Red Tails Movie (1 Viewer)

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Please try and recall all the movies out of Hollywood that have totally missed the real story or in some way changed history to the point that some accept the movie version over reality . I would think that the crap movies by far outweigh the the ones based on reality

Neil - I have zero problem with your comment above -

Hollywood an politicians delight in elevating themselves by attacking and tearing down opponents' reputation rather than focus on the issues.

The issue was that the 99th almost got withdrawn from MTO based on a report by Momyer that 'they were incompetant and cowards' - and the 332nd was tarred with the same brush- and had difficulty in being acknowledged as 'capable' of flying escort based on perception of incompetency (per Momyer). The Congressional hearings determined that the 99th was no worse than average and that the report had no basis in fact.

So, for Hollywood to portray the 332nd FG as 'uber' pilots (as contrast with 99th FS) kept down, then elevated by an all perceptive general and dedicated to protecting bombers because the 'non-black' escort pilots were glory hounds - is not only false but slanderous.
 
Fighter pilots are a breed unto themselves and if anyone wants to know how a fighterpilot or test pilot thinks he needs go no further then Tom Wolfe in the Right Stuff( book not movie) and I think this might play a part in the opinions of the complainents . I'm of the mind that the guys from Tuskeegee got the run around but at the same time I would not hesitate to say that the majority of fighter pilots performed their duty of watching the heavies to the best of their ability. The black guys no doubt had to "try harder" to garner the same respect as the white guys in a very segregated US military .
 
Fighter pilots are a breed unto themselves and if anyone wants to know how a fighterpilot or test pilot thinks he needs go no further then Tom Wolfe in the Right Stuff( book not movie) and I think this might play a part in the opinions of the complainents . I'm of the mind that the guys from Tuskeegee got the run around but at the same time I would not hesitate to say that the majority of fighter pilots performed their duty of watching the heavies to the best of their ability. The black guys no doubt had to "try harder" to garner the same respect as the white guys in a very segregated US military .

Disagree to a point. My father in law was both - a fighter pilot and test pilot and he was quiet, reserved and somewhat shy. You almost had to drag information out of him with regards to his exploits. He's not the only test pilot I've met who carried himself the same way, there are many who have several college degrees and seem nerdy and intravert. In the air a whole different story.
 
I had a cousin who was a fighter pilot, and knew quite a few helicopter gunship pilots. The only thing they had in common was supreme confidence in themselves, but otherwise, some were quite, some were not.

If you got them all together in one area though, they were all LOUD.
 
I took a part time job while in the Goose and was bartender at the officers mess , I've watched fighter pilots IIRC about 160 of them RAF USAF GAF BAF IAF USN Dutch USMC RCAF even Turks go at it it would be called an isane party even by my standards . Pianos and pool tables taken up to the roof,,playing crud ,dead ants you name it was a bash that was the equal to any I've been to including biker parties
 
Not long ago I read a book about the survivors from the USS Houston and RAN Perth. Some of them wound up working on the RR in Siam and several commented on how inaccurate the "Bridge On the River Kwai" was as how it portrayed the Japanese and the behavior of the Allied POWs. No POWs cooperated anymore than they had to and the Japanese engineers were very competent. If Hollywood gets it right in a war movie it is surely an accident.
 
Well, watched "Red Tails" the other day, and must say, it was awfull!
I honestly found myself cringing at the "you guys are great" routine by the white pilots, came over as very patronising!

the strafing scene where they followed the 109 back to it's airbase left me doing a facepalm, four P40's managed to do more damage with just the .50's than a squadron of Marauders with 500lb'ers, oh and apparently german flak gunners went to the mr magoo school of marksmanship!

the head to head scene with the Me262 was toe curlingly bad, apparently Me262's were armed with rifle caliber machine guns and you can spend 30 second flying at each other at a closing speed of about 700mph!

the 109 super baddie apparently knew the red tails (without red tails at the time) were rookies and then got themselves shot to bits by them!

I could go on , but this was right up there with pearl harbour and top gun for utter tripe!

great subject matter, blown to bits by lousy scriptwriters and rediculous "cherry picking" of incidents from all of ww2 regardless of theater!
 
I'm hoping to see it soon, on DVD at a friend's place. I'm more interested in the 'how they made it', and the aircraft and sets, as those few short clips I've seen to date make me cringe already!
 
EVERY fighter pilot vet of WWII that I have talked to - that saw the movie before 'word got out' - was simply enraged and deeply offended over the portrayal of 'non 332fg fighter pilots' as indifferent to bomber crew fates.

The thought that white fighter pilots were glory hounds only interested in running up kills was simply the most incredible rascist insult that Lucas could throw out there.
 
Terry, if you suspend your intellect/knowledge the flight scenes are well done and the Me262s are cool in flight
 
Watched it for the first time the other day, as I said in another thread, just one tired overused cliche after another. Utter rubbish and I didn't like the combat scenes at all. CGI just doesn't do it for me, I'm afraid. Watching films like Battle of Britain or Memphis Belle, Dark Blue World, Empire of the Sun and even Pearl Harbor are of interest because they actually flew the combat scenes and used historic aircraft (although some trickery is used). Yes, I know that building fleets of Me 262s was not possible, but the footage of the 262s they did create was just awful; inaccurate markings, scowling grimacing Germans, yellow noses - shite!
 
I enjoyed the flight scenes, even though the film as a viewing exprience was excruciating. The luftwaffe pilots had less character depth than a star wars villain, that,s going some.
I like cgi, as it provides a tool to show what other methods can,t. I didn,t mind the innacurate details, a yellow nosed 262 was extreem artistic licence, but i can live with that.
Red tails wasn.t all cgi though, they used real footage of both p51 and p40,s, plus some life size mock up set pieces.
I have mixed feeling over this movie, it is at least a high budget release and was a pet project that took a lot of dedication from george and it detailed a worthy story, but it was so hammy that it may have soured the apetite for this genre. Not that there are many ww2 aviator movies out there recently anyway.
I.m hoping ang lee can do a decent job with the flying tigers. Given chinese attitudes to japan, however, i doubt it.
 
I have to say that while I believe we are lucky that they are making historical aviation movies at all, it would be nice if they could include some actual history.
 

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