Masters of the Air Mini Series(Apple TV)

[LukeFF]

20 hours ago, kestrel79 said:

I know folks are comparing this show to BoB and The Pacific...but these shows have been out what 10-20 plus years now? We've all watched them front to back multiple times.

 

I'll be honest I still had trouble telling who was who watching BoB until maybe 3-5 rewatch. Even more so with Pacific. This is a show we've seen 2 episodes of. I don't even think we knew who Bull or Webster was 2 episodes in. They were just in the background until they got their time to shine. So I'm trying to hold back judgement...but it's fun:)

 

I listened to an interview a few days ago with one of the screenwriters of the show (who also worked on BoB), and he asked people to not try to make this into "Band of Brothers in the Skies." The scope and scale of the story being told is just different.

[Lusekofte]

4 hours ago, DBFlyguy said:

A few clips have been uploaded, here's the Trondheim raid sequence:

 

 

 

This would not happen in real life, stragglers was left behind for the sake of the group. I do not think B 17 with a fuel leak would have range to get to Scotland either. 
But I forgave that. 

[DBFlyguy]

10 minutes ago, Lusekofte said:

This would not happen in real life, stragglers was left behind for the sake of the group. I do not think B 17 with a fuel leak would have range to get to Scotland either. 
But I forgave that. 

I haven't read any of the 3 books the show is supposedly based on besides just a few pages of "Masters of the Air" over this past weekend in the book store but I'm guessing this actually happened?

 

 

On the CGI topic... I've made my peace with it, there's no going back and I plan on finising the show but I really wish they would've at least went with something else besides the overly cool color tones for the aerial sequences, it just doesn't look good at all after multiple watches of episode 1 and 2 over the last couple of days....  I find myself even yearning for the CGI of "Red Tails"..poor acting and story aside, this sequence is definitely looking better in my eyes now....

 

 

"Unbroken" was supposedly done by one of the same companies that did some of the CGI for "Masters of the Air" and that looks light years better than "Masters of the Air" ...

 

I'm really curious what the supposed 250 million dollar budget was spent on in "Masters of the Air"....

Edited January 30, 2024 by DBFlyguy

[Lusekofte]

3 minutes ago, DBFlyguy said:

I haven't read any of the 3 books the show is supposedly based on besides just a few pages of "Masters of the Air" over this past weekend in the book store but I'm guessing this actually happened? Who knows

Well BF 109 and FW 190 that was defending Trondheim and west of Norway was not a threat out in the ocean. JU 88 , that attacked them I do not think there was a lot of them in this area. So for this mission I guess it could happen. 

[JG1_Vonrd]

2 hours ago, DBFlyguy said:

the 3 books the show is supposedly based on

What are the other two books?

[DBFlyguy]

1 hour ago, JG1_Vonrd said:

What are the other two books?

A Wing and a Prayer by Harry Crosby

Luck of the Draw by Frank Murphy

[JG1_Vonrd]

3 hours ago, DBFlyguy said:

A Wing and a Prayer by Harry Crosby

Luck of the Draw by Frank Murphy

Thanks!

[357th_KW]

https://www.americanairmuseum.com/archive/mission/viii-bomber-command-75

 

One of the 100th BG B-17s really did force land on the coast of Scotland on this mission.  The writer of the series (who also wrote two episodes in Band of Brothers) went on the We Have Ways podcast a week ago and talked for a while about the enormous degree of research they did for this - the scenes in the show are based not only on memoirs, but on the unit mission reports etc.

[354thFG_Leifr]

7 hours ago, DBFlyguy said:

A Wing and a Prayer by Harry Crosby

Luck of the Draw by Frank Murphy

 

I finished reading the Murphy book a few weeks back.

It's an OK read (nothing to write home about), but it does well to frame the intensity of the bombing campaigns and the suffering many went through.

 

11 hours ago, Lusekofte said:

This would not happen in real life, stragglers was left behind for the sake of the group. I do not think B 17 with a fuel leak would have range to get to Scotland either. 
But I forgave that. 

 

Murphy (book above) partook in the Regensburg raid (August 17th, 1943) and continued onwards after bombing the south-eastern corner of Germany to Tunisia. Yes, an aircraft would absoluely have managed to return to Scotland with a fuel leak.

