Fly Boys just became available on HULU. I had not seen the movie when it came out. The reviews were not all that flattering but we enjoyed it. I'm not sure how much is suppose to be historically accurate.
Fly Boys on HULU
Fly Boys just became available on HULU. I had not seen the movie when it came out. The reviews were not all that flattering but we enjoyed it. I'm not sure how much is suppose to be historically accurate.
I went with a couple of friends to see it when it came out at the theater. All of us enjoyed it a lot and I bought it when it came out on disc.
Most historical movies take a lot of liberties with facts and events for the sake of the story. Understandably, people who
are very familiar with the subject matter get turned off by these changes. In these case I just go in with the attitude of just
turning off my brain and try to enjoy the story.
My son is about old enough to see it now so I'm looking forward to watching it with him. I have no doubt he will enjoy it too.
Flyboys is pretty bad, but it does have the benefit of being one of the only "modern" movies about WWI aviation (the other that immediately comes to mind is The Red Baron). I remember some of the dogfights being pretty decent, despite the obvious historical inaccuracies (Nieuport 17s flying against Fokker Triplanes; a daylight zeppelin raid against a target in France, featuring a large escort of German fighters).
But as "modern" WWI aviation films go, I would recommend The Red Baron strongly over Flyboys, even though that movie is also pretty mediocre and has a lot of inaccuracies.
One of my life goals is to create a really worthy WWI aviation film. I'll keep you guys posted
I must confess I liked all the aviation movies I have seen including Pearl Harbor which is probably one of the most maligned ones ever. Flying sequences are all great.
I liked Flyboys, but I also liked Red Tails, which seem to be even more maligned by aviation fans. Not enough war movies being made about aerial combat for me to be too choosy.
That Steve McQueen one about the bomber pilot was good too. I forget the name of the movie.
I think that the Steve McQueen movie to which you are referring, Gary, is called 'The War Lover'. It is available to watch on Youtube.
Yes, it does have the feeling of a WGF game about itOriginally Posted by horsepyre
My wife and I liked it despite any historical inaccuracies. It was a good movie. Regardless I didn't expect it to be terribly accurate and thought the people portrayed in the movie most likely didn't exist. Perhaps they were a combination or amalgamation of various fliers in WWI. People like Guynemer broke off the attack when Udet's guns jammed or Baracca was found with a gun in his hand and a bullet hole in his skull. Some think he shot himself rather than be burned to death. Lufbery of the Lafayette Escadrille was seen to fall from his plane when if flipped. A movie with artistic license showing the horrors of war, love and heart break.
Pearl Harbor wasn't too bad action wise. Though I thought the love story and rivalry was a bit over the top. But many 1950's WWII movies has their share of soap opera loves stories too, though the dominated less of the movies I think.
I say a one man show once about Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens). I don't know how much of that was true either. But something he did say, in character, during the show struck me. 'Mark Twain' said that he would move an entire city if it helped the story. He cared less about geography than a good plot. Good point I suppose and it shows the difference between a documentary, docu-drama and a movie that got it's idea from real events.
I rewatched it last night since my wife was out, and I gotta say, I stand by my review. The historical inaccuracies are actually far from the worst thing about the movie. Far worse is the way it ham-fistedly handles a number of common WWI aviation themes - "knights of the air," combat fatigue, loss, chivalry, race/class differences, etc. And the love story is AWFUL.
But the flying scenes were better than I remembered, despite the weirdness of the Dr.I vs Nieuport scenes and the stupidity of the red/black triplanes.
Go for it Austin, you're probably more than capable of making a better film than The Red Baron already... most of us probably could....One of my life goals is to create a really worthy WWI aviation film. I'll keep you guys posted
Sapiens qui vigilat... "He is wise who watches"
I agree with Flash..."Go for it, Austin"... please, Please, Pretty PLEASE!!!One of my life goals is to create a really worthy WWI aviation film. I'll keep you guys posted
I haven't seen 'The Red Baron' but if it's anything like 'Flyboys' I guess I'm not disappointed. Sad, but with all the technology, detail oriented costuming, authentic props, cinematic and sound quality breakthroughs available to filmmakers today, why are such movies so substandard when compared to old classics like 'Dawn Patrol, The Blue Max and Aces High?' I even lean more on 'Wings' and 'Hell's Angels' for WWI aerial entertainment than newer productions. Sure, those had their issues, but to this day my favorite air war films are 'The Blue Max' and 'Battle of Britain'. I've been disappointed with the genre since having seen 'Richthofen vs Brown' (?) many years ago ... which is why I purposely skipped 'The Red Baron'.
We NEED someone to make a serious movie for serious fans of the era!!!
There was a good reason why the Germans in the film has a preponderance of red Triplanes. There was an interview with the producers on TV that I saw where they explained that they were perfectly aware that the aircraft they'd depicted were the wrong ones. However, he average US cinema-goer "knows" that every German plane on the western front was a bright red Fokker Triplane so hey went with that to help the audience understand what was going on.
