Movie Red Tails

[Lotahp1]

I plan on seeing it on sunday. They made a HBO movie back in the late 90s that was really good. Lots of real aircraft on film. Only thing that has me worried is the to much computer crap and the "to the last guy..blah blah" I hope its as good as the HBO...Theres copst like 11 million to make. This one was like 98 million. There are Hundreds of P-51s flying now days. Heck we have 3 I know of in Oklahoma. One at Wiley Post...Miss America the racer. Anyhow I will gladly support it as I love WW2 planes and movies

 

[cjjtulsa]

I figure it's been done already, and likely perpetuates the all of the myths about the Tuskegee Airmen. Just the trailer looked a bit overboard with locomotives being blown clear off the rails, etc. Too over the top. A shame, as WWII fighters on the big screen are a good thing.

 

[cmhbob]

There are at least 51 Mustangs still flying, as I saw a formation of them in 2007 at Mustangs & Legends air show in Ohio.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_surviving_North_American_P-51_Mustangs

 

[Mr.357Sig]

My 9-year-old and I went today. We loved it. The action scenes were very cool. The CG aircraft and special effects were WAAAAAAAAAAAAY better than those crappy models they used in "Memphis Belle", for example. I had to laugh, though, at the ridiculous sound effects used for the Me-262s' engines. It reminded me of the crappy stock sound effects from 1960s TV.

The script was shallow and cliched, the storyline predictable and the acting was stiff and one dimensional. But, I'm such a sucker for P-51s, B-17s and Bf-109s, I was able to overlook all that crap. They totally skipped, however, the unit's use of the P-47 and that sucked. Love the Bolt.

 

[AirMech74]

This one is on my list....I dig WWII movies dealing with the air battles.

 

[Neil]

Is this movie somewhat historically accurate, or is it fiction, based on historical events? (too lazy to google).

 

[HackerF15E]

Are there any real aircraft in the movie? In the commercials they all look to be CG.

They leased a couple of D models and shot a lot of footage of them during the filming of the movie. My understanding is most of it was ground handling shots, takeoffs and landings, and flights in/around the airport.

The CGI was "overlayed" on the footage of the actual flying.

That scene in the commercial in which a P-51 appears to do a backflip as if it is a swimmer really disturbs me.

I'm not really sure why people think that shot portrays something that isn't physically real. Although it's a CGI shot, it is a camera position that sits at a fixed X/Y/Z axis point with relation to the center of the aircraft. The Mustang is simply doing the top part of an oblique loop. If you look at the background, you can see that the airplane is physically moving through space normally -- not hovering there doing a backflip. It is simply the camera orientation that makes it appear that way.

It looks fake because there's no way in real life that you could get a camera to hold that position such that the airplane would be moving around the pitch axis but the camera would be perfectly stationed at the center of that rotation.

 

[HackerF15E]

Is this movie somewhat historically accurate, or is it fiction, based on historical events? (too lazy to google).

Based generally on historical events and people.

You have to look at it like a 1930s comic book story, much in the same way Indiana Jones and Star Wars are. It's certainly not a documentary. The characters, especially, are not accurate depictions of specific people, and the action sequences are not historically authentic in terms of specific things that happened on specific missions.

 

[Sanjuro82]

It's based very very very loosely (yes that's three verys) on historical events.

 

[Stephen Cue]

Looks like a great popcorn movie about a squad that should be promoted as heros.

Who cares if the characters are fictionally based on real airmen and the missions are not exactly as it happened?

No one here knows if the real 'Redtails' did not accomplish actions depicted in the movie.

Seems to be a lot of negativity about this movie when ive read better reviews on here about movies that were TOTALLY crap.

Hmmm