[DBFlyguy]

Episode 3 is very brutal.... as would be expected by the event depicted.  The acting was good.  The CGI remains hit or miss.  Overall a good episode, and seems to be getting better with each one. 

[Lusekofte]

I am very relieved by the acting. I find this series becoming a classic. Of course one can find errors. I found third episode to be very well made and sobering without overdoing it. Kind of respectful. 

[LukeFF]

Well, I can tell my wife is enjoying the series because (checks notes), she has asked me, in no particular order while watching this:

• How did the Germans aim flak guns at the bombers?
• What does it mean to feather an engine?
• How many guys were up in the forward nose section?

Of course, I would watch this series with or without her, but having someone to watch it with does make it more enjoyable. 

 

And man, episode 3... ?

[JG27*PapaFly]

50 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

Well, I can tell my wife is enjoying the series because (checks notes), she has asked me, in no particular order while watching this:

• How did the Germans aim flak guns at the bombers?
• What does it mean to feather an engine?
• How many guys were up in the forward nose section?

Of course, I would watch this series with or without her, but having someone to watch it with does make it more enjoyable. 

 

And man, episode 3... ?

LOL I confirm question number 2.

 

IMO they overdid the cgi representation of damage. MASSIVE visible damage was the name of the game. B17 landing with massive damage were documented, but here almost every surviving plane has huge chunks of its structure missing. I saw very few realistic representations of e.g. damage from MG-151/20 explosive rounds. Also, the planes are CONSTANTLY shaking and bucking when AAA goes off.

Edited February 5, 2024 by JG27*PapaFly

[tattywelshie]

They seem to be able to gun down a large number of 109s and 190s as well, i'd be interested to know actually, how many fighters did the Luftwaffe actually lose to bombers on an average intercept?

[NachtJaeger110]

14 hours ago, tattywelshie said:

They seem to be able to gun down a large number of 109s and 190s as well, i'd be interested to know actually, how many fighters did the Luftwaffe actually lose to bombers on an average intercept?

 

In Episode 3 I counted six fighters shot down / damaged and at least 11 Bombers going down. Real figures were around 60 Bombers and 25 fighters lost (Wiki numbers correct?), so I think the representation is okay. It would be interesting to know the exact casualty numbers for the Regensburg-force though, especially for the Luftwaffe.

[ITAF_Airone1989]

1 hour ago, NachtJaeger110 said:

 

In Episode 3 I counted six fighters shot down / damaged and at least 11 Bombers going down. Real figures were around 60 Bombers and 25 fighters lost (Wiki numbers correct?), so I think the representation is okay. It would be interesting to know the exact casualty numbers for the Regensburg-force though, especially for the Luftwaffe.

https://youtu.be/tA0_h920_Dc?si=TEFe5QVSMH9rp9QF

[Dauntless]

 

[BMA_Hellbender]

Awful episode.

 

The downed B-17 crewmember lands in Flanders, Belgium, and is greeted in... French?

 

Couldn't they have spent a tiny amount of that astronomical budget on asking a single Flemish historian on what language people speak in Flanders. Here is the information for free: Dutch, a.k.a. Flemish.

[LukeFF]

2 hours ago, =IRFC=Hellbender said:

Awful episode.

 

The downed B-17 crewmember lands in Flanders, Belgium, and is greeted in... French?

 

Couldn't they have spent a tiny amount of that astronomical budget on asking a single Flemish historian on what language people speak in Flanders. Here is the information for free: Dutch, a.k.a. Flemish.

 

That's a bit extreme, if nothing else because they couldn't find the right actors that spoke Flemish. 

 

And beyond that:
 

Quote

 

In 2006, the Université catholique de Louvain, the country's largest French-speaking university, published a report with the introduction (translated):

This issue regarding economies is devoted to the demand for knowledge of languages in Belgium and in its three regions (Brussels, Flanders, Wallonia). The surveys show that Flanders is clearly more multilingual, which is without doubt a well-known fact, but the difference is considerable: whereas 59% and 53% of the Flemings know French or English respectively, only 19% and 17% of the Walloons know Dutch or English. The measures advocated by the Marshall Plan are heading towards the proper direction, but are doubtlessly quite insufficient to fully overcome the lag. [This particular 2006–2009 'Marshall Plan' was devised in 2004 and published in 2005 to uplift the Walloon economy.]^[6]

Within the report, professors in economics Ginsburgh and Weber further show that of Brussels' residents, 95% declared they can speak French, 59% Dutch, and 41% know the non-local English. Of those under the age of forty, 59% in Flanders declared that they could speak all three, along with 10% in Wallonia and 28% in Brussels. In each region, Belgium's third official language, German, is notably less known than those.

