Ridley Scott directing a Battle of Britain film?

[Feathered_IV]

This one is news to me. Hope it's a good un.

 

https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/film/2017/apr/04/ridley-scott-to-direct-battle-of-britain-passion-project-movie

[Beazil]

I hope so too.  

[Guest deleted@30725]

As long as its not another red tails.

[Feathered_IV]

Well, if there's one thing humanity has proven, its that they suck arse at making truly great aviation films.  You could count the number of halfway decent ones on a badly frostbitten hand.

[Guest deleted@30725]

I'm always drawn back to the 60s era Battle of Britain film that used a load of the Spanish he 111 and bf 109s.

 

The film was far from perfect, but I like that it uses many real planes, flying sequences still look pretty good and the special effects, even the ones with models don't look that bad even today

 

Also having been to Duxford many times it's fun to watch them blow up one of the hangars and do a comparison between the shots then and how it looks now.

 

If Ridley Scotts film does get off the ground it will be interesting to see what it comes out like. I don't know how many real ww2 planes of correct or similar type you could get on set these days. Cgi just isn't the same...

[Guest deleted@30725]

Last spanish he 111 crashed in 2003 https://hubpages.com/education/He-111-at-Leesburg-Municipal-Airport

[Finkeren]

I think it has been firmly established, that Ridley Scott doesn't give a **** about historical accuracy, only the appearance of historical accuracy.

 

Purists aren't gonna like the movie, if it ever gets made, but to me the important question is, whether or not Scott can manage to tell a compelling story that ties in well with the historical setting. His track record is all over the place in that regard, ranging from the sublime (The Duellists, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down) over the flawed (Kingdom of Heaven, American Gangster) to the downright attrocious (Robin Hood, 1492: Conquest of Paradise)

 

Will be interesting to see the result, if it does get made.

[Scojo]

I think it has been firmly established, that Ridley Scott doesn't give a **** about historical accuracy, only the appearance of historical accuracy.

 

Purists aren't gonna like the movie, if it ever gets made, but to me the important question is, whether or not Scott can manage to tell a compelling story that ties in well with the historical setting. His track record is all over the place in that regard, ranging from the sublime (The Duellists, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down) over the flawed (Kingdom of Heaven, American Gangster) to the downright attrocious (Robin Hood, 1492: Conquest of Paradise)

 

Will be interesting to see the result, if it does get made.

Maybe we can just hope it will inspire the creation of more aviation movies

[=FEW=Hauggy]

"1492: Conquest of Paradise"

I love Depardieu but this movie was horrible bullshit and his French accent was atroucious.

Hopefully this movie won't happen.

[Scojo]

"1492: Conquest of Paradise"

I love Depardieu but this movie was horrible bullshit and his French accent was atroucious.

Hopefully this movie won't happen.

Haven't seen it and I don't know French accents very well, but if its anything like Shia Labeouf's southern American accent in Fury, then I fully support your sentiment lol. Also the movie itself was bad as well

[=FEW=Hauggy]

Well the worst is the movie is based on an imaginary Colombus who wasn't a greedy criminal who enslaved people and had their limbs cut off if they couldn't find gold, also Colombus appears as if he discovered the earth was round which is a myth, the ancient Greeks figured this out hundreds of years before him.

 

Anyway this guy explains it better than me:

 

Edited April 5, 2017 by =FEW=Hauggy

[Finkeren]

Aah Nick Hodges. Love that guy!

 

He's really good at giving critique. No nit-picking and not afraid to say what he likes.

Edited April 5, 2017 by Finkeren

[Finkeren]

What gives me some hope is, that Ridley Scott has recently been heavily involved in the creation of Tom Hardy's "Taboo", which is a great example of how to make a historical set-piece that takes a crap all over historical accuracy but still manages to be engaging and immersive.

[Sokol1]

Problem will by the F-16 speed Tie Fighter, ops Bf 109 against X-Wing, erhh Spitfires CGI sequences, as usual in Hollywood.

 

The usual "love story" in background don't matter. 

[Guest deleted@30725]

 

The usual "love story" in background don't matter. 

 

If only they could capture what they had with band of brothers and the pacific mini series and put that in the air. They're working on a new one 'masters of the air' based on a b17 crew that if it follows the similar production lines as before might be pretty good. But I've seen Memphis Belle  It's not 'hard' if you to get people to like it if you do it right although it is hard to get it right. I think these types of stories are beyond a directors ego and about honoring the people who lived and died in those times. It should be about bringing that time to life while trying to tell a story and to make current generations leave with respect for both sides. Making the UK and its allies seem superior is not the point of a film like this. History, truth shows us that a few key decisions could have completely changed the outcome. It should not make the spitfire seem like a wonder weapon. Too many films end up overplaying the role of one nation or changing events for artistic license or to make their story work with the events.

 

Otherwise why bother. Why waste time and talented actors to make trash. If you're going to do something. Do it well and do it the best you can otherwise don't do it all - Look at this. I'm typing like this film is five days from release! Sorry folks.

