboys. In The Red Baron there was only one actual Albatross (don't know if it was a replica or vintage) all the other planes in the movie (23-24) were 1 to 1 mock-ups (non-flying). And as far as I could find out there were no actual flying scenes, it was all CGI.

 

One of the biggest raps director Tony Bill took over Flyboys was his choice of actors and aircraft. Much of Tonys directing skills were not in movies but in TV and like The Red Baron it was a private venture without the big studio $$$$ backing. In an interview he explained the reason behind his aircraft selection for the movie, he went for recognition over accuracy. The DrI is forever iconic for the German Air Service in WWI, even to a novice, even though it wasn't a aircraft produced in great numbers or widely used (like the Albatross DIII/DV family), same goes for the Ni-17 since the movie was based on the Lafayette Escadrille, the Ni-17 is forever associated with that unit (over the Ni-28 or Spad XIII).

 

Was it a bad choice? For historical minded WWI aviation buff's yes, but for the general movie going public it was a no brainer, you knew who was who.

We all have to keep in mind that while we want as much realism and real action in these movies there is only so much movie directors can do and are allowed to do today, the "Hell Angles" and "The Blue Max" days are long gone. Would you believe that the insurance underwriters for The Red Baron movie wouldn't even allow actual spinning props and machine gun fire (blanks of course)? Yep it's all CGI. Both movies have their problems from a historical point of view and from an acting point of view. But if I had to pick a pilots movie from the two, Flyboys would win hands down, it's more realistic (from the flight point of view) and there's lot's more of it. I have Flyboys and I would have The Red Baron if it would have had about the same amount of flying scenes or even close as Flyboys. But for the pultry few minutes it's just not going to keep my interest for very long, no matter how good it looks from the historical aircraft point of view.

Edited by godzilla1985

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I think it was no contest....they were both utter s**t

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I think it was no contest....they were both utter s**t

 

 

Ding, ding, ding...we have a winner!

 

:ok:

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I remember that in "Red Baron", I found quite ridiculous the scene with an entire flight of Albatros scouts making a vertical dive at high speed, as it was exactly the thing that would never, never be made with these fragile sesquiplane aircraft. As I don't have the "Flyboys" DVD, I don't remember if there were such scenes with the N17 and the DrI, no divers at all either. Anyway, with all its goofs, "The Blue Max" stays my favourite.

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Never said either of these movies would win any kind of awards :grin: Flyboys is good only for the flying scenes alone since they do take up over half the movie and are entertaining if for nothing else. The Blue Max is a superior movie because it does have it all in a good mix, good flying scenes, a hot leading lady and a damn good movie plot, you can overlook that most of the aircraft are not accurate because everything else was so good. But the question of the post concerned Flyboys and The Red Baron and like I stated in my original post if you were going to pick one over the other I presented my thoughts why Flyboys was better movie then The Red Baron. Was never my intention to change anyones mind who thinks both movies were total s**te. Movies are made to entertain for the most part and not educate, if your looking to be educated and see everything from a historical and factual position then load up on the "Dogfight" series, thats what I did.:drinks:

Edited by godzilla1985

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" They do kinda fly around like jets. What do U guys think?"

 

I think that that clip is a huge pile of bum gravy, if you're asking.

 

Best buy the BBC's reissued 'Wings' and watch how it should be done (albeit on probably 1000th of the budget).

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I can see where you're coming from Godzilla.

My regret with both films was that they hashed some reality with some total fantasy, and not very well.

 

If the directors had just taken the time to look at the earlier WW1 films, they might have got a better idea on what would make it worth watching, even with the restrictions on health and Safety.

 

The dogfight scenes in Flyboys were entertaining up to a point, but I guess as we all have an 'idea' of what it may have been like..it doesn't match what we saw in either film, and just looked silly to me.

 

One of my favourite films was Aces High...but again, silly aeroplanes...but the storyline felt real at least

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I can see where you're coming from Godzilla.

My regret with both films was that they hashed some reality with some total fantasy, and not very well.

 

If the directors had just taken the time to look at the earlier WW1 films, they might have got a better idea on what would make it worth watching, even with the restrictions on health and Safety.

 

The dogfight scenes in Flyboys were entertaining up to a point, but I guess as we all have an 'idea' of what it may have been like..it doesn't match what we saw in either film, and just looked silly to me.

 

One of my favourite films was Aces High...but again, silly aeroplanes...but the storyline felt real at least

 

Roger that UK, Aces High is an excellent movie with a first rate movie plot :good:. Like you said "silly aeroplanes" but you can over look it if the story is good. Funny thing I almost never watched Aces High because Malcome McDowell played the lead role. Don't get me wrong he's a good actor but I had only seen his work in A Clockwork Orange and Caligula and somehow him playing the lead role as a WWI squadron leader seemed shall we say..... "different" :laugh: . But I'm glad I did decide to watch it and was most impressed with his strong preformance in the movie, like him in Blue Thunder too.

