On Wed, 28 Mar 2007 07:41:54 -0700, "Matt Barrow"
wrote:


"Dan Luke" wrote in message
...

"Jay Honeck" wrote:

We often talk about the BEST aviation movie here, but how 'bout the
worst?

I'd put "Pearl Harbor" up against anything for sheer Hollywood stupidity.
Sure, there have been plenty of crappy aviation B-movies made, but P H was
crappiness on a grand scale.

Even worse is having a teenaged daughter (Josh Harnett fan) that brought it
home on DVD and played it several times.

A few years back I worked for a dot-com in the TV industry. I worked a booth at
Las Vegas at a National Association of Broadcasters convention. This was right
after Phew! Harbor came out on DVD. Many of the big display booths had their
huge-screen TVs set up playing that movie, with huge speakers, zillion-watt
amps, and all.

Our booth? We were playing "The Princess Bride."

Seemed to me that we had more people hanging around us...and many of the people
just walking by would glance at the screen, double-take, then grin. Actually
had a couple of people thank us.

As for the worst aviation movie, one really has to split it into two categories:
Worst Movie with an Aviation Theme, and Worst Depiction of Aviation.

Phew! Harbor and Hell's Angels fit into the first category...though I only saw
PH the once, flying was really secondary to a really, really, bad plot. I don't
recall any outright groaners about the flying itself, although it has been years
and years. Hell's Angels' flying scenes are good, it's just very idiotic plot
with actors trained in the silent era (and a movie re-shot in sound).

In the latter category is "Iron Eagle." The aviation just plain, PLAIN bad. I
still remember the slow-crawl of the phase 'Bail Out' across an LED display when
one of the F-16s was hit.

But I think we're going to find that the flying scenes will be getting worse.
Back in the old days, they had to (for the most part) fly actual airplanes
through the maneuvers required. This meant there were pilots involved in SOME
aspect of the production.

With CGI, though...they don't need flying expertise, anymore. Just some nerd
with a computer who thinks he knows all about flying.

(Hey, WAIT a minute.... :-)

Anyway, my vote for worst-flying-movie-of-all-time: Iron Eagle. Iron Eagle II
was just as bad, but had the benefit of some nice flying scenes of the Rutan
Ares.

Ron Wanttaja