"The Red Baron" on DVD described. Part 1. - Page 3

await · 6 October 2008, 08:34 PM

One can purchase the "Red Baron" DVD from Amazon.de: Günstige Preise bei Elektronik & Foto, DVD, Musik, Bücher, Games, Spielwaren & mehr. That's the German branch of Amazon.com: Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more ("de" is for "Deutschland"). If you have an account with amazon.com, then you can purchase "Der rote Baron" through amazon.de without difficulty. The price is 17.95 Euros. With shipping and the currency exchange fee it comes to $43.05. One should bear in mind that it is in Region 2 (PAL) format, so it will not play on standard U.S. DVD players. One needs to either purchase a PAL DVD player or set one's computer to play PAL DVDs. Another member of the forum mentioned that one could avoid difficulties involving various regions by using Linux, but I'm not familiar with it.

apollo11 · 12 October 2008, 05:39 AM

Does anyone have an explanation as to why the movie has not been released in the USA?

Sagittarius · 12 October 2008, 08:18 AM

I only can guess but maybe it has something to do with the fact that even in germany nobody wanted to watch it

It was that a big financial desaster that I can imagine no publisher in the US will take the risk of bringing it into the cinemas there.

Germanophile-1 · 12 October 2008, 09:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sagittarius

I only can guess but maybe it has something to do with the fact that even in germany nobody wanted to watch it

It was that a big financial desaster that I can imagine no publisher in the US will take the risk of bringing it into the cinemas there.

I have seen the film and, absent historical errors, I liked it. But, then, I'm an American. I've also read a lot of the German news media coverage, which criticized this film’s efforts to show

Manfred von Richthofen as a 20th century German hero. It seems to me that today's Germany is a country still grappling with its past and unsure about how to honor its heroes. In my view, books and films about Nazi resistance heroes (Colonel von Stauffenberg, Sophie Scholl, et al.) are more palatable because they reinforce in modern Germans' minds that -- despite the horrors of Hitler's 3rd Reich -- there were WW II-era Germans of conscience who did not sink to the level of the Nazi monsters. Everyone needs positive reinforcement, so that's probably a good thing.

But there were German heroes in WW I, too, and I happen to believe that Manfred von Richthofen was one of them (along with Udet, Wolff, et al. -- to say nothing of the two-seater fliers and balloon observers). Unfortunately, the studio heads in Germany (NIAMA) and the U.S. (Warner Bros.) have allowed themselves to be spooked by the understandably skewed German critics. I still think the film will do well in the U.K. and in the U.S. But I'm only one person (and one with a very obvious pro-MvR inclination, at that), so my opinion doesn't carry much weight.

FWIW, my review of "Red Baron" appears in the Autumn issue of Over the Front, and I hope that everyone who reads this comment on The Forum subscribes to OTF -- not just to read the review, but to gain some real insight into WW I aviation history as researched and written by some of the best people in our area of interest.

Peter Kilduff

Sagittarius · 12 October 2008, 09:58 AM

I guess the problem the movie had was more that nobody really cared about it.

It had some media-presence but surely not as much as a Stauffenberg-movie will have (it already had huge media attention during the shooting). Thats a problem when theres a movie running in the theatres but nobody knows it.
In fact Stauffenberg is widely regarded as a true hero - even officially by our current government.

rainbase · 12 October 2008, 10:04 AM

I'm still guessing that the delay of the film being released outside of Germany has something to do with legal problems between Niama and Warner Brothers.

smileyman · 17 October 2008, 12:35 PM

Very entertaining synopsis! Thank you for your efforts Await. I would love to own the movie and, since I am studying the language, have the German version but I have nothing that will play the PAL DVD format! Hopefully they will bring it to release here in the states and I can at least have the english version someday...Thanks again!

Germanophile-1 · 17 October 2008, 01:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by smileyman

Very entertaining synopsis! Thank you for your efforts Await. I would love to own the movie and, since I am studying the language, have the German version but I have nothing that will play the PAL DVD format! Hopefully they will bring it to release here in the states and I can at least have the english version someday...Thanks again!

Try viewing it on your computer. I view PAL-format DVDs on mine with no trouble. Not as nice as a big-screen TV -- but better than nothing.

Peter

vonJaerschky · 8 November 2008, 01:03 PM

That's a great summation, await. I just watched the movie last night. (I also am fluent in German). I did enjoy the movie for its entertainment value. However if you are looking for the biography of

Manfred von Richthofen, this is not it. This is merely a war novel set to film using some rather famous characters, and some invented ones.

To be sure watching the Albatros D.IIIs, D.Vs, Dr.1s, Camels, RE8s, HP 0/400s, etc in action was pretty neat to see. There were a few things that for me detracted from realism. I realise this is nit-picking but..... the rocker arms on the Mercedes motors were moving so slowly I don't think the engine could have been doing more than 60RPM. Lozenge camoflage on an Albatros in early 1917? Lewis guns that fired non-stop spewing out 100s of rounds non-stop, while the ammo drum made several complete revolutions. And everything looked so shiny and new. All the canvas from the tents were bright and clean, the period cars looked like they had just been washed and waxed, all wooden packing crates in site looked like they just came from the carpenter's shop, and I'm sure there's more.

I'm not trying to be overly negative. I enjoyed watching the film and will undoubtedly watch it again. But I can't help thinking that I enjoyed the film because of the scarcity of WW1 German aviation films. Kind of like handing a glass of brackish water to a man stuck in the desert.....

nelsonluis7 · 20 November 2008, 07:43 AM

I watched the movie and- except the fact that the producers worked hard in the characteristics of the planes- it seems very "Hollywood style" to me.

The three critical landmarks in Richthofen life (the Hawker's shootdown, he's own shootdown and his death) were barely showed.

Well, at least from my point of view.

And, of course, there are some historical inaccuracies, for example, SE5 are showed flying in 1916 against DII Albatross or Richthofen shooting down an HP 0/400 and so on.

I really expected more of this film, but, for the moment, it is the newest (but fortunately not the worst) movie about WWI air war.