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With "The Blue Max" and "Aces High", two good story lines were made into good movies.

 

But I think, that it wouldn't suit our more modern and de-romanticised times, to make another

movie like that.

If there were ladies in towels involved, okay (I doubt there were many), but there were entertaining

"side stories" which could be shown, like the story, when Udet and comrades built a huge kite,

and then tied a little French girl to it and let her fly, to show her how wonderful it was. The chubby

mother comes to the scene in a rage, all pilots run away except the one, who has to bring the

kite back down. The lady cries, and hits him with a bag again and again, but he doesn't fail to

bring kite and girl back down safe.

There must be many stories like that. A scene with a lady was in Julius Buckler's memories.

He and his friend, a Hauptmann, go out one evening, and get pretty drunk. Buckler is flirting with

the French lady, who runs the pub. But then he falls asleep. When he wakes up, his Hauptmann

is kissing with the lady, and Buckler is very upset and angry for days, until his friend gets into

a nasty situation in the air, and Buckler helps him out. And all was forgotten.

 

The best I could imagine Peter Jackson to come up with, would be a well produced series

about the aces; showing their lifes and fights, their victories and deaths - as historically accurat

as any possible.

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Sounds good Olham maybe you should write a screenplay :good: The problem with making any WWI movie that is factual is it won't sell enough tickets. With the big motion picture companys only wanting to invest heaviley in movies with 100-200 million dollar opening night ticket sales the odds are pretty bleak these guys will get involved. So we will have to count on the indies to release these kinds of movies so expect CGI to be the norm and unfortunately very liberal telling of the historical facts because they have to turn a profit also. I guess thats why I was so disappointed with The Red Baron, I honestly expected it to be more like Flyboys from the aerial action point of view. I never really expected it to tell the real story of Richtofen, instead it turned into a chick flick. I only say this because my girlfriend actually sat down and watched it with me and liked it :laugh: . She hates any kind of war movie, whenever I pop one in the Blueray she goes shopping. Now sit down for this one, I caught wind of a rumor that Tom Cruise is considering making a movie about Richtofen :scare:

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I caught wind of a rumor that Tom Cruise is considering making a movie about Richtofen :scare:

 

That could easily be a mixed bag. It would certainly be a well financed movie and the name recognition of Tom Cruise would draw a lot of viewers who might not otherwise be interested in a WWI movie. The downside would depend on if he approached it like a Mission Impossible action style flick (that would be bad) or more of a Docu-drama like Valkyrie which could be pretty good. If they stuck to the facts, it could be great. However I would be suprised if he ever made such a movie. It just doesn't seem to fit his style, IMHO.

 

I would just greatly prefer that instead of focusing on making WWI planes look like they flew at mach 12 in order to generate excitment, they focus on all of the very real fears such pilots faced. Flak, structural failure, collisions, burning all the way down, no parachutes, freezing temperatures in an open cockpit, friendly fire, gun jams, suddenly being faced with new enemy fighters whos abilities were totally unknown to them, being suprised from out of the sun or clouds because they had no radar to warn them, not to mention being forced to follow stupid orders from commanders who had no idea how employ fighters, Bombers and scouts to best effect because it was all brand new and the rules of the sky were literally being written every day. If they focused on such things when it came to the air combat scenes, it would be a far more human and therefore interesting and engaging experience for the viewers.

 

Bloody hell. Give me a pen so I can write the script proper for him already. :)

 

Hellshade

Edited by Hellshade

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That could easily be a mixed bag. It would certainly be a well financed movie and the name recognition of Tom Cruise would draw a lot of viewers who might not otherwise be interested in a WWI movie. The downside would depend on if he approached it like a Mission Impossible action style flick (that would be bad) or more of a Docu-drama like Valkyrie which could be pretty good. If they stuck to the facts, it could be great. However I would be suprised if he ever made such a movie. It just doesn't seem to fit his style, IMHO.

 

I would just greatly prefer that instead of focusing on making WWI planes look like they flew at mach 12 in order to generate excitment, they focus on all of the very real fears such pilots faced. Flak, structural failure, collisions, burning all the way down, no parachutes, freezing temperatures in an open cockpit, friendly fire, gun jams, suddenly being faced with new enemy fighters whos abilities were totally unknown to them, being suprised from out of the sun or clouds because they had no radar to warn them, not to mention being forced to follow stupid orders from commanders who had no idea how employ fighters, Bombers and scouts to best effect because it was all brand new and the rules of the sky were literally being written every day. If they focused on such things when it came to the air combat scenes, it would be a far more human and therefore interesting and engaging experience for the viewers.