[Gambit21]

Well, if there's one thing humanity has proven, its that they suck arse at making truly great aviation films.  You could count the number of halfway decent ones on a badly frostbitten hand.

 

 

Likely I would still have surplus fingers on that badly frostbitten hand.

The air combat scenes in Dunkirk look pretty damn good.

 

The brief sequences in "Unbroken" were excellent as well.

In most movies...almost every single goddamn one, they don't get the physics anywhere close to even 1990's flight sim levels, and I'm talking just externally watching aircraft that are

doing a fly-by make a turn, etc.  They either turn like house-fly's, or they don't drift in the turn at all...etc. It always sucks, and I always get mad.

 

The P-47;s I think it was flying by in Band of Brothers is a good example...I want to scream "don't even bother!" at the director.

[Rolling_Thunder]

Y'all seem to forget you're in a niche market. Most folk will go to the cinema to be entertained. Hell I can't watch porn if it's not got a decent story line. Characters need to develop throughout a movie to engage the audience. You just want the history of the conflict watch a documentary.

[Guest deleted@30725]

Y'all seem to forget you're in a niche market. Most folk will go to the cinema to be entertained. Hell I can't watch porn if it's not got a decent story line. Characters need to develop throughout a movie to engage the audience. You just want the history of the conflict watch a documentary.

 

Hang on - I thought the history was the STORY?

 

Surely it would by default because the film will be following one or two groups of pilots or squads, but keeping that historically relevant.

 

A documentary covers a conflict in numbers and overall scale. It doesn't pick its way down to individual battles. Here is where you can have character and improvised battles as long as they are done correctly and if by chance you do choose a real pilot then you need to make sure you don't give him 10 extra kills or get him killed when he survived.

 

Band of brothers did that with blithe. The vets thought he got killed during the war, but they were wrong. Hell, I thought he died and it was not till I was looking up his name that I found out the extra info. He still died before his time, but not the way the show depicted and many years after the war had ended.

[Gambit21]

Y'all seem to forget you're in a niche market. Most folk will go to the cinema to be entertained. Hell I can't watch porn if it's not got a decent story line. Characters need to develop throughout a movie to engage the audience. You just want the history of the conflict watch a documentary.

 

Uhhh....not so much.

[Finkeren]

Hang on - I thought the history was the STORY?

 

 

Not by a long shot in most cases, and that's fine.

 

A few historical movies can get away with almost being filmed documentaries, if the events they depict are centered around a relatively low number of characters that were all involved in some highly dramatic events.

 

"Der Untergang" to me is a prime example of this, while it does take some liberties, it is still largely accurate and most scenes depict real events and real people.

 

Most period movies however, have to rely on at least some fictional characters or highly fictionalized versions of historical characters to keep the narrative together and tell a compelling story.

 

The succes of the movie as a historical piece largely depends on how well those characters and their story tie in with the historical realities. Some inaccuracies for the sake of the story are to be expected and are perfectly acceptable. The trick is to never have characters or events run completely contrary to historical reality.

[Feathered_IV]

Y'all seem to forget you're in a niche market. Most folk will go to the cinema to be entertained.

 

Certainly everybody wants to be entertained.  People who choose to see a WW2 aviation movie though will surely be ones who think, That's a period of history that is interesting to me, with details that I will appreciate or find pleasing.   Very few would be standing in the cinema queue thinking, Gosh I could really go one of those love-triangle movies, with the cheesy action sequences that make you groan in discomfort...  Oh look!  An aviation film!!!

Unfortunately it is the non-existent latter who are catered for, and as a result we are presented some with very silly productions that everybody can agree are failures right across the board. 

[Finkeren]

I think it'd be fun to have a more detailed discussion about, how a movie like this, that is: A movie centered around air combat, could actually be successful.

 

In my opinion, there are a number of areas of focus, which could make-or-break such a movie, and which producers often get wrong:

 

1. The main character(s) have to be relatable. They have to feel like real people and you have to be able to put yourself in their stead. That means, that they cannot be one-dimensional hero types or cardboard cutout tropes like the "lovable scoundrel" etc. We have to observe these characters engage in realistic conversation that allows us to get to know them as people, and we have to actually care about whether they live or die (soooooooo many war movies forget to make us actually care about the characters we see on screen)

 

2. The combat scenes have to create a genuine sense of horror and dread. This is especially hard to do with air combat because of several factors: There will be a tendency to show all the action from an external viewpoint, to give the audience some sense of what's going on (and because airplanes look cool zooming through the air), the pilots' faces are usually covered by scarves, goggles or oxygen masks, making it hard for the actors to convey emotions and hard for the audience to even tell them apart. This all creates a situation, where we are mostly watching lifeless machines duke it out, not people fighting for their lives. There is no easy fix for this, but I think one thing that could work would be to shoot a lot more of the action internally, maybe even from the pilots point of view, the camera shifting left and right, as the pilot desperately scans the sky looking for the enemy or even just trying to locate his own flight. Imagine the dread of finding yourself alone and isolated in the middle of a desperate dogfight with no idea, where your friends are, noone to hold on to. It might also help, if the scenes could be shot in such a way, that it highlights the vertigo, induced by sitting in an extremely small and tight cockpit with nothing but a this aluminium sheet and some plexiglass separating you from the great void and a 20,000 feet fall.

