Masters of the Air “Review” …

[Mark Allen M]

Since this is a continuation of reviews…. Here’s my latest review FWIW.

Sadly I’m losing interest in the series. Just too much CGI overkill for me. Far too many scenes and scenarios that just don’t give a sense of reality. What’s really sad is seeing so much effort in certain scenes to make them feel and look believable and then drown them out with too much CGI.

Baffling that there wasn’t a better effort by the historical advisors to “reel in” the CGI guys. There were lots of scenes that would have been far more realistic and believable if simply for toning down the CGI.

Too much flak, too many fighters screaming by way too fast in all directions, Bombers maneuvering unrealistically, unconvincing dialogue. And that’s just a beginning.

All the tools were there to create a far more realistic experience, and the budget being as it’s been stated it was. To me there’s little excuse for all the overly ambitious and dramatic scenes using CGI.

If I had less knowledge of this period of history and a larger fondness for video games perhaps I wouldn’t be so critical. Really not sure I’ll be interested in watching any further.

[Baldeagle]

I don't think this has been posted in this thread (?), but here is some pretty good CGI, and it's 15 years old:
https://youtu.be/1_a-DgT7LI4?si=w5lKylLuWXYqMe1b


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[sandiego89]

Tough crowd. I get that other folks have their opinion on it, but I'm glad folks take the effort to make these types of shows, and I just sit back and enjoy and try not to over analyze things- much more enjoyable if you are not looking for what's wrong in every scene. Kinda like walking around an airshow or car show and pointing what is "wrong" with everything, or that the Zero's in Tora Tora Tora were really T-6's- sucks the joy right out of things.

[old iron]

I have not seen any of this, as I am not an Apple subscriber, but I get the picture:

In the Midway movie, otherwise very good, during the dive bomb scenes our planes are being shot down left, right and center by ship fire. In the real battle, only one Dauntless was shot down by "ground" fire in the whole day. I am annoyed that the film version is so different from the reality.

But then, I guess it needed to be shown that this was really dangerous, and that every one of these men were real heroes, so perhaps some of this over-CGI can be excused.

[hurricane_yank]

I think that is the problem...the video game mentality. Simply going up was dangerous, risky, and heroic. The problem is the audience has this expectation that they must see the danger as their experience in this domain is sitting in a bathrobe behind a screen going pew pew as they fly their Wildcat against the Japanese.

[Mark Allen M]

I’ve been spending some time reading posts on other sites from people who had fathers, grandfathers etc. who were crew members on bombers during WWII. Many were involved in the missions flown in this series. Most of the relatives of these service members had no idea of the brutality and scale involved in these missions due to their fathers not wishing to talk much about their experiences.

MOTA may or may not be for everyone, especially some of us who are educated in the realities of this time in history, but for a great many folks, this is an opportunity to perhaps better understand what their fathers and grandfathers experienced and for that reason alone it’s been a successful series IMO.

I’m starting to side with the glass half-full crowd.

[Jim MacDonald]

I'm still hoping that it will eventually come out on DVD.

Mac

[JohnB]

Mark
I agree with your remarks, yes the glass is half full.
I said that about Pearl Harbor, anything to help educate future generations about the war can't be all bad.

At least MOTA has been released soon enough that children can see what their fathers experienced.

I can understand my father's strict instructions to never ask men about the war. So, talking to him in detail about his B-17 days, my uncle who was a 8th AF navigator turned POW, another uncle who flew gliders to into Normandy, Southern France and Holland...and my best friend's dad was a Doolittle Raider, I missed the opportunity to hear their stories.

So, this series is doing some good.

Too bad about the inevitable errors and CGI issues.

[Steve Birdsall]

I'm with you too Mark, particularly after reading some of the behind-the-scenes information provided by people like Taigh Ramey. There was much genuine effort put into getting this right, and some compromise is inevitable in the real world.

[Steve Birdsall]

I'm with you too Mark, particularly after reading some of the behind-the-scenes information provided by people like Taigh Ramey. There was much genuine effort put into getting this right, and some compromise is inevitable in the real world.

[Mark Allen M]

Steve, the CGI guys really could have used you as their technical advisor. I just watched episode 5. Not to 'spoiler alert' too much, but HEAVY FLAK over THE OCEAN?. Aircraft parts hanging in the air like balloons? B-17 dogfighting me 190's? .....

Outstanding B-17 interior views though. Really, really well done. Not sure they would have been that quiet inside while flying in formation, but I certainly understand the reasoning.

fwiw I'm at around 65% approval and interest in the series so far. Guess that's not too bad lol

[Stephan Wilkinson]

Me 190s? Looks like you need the tech advisor...

[Jim MacDonald]

I'm in the same boat as Mark. When I was a wee lad, they were Me-109s for the longest time. Even the GIs themselves were calling them Me-109s, then seemingly out of the blue they became Bf-109s. My mind still translates that into Me-109. The same happens when I'm reading a novel that uses metric. I can't help that in my head, three meters gets converted to three yards...and I've lived in Japan about half my life.

[JohnB]

I think Stephen was light heartedly commenting on the morphing of the two top Luftwaffe fighters into the Me-190., not the whole Me/Bf thing.

Jim is correct, most of us over a certain age learned to know the aircraft as Me.
And if you read period combat reports, they seemingly always call it a Me-109.
I'm not going to correct the guys who went up against them.

In the WIX "I know more than you" universe, calling a Bf a Me is pretty small stuff.

Now guys who forget the hyphens in designations...that's a capital offense!!

[Mark Allen M]

Me 190s? Looks like you need the tech advisor...

I know you know that was a miss-spelling. Typing on an IPhone does that.
But if you’ve watched episode 5 you’d be hard pressed to disagree with some of my observations.

Of course there’s a lot of chatter on other sites proclaiming episode 5 the best and most emotional so far. So it seems the series is hitting it’s mark with the masses.