Warbird Information Exchange

Very COOL!!!!!

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S.

Sounds like you may be biased in the other direction! How do you know this will be a good movie?

I sure do hope it is good. Most younger folks probably aren't very familiar with the story, although they probably know the name, so I hope they do it in a historically accurate fashion so young and impressionable folks aren't misled.

[quote="the330thbg"]It is not impossible to please everyone. Private Ryan, Band of Brothers.., both were met with a very warm reception.]

True, but B of B is in a completely different league from Saving Private Ryan. SPR in the end is a WW2 movie made by a Baby Boomer who's idea of war is Vietnam. Too much about it doesn't ring true if you know anything about the men and attitudes of that time. Which is why it will always suffer in comparison to B of B. But it still has the most harrowing 20 minutes of simulated combat anyone has ever filmed.

[Thin Red Line, great movie.., but too intelligent for most people so a thinner audience.]

TRL is another movie made by a baby boomer who didn't really understand what he was filming. It has the kind of self centered intelligence that baby boomers are using so well in Washington D.C. these days. And there is no way in hell that Japanese soldiers on Guadalcanal would have sat around, dazed or not, while American GIs walked up to them. I thought the film was disjointed as if the director didn't know which characters to focus on so he focused on successive characters without any background or development and then cast them away with as little concern for plot development. It was beautifully filmed and seemed accurate as far as weapons and equipment but the "Director" seems to have little to do with that anyway.

[Pearl Harbor, Flags of our Fathers, mostly KRAP!]

PH just sucked. Flags I liked. I thought it brought together the real story and the combat and the post combat bond tours in a way that I had never seen before. It also showed just how celebrity mad we were even then.


[Problem with 'Amelia' is.., who the heck cares. Hollywood is trying to get females interested in the aviation genre. Like when Lionel introduced a 'pink' train in the 50's to get girls interested in locomotives. Surprise.., total failure.]

The problem with most aviation movies is that there are too many airplanes. Film is a visual medium and planes are very visually interesting. But what makes a great film is narrative, plot and character development. So a director is airplane mad and fills the screen with beautiful crafted shots of airplanes and the story falls into the crapper. With the right writer and director you could make a great movie about airplanes and flying and not even identify the airplane involved, in the same way that St. Exupery never identified the airplane in his best books.

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"I can't understand it, I cut it twice and it's still too short!" Robert F. Dupre' 1923-2010 Go With God.

Fleet may be biased. I would be if I'd actually worked on something - and from that thought it should turn out good.

At this stage he has first-hand knowledge including a good deal of behind the scenes activity of the making of the film - no one else posting here (yourself included) has indicated they have any firsthand knowledge of the film.

Having had a chat with Fleet about it, I reckon he'd simply not mention his involvement in it, if it were going to be a dog (- he isn't on a percentage of the gross). Therefore, he's optimistic that it's going to be OK. Note he's also not overselling it.

We all know good intentions can turn bad in the resulting film. However we have one qualified inside comment and a load of opinion from the peanut gallery here. You can take analysis or noise. Place your bets. I'm keeping an open mind, awaiting any further useful data.

PS - There is no evidence that the rubber replica Sterling machine guns in Star Wars used by the storm troopers can be adapted to work as laser guns.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterling_submachine_gun

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James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

James
Thanks for the comments you made.
To clarify , I am not really biased about the movie.
What pisses me off is the way on many of the sites I belong to members just jump to conclusions and come out with statements about things that they have absolutely no idea about in the first place.
People need to remember, most Hollywood movies are not documentaries and care little about accuracy . It's about entertainment. They don't really care what the purists think because we are a minority and pleasing us has very little impact on the overall profit.
To be completely honest, even though I worked on the aviation aspects of Amelia, I have no idea how the final product will look once it is edited and shaped into a story etc either.
I do know that we shot a lot of good flying sequences and tried to be as accurate as possible with what was available. One or two of the a/c types may be questionable but we could not convince all the vintage a/c owners to bring their rare and valuable a/c all the way up to Canada.
We also tried to keep the CGI stuff to a minimum but did use CGI for the flying electra and Fokker Tri Motor since no flying examples exist.
I will say one thing,for the aviation aspects of the movie, Ms Swank tried very hard to portray A.E. as accurately as possible. Many times she would stop a scene to consult me on things like the way she was working on the Electra or aviation terminology in the script.
However , we may find that the movie is more about the relationship between A.E. and Putnam than it is about the flying.
Things could go either way, we'll all just have to wait and see

IMHO there have only been one or two aviation movies that I really liked .
Test Pilot with Calrke Gable , Spencer Tracey and Myrna Loi and The Great Waldo Pepper.
I agree that for the most part Hollywood has a bad track record accurarcy period. Not just in aviation films.
Yet I hope maybe this aviation movie is a little better than in recent years
( the absolutely horrible Fly Boys comes to mind)

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...it was a plane adrift beneath the moon moving serenely thru beams like an angel of the night .....fair as a song ........aloof from mortal dreams

LOL!!!!!

