So whats the Red Baron film like?

Willi Von Klugerman · 20 July 2009, 12:50 PM

I like to know what the film is like.It seems pretty interesting and the uniforms and flight gear is very accurate.And they seem to have more diversity of aircraft than Flyboys.

Elforresto · 20 July 2009, 03:55 PM

When I see a movie, I'd like to be entertained.... For the purposes of entertainment, the Red Baron was absolutely horrible... 2+ hours of movie and less than 10 minutes of fight scenes in a movie about WWI.... Not that a movie needs fighting, or violence to be entertaining, but one would think that a movie using WWI aviation as a backdrop would have a little more action in it than that.

The real thing that was bad about the movie was the plot, and the script... HORRIBLE!!!! If you don't have a good foundation, you can't build a good house. The movie had no strategy, and no focus... Is this a movie about an ace who feels a sense of duty to his country???? Is it a story of a fighter pilot, who falls in love with his nurse??? Is it a story of friends bonding together during the worst war the human race had seen in history??? Is it a story about WWI Aviation???? Is is a story about a boy who dreamed of flying... Becoming an ace, becoming famous???? Instead of picking one of these plots and building a story around it, Nikolai Müllerschön decided to put all of that stuff into one mess of a movie...

There is no character development... None at all... to the extent that when one of the pilots is shot down, you could care less, because you haven't gotten to know them at all... In contrast, in the movie Wall-E, Pixar takes a whole 2 minutes to emotionally attach you to a freaking COCKROACH.... Seriously, Wall-E accidently runs over his only friend, this cockroach while he's coming back from his "job" of packing up trash... The entire theater gasped at the thought of a cockroach being ran over by a tank tread. In 2 minutes Pixar made an emotional connection the audience with a robot who doesn't speak, and an animated cockroach. Nikolai Müllerschön couldn't do that in a 2 hour movie using real actors...

As for the variety of aircraft and authenticity, that's great and all... but alas, if the movie sucks, I could care less about historical accuracy and the number of planes in the movie.... Script and Plot is what makes a good movie, not numbers and types of airplanes.... Blue Max, is a perfect example of that... Great movie, great actors, great script, and great plot.

Now, on to something good about the movie.... Pixomondo's work in the film is absolutely BRILLIANT.... They are the post production house who handled all the CGI effects for the movie... And I'm not just talking about the aircraft... Everything from recreating turn of the century Berlin, to the Fokker Factory, to the artillery lines firing into "no mans land"... There stuff is truly incredible and one place in the movie that really shines...

On a side note, CGI is very expensive to do for movies, and especially in a relatively low budget movie like this one, (I think it was around $25 million US) you have to be very picky about how the shots that you choose to use your dollars on. It puzzles me, about the stuff that Nikolai Müllerschön chose to have them do, and the stuff that was left out.... For instance, we see a couple of random dogfights throughout the movie, (most of the clips of those can be seen through the various trailers)... What puzzles me is that the major plot points are told to the audience instead of shown... i.e. When the Baron shoots down Hawker, all we see is him going up to hawkers downed plane, and cutting the serial number off for his collection... We see none of the fight, at all... And you also don't see the final fight.... just the nurse and

Roy Brown standing at his grave... Pretty lame... I would have spent my CGI dollars on my major plot points for big dogfights...

For the record, I think Flyboys was a bad movie too with a horrible script and bad plot that felt like it was the love child born from Von Richtofen and Brown, and Armageddon... We can only hope that Peter Jackson has something badass cooking up with his little mini WWI Airforce down in New Zealand....

That's my 25 cents on the Red Baron...

Lata

F

jumpinjan · 20 July 2009, 09:35 PM

Its not so bad, but it doesn't have the music, like in the "Blue Max". The aircraft are great, the actors are good, but the sound editor is bad. They could have made it better, but its not too bad. I could watch it maybe a few times. The "Flyboys" movie I could watch just once and that's it. The "Blue Max' I could watch anytime its played on the TV.
(Blue Max is like the James Bond movie "Goldfinger"; It has a good hero, it has the car (or aircraft), it has the girl and the music. I could watch them anytime.)
Jan

OLAF · 23 July 2009, 04:09 PM

I've only seen it in German (which I only speak very badly), but I'm not sure if English will improve it.

The planes and CGI are the best bit - the acting is not bad, but I wasn't very convinced that these people were the historical characters they presented themselves as. I too had difficulty empathising with them.

On the plus side, the planes and CGI are top-notch - I've re-watched them a few times now, and they are a marked improvementg over Flyboys. Unfortunately there is still something lacking compared to footage of real planes, but on reflection its the best element of the film. Pity there's so little.

Overall I'd echo the criticism here of the script/story/direction, but if your point in watching is too see the flying/CGI sequences, these are worth checking out.

JK

Ross_Moorhouse · 9 August 2009, 03:29 AM

Its crap. Total waste of the film it was shot on....

The scene with all those balloons was so stupid. Why would you have so many balloons all together???

But if you want to be entertained it does that. And that only.

crankcase · 9 August 2009, 04:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ross_Moorhouse

...
... The scene with all those balloons was so stupid. Why would you have so many balloons all together???
...

Maybe they were holding a midwestern fair/cookout... while massing the balloons for a surprise attack on the enemy?
marc

Willi Von Klugerman · 11 August 2009, 06:59 PM

Soooo,in a nut shell,which is better,Flyboys or this?Honest answers.

Ross_Moorhouse · 12 August 2009, 12:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willi Von Klugerman

Soooo,in a nut shell,which is better,Flyboys or this?Honest answers.

They are as bad as each other....

LeicesterTiger · 14 August 2009, 03:29 AM

The bits with the Handley Page bombers got my back up a bit, as i'm currently writing a book about them. The daylight scene featuring them shows them flying over the front in broad daylight at low level, judging by how quick one of them that gets shot down crashes into the ground. I haven't come across any reference of them operating in daylight for starters, and they were flown at about 4-6000 feet even at night. In the night time scene it shows them flying in formation - which didn't. They took off at intervals so to avoid the chances of collision, using the big sky theory. Both scenes show the front gunner, but not the rear armament which would have either one or two gunners for protection. I've never heard of Richtofen indulging in night fighting either

Ross_Moorhouse · 14 August 2009, 01:45 PM

I just love how the Baron's girlfriend can stay over night at the airfield with him. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA