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geofflambert -> RE: OT: Red Tails (2/4/2012 4:11:47 AM)
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I saw the movie today. I was mostly happy with it. I know we purists will never be happy, but no one will ever come up with the money to make a movie like this that satisfies us. I know there have been great ones (Tora Tora Tora, the Sand Pebbles, the Blue Max etc.) this one I think was comparable to the Rod Steiger Waterloo. Yes we would prefer that they skip the character development and romance to leave time for one or two more dogfight scenes, but the amount of money spent if we all went to see it in theatre ten times would still not amount to crap. None the less, some of the problems were unnecessary and avoidable. I don't give a **** about the markings on the planes or stuff like that but there were problems.
The first is forgivable in my view (it's a movie) where they seemed to have an unlimited amount of ammunition. Following up a dogfight with an attack on an airfield, especially involving more than one pass is clearly impossible. However, a filmaker cannot include such an attack without adding 20 minuten to the film. As it was they edited out a lot of stuff that I know they filmed/animated. Filmakers are good at what they do and we are not, but I feel Lucas made a good effort herel
The attack on the ship: I have no idea what that was (an armed merchant cruiser confiscated from the Italians?) but even if it were a heavily armed tanker full of oil, it wasn't, 50 cals could not cause those explosions. An unarmored locomotive, absolutely, those 50's could easily penetrate the boiler and then watch out. I've seen a lot of gun camera footage that demonstrates that. Tbolts included, they all had 50 cals.. Don't bring up the rockets, I've seen MG only attacks taking out trains. In any case I think that anecdote was made up out of whole cloth.
I've seen some discussion about European racism or lack of it. Let's begin with the Nazis, who were certainly racist, but most Luftwaffe pilot's racism did not hold a candle to southern US racism, actually to northern racism either. Before the war, American jazz musicians and singers were treated like royalty throughout western Europe, and the Germans in particular could not get enough of this American invention, Jazz. Yes, there is racism in Europe to this day, but we are in no place to cast aspersions on them. As for Italians, they had been dealing with Africans for thousands of years, and mostly they knew better, much better.
There's a whole lot of other things I would have liked to have seen, such as their time in Alabama, but I cannot fault Lucas's time management here. I say worthy effort, better than most.
Anyway I don't think mass formations of 262's occurred, but whadda I know. Also it went by in a flash, but I thought I saw an FW-190 on the ground in the attack on the airfield scene, can anyone confirm that?
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