 

3. The main conflict of the story has to be closely linked with the action. The problem with the archetypal love triangle in a war movie is, that it is usually far removed from the actual fighting going on. We are supposed to care whether or not the hero survives the combat to be reunited with the love interest, but the combat and the war itself has no bearing on the relationship between the love birds. From the point of view of the love story, it would make far more sense for the hero to simply desert from the air force and run away with the love interest. Combat just gets in the way of the story here. The conflict therefore has to be tied in with the war effort itself, making the combat actually matter. 

[Dutchvdm]

I think it could be done. Das Boot is pretty good. But i think the small focus of Band of Brothers and Das Boot make it good. Just focus on the men and their experience. 

 

Grt M

[ITAF_Rani]

Waoooo...yes yes

[Scojo]

Y'all seem to forget you're in a niche market. Most folk will go to the cinema to be entertained. Hell I can't watch porn if it's not got a decent story line. Characters need to develop throughout a movie to engage the audience. You just want the history of the conflict watch a documentary.

And I am. In fact, I tend to rate movies much higher than most people I know because as long as I was entertained, I'm happy....

 

But that doesn't mean I wouldn't also like them to get some basic concepts correct in addition to doing that.

 

Sometimes it's like the movie makers didn't even ask someone who knows anything at all about a certain topic what that thing should look like on screen. Later on, I get a really good kick out of making fun of it, but I'd like to be surprised at least once.

 

The biggest example is clothing. I have never seen a film set in pre-industrial period get it remotely correct. Everything is always dark colors and biker leather. If they'd read just one book on clothing/armor in the period, they wouldn't do that crap. Yes, you're right, it doesn't matter that much and most wouldn't notice.... But some of the fake clothing they use would actually be cheaper and easier to make/buy if they tried to be accurate, and the characters would look more interesting

Just focus on the men and their experience. 

This is always right up my alley.

 

I know a lot of people love grand stories and crazy action, but the films and books that really stick with me are the ones that place focus on the core of the story which is the characters, in my opinion.

[J2_Trupobaw]

Hang on - I thought the history was the STORY?

 

 

 

History is merely the setting of the story. The relation between story and history is well illustrated by relation between plot of Amadeus and real bio of Mozart. Now, imagine what Amadeus would look like if it was made to please aggressive fans obsessed with details of Mozarts biography...

 

Face it, air combat is hard to relate to for laymen, sensible air maneuvering looks very tame to people who don't know what a stall is, while maneuvers for energy advantage/preserving your energy looks completely un-awesome unless you understand what's happening. Watching two guys fly then one get other in sights for no understable reason is not a good action scene.

 

Perhaps it could be mitigated, by feeding viewers a long "training" sequence when rookie pilots try Tie Fighter moves in their Hurries and die in resultant crashes, to give audience idea how much work is the protagonist putting in keeping his crate airborne. But even that would look artificial and arbitrary, director adding non-intuitive constraints then telling viewers that tame flying scenes are awesome because they don't violate those constraints.

 

These days when making action scene it's cheaper to hire choreographers that make it look cool than stuntsmen that make it look real, and you want your movies to respect history and aerodynamics?

[Scojo]

History is merely the setting of the story. The relation between story and history is well illustrated by relation between plot of Amadeus and real bio of Mozart. Now, imagine what Amadeus would look like if it was made to please aggressive fans obsessed with details of Mozarts biography...

 

Face it, air combat is hard to relate to for laymen, sensible air maneuvering looks very tame to people who don't know what a stall is, while maneuvers for energy advantage/preserving your energy looks completely un-awesome unless you understand what's happening. Watching two guys fly then one get other in sights for no understable reason is not a good action scene.

 

Perhaps it could be mitigated, by feeding viewers a long "training" sequence when rookie pilots try Tie Fighter moves in their Hurries and die in resultant crashes, to give audience idea how much work is the protagonist putting in keeping his crate airborne. But even that would look artificial and arbitrary, director adding non-intuitive constraints then telling viewers that tame flying scenes are awesome because they don't violate those constraints.

 

These days when making action scene it's cheaper to hire choreographers that make it look cool than stuntsmen that make it look real, and you want your movies to respect history and aerodynamics?

Well said.

 

Just take a look at topgun and pearl harbor.

 

The shaky cameras, intense facial expressions, ridiculous stick movements, constant barrel-rolling, and repeated fly-by shots that make everything feel like it's happening so fast and high-speed.

 

Viewing air combat from the third person for the average joe isn't exciting at all, so it has to be doctored. Same goes for car chases, sword fighting, and firefights.

 

But in spite of my understanding of this, I still want the unlikely case of something being as close to reality as possible. I know it won't happen because I'm a basically non-existent part of the market, but I still want it