Flyboys revisited

[gschmidt]

I know this is an old subject, but some people took issue with the red Fokkers. Call it artistic license. Didn't Jasta 18 have red DrI's with white tails.
So an all red squadron isn't too far fetched. When I first saw the film I was sceptical till I found this site and said, Well Mabey. If it gets a kid intrested in history why not. I'll always remember my first WWI film as "Dawn Patrol" Gary

[GregorySharp]

Originally Posted by gschmidt

I know this is an old subject, but some people took issue with the red Fokkers. Call it artistic license. Didn't Jasta 18 have red DrI's with white tails.
So an all red squadron isn't too far fetched. When I first saw the film I was sceptical till I found this site and said, Well Mabey. If it gets a kid intrested in history why not. I'll always remember my first WWI film as "Dawn Patrol" Gary

For all the film does gives, I have to agree with you. Snoopy got me interested… The rest came later as I grew up.

I bought Flyboys on Bluray and I love it. I can over look what I know is not historically accurate and hold out for… for… Peter Jackson? Is he really our only hope?

I love flyboys and Red Fokkers! By the way, Rise of Flight PC game is awesome.

[Epee]

It was artistic stereotype. They could have used all-red Albatros as well. Historically it would have have been more accurate to use Fokker EIIIs and IVs but these would have looked too archaic beside the Nieuports and made it seem as if the Flyboys were shooting down guys flying "Penelope Pitstop"-type planes; not heroic enough. Same reason why Lanoe Hawker is always shown flying an SE5a in movies about Richthofen and why the British bombers in "The Red Baron" were Handley Pages rather than FE2s.

Making the enemy planes all the same color made the action easy to follow and lessened the CGI developement time and bill.

[Maxim08]

gschmidt
There is certainly a Hollywood precedent for these colours. Look at 'Hell's Angels' directed by Howard Hughes.
All of the D VIIs were painted red except the 'bad guy' those aircraft was black.
When the Hughes biopic 'The Aviator' was filmed, all of the DVIIs on site were painted red as well.
BTW, it never did wash off easily as promised by the production team!
Regards,
John

[Sandy Spigot-Colon]

I thought it was complete rubbish (and still do, and said so here many times).
Then one day we acquired a new young volunteer at the Collection called James.

He informed me that he got interested in early aviation after watching 'Flyboys'--so I ate my words and shut up..!!!!

Perhaps it did serve it's purpose.
S S-C.

[gschmidt]

One of the early films that got me more intrested in aviation was "Dawn Patrol" with Erol Flynn and Basil Rathbone. It would make a great remake.Gary

[Chock]

The Errol Flynn version of Dawn Patrol was in fact itself a remake. It was filmed in 1938, eight years after the original Dawn Patrol starring Douglas Fairbanks Jnr had been made by Howard Hawks. Interestingly, the remake does actually use some of the footage from the earlier film version.

Howard Hughes made the similarly-themed Hells Angels in the same year as the original Dawn Patrol was filmed too. The production of Hells Angels features heavily in the fairly recent Leonardo DiCaprio portrayal of Hughes in the movie The Aviator. A fictionalised amalgamation of the production of all those 1930s WW1 movies also features in the Robert Redford movie, The Great Waldo Pepper.

All of these movies are worth a look if you like WW1 aircraft, since they all feature WW1 aircraft, some of them absolutely genuine ones which had been bought for the production. The most famous of these being the Tallmanz Pfalz DXII (originally 7511/18), which has probably been involved in more movies than any other WW1 aeroplane.

Al

[Balloon_Buster]

I believe the NASM's Pfalz D Xii was repainted into some movie's colors. And it's basically red, too!



My 200th post!

[Russell Smith]

Originally Posted by Sandy Spigot-Colon

I thought it was complete rubbish (and still do, and said so here many times).
Then one day we acquired a new young volunteer at the Collection called James.

He informed me that he got interested in early aviation after watching 'Flyboys'--so I ate my words and shut up..!!!!

Perhaps it did serve it's purpose.
S S-C.

Lol!

SSC, my good friend, I hate to say "I told you so"...Okay, I won't.

Hope you are well these days. See you in NZ in 2011?

Russ

[buzz1941]

The people who made "Flyboys" actually care about WWI aviation and tried their damndest to reach the largest possible audience — alas, diluting it for the hard-core WWI types.