Newcomer with Flyboys query

Greetings.

This is my first visit to The Aerodrome. I've long been a casual fan of WWI Aviation; not so much the technicalities of the machines, but rather the spirit of the men who flew them. With great anticipation I attended a matinee showing of Flyboys this afternoon. My biggest question, I suppose, is this:

Why is every German plane a red Fokker triplane?

I assume this was done so that the audience could more easily identify the German planes during the rapid dogfight sequences. But it seems to me that some other means of identification could have been conceived. Besides, I heard more than one person comment afterwards, "I thought only the Red Baron flew a red plane." Though I know the Flying Circus flew planes of various red schemes, not simply the Baron himself, the less informed public is left baffled.

So, again, why is every German a red Fokker triplane?

Thanks, and best wishes to you all.

[FliegerJG1]

Hi and welcome to the Forum. The director of Flyboys posted this reply on another thread and it explains the use of all red triplanes for the Germans.

FliegerJG1

Originally Posted by FLYBOYBOSS

I'm very heartened to see such supportive recent postings - both from those who have and those who have not seen our movie. We've been pushing our rock up a steep hill for the better part of seven years, and to read so many negative and carping posts for so long on this site made me start to believe that even our most likely, albeit tiny, audience had deserted us in advance.

I have the utmost respect for history and historians, but it boggled my mind to think that no one cared that a FICTIONAL character (actor) might not look like his historical inspiration, but so many people had such a big problem with a FICTIONAL airplane being PAINTED differently than it might have been 90 years ago! A problem, if one reviews the postings, so enormous as to preclude many from even seeing the film, as well as excoriating the filmmakers and the entire film as being ignorant, disrespectful, bogus, devilish, low-life types.

Well, all of that we might well be, but thanks to those who haven't yet seen for giving us the benefit of the doubt, and thanks for the pats on the back (to say the least, LISAPS!) from those of you who have seen it.

We open in a few days (9/22) and every little bit of encouragement at this stage goes a very long way. So my great thanks especially to the very recent posts of LISAPS, FLYXWIRE, RESERVEPILOT, and several others...and our earliest and most eloquent supporter, CFGRAY.

A last word or two (one hopes) about our red Dr1's: as you know, it was imperative that we keep the good guys and the bad guys separate and readily identifiable in the air. As even the most eagle-eyed of you will note, it's pretty hard even as it is to always know who's shooting who in our aerial battles. And I imagine that's very much as it was in WWI itself. What I wanted was two contradictory things: to keep the action clear for the audience while at the same time capturing the utter chaos and confusion that often reigned in the air war. I've been a student of the literature for decades and, much more than recreating any particular aircraft - red, green or polka-dotted (a paint job I really wanted to use!) - I wanted to give the audience the FEELING of that early aerial combat. I'm an aerobatic competitor and I know how boring aerobatics is to watch (the only audience at the highest level of competition - unlimited - is the other competing pilots). But when you're IN the airplane, the most basic maneuvers are exciting and often disorienting. And a disoriented audience needs all the help we can give them to keep the story straight.

But there's another, as yet undisclosed reason, for our red Fokkers: most of the film we had only one airworthy airplane! (There were very few available at any price or place.) We often had to strip and repaint it as well as change the markings overnight. To have multiple paintjobs and markings for a dozen or so Fokkers would have been another movie in itself. And since the German pilots are unidentified in our film, it would have served no purpose, other than an enormous expenditure of time and money, to distinguish them from one another, except for the two - red and black - aircraft that are characters in our story. Imagine the nightmare it would have presented our CGI artists; it probably would have taken another half year of work just to populate our skies with them.

It'll be interesting to see how the next WWI aviation film, now being shot in Europe at about 1/3 of our budget, handles their aircraft and their dogfights.

But what'll really be interesting is to see how FLYBOYS fares. We've spent $85 million making and releasing it. That's a HUGE gamble that it'll attract anyone other than the few hardy souls who are already interested in the subject (and, as we've all read on this forum...not even all of THEM). It's not tracking too well yet; many other new movies compete for the audience each weekend - about eight or so open every seven days. So far, it looks like we'll get some pretty good reviews; we won't know for sure until the day of release when we wake up and read the newspapers. But we have no superstars, no studio, no bestseller to count on. And most of the world, correctly, thinks of biplanes as cute little antiques that fly low and slow - and of WWI as something that happened long ago and far away...if at all. (This was true of the audiences for whom we test-screened in London as well as in the U.S. It is, indeed, "The Forgotten War".) So the upshot of all that work, all that time, all that money, all that care, comes down to this: we have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what will happen on next Friday night...and our fate will ultimately be determined by that one night (one can pretty accurately extrapolate the rest of a film's potential after the first weekend, if not first night. Pretty scary, huh?)

We're hoping for 1,500,000 admissions this coming weekend. So if each of you forum members in the U.S. can invite, say, 50,000 of your friends...we'd really appreciate it!

Thanks, FliegerJG1.

Personally I enjoyed the film, simply because it was so very sweet to see those crates up there dashing about on the big screen. Very few "historic" films ever stand up against historians; there's always something they handle inaccurately. Yes, the red triplanes was somewhat off-putting (if that's a proper phrase), but I can certainly live with it!

[GregorySharp]

Originally Posted by Davebridgebook

Thanks, FliegerJG1.

Personally I enjoyed the film, simply because it was so very sweet to see those crates up there dashing about on the big screen. Very few "historic" films ever stand up against historians; there's always something they handle inaccurately. Yes, the red triplanes was somewhat off-putting (if that's a proper phrase), but I can certainly live with it!

Welcome to the Aerodrome!

I'm on my fourth viewing of Flyboys due this Sunday!

[StephenLawson]

Hey Gregory, I have just gone for the fifth time yesterday evening. I am still overjoyed to see it.