 

Bloody hell. Give me a pen so I can write the script proper for him already. :)

 

Hellshade

 

Maybe you should join forces with Olham on that movie script Hellshade? Kind of like how Tora Tora Tora was done :good: I was kind of suprised when I read the rumor about Cruise doing a Red Baron movie. But the more I thought about it maybe it makes sense for him. Top Gun is the movie that made him a big money actor but he has really struggled as of late. Maybe he's going to retry getting some of that magic back with another aviation film? And from reading some of his comments during the filming of Valkyrie he is showing a strong interest in doing movies from a wartime German POV. He also attempted something along this line in his movie The Last Samuri with so-so results. As far as big budget backing, well that depends, his star is fading fast and if the rumor is true he best move quickly. The big studio's have been losing money on him for his last couple of movies and if he waits too long he may not be able to get the big funding. I was never a big fan of Tom Cruise to me his acting is very so-so but who knows maybe he can pull it off.

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:blink: Tom Cruise as MvR ? How about Ferggie from The Blackeyed Peas as the Nurse ? or Angelina Jolie as the Countess with the mostess.:idea:

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Oh please not Herr Cruise, bitte. I say Peter Jackson is our best chance at a proper WWI aviation film. And make it a trilogy too, I dare say. It seems he has taken on a big part of the budget already with the repro planes he has had built. Unknown actors would make the better casting choice IMO. Don't cheese-up the production with someone like T. Cruise. He is too old to play any flier in WWI.

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:laugh: don't get too excited over this guy's like I said it's just a rumor :laugh: Peter Jackson would be an excellent choice to do a WWI movie but right now he seems more interested in doing fantasy movies and on a roll. While he does have a grand passion for WWI aviation that doesn't readly translate to he wants to make a movie or two about it. Really anyone will do as long as they have a passion for the subject matter and want to see it done right. Also if we really want this kind of film we have to accept some trade off's and not nit-pick a movie over every little infraction. CGI will be a major part of it, like I said the days of seeing real aircraft doing the stuff seen in Hells Angles and The Blue Max are long gone, it's too risky and no film would get the insurance coverage to do this stuff anymore, and of course the dreaded love angle that seems to derail most of these kinds of movies. But it can be pulled off, John Frankenheimers film Grand Prix comes to mind on the love angle, it was there (several actually) but didn't steal the heart of what the movie was really about. The biggest problem will be the actors since you really would prefer a pretty young cast to fit the charaters but young actors who could give a strong convincing preformance are not out there by the boat load. So settling for an "older" looking MvR and company might be better.

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With "The Blue Max" and "Aces High", two good story lines were made into good movies.

 

If there were ladies in towels involved, okay (I doubt there were many), but there were entertaining

"side stories" which could be shown, like the story, when Udet and comrades built a huge kite,

and then tied a little French girl to it and let her fly, to show her how wonderful it was. The chubby

mother comes to the scene in a rage, all pilots run away except the one, who has to bring the

kite back down. The lady cries, and hits him with a bag again and again, but he doesn't fail to

bring kite and girl back down safe.

There must be many stories like that. A scene with a lady was in Julius Buckler's memories.

He and his friend, a Hauptmann, go out one evening, and get pretty drunk. Buckler is flirting with

the French lady, who runs the pub. But then he falls asleep. When he wakes up, his Hauptmann

is kissing with the lady, and Buckler is very upset and angry for days, until his friend gets into

a nasty situation in the air, and Buckler helps him out. And all was forgotten.

 

 

Oh yes, and also this anecdote involving Oswald Boelcke in August 1915, when he dived in a canal, fully clothed, to save the life of a drowning French little boy. The parents said that in peacetime, he would have deserved the Légion d'Honneur, which he found would have been a very funny joke (actually, he got the Prussian Lifesaving Medal). Nice anecdote, emphasizing a very human aspect for a man of legend.

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.

 

Feh! All this drivel about Flyboys vs. The Red Baron. Everyone knows full well there hasn't been a decent WWI air war movie since the 1971 classic Von Richthofen and Brown.

 

 

NOT!

 

What was the true crime in that gawdawful flop was that they had the entire collection of aircraft that was used in The Blue Max and then some at their disposal, along with a whole flight of excellent stunt pilots. What a waste.

 

To the point about the planes flying too fast, I concur that it's all about Hollywood wanting to pump up the action of the dogfight scenes, and they have been doing that since the get-go. When you watch actual footage of WWI dogfights it appears more as a slow motion ballet, but that would be a yawner for most audiences to have to sit thorugh and so we have what we have.

 

.

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It's a shame Rutger Hauer is getting on....I think he would have been a brilliant MvR

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How about Spielberg and Hanks?

They did a bang-up job on "Band of Brothers"

1st rate in the historical accuracy dept

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