Flyboys

Matt Nelson

Lieutenant Commander
Anyone go to see flyboys yet? I saw it today.....way too many Red DR-1s in it. Someone did not do their homework.
 
Yes! I really, really liked it -- it was basically *exactly* a great big movie of Wings of Glory (the main character even looks the same). It didn't have some brilliant plot or message, but it was beautifully done.

The Triplane thing was odd, but I'm pretty sure it was by design rather than some big mistake -- they had to have their fake German ace (who flew a black one) stand out, and they didn't want people to think he was supposed to be von Richthofen.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Yes! I really, really liked it -- it was basically *exactly* a great big movie of Wings of Glory (the main character even looks the same). It didn't have some brilliant plot or message, but it was beautifully done.

The Triplane thing was odd, but I'm pretty sure it was by design rather than some big mistake -- they had to have their fake German ace (who flew a black one) stand out, and they didn't want people to think he was supposed to be von Richthofen.
theres lots of airplane nerds out there that are really pissed off about the whole tons of red triplanes thing, but really, when you think of german fighter planes from world war 1 you think of a red triplane
 
Vinman said:
theres lots of airplane nerds out there that are really pissed off about the whole tons of red triplanes thing, but really, when you think of german fighter planes from world war 1 you think of a red triplane

That's true. In the same way IIWW german most (in)famous plane would be Ju87 "Stuka".
 
Vinman said:
theres lots of airplane nerds out there that are really pissed off about the whole tons of red triplanes thing, but really, when you think of german fighter planes from world war 1 you think of a red triplane


Hmm....guess I am one of those nerds but I would liked to have seen alittle more historical detail. The Red DR-1 belonged to only one person from Jasta 11. It was very obvious who was the good guy and who was the bad guy without using so many red triplanes --- Cockades vs crosses.

Matt Nelson
 
I can't wait to see this movie - from what I saw in the trailer, the storyline is pretty corny, but still, WWI flying movie and all that. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like it's getting a cinema release around here (at least not any time near), so it looks like I'm gonna have to wait :(.

Matt Nelson said:
Hmm....guess I am one of those nerds but I would liked to have seen alittle more historical detail. The Red DR-1 belonged to only one person from Jasta 11. It was very obvious who was the good guy and who was the bad guy without using so many red triplanes --- Cockades vs crosses.
The problem is that most people don't know that most WWI aces painted their planes in some unique fashion... and most people don't care, either. Most people would find it strange, confusing, and downright silly if they saw a squadron of military fighter planes, each painted in different colours.

There is of course another vital reason why WWI and WWII planes should have a single paintjob per plane type in a movie (...or a game) - it's extremely hard for the average person to recognise a particular plane type based on its shape. Not only are the differences usually fairly subtle, but they're often also hard to see, since you don't exactly get to see nice top-down and side views in a movie. Colours give people something more easily recognisable to hang on to. And red just plain looks great :p.
 
Quarto said:
There is of course another vital reason why WWI and WWII planes should have a single paintjob per plane type in a movie (...or a game) - it's extremely hard for the average person to recognise a particular plane type based on its shape. Not only are the differences usually fairly subtle, but they're often also hard to see, since you don't exactly get to see nice top-down and side views in a movie. Colours give people something more easily recognisable to hang on to. And red just plain looks great :p.

That is quite reasonable persuasive, I guess.
 
I saw the movie last night and I can definately forgive the minor historical innacuracies because the movie just plain rocked. Loved all the action sequences, the love plot wasn't terrible over done, just all around a great film.
 
The only plane of Jasta 11 that was all red was von Richtoven's. The others had varying paint schemes, depending on the time period in question.

Also, standardized colors for aircraft didn't really come into play until later, not unlike ground solders historically not having anything recognizeable as an entire outfit serving as a uniform (usually just some specific item of clothing, like a cloth tied around an arm for example, to mark them as a soldier for a particular group, and not always that) until the last few centuries of ground warfare.
 
Just saw this movie and loved it. Even with the minor historical innacuracies it was still very enjoyable as a film. As for the whole "there was only one red plane" thing - I know it's true - and the probably could have gotten away with doing it (One side has three wings, one has two - same basic principle as the color-coded stuff.) but it didn't ruin or even harm the movie at all. "Based on the True Story" not "The true Story".
Anyhow - Loved it, and would definately reccomend it to my friends. (that's you guys...)

Howie
 
I saw it with my Dad, and we both loved it- we even applauded afterwards. Of course we're both into aerial combat. If you're looking for plot or a love story this movie isn't for you. The acting was good though. I use to be obsessed with WWI aviation back around the time the Red Baron video game came out, and I use to dream about a movie like this. The Blue Max is another great WWI aviation movie. Flyboys was more Hollywood than Blue Max and is probably easier to criticize, but in alot of ways it was better. The dogfights were awesome, and only now with our technology could you have the types of scenes: with wings blowing off, bullets seen ripping into the fighter, and dangerous aerial stunts (of course they weren't REALLY stunts, they were special effects, but they wouldn't have been possible with the technology available when the Blue Max was made).

I wish it was more historically accurate, but there was at least 'some' historical accuracies. They did a good job creating the feel of the early 20th century. Several months ago, I looked up a site on WWI aces and was surprised to see how many German aces flew fighters painted in red paint schemes. Of course they have various markings and weren't 'all red'.. But I wasn't going to let that stop me from enjoying some intense aerial combat.
 
I just saw the trailer yesterday, and got pretty excited. The movie looks amazing. I'll definitely watch it.

And they're calling it Flyboys here too. They're getting lazier and lazier... They never give games a localized title, and now movies are keeping their english names more and more. :p
 
Edfilho said:
They're getting lazier and lazier... They never give games a localized title, and now movies are keeping their english names more and more. :p

I like that... After "Wing Commander: The Final Battle" (WTF??) and after translating "The Shawshank Redemption" for "A Dream of Freedom", they better just keep the original names.
 
Starkey said:
I like that... After "Wing Commander: The Final Battle" (WTF??) and after translating "The Shawshank Redemption" for "A Dream of Freedom", they better just keep the original names.
Oh, yeah, the EXTRA stuff they add is pretty stupid... like how JFK became "JFK: The question that won't shut up" :) But I don't think that "a dream of freedom" is bad at all. I mean, it's not like "shawshank redemption" would make sense in portuguese.

But, back to topic, I'm really excited with Flyboys, it must be a pretty fun movie :)
 
Edfilho said:
But I don't think that "a dream of freedom" is bad at all. I mean, it's not like "shawshank redemption" would make sense in portuguese.
Wow, you mean that Portuguese does not have a word for "redemption"? :p

(Shawshank is the name of a place, and redemption means... well, redemption. As a title, it's about as difficult to translate as "French fries")
 
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