[Chock]

Well, that's been tried a few times as you probably know, Mel Gibson wanted to make it and play his namesake, and some pre-production work was in fact done on Gibson's (i.e Mel not Guy) version. I in fact remember seeing some aircraft at that time flying over Derwentwater, including a Lancaster, which was related to Gibson's production, because that location is somewhere I fly myself on occasion, it being good gliding terrain.

Probably the main reason Big Mel's effort failed is that when he was mooting it, CGI was not quite up to managing the necessary effects without being hugely expensive, likely to, at that time, have required George Lucas and Industrial Light and Magic, which you can translate as, 'we'll need more than 100 million bucks'. As you may know, the cost of CGI is coming down, with computer processing power being cheaper these days, and stuff like Adobe Premiere and After Effects being a lot more capable, which is what made that Red Baron movie feasible for an 18 million budget, since despite all that DVD and Blu Ray high definition bollox which we often get flanneled with, movie special effects are in fact rendered at typical PC desktop resolutions so that they match the graininess of film when projected on a big movie screen.

Jackson's Dambusters effort is reputed to be slated for 40 million. That's what he is talking about when he says he is interested in low budget film making, a notion which leads some to think he'll be out with 30 quid and a camcorder, but these days 40 million is a low budget for a guy of Peter Jackson's standing LOL

Mel Gibson's rights to The Dambusters lapsed and thus made the Jackson one feasible, and as we know, Peter Jackson is a big aviation buff and had long expressed an interest in remaking The Dambusters. So that actually bodes well, because it means his production has the valuable benefit of being a project his heart is in, which is often half the battle of having the drive to see a movie through to fruition.

Oddly enough, film buffs, and especially film buffs like me who also teach video special effects and stuff like that, will tell you that The Dambusters is one of the movies they will often use as an example for teaching many film-making techniques. You can see that if you watch Star Wars, as the attack on the Death Star is at times a scene for scene sci-fi remake of The Dambusters attack sequence, which is indicative that Michael Anderson knew what he was doing when he made the original (compare the 'targeting computer' shots where X Wings fly down the trench in Star Wars with the targeting scenes in The Dambusters with the rudimentary sight that 617 bombardiers had and the resemblance is uncanny).

Incidentally, as an interesting aside, I have a friend who was in the original Dambusters movie, he was flying in the Lancasters they used, since he was in the RAF at the time it was made. But back on the topic at hand...

Additionally, directorial tricks such as the light points of the framing drawing your eye to various locations on the screen for example, are almost identical in Star Wars and the original Dambusters movie, so you can see where George Lucas was getting his art direction and cinematography cues from. A guy like Peter Jackson is well aware of that kind of visual trickery and so he will make use of it too probably, although he is not actually directing, that responsibility rests with directing newbie Christian Rivers (probably with some decent mentoring from PJ, whom he has known for years). Rivers, like Ridley Scott, started off as a visauliser doing storyboards, so he will undoubtedly have a good eye for framing and perspective just as Scott does. Thus you'll probably end up with a good attack sequence in the movie and a very stylish look to the movie throughout. As you may know the recent (excellent) sci fi movie District 9 was a similar arrangement, with newbie director Neill Blomkamp being mentored by Jackson, who produced the movie, and if that is any indication of Jackson being able to pick talent, then it is certainly a good sign if history repeats itself, as, stylistically and as far as story and pacing goes, District 9 is probably the stand out film of this year.

Apparently Stephen Fry is writing the screenplay too, or at least involved with the dialogue, so that also bodes well, as he is a good writer with a real love of language, and thus well versed with period colloquialisms, so will doubtless inject some period realism into the script, hopefully not going too PC and renaming Gibson's dog Rover (if you know what I mean).

Apparently there are going to be ten full sized Lancaster mock ups for the airfield scenes some of these will undoubtedly be CGI duplicated too, and there will probably be scale two dimensional pop ups to force perspective as well, a technique used in Band of Brothers for the DC-3s in the D-Day preparation sequences, which as you know looked bloody good, so that's a promising notion. Back on the subject of the Red Baron movie, you can see how good you can make that kind of stuff look on a limited budget in the airfield scenes of the Jastas.

So, you have almost certainly a good script, a potentially excellent director, a producer who knows how to make a hit and has the drive and personal interest in the project to keep it moving, a bloody good true story, which they are apparently keen to keep truthful, with a technical advisor who was in on the real mission. Sounds like a plan to me.

Incidentally, here's a trick to make you laugh. Get an empty teacup and place it over your mouth, and then in your best posh English accent, say: 'My God, it's gone!' - sounds just like the movie.

Al