Warbird Information Exchange

What Garbs said. Thought it was ok. Some of the CGI was a little over the top, but the ship scenes were
Pretty good, seeing as I don't know a lot about ships. I guess I looked at what was left out ( no one playing CDR Waldron from torpedo 8 ) rather than what they got right. I was a little taken aback with the dedication to both sides at the end, but there were a lot of Japanese names in the credits I guess.
A lot of interesting takes here, I've always made a little fun of the seventies version of Midway with the process photography, but thinking back, they did a good job of developing the story and time line. But all in all a fun time. A weekend at casa Garbs is always a blast.

I agree, but I was hoping to see this re-created in the film but didn't see it:

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Life member, 91st BG Memorial Association
Owner, 1944 Willys MB #366014
Former REMF (US Army, O3)

Probably Target Unknown from 1951. Lots of good military stock footage plus a real fuselage used for the onboard shots. Watch it here:
https://rarefilmm.com/2018/12/target-unknown-1951/

Honorable mention: Ôzora no samurai (English title: Zero Pilot) from 1976, the Saburo Sakai biopic. It featured a scene with B-26s bombing Rabaul - done with miniatures:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5gDDckEiPo

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All right, Mister Dorfmann, start pullin'!
Pilot: "Flap switch works hard in down position."
Mechanic: "Flap switch checked OK. Pilot needs more P.T." - Flight report, TB-17G 42-102875 (Hobbs AAF)

Interesting article in the Wall Street Journal about how the Chinese funded much of the movie. They love anything that shows the Japanese being defeated. (But this time they get Woody Harrelson instead of Bruce Willis.)

https://www.wsj.com/articles/hollywood- ... 1573214401

(might be behind the pay wall)

I just saw it. I had somewhat low expectations and I will say that it was much better than I expected. Some of the action sequences and visuals were great, mixed in with some cringeworthy dialogue and creative liberties with aerodynamics and history. I thought approaching the story through the lens of the Enterprise Air Group was interesting. Personally, I think that worked for the screen better than trying to hit every angle of the Midway story, even if it meant leaving out parts of the story.

I wouldn't call it an instant classic or anything, but it was far from bad IMO. If you're on the fence, I'd say go see it.

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Matt

Went and saw it this weekend, and yes, it wasn't too bad. As if "Pearl Harbor" and "Red Tails" had a kid and it grew up into a decent human being.

They intermixed some typical Hollywood style plot lines into it, the borderline rogue pilot, the wife at home and so on. But otherwise not too bad. Dialogue left something to be desired and I half expected a CGI John Wayne to step in at any time!

I think they left too much on the table when it came to the story of Midway, but, they did add a few things that surprised me and that was a good thing.

Overall, I would recommend it. Just turn down your "Historical Knowledge" dial a bit.

Fwiw, some random reading for your consumption.


"It is not Hollywood’s job to educate you. If you did not pay attention in history class, don’t expect Ben Affleck to save you with a jaunty, factual refresher on the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that plunged the United States into World War II. If you’re expecting to watch the 2001 Affleck and Josh Hartnett vehicle Pearl Harbor and learn all you’d need to know to ace a quiz on that day which will live in infamy, you will be in line for an F. If you want facts, go watch PBS. If you want “facts” then, by all means, let Michael Bay spin you a yarn."

The problem with the phrase ‘based on a true story,’ is it's an extremely loaded claim. On its own, it kind of gives license to almost anything. It’s not quite as bad as its cousin ‘inspired by real events,’ but ‘based on a true story’ implies there has to be some adherence to a commonly recognized reality, but with flexibility. That doesn’t necessarily mean movies that take liberties with the real events they’re based on have to be bad, though. This is entertainment, after all. Not education.

One of the main problematic elements in Pearl Harbor for example, is attributing acts that amount to war crimes to combatants on the opposing side of the Americans. The Japanese, in fact, did not actually target medical staff and the base hospital during the attack.

It also falls into a mode of attributing real-life heroics to fictional characters. Namely, Affleck and Hartnett’s characters’ actions during the Japanese attack follow pretty closely to those taken by second lieutenants George Welch and Kenneth Taylor. But nothing else about Hartnett and Affleck’s characters came even close to the truth about Taylor and Welch. Taylor called the film “a piece of trash … over-sensationalized and distorted,” according to his son.

Those looking to “true story” films as their only source of historical knowledge will be misinformed. The key is to use these movies as jumping-off points from which to learn more about the truth behind the story the movie is conveying. We set ourselves up to be disappointed if we expect a movie to be like a nonfiction book, and it would actually rule out some movies that are particularly insightful in other ways. They may contain fanciful elements, things that are made up, but they also may have other things that are insightful or get us to think about a really important historical issue that goes beyond whether one detail is true or not.

Hollywood is not a classroom. The problem, however, is that movies, despite the bonfires of distortion in many of them, can shape our understanding of historical and political events just as much as think tank reports or Pulitzer-winning books. For instance, a lot of major movies are taught in schools. It is disingenuous for the screening room cognoscenti to pretend that films are of no historical or political consequence and shouldn’t be critiqued for historical accuracy — and that’s particularly true for war films.