 

 

Now yes, I don't claim to be an expert on the languages of Belgium, but I highly doubt the writers of the show would have overlooked such a detail like this.

[Monksilver]

3 hours ago, =IRFC=Hellbender said:

Awful episode.

 

The downed B-17 crewmember lands in Flanders, Belgium, and is greeted in... French?

 

Couldn't they have spent a tiny amount of that astronomical budget on asking a single Flemish historian on what language people speak in Flanders. Here is the information for free: Dutch, a.k.a. Flemish.

My French teacher at secondary school was Flemish with French as her native language although someone told me her French had a different accent to French French, but for all the attention I paid in class she may as well have been speaking Dutch. At least I did better in it that Russian which my school also tried to teach me but I resisted valiantly as shown by my exam mark of 6%, and no that isn't a typo.

[Enceladus828]

On 1/30/2024 at 6:06 PM, DBFlyguy said:

A Wing and a Prayer by Harry Crosby

I need to read that book now ?

[BMA_Hellbender]

23 hours ago, LukeFF said:

That's a bit extreme, if nothing else because they couldn't find the right actors that spoke Flemish. 

 

Belgium (and Flanders in particular) has a vibrant cinema scene. They could have literally hired any Flemish actors to play that role. Heck, they could have hired Dutch actors, and it would have sounded silly, as we speak a different dialect of Dutch, but it wouldn't have been completely wrong.

 

As for the report you're quoting here from the UCL: it's from 2006. We're talking about Flemish farmers in the East Flanders/Antwerp/Limburg region (according to the flight path clearly shown during the briefing) in the 1940s. Part of my family comes from there, and if they were able to learn French at all in school, it would have sounded like a Flemish person speaking French. Not this Île de France Parisian French. If it had been Belgian French, at least (spoken in Wallonia, not in Flanders), it would have made a sliver of sense.

 

Quote

Now yes, I don't claim to be an expert on the languages of Belgium, but I highly doubt the writers of the show would have overlooked such a detail like this.

 

As a trilingual Flemish/French/German speaker with parts of my family coming from Ghent, Limburg and Brussels, a linguistics degree from the VUB/ULB that focused specifically on Belgian multilingualism (Dutch, French and German) and the effects of both world wars on the Flemish Movement, I can assure you, I am an expert.

 

To me, in a historical show, this is not a detail. It's a gaffe that could have been avoided with 10 minutes of research.

[DBFlyguy]

Episode 4 sneak peak:

 

 

[NachtJaeger110]

21 hours ago, =IRFC=Hellbender said:

Belgium (and Flanders in particular) has a vibrant cinema scene. They could have literally hired any Flemish actors to play that role. Heck, they could have hired Dutch actors, and it would have sounded silly, as we speak a different dialect of Dutch, but it wouldn't have been completely wrong.

 

As for the report you're quoting here from the UCL: it's from 2006. We're talking about Flemish farmers in the East Flanders/Antwerp/Limburg region (according to the flight path clearly shown during the briefing) in the 1940s. Part of my family comes from there, and if they were able to learn French at all in school, it would have sounded like a Flemish person speaking French. Not this Île de France Parisian French. If it had been Belgian French, at least (spoken in Wallonia, not in Flanders), it would have made a sliver of sense.

 

 

As a trilingual Flemish/French/German speaker with parts of my family coming from Ghent, Limburg and Brussels, a linguistics degree from the VUB/ULB that focused specifically on Belgian multilingualism (Dutch, French and German) and the effects of both world wars on the Flemish Movement, I can assure you, I am an expert.

 

To me, in a historical show, this is not a detail. It's a gaffe that could have been avoided with 10 minutes of research.

 

I find this very interesting, thank you for the insight! I would have been offended, too when a show puts the location right there on the screen.