I'd make a smart alec comment but the last time I did that regarding Tighar on the other forum, Gillespie was the next poster.

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Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.

Well, my memory being what it is, I had completely forgotten the previous thread. I saw an ad on Facebook or someplace and said to myself, "Uh oh!" Just my gut reaction to any aviation themed film made in my lifetime. I certainly hope my ample gut is wrong this one time!

The important thing (IMHO) is already done.

Real vintage aircraft were used in the film, and some fund / effort / support gone towards those aircraft, operators et al. Whatever the quality of the film, some people, kids, girls maybe, will get to think 'airplanes are cool' and consider giving it a go. It may be one or two - that would be small, but worth it. Provided they don't trip over any internet experten, they might pursue that kernel of a dream.

Shooting the horse before it gets to the race track is another poor method of betting.

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James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

bdk

I hope it will be accurate too.
Keep in mind, the film deals with SOME aspects of her life NOT ALL aspects of it. Certain areas and certain people from her life were not included in order to keep the movie within a certain run time.
IHO, this is where certain films fall short but hey nobody wants to sit in a theatre for 6 hrs.
Once a film goes to editing to be pieced together anything can happen. I can vouch for the little accuracies thru out the movie but the overall big picture ???? I will have to wait and see just like everyone else.
Rest assured I'll be the biggest critic considering I know what we filmed and once viewed I will know what was left out.

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...it was a plane adrift beneath the moon moving serenely thru beams like an angel of the night .....fair as a song ........aloof from mortal dreams

And these kinds of comments also tend to fall into the logical fallacy (a very effective one at times, too) of poisoning the well. Pretty frustrating if you're on the receiving end!

Ryan

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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.

My 2 cents...

First, if all you know about Amelia is that she got lost somewhere over the Pacific Ocean while flying around the world, then my following remarks won't make the sense I hope they should. Having said that...

The story of Amelia to me is less about "significant aviation achievements" (actual aviation accomplishments of the woman in question) and more what early 20th century aviation hype/PR did to her and a look at the world's fascination with the between-the-war's aviation experiences. There is certainly enough compelling "drama" about that hype, her husband's relentless promotion, etc. for a dramatic project that happens to have an aviation-related theme.

Now, whether we actually give a hoot about all that drama associated with Amelia...another story...personal taste, eh?

From a motion picture perspective, there is nothing really inherently dramatic about a single aircraft flying through the sky that we haven't already seen before...and we have plenty of beautiful airplanes flying scenes in many otherwise forgettable movies to choose from.

But, as our mutual fixation with warbirds is a toughstone, a living history touchstone, to another time and important historical moments, so is a well-told story about Amelia a touchstone to pre-WWII aviation. Let us hope the filmmakers have done a good job with a good story.

I will wait and judge the movie when I view it.

A friend of mine has edited together about a dozen different movie versions of A Christmas Carol - keeping the basic story line intact.

It might be fun someday after Amelia comes out on DVD to edit together scenes from all four of the Earhart biopics to see how much of the whole story you'd get (of course the first, Flight for Freedom, is a fictionalized account, but it's the only one that uses a real Lockheed 10 instead of a 12 or Twin Beech!).

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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)

Heck... It's good thing Zombieland isn't coming out on the same weekend!
Or what would I do?

That being said... I'm glad Fleet and some other aviators got some film work and it is not all Blue screen.
(Pearl Harbor without ONE Pro-Kit on one end and Sky Captain and his incredible P-40 submarine that slices/dices and saves the Planet...)

But back to Amelia
The subject matter sets off alarm bells, just because of all the speculation on how the real deal ended... but I am prepared to give the movie a chance.

IF it turns out I am rooting for the sharks, again good on some aviators finding a chance to work and promote the romance of Vintage avaition.

Because it WAS Romantic and no matter what Amelia did or did not do all by herself... she flew.
WE will probably never know whether she wrote that proverbially check she couldn't cash over the Pacific. But it was her posterior in the pilot's seat!
May she Rest In Peace

SPANNER

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Support Your Local Warbirds! KBO!
The only reasons the airplanes matter is what the veterans did with them... and why.

had to laugh a bit when I saw this thread–forgot about the movie, and didn't read the earlier threads. But, a couple months ago, a good client of mine was going on and on about his dealings around this film, and his interactions with the director. He knew I was a pilot and figured I would be interested. Also as a creative vendor, he thought I'd be interested in the abuse he suffered at the hands of the director. In short, his take of the film, in a non-final-cut, was, after watching the whole thing, you had no idea why amelia wanted to fly. There was nothing in the film that indicated any passion for flight, or gave any reasons for why she was pursuing her goals. Also, his feeling was that for a film directed by a woman, it was very sexist-although I'm sure that won't worry most of you guys,
Having said all that-the studio was demanding major re-shoots at the time (June?) which is never a good sign of confidence. But maybe its a different film now?

Rats, caught by the well with the cyanide bottle...

My defence, yr'honour, was I was responding to a pre-judgement, and I stand by that.

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James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com