Filmmakers can always deflect criticism by saying ‘It’s a movie, not a documentary,’ which is true. But that ignores the reality of how it will be consumed by the general public, especially the younger generations who are easily influenced. There is another problem with the “calm down it’s just a movie” attitude and that can be what is fact and what isn’t is not always easy to tell.

By all means, let movies engage history — this is a wonderful thing — but their narratives of facts vs fiction and realistic violence vs over-the top violence should not be spared a confrontation with the truth."

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[Thread title is ridiculous btw]

This was the Battle of Midway ...

https://www.flickr.com/photos/pacificea ... 2044/page1

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[Thread title is ridiculous btw]

I enjoyed the movie.
It was not produced to be a documentary, it was produced to entertain and make money, period.
We history nitpickers are a small minority and not the target that they worry about.

That said, I also immensely enjoyed picking out all the incorrect things, but having been a producer for 23 years, it didn't detract from my enjoyment of the overall story.

I enjoyed the positive AND negative aspects of "Midway" because I realize it's not their job to be accurate, it's to entertain.
Some of my friends took the kids and the kids liked it very much. If even 5% of those kids who see it and enjoy it go on to studying about the Battle and WWII in general, then I'm more than happy they made the film. I have always said the same thing about the TV series "Baa Baa Black Sheep".
It was hokey, but 40-some-odd years later, there are a large number of Corsair fans that were drawn into WWII history by that cornball show.
With WWII moving further and further away from the general populace's conscious, let's hope "Midway" ends up delivering the same results.
Jerry

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"Always remember that, when you enter the ocean or the forest, you are no longer at the top of the food chain."

True...

Black Sheep - Drinking, fighting, chasing nurses and flying Corsair...
Sounded like great life to this 13 teen year old...

Phil...

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A man's got to know his limitations.

Jerry O'Neill said"



I have to agree with this. The air attacks were totally wrong - the planes much too concentrated and the effectively of the anti-aircraft fire much too effective (only one dive-bomber was shot down by a Japanese ship that day, according to Tully's Shattered Sword) - but we should allow the filmmakers some poetic license.

I thought the concentration on the two squadrons on Enterprise was a good decision, as this allowed at least some character development. The lack of F4Fs can be forgiven as those were elsewhere. Dick Best was probably the key roll in the movie, and I thought that correct as well.

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Kevin McCartney

Sure was for this 12 year old! I lived fairly close to the strip at Indian Dunes where they filmed and got to see the Corsairs there several times as we drove by, and got to meet the real Pappy at the Chino airshow in 1979- staring at his signed print as I type.

Corny- absolutely- but got me going.

I went to see it last night.

Not knowing much about the attack itself, I wasn't sure what to expect in terms of accuracy, but my friend and I both enjoyed it for what it was - a film based on events that actually happened.

Sure, some of the flight scenes were a bit OTT, and the dialogue in some sequences a bit corny, but it sure wasn't as bad as I was led to believe from an online review.

Worth watching again? Probably. I might even add it to my DVD collection, to sit alongside the 1976 version.

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Cheers

Daz

While at the Wings Over Houston Airshow, I stopped by a booth that was advertising this movie.

I was given a bottle-opener souvenir, but together with a gentleman, we were asked to hold a movie poster, and the lady manning (or is it womanning) the booth, took a photo of two unenthusiastic individuals, one of them trying to hide his ugly mug under a Stallion 51 cap. Or was it a Wings Over Houston cap???

Do not plan to,go see the movie, though.

Saludos,


Tulio

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Why take the best part of life out of your life, when you can have life with the best part of your life in your life?

I am one of them 'futbol' people.

Will the previous owner has pics of this double cabin sample

GOOD MORNING, WELCOME TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Press "1" for English.
Press "2" to disconnect until you have learned to speak English.

Sooooo, how am I going to know to press 1 or 2, if I do not speak English????

I did go see it last night. Y'all pretty much covered it. The storyline went pretty well I thought, while the flying was obviously off, BUT thinking about if from a cinematic point of view, they were trying to portray the danger and ferocity of the action, so I can see why they made various choices. I think some of the "weird" flying angles could be explained by camera movement (not all of it, obviously, like a lot of the "formation" turns) but more importantly I think that a more realistic look would have really, really tiny airplanes diving from much higher altitude and they were using creative license on purpose. Other little things did bother me - like how hard would it be to CGI the B-25B vs a J model, lol, but I guess the one word that struck me after I finished watching, was that the film for the most part was very respectful of the actual story, and I appreciated that.

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Aerial Photographer with Red Wing Aerial Photography currently based at KRBD and tailwheel CFI.
Websites: Texas Tailwheel Flight Training, DoolittleRaid.com and Lbirds.com.

The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the LORD. - Prov. 21:31 - Train, Practice, Trust.