Agree to disagree, I guess, on what constitutes a "good" reason. The stupidity of the audience doesn't count as one in my book. I do seem to recall reading somewhere that the bright colors were necessary to help the viewer follow the action, which is a better excuse, but still a pretty bad one - most German planes were brightly colored, so they could've had something other than just red!
When the audience is the one that's paying, you have to take their stupidity into account.
Good to the producers would be a good box office return, to actors it might be an award. My wife and I liked it so I suppose it was good enough for us. But a so-called great movie in which people fall asleep while watching will only be great to a very small group of people. I recently watched the Battle of Britain, I was not impressed as far as movies go. It was okay, but a little drawn out and slow with the same or very similar fight scenes repeatedly used.
A little OT:
Way back when Stargate SG-1 was on, they did an interview with Richard Dean Anderson (played Colonel O'Neill and was one of the main producers of the show) about the plots and technical stuff in the show and he mentioned that they really tried to stay away from dumbing down Stargate too much. He mentioned that there's a huge assumption in the TV/Film industry that audiences are morons and that stuff has to be dumbed down. He disagreed with it significantly and went as far as to call it insulting, and thus tried really hard to keep SG1 from going that route.
You really start to see this when you compare a lot of U.K. productions to American ones. Some stuff is really dumbed down for American audiences (and a lot of times unnecessarily so IMO). C'est la vie.
Maybe if movies actually attempted some historical accuracy people might learn something.
As for my own $0.02, Fly Boys is one of the worst aviation movies I've ever seen. It ranks way up there with Red Tails.. though at least the dialogue in Fly Boys is passable. Though by my own admission I'm incredibly hard on movies for technical details.. especially aviation ones.
Last edited by kalnaren; 04-05-2017 at 14:52.
Then, of course, whenever Dr. Jackson would start in with the technobabble, O'Neil would respond with a pained wince and a raised hand.... :)
Carter was the technobabble one
O'Neill's character was awesome. I loved the episodes that were more military and strategy focused and we got to see how smart he actually was, despite his "simpleton" facade.
Interesting observation Cody. I agree that in general producers tend to dumb movies down too much. The red triplanes in Flyboys are like the Death Star making a cameo in Star Wars Episode 2 - it was just pandering. And really, is the fact that the Germans fly red triplanes going to get more people to see the movie? No! How could it?
I haven't seen Red Tails, but if the dialogue is worse than in Flyboys, it must be truly awful.
If only Howard Hughes were still alive today. I just rewatched Scorcese's The Aviator last week (which is excellent, by the way, for those who haven't seen it) and the bits at the beginning about the making of Hell's Angels are just tremendous.
Seriously... Albatross planes would have been better and I think most people could relate just fine to a German bi-plane. I can't remember the name of the movie, but I watched a WWII tank one a while ago where the German tanks were.... Panzer IIIs. And called Panzers. Was nice to see a movie that didn't have Tigers everywhere.
If you've seen The Tuskegee Airmen, you've seen the better version of Red Tails. Seriously I can't think of a single redeeming thing about that entire movie.. maybe the opening sequence where Messerschmitts were tearing a B-17 formation apart. That was pretty good. It went downhill from there :/
The Aviator was fantastic. I should watch that again. I have to admit I've become a big fan of DiCaprio.
They both had their moments; but Jackson got more of them.Carter was the technobabble one
I judge aviation-themed movies exclusively on how well they represent the airplanes in the film, which is the entirety of the reason I watch such a film in the first place.
I have yet to see a CGI-based movie do justice to the way real airplanes fly through the air. Fly Boys, The Red Baron, and Red Tails were all guilty of egregious crimes against aerodynamics. It's just a shame, really, that modern movies about aviation are just so bad at representing airplanes.
At least the older films like Battle of Britain used (for some shots) R/C models that were bounded by, you know, actual physics. I'll gladly watch model airplanes over CGI any day. Or WWII gun camera footage. Anything. Just not craptastic CGI by someone who should really be making a spaceship movie instead (at least then the maneuvers would be believable).
Which is kind of ironic seeing he did MacGyver before that. Not the most realistic of shows.
Agree 100%. It's all the more egregious considering the availability of real-life versions of the planes (through private collections/builders like The Vintage Aviator).
Very much like myself. Though it annoys me even more when things like a Harvard is painted with Iron Cross and called a Messerschmitt.
Red Baron had it's moments. Some of it was over the top, other parts not so much. At least some of the aircraft details were accurate, even if the paint jobs and periods were a little off. Certainly not the worst CGI offender I've seen (I think that honour goes to this scene in Red Tails).
Battle of Britain remains one of my favorite aviation movies. And despite the historical inaccuracy I've always liked Memphis Bell.
I have a copy of Dark Blue World around somewhere but haven't watched it yet.
The most accurate and undisputed best war movie I've ever seen though is, of course, Kelly's Heroes
Also RIP Mr. Warmth
Last edited by kalnaren; 04-07-2017 at 15:57.
For aviation movie of the era, I go with The Great Waldo Pepper.
Not necessarily a war movie, but A great story, air dueling and an all around good movie!
Grab it out of its box & watch it tonight.
A really great movie although rather sad ending.
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