Warbird Information Exchange

Completely agree. Almost shameful that such a really legitimately good story completely on it's own merit gets trashed because of such distortions.

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Lock a thread because people are sharing their viewpoints either way??

What I have been telling others is, "Go and see it as it beats the other airplane movie in theatres right now. It is the only one in Theatres." I went out and saw it with a friend, had some dinner afterwards, went back to my house, and we watched Red Tail Reborn. It was a fun evening.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

All due respect, and not to diverge from the point of this thread, but don't get me started on the "exact retelling" of the 506th PIR "E" Co. 'cause Band of Brothers, while one of my all time favorites, was NOT an exact retelling of their exploits. There's a great deal of Hollywood BS in it.

Mudge the picky

Yeah...yeah...I know...INCOMING

As far as the "stupid" remark goes, I'll cut Mr. Johnson some slack. Some folks simply do not have a very broad range of command of the English language and are restricted in their commentary by that shortcoming.

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Land of the free because of the brave

I liked it, It is what it is, Hollywood. My 8yo and his buddy didn't stop talking about "Red Tails" the whole way home. I try to explain to him what the air war was about, this movie put it on the silver screen for him.
Go ahead and pick it apart, but I enjoyed spending my Saturday evening watching a movie about airplanes. Especially a movie about fighters and bombers slugging it out over Europe during WWII. It's the only game in town.........John

You mean to tell me that criticising a poorly constructed movie, that barely has any hint of a real aircraft in it, is somehow an affront to warbird owners??? Give me a break! And now you want the thread locked or deleted because some folks don't agree with your assessment of the film?

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Curator - EAA Aviation Museum, Oshkosh, WI
"Let No Story Go Untold!"
http://www.timelessvoices.org

And isn't that the real point of the movie? It's not about B/C vs. D Mustangs, or red borders around the national insignia - if you even notice those things, then you likely already know the Tuskegee Airmen's story and this movie wasn't really aimed at you.

The movie was made for JBell's eight year old son and his buddy who saw the movie, enjoyed it, and hopefully decide to read a little more about who those guys were.

As my friend Bert Kinzey said on Friday, even before the movie begins it's stated that the film is "Inspired by actual events" rather than "Based on actual events", that makes a lot of difference to me. The movie doesn't claim to tell the historical story, but does claim to tell an entertaining story based on historical fact.

Some people might call that a "cop out", but as George Lucas has been saying, he didn't intend to make a documentary, but instead an action movie with inspiration taken from the 40/50's war movies - which were, in general, simplistic, idealistic, patriotic and intended to leave the audience entertained and cheering (during a time when the Cold War wasn't always all that Cold) - just in the same way that the Indiana Jones movies were based on 1930's movie serials.

I think a lot of the reaction may be more of a disagreement between the movie that was actually made, and what some people wanted to see.

I'm admittedly a tough critic when it comes to aviation movies. Don't even bring Top Gun with its epic inaccuracies. But at the same time, is there anyone out there that doesn't get a chill up their spine as Top Gun begins on the steam covered flight deck? Sure the storyline is inaccurate, implausible, and in some cases ridicules, but I'll bet there weren't many people who walked out of the theater in 1986 saying that they weren't entertained. I know I was...

Take "Red Tails" for the movie it is, not the movie that you want it to be, and sit back and enjoy it.

Mike

I may have missed the point here somewhere, but could someone please tell me where in the movie it was claimed that the 'Red Tails' had anything to do with the Normandy landings? There was a scene showing them covering the Anzio landings (which the 332nd were in fact involved with) but I can't recall the claim being made anywhere in the movie that they were involved in Normandy.

In the film I thought the beach landing depicted was Anzio.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

The Normandy statement may not have been in the movie, but I definitely heard one of the stars say that because of the Red Tails, there was no Luftwaffe action over Normandy His comment during the interview was that " they cleared the beaches at Normandy ". Maybe that's where the misconception comes from ?

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"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass..."
Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto

Read this & read it close, its B.S.

Terrence Howard: Life In Mission Control
The Red Tails cleared a way on the beaches of Normandy. Without them, Germany would still occupy most of Europe and would be controlling the economy of the world today. The whole world owes its salvation to the Red Tails.

Take us back to the moment you received the script. What made this different from anything else you were a part of?
I talked to George Lucas about it in 2006. I got the script in 2009. In reading [it], I realized that this film would be Top Gun and Star Wars with black pilots. I was thrilled to death. … Lucas had no idea in the writing and telling of this story that it would encompass all generations. This has literally reached every person in the world and [everybody] has some correlation to it. Because without the Red Tails, we wouldn’t have won World War II. The Red Tails cleared a way on the beaches of Normandy. Without them, Germany would still occupy most of Europe and would be controlling the economy of the world today. The whole world owes its salvation to the Red Tails.

http://rollingout.com/covers/terrence-h ... n-control/

Not trying throw gas to the fire, I just highly resent crap like this because my father did fly missions then & there!

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Fly Fast Make Noise!

It's unfortunate, but nobody ever claimed that film actors, with a very few exceptions, have IQs higher than room temperature.

I get the impression that Lucas never intended this movie to be an Oscar-worthy melodrama about civil rights, or airplane porrnn for rivet counters. He wanted to make the flag-waving, crowd-pleasing heroic action yarn that every patriotic white American enjoyed during the forties. He wanted to make the movie the Tuskegee Airmen should have received during the war, but didn't. And he put up his own money to do it.

I saw the movie twice. The first night, I was fortunate enough to see it in a sneak preview with an audience that included one of the surviving Tuskegee Airmen. He was permitted to say a few words to the crowd before the show, and he received a long overdue standing ovation. It was heartwarming to watch. I was in the company of a good many pilots, and, yes, we all snickered when the airplanes occasionally flouted the laws of physics, or the bomber pilot shoved his mixture lever to full rich to open the bomb bay doors. We sometimes winced at the corny dialogue. But not very often. We all enjoyed the movie, and everybody went home happy.

I saw it again the following night with my family. My youngest son cheered along with the good guys, and left the theater wanting to be a fighter pilot. Even my wife, who grudgingly tolerates my airplane fetish, left the movie smiling.

This movie was everything it was meant to be. It was a good popcorn film. If you failed to enjoy it, it is more likely because of expectations you forgot to leave at home. This is very evident in its Rotten Tomatoes score: the critics savaged it, but the audience response was excellent. I remember another Lucas film that had a similar reception back in the seventies. The critics eventually forgave him for it. Hopefully, his box office receipts will persuade them to forgive him for this one, too.

Lucas makes old fashioned movies. That's risky with today's audiences, but I am glad he makes them. I like larger than life heroes. I think they give us all something to aspire to.

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What is red, furry and on your six?

+ 2

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S.

Either everyone play together, or you'll be seperated and put in a time-out

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A&P/I.A., A.A.S./Aviation Maintenance technology
Warbird salvage/recovery
One day I'll get that P-40!