The Red Baron movie

[Chock]

Okay, so I watched this today, having bought it on DVD, and I wondered what you guys (and girls) think of it?

Personally I thought it was okay. It takes a lot of liberties with the chronology of events, compressing them into a shorter timeframe for dramatic purposes, so Boelcke is dead right from the off, and there are some fictional elements necessary to stitch that all together and make it work, but it's still reasonably close to the truth in a lot of respects.

There are some glaring inaccuracies for all that though, such as Lanoe Hawker flying an SE5 in 1916, and Hawker himself, for the brief time he is in the movie, is a ridiculous cardboard cutout character more like something out of Pirates of the Caribbean or Gladiator. But on the plus side, the prop aircraft on the airfield sets are nice and for the most part the aerial battle CGI is excellent too, with some very nice matting effects. The WW1 fighters appear to be suffering from the same illness that afflicted the Mitsubishi A6Ms in Micheal Bay's Pearl Harbor movie, in that they seem to have the roll rate of an TIE Fighter, but even so the fight sequences are very dramatic and enjoyable, with much of it indistinguishable from live action. Contrary to what I had heard, the Albatros features quite heavily in it too, with the Triplane making a late appearance, so it does make an attempt to avoid the cliche. Some of the land battle sequences are especially convincing too.

Notwithstanding the ridiculous portrayal of Lanoe Hawker, the acting is pretty good, as is the casting for the most part, and many of the snippets of famous dialogue sewn into the script come across reasonably well. There is of course the requisite love story tying it all together, and that has shades of Pearl Harbor and Titanic about it, but it serves as a plot device to compress the Baron's journey from avid hunter to disillusioned warrior tied to a sense of duty, so is not a completely redundant component. Roy Brown is somewhat clumsily woven into the story though, and that would really be my only criticism of it, although even that is not as bad as it could have been. Fortunately, there is a distinct lack of cod German accents in there too, so there's none of that 'Ve Vill Vin Ze Vor' nonsense you sometimes get when German characters speak English dialogue in a movie.

From a cinematic point of view, it looks good, with nice direction, good lighting and good pacing. There are some costume anomalies of course, and some of the vehicles are more mid 20s than WW1 era, but things are mostly close enough to be tolerated. For the 9.99 it cost me I think I'd watch it a few times and enjoy it.

Have you seen it? What do you think of it?

Al

[Ginger.]

I saw it the other day, it's absolute tripe of the highest order. The CGI is laughable, they've obviously never gormed how a WW1 biplane actually looks and handles in real life. Roy Brown wanders through the film, on foot mostly, from begining to end somehow crossing and re-crossing the trenches with consumate ease.
Werner Voss gets the chop without anybody noticing, The Von's last fight never happens he just fades to black sat in the cockpit of his red Tripe, then the flim ends.
The dvd had one saving grace for me... somebody else paid for it!

[Manfred von Richthofen HU]

you talk the 2008 or the 1971 red baron movie?

i saw the 2008 and it was good but have some bug!

i search the 1971 but i found it only spanish language!

[Chock]

LOL A somewhat cruel assessment there Ginger, but I have to admit that there certainly is an element of truth in what you say, even if that is a less forgiving way to look at it.

Bit mean to say the CGI is laughable though, from a technical standpoint it's well done in my opinion (by that I mean the matting of live action with CGI, not necessarily the accurate portrayal of flight characteristics). For example, there is a scene (supposedly Operation Micheal) where an explosion knocks some troops out as the camera pulls out wider to reveal numerous Dr1s flying overhead, and they pass behind the translucent smoke and dirt plume of the explosion.

Now, being that I teach video special effects, I do know how it was done, but I also know the problems involved in doing it, so I tend to watch out for things like that in movies. For me, some of the only CGI effects which are of that ambition in recent times, would be from the last Indiana Jones movie, where the actors progressively get wet whilst there is CGI water flooding the scene, and the fairly recent Tom Cruise movie version of the War of the Worlds, where people run down a street with a camera in front of them as various victims get vapourised. The latter being an excellent example of motion control on live footage with CGI dropped into the cocktail too. Note that both those movies are Spielberg, so I'm comparing the effects with a good understanding of the latest technology and how to use them dramatically, from someone who certainly knows his stuff.

As noted, a lot of movies seem obsessed with imbuing aircraft with supernatural flight characteristics, and there is certainly some of that going on in the CGI in the Red Baron movie too, so it's not all great. Such effects sometimes really spoil a film for no good reason too (the CGI shot of a bunch of UH1-D Hueys flying toward the camera in the Vietnam war movie 'We were soldiers' is a good example of how that can be poor). But being a film fan, I'm usually pleased when movies show that just because vehicles and objects no longer exist, does not mean we could never have movies with them in, and there is plenty of evidence for that possibility in the Red Baron film too. I think that bodes well for the possibilities of other WW1 stuff being possible and indeed convincing.

Al

[BobPhil]

Fellows,




Is " The Red Baron " available in english in he U.S ? A friend sent me a copy from Germany but its a different format and in German...thanks much......Bob

[Ginger.]

Chock, it wasn't all bad. I thought the scenes of the Albatri flying in formation agin the clouds stunning, the Flying Circus parked up on the ground looked great too.

[Chock]

Originally Posted by BobPhil

Fellows,

Is " The Red Baron " available in english in he U.S ? ......Bob

Nothing stopping you from ordering from here I guess:

Play.com (UK) : Red Baron : DVD - Free Delivery

They apparently have it on Blu ray too. Beware the DVD region though if you don't have a multi-region DVD player.

Al

[GMU]

Since you have asked, I think it is a horrible movie.Total waste of time.

[Ginger.]

Lanoe Hawker, forgot about him! How's this for a depiction, bet Brit loving Mel Gibson, wet himself over this baddy.
Bearded fat bastard flying an SE while foaming at the mouth and rolling his eyes like a 'West Side Boy' on wizz, it was a relief to this reviewer when the Huns topped 'im!!!

[Epee]

I thought that the 1971, "Richthofen and Brown" was awful and the 2008, "The Red Baron" was only somewhat better. Unfortunately the CGI seemed to be the best part of it and I really, really wanted to like it.