Tora! Tora! Tora! did a pretty good job of disguising SNJs/T6s and others as Japanese fighters. (A bit more than just a coat of paint, though.)
As for WWI replicas, there are quite a number of them flying. Many have boxer engines, but can work in long shots. Others have radial engines, which almost look proper. (The originals had rotary engines that spun around the crankshaft.)
They were introduced at the end of 1917, but I thought they lasted until the end of the war. I could be wrong.
My biggest problem with the trailers I’ve seen is that all the Fokkers are red. I may be wrong, but Von Richtofen flew the only red one. Which was why he was called The Red Baron.
Air & Space magazine did an article about the real-life planes that were built for the shoot. They put in a brief mention that the action would be supplemented with CGI, but the trailers make it look like it’s real footage supplementing CGI.
I’m surprised that any movie would voluntarily link itself with Independence Day. It seems like anyone who would be excited by this connection wouldn’t need any persuasion. I mean, what *wouldn’t * they go see?
Maus – A while back I read Roy Brown’s account of his action with the Red Baron, and if I recall correctly, when he was informed that he had shot down von Richtofen (he, at least, thought he was responsible) he made a comment along the lines of “I suppose that whenever one took a shot at a red triplane he wondered if it might be Richtofen.” That would seem to suggest that there were a number of airplanes flying around that could be described as “red triplanes,” but I do think that von Richtofen was probably the only one out there who flew an entirely red airplane.
I believe that at some point or another he had several triplanes for use as his personal aircraft, but I believe only one of them was completely red. There’s a photo of a model somewhere on the internet that is supposed to look like the one he died in and it’s mostly Fokker streaky-green with a red upper wing, tail, and cowling.
But the clips for the movie seem to show large numbers of all-red airplanes, and that would seem to violate the whole idea of individualism that was behind the garish painting of German planes.
The one I saw was a Nieuport 28. The Americans got them starting in February '18 and used them through the end of the war. The Fokker Dr 1 was retired in May, so there were a few months of overlap.
I’m hoping that on the big screen this movie will look less cheesy than it does in the preview. Say what you might about “Pearl Harbor,” but its CGI wasn’t as hokey as I expected.
According to this article in Air and Space:
Set for release in October, Flyboys will, its producers promise, thrill its audiences with aerial stunts and dogfighting. More to the point, it will do so using real airplanes and real flying
snip
“Our philosophy was that we’d do everything real that we possibly could do real, and then augment that with other techniques,” Bill says. Crashes, explosions, unsafe maneuvers, and—yes, watch for them, purists—maneuvers impossible for real aircraft to perform were all created by computer graphics
At least one of the previews I saw had a pilot running along the top of the aforementioned zepplin, outrunning the explosion behind him.
Yeah, that’s ass. Add in the ubiquitous smoke trails for the bullets, and biplanes exploding in midair in massive fireballs, and I think we can safely discount any attempts at realism.
There are thus far 11 reviews at Rottentomatoes.com. It’s scoring 18%.
Correction: Watched the preview on IMDB and no, they’re Nieuport 17s. Since they’re flying with the Lafayette Escadrille, that’s accurate.
From the Production Notes (pdf) on the website (http://www.mgm.com/flyboys/home.html), they built the Nieuports from German plans–they couldn’t find plans in France but the Germans drew up a set from a captured 17. And an advantage of CGI is that they could show the planes realisically close together, which could not be done safely in real life. And on the message board a fellow from the movie says the Fokkkers were originally a more realistic variety of colors but Normals got too confused watching the combat scenes to know who were the Good Guys and who were the Bad Guys.
Wow, that’s just kind of sad. Didn’t it used to be the job of the director to ensure that the action on screen made sense? I thought I’d read that, historically, large dogfights were in fact rather bewildering for those involved. But how difficult is it to figure out that the guys with the red, white and blue markings are on a different team than the guys with the black crosses? No, better make one side all red just to make sure no one in the audience gets lost. That’s possibly one of the most egregious examples of dumbing-down I’ve ever encountered in a war movie. Maybe I won’t be seeing Flyboys after all.
I knew I would be seeing a ‘hollywood’ movie, so I wasn’t expecting much. Some goofs were worse than others-
I think a lot of what they did with the dogfight scenes was to make it easier to follow. And yes, I do agree its a shame they dumbed things down but frankly with no smoke trails, and the planes being multicolored, it honestly would be kind of confusing in some scenes with all these planes looping around going ‘tatta tatta tatta!’. At least you could tell who was shooting at who.
Worse, for me was the whole zepplin attacking Paris during the day, and the main character evacuating his ‘girlfriend’ and her nephews, landing his plane in total darkness (wtf?).
The gunner running from the zepplin explosion was actually kind of funny, my friend and I were wondering, “where’s he going to go?”.
Saw it yesterday.
•As I expected, the plot wasn’t much…at best, just a way to string together the battle sequences.
But, on the other hand, the battle sequences were the only reason I saw it, anyway, and they were good, so it works out.
Come to think of it, if you edited this movie into a series of shorts, it’d probably make a pretty good 1930s-style movie serial. (Not that that’d be workable or profitable, nowadays, but the style would work.)
•Anyone else catch the “Peanuts” reference?
•And I checked my references, last night…the L 32 went down over England, in 1916. Which, actually, with all the other odd details about it’s movie mission—flying alone, at the wrong time of day, and a year after it’s destruction—explains it’s presence a bit better…it was a ghost Zeppelin! :eek:
Saw it yesterday. I’m no expert on planes, or military history. I’m here to give the female perspective. Cute guys, great action scenes, lost track of who was who and who died, and some plot points were telegraphed so far in advance I wish I’d bet money on them…I knew exactly what the handgun would be used for the minute it was given out…and pretty much who would die. But it was fun, and exciting…and I thought the same thing about the gunner on the Z…but I suppose they didn’t give him a handgun, so running was the only thing to do.
eppelin
I saw the movie yesterday and enjoyed it. I still think the Blue Max is the best WWI flying movie out there, but I think this one went right in a lot of places where it might have gone wrong. One of my favorite scenes was the first squadron takeoff when everybody just got into the air in a bunch with no particular order or careful spacing. That had me as tense as any of the fight scenes.
As far as the guy on the Zeppelin goes, I think I’d do the same thing and try to run too. At least it’s an active way to spend your last moments.
Has anybody tried to make any connections between the characters and real-life flyers? I thought the main character might have been loosely based on Frank Luke, being a rancher/cowboy type. That line of speculation had me expecting a particular end for him.
Curate
The trailers look awful. If it was free I’d go. And they served beer.
More on the Black Swallow of Death.
I knew who the character was supposed to be immediately…
Note thereference to the 1972 book, “Black Swallow of Death,” by P.J. Carisella and James W. Ryan.
My parents did some of the production work for that book, freelance editing and layout work if I understand it correctly. Copies of the manuscript lay around our attic for a few years and we had a rough dummy of the cover art floating around for a long time.
It’s now available on rare book sites for around $80.00.
Sailboat
Saw it yesterday and it was just OK. The plot reminded me of a video game. Introduce the pilots, give them some training and then a series of episodic missions.
I did like the “Christian Warrior” who sang as he fought. And Jean Reno was pretty good too.
And EVERYBODY knew about the pistols purpose in the plot the second it was shown. It was like a cop saying “Only three more days to retirement” in the first scene of the movie.
I enjoyed it, particularly since we kept yelling whenever the Hun flew alongside someone:
Shoot him with the pistol! The pistol!
Did too much stuff look “old”? Cards, wooden boxes, jars would be new at the time.
Oh yes, a number of wounds were survived withouot antibiotics. 