The Red Baron movie

[Chock]

So, it looks like there are more 'against' than there are 'for' the recent Red Baron movie thus far. Not really too surprising given that this forum is the home of a good many hard core WW1 enthusiasts. I would consider myself one of those, but also a bit of a film buff too, so I personally tended to balance the heart wanting a hard core totally fact based movie, against the head realising that such stuff rarely gets a greenlight, usually requiring some concessions to commercial viability in order to get made (i.e. must contain a love story, must have a measure of Aristolean unity, must follow a three act structure, etc.).

I admit, I had a very low level of expectation for the Red Baron movie when I bought the DVD (I'd followed its progress when in production and was actually surprised it made it to completion, as many such film projects do not make it all the way). So I basically figured, 'well for ten quid you can't even get a decent round of drinks, so what the hell'. With that frame of mind, I was able to enjoy the fact that there was actually a movie on my TV screen about WW1 aeroplanes that was not made 43 years ago. Yes, The Blue Max really is that old, Aces High being a slightly sprightlier 33 years old. The more recent of the two Dawn Patrol movies is 71 years old, with the earlier version and Howard Hughes' similar Hell's Angels movie, were both made 79 years ago. Even back then, they had multi-million dollar budgets, which gives us an idea of how expensive air war movies can be, and that they don't happen too often. Although expect that to change in nine years, when the end of WW1 will have been 100 years ago, such anniversaries invariably prompting a few movies.

I agree some of the concessions in the movie are silly (actually that's true in almost all movies) and that doesn't appeal to my sense of historical interest, but as an entertaining film, I thought the Red Baron was indeed such a thing. After all, Kelly's Heroes is a silly film, but it's still entertaining to watch. As noted, I think a lot of the CGI is really excellent (some not so good, i.e planes going too fast and being too maneuverable). The overall look of the thing, especially considering the budget it had, is frankly astonishing.

One other point I thought was very good indeed incidentally, was the fact that the actors looked frighteningly young in it, and that seemed weird at first, but in fact thinking about it, that did add a slightly horrific realism to it which rings far more true than either Malcolm McDowell in Aces High or George Peppard in The Blue Max. Not that there were no older pilots in WW1, but most of them were scarily young, and we sometimes tend to forget that.

Al

[Ginger.]

Chock,
given your experience and knowledge of the film industry, what are you expecting from 'The Dambusters' remake?

[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

[Ginger.]

That reply has cheered me up no end, sounds like it'll be a wizard show old chap!

[Cajun]

If I could ever find it here in the US and get it to play on my DVD Player ( not multi-region) or my Xbox I would give it a chance......Hell I find Flyboys silly as sin but enjoy it from time to time...

[OLAF]

Thanks for the very interesting comments Chock. I hadn't realised that the film only cost 18m, which puts some of its problems in context.

I got frustrated of waiting for the english language cut of Red Baron and got a copy from Germany. I was wondering whether it improved with translation, but will probably get it anyway. Unless the dialogue turns out to be sparkling, the CG and props will remain my favourite bits.

I must admit that I approached the CG sequences with some apprehension as the CG used in Flyboys only a year before was quite variable (although some of the genuine aircraft footage was lovely). Like that film, I think Red Baron misrepresented the way the planes behaved, although I'm not sure what the Red Baron CG people used as references. An extra on the flyboys DVD shows a modern aerobatics plane used as a template for a CG models to mimic.

On repeated viewing, once I compensated for the high-G manouevers I quite liked the look of the CG planes and was pleasantly surprised at the variety of planes they created. I hope that future productions don't go entirely CG though - there is still value in practical flying in these films, expensive and dangerous as that might be.

I think the film does deserve an honourable mention for some of the on-ground mockups (I really hope they found good homes - I heard that some of the Flyboys replicas now in a museum were saved from a post-production bonfire!). As someone with an interest in the period I like to see filmmakers trying to show the world that the characters lived in.Hopefully CG will make this easier and let filmmakers "paint in" historic backgrounds.

Here's hoping that there are filmakers out there with a passion for this subject and that before long they'll create something we can all agree on

[Chock]

Bear in mind that the 18 million figure is in Euros, that makes it about 23 million Dollars by my reckoning. Still peanuts for a major film these days though.

Prop bonfires are rare these days following the 'miracle' of ebay, in combination with canny film crew personnel. Most people are aware that such stuff can sell for quite a lot now. For example, since I liked the film so much, I bought some props from the set of the movie 'Aliens' a few years ago, and they would probably go for three times what I paid for them if I sold them now. Makes an interesting conversation piece when people ask what the hell that thing is and I tell them it's part of the Sulaco Colonial Marine ship from Aliens.

Back on the subject of the Red Baron movie, I noticed something today when looking through 'Under the Guns of the Red Baron'. The picture of the pilot who flew Sopwith Camel B5243 - Elmer Earnest Heath - who was Richthofen's 66th confirmed victory, also being the Baron's first victory over that aircraft type, looks suspiciously like the prototype for Joseph Fiennes' outfit in that movie. It sort of confirms my suspicions on the thinking behind what they were going for with the Roy Brown character, that being an amalgam of three or four of his famous victories where the vanquished pilot survived, rather than a purely bogus fictionalised version of Brown alone. Doesn't make it any less far fetched of course, but I think there was more thought behind it than many might imagine.

Al