[JGr2/J5_Baeumer]

Ill just plan on watching it in subtitles then...so as not to ruin the entire movie experience.  Thanks for the heads up.

[Aapje]

On 2/6/2024 at 7:05 PM, LukeFF said:

That's a bit extreme, if nothing else because they couldn't find the right actors that spoke Flemish. 

 

Belgium has got a decent TV/movie industry with casting agencies. It's not rocket science.

 

The role of a farmer also allows for a wide variety of actors. They just need to be a white adult. You can easily make it a female role too. 

 

On 2/6/2024 at 7:05 PM, LukeFF said:

Now yes, I don't claim to be an expert on the languages of Belgium, but I highly doubt the writers of the show would have overlooked such a detail like this.

Oppenheimer made a complete mess of it as well, despite having a Dutch cameraman to help Cillian Murphy. But apparently they cut up the Dutch speech in a totally incoherent way in post.

Getting these things right is often just not a priority for American Hollywood people, even though they often employ coaches to help with English accents. But they think that most viewers are dumb Americans who have no clue what different languages sound like.

That said, the first Bourne movie had a very good Dutch scene with Matt Damon.

Edited February 9, 2024 by Aapje

[Lusekofte]

I have seen movies where Norwegian fishermen was picking up someone from the sea and talked gibberish. It was US actors that had read their Norwegians lines and really tried and the scene lasted some seconds. It happen quite often and one can not take it too serious. It is following a historical timeline. But it still a movie. And taking such reaction on it is under par. People have to remember these kind of things is not documentary it is a art form with all liberties taken
 

[Aapje]

13 hours ago, Lusekofte said:

People have to remember these kind of things is not documentary it is a art form with all liberties taken

Yes, but the goal of the art form of a historical dramatization is to tell a story that may have actually happened in the past. Errors like these pull some people out of that reality, harming the product, thus it is a flaw.

 

A mistake like this is not just artistic liberty. If they had written the script to have the plane land in Wallonia, having French-speaking actors would realistic.

 

The series takes advantage of real history to provide grounding to the series, to engage our history-based interests, etc, but that in turn also creates an obligation for the story to have been historically possible. They can't just have the crew check their Apple Watch during the flight either, without having it harm people's immersion in the series and causing complaints.

 

Quote

And taking such reaction on it is under par. 

 

Of course you may not mind it, but it is not for you to decide how these flaws impact others and what others think of it. You can only speak for yourself and it is not your right to police the opinions of others.

 

Quote

It is following a historical timeline. But it still a movie.

I have become far less accepting of Hollywood taking liberties with the truth once I noticed that a lot (and I do mean a lot) of people do treat these kind of movies and series as if they are documentaries and incorporate it into their understanding of history. So the liberties that Hollywood takes with the truth do result in the spreading of disinformation.

 

Quote

 It was US actors that had read their Norwegians lines and really tried and the scene lasted some seconds. It happen quite often and one can not take it too serious.

Hollywood used to have white actors play other ethnicities with a bit of makeup and in Shakespeare's time, women's roles were played by men. None of these things are considered acceptable anymore.

 

With modern globalism, people are more likely to come in contact with different cultures, languages, etc; so these kind of mistakes probably impact people more now than before.

 

It's also easier than ever for Hollywood to fix these mistakes, as there are Dutch and perhaps also Flemish actors in Hollywood, or they can cast someone over the internet and fly them in, or they can use camera tricks or even CGI to dub the actors in ways that are hard to notice.

Edited February 10, 2024 by Aapje

[Lusekofte]

It is not that I don’t take your point. But I think we are in a different level of expectation. I expected this to be a disaster, it got the Band of brother legacy to live up to. It contain aeroplanes loved by many and a very known history. All in all I am really happy with what they have done. Sure they could done better, like always. 

Edited February 10, 2024 by Lusekofte

[DD_Arthur]

What a bunch of whining cloggies.  I think Mister Hellbender has a 'winsome' sense of humour but as to some of the rest of these comments....

 

Seems some people forget that these 'dumb Americans' grandfathers and great grandfathers died to liberate their nations from evil and then went onto protect them against aggression for the next seventy years.

 

 

[354thFG_Leifr]

Maybe, just maybe, there was a French family living in Flanders at the time. ?

