SPOILERS AHEAD






On Mon, 25 Sep 2006 23:34:37 -0700, Richard Riley
wrote:

They're trying to make a good movie, not an accurate one. And "good"
means "Will sell many tickets to 18-24 year olds." I can't blame
them, if I'd spent $80 million making a movie, I'd want to sell
tickets, too. The ticket buying public doesn't care how accurate the
flying sequences are. They care about who gets the girl, will our
hero find his destiny, and how many things blow up.

A very good point, Richard, but it's my belief that "Will sell many tickets to
18-24 year olds" and "Accurate" aren't mutually exclusive. As I've previously
posted, I agree things have to be simplified and sometimes even made inaccurate
to help the non-flying public understand. But that's not an excuse to throw
realism out the window.

I mean, shoot, when Rawlins meets the girl at the hospital, would it have killed
the film to have her arm in a sling? Rawlin's nighttime flights to save the
girl and her family (by flying TWICE to an unlit field in the middle of a
hundred unlit fields...) *might* have been possible on a bright, moonlit
night...why not have him comment about "at least the moon is full..." Why not
have the pilot saw off the tail of the Fokker with his propeller (which DID
happen) rather than strip the wing off with his landing gear? Why not show the
Fokkers in historically accurate paint jobs, and put the BAD guy in an all-red
one?

When the one pilot gets the "twitch" and can't fly, surely it'd be more dramatic
to point out that the French cure for this was breakfast with seven gun-toting
men and a blindfold...and have his friends concoct a scheme to protect him?
When the one pilot comments that it's his plan to shoot down one enemy then go
back to America, surely it would have been more dramatic to point out that this
would be desertion, for which the man (if caught) would have been the next
blindfold recipient?

Lest it appear that I'm trying to scare people away from the movie...I'm not.
Many of the flying scenes are excellent, as are the combat scenes, and most
people don't seem as sensitive to the CGI as I am. Please DO go see it, and
decide for yourself. In my case, when I've gone to movies with lower
expectations, I quite often enjoy myself more.

Ron "You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll kiss nine bucks goodbye" Wanttaja