[cardboard_killer]

See

 

[Lusekofte]

never mind. A movie discussion taken too serious is not my thing

Edited February 10, 2024 by Lusekofte

[Irishratticus72]

On 2/6/2024 at 10:08 PM, DBFlyguy said:

Episode 4 sneak peak:

 

 

This was my favourite episode, I prefer the characters over the action.

[GrinderX9]

9 hours ago, Lusekofte said:

It is not that I don’t take your point. But I think we are in a different level of expectation. I expected this to be a disaster, it got the Band of brother legacy to live up to. It contain aeroplanes loved by many and a very known history. All in all I am really happy with what they have done. Sure they could done better, like always. 

 

As a fellow Norwegian, I am also very impressed every time American actors do their best to portray Norwegians. It’s both funny, and I respect their effort.

Not only do I like, but I love the show so far. The CGI might not be as good as it could have been, but I do think it’s more than good enough. The story is good, and the action scenes are superb. The acting, for the most part, is good

 

[LukeFF]

Episode 4: very good, as expected. ?

[Archie]

I'm going to watch ep 3 again before I watch ep 4, then watch that straight after. 

[GasTeddy]

On 2/10/2024 at 11:44 PM, GrinderX9 said:

 

As a fellow Norwegian, I am also very impressed every time American actors do their best to portray Norwegians. It’s both funny, and I respect their effort.

Not only do I like, but I love the show so far. The CGI might not be as good as it could have been, but I do think it’s more than good enough. The story is good, and the action scenes are superb. The acting, for the most part, is good

 

 

As bilingual Finn (Finnish/Swedish) with good command of English,  I often get either hilarious or feel ashamed when listening desperate attempts to sound like native in foreign language in films. Worked many years with Americans and heard quite many accents from hillybilly to yoman rap...    

 

Same in Bulgarian movie The Motorbike, based partly in real happenings, where the guy playing American bomber pilot had very strong Bg accent. German speakers didn't sound that weird in the film but Bulgarian way to pronounce is closer to it than English and my German is not so good. I speak some Bulgarian, as I live 10km from the village Barakovo, where the film was shot.

 

I'm capable of some level of communicating also in French, and Dutch, but those are far away from fluent and cannot make very much difference with accents or dialects. Except when I don't understand anything; then I know there's some dialect...  

[BMA_Hellbender]

On 2/10/2024 at 4:24 AM, DD_Arthur said:

What a bunch of whining cloggies.  I think Mister Hellbender has a 'winsome' sense of humour but as to some of the rest of these comments....

 

Seems some people forget that these 'dumb Americans' grandfathers and great grandfathers died to liberate their nations from evil and then went onto protect them against aggression for the next seventy years.

Well of course you should take what I say with a grain of salt. I am Belgian and I do have a degree in Belgian multilingualism, yet I still don’t really consider myself to be an expert. And of course it’s possible that a family of French farmers just so happened to be living in Flanders at the time. I mean, who wouldn’t want to live in the greatest country on Earth? Especially those French surrender monkeys. Another highly accurate fact spread by Hollywood.

 

Anyway, I got into military aviation in the first place thanks to my Flemish grandfather, who was an absolute American aviation nut. As a teenager, he’d seen the B-17 formations fly over occupied Flanders with his own eyes. And they tell me I have my grandfather’s eyes, right here in my pocket.

 

On 2/10/2024 at 9:19 PM, LukeFF said:

Episode 4: very good, as expected. ?

Same!

 

Aaand… they cast a Flemish actor to play the role of the interrogator.

 

https://m.imdb.com/name/nm0782005/

 

Not a bad one, either. He doesn’t actually speak any Flemish in the episode, but he speaks English with a Flemish accent (obviously), and all the street signs and other are in Flemish/Dutch. To me this has made the mystery of the French speakers even greater.

 

I was so enthralled with the cute French resistance fighters that I stopped caring about any of that stuff anyway.

[354thFG_Drewm3i-VR]

Just watched the first episode. The CGI is laughable. Who knew, except certain members of the forum, that 109s and 190s dove in on bombers at the speed of light shooting lasers (and then quickly looped around for pass after pass at the same speed). They would literally be better of using DCS or IL-2 game play for this stuff.