Masters of the Air Mini Series(Apple TV)

[DBFlyguy]

3 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

Sometimes I wonder if there will be any movie or miniseries featuring warbirds that will be satisfactory for some of you. ?

Recently:

Hulu's "Catch-22"

"Devotion"

"Dunkirk"

 

All did a great job! MoTA just misses the mark on pretty much every level unfortunately

 

[=gRiJ=Roman-]

Sorry to say but the CGI in episode 8 ... ? especially the  scene with the P51 and droptanks ...

[354thFG_Leifr]

God, this episode was terrible.

I find myself increasingly uninterested in the series.

[357th_KW]

The 332nd had already flown a mission to Avignon, which is slightly further then Toulon.  And the route there goes right over Corsica, which was in Allied hands and was used regularly as an emergency fuel stop (pilots of the 332nd had already done so by the time of that raid).  Not to mention that they'd been to Ploesti and Bucharest multiple times by that point which are even further away.  That whole bit with the pilot talking about drag coefficients and range was just cringe worthy.

 

And they were equipped entirely with B/C model Mustangs at that point, nobody in the MTO got K-14 gunsights, they wouldn't have had HVARs yet, etc.  A really disappointing episode.

[Irishratticus72]

17 hours ago, 86th_Leifr said:

God, this episode was terrible.

I find myself increasingly uninterested in the series.

Ditto.

 

[Majpalmer]

I think the problem developing with the series is related to the history. After the squadron was essentially wiped out, the characters that were at the heart of the story were gone. From a writer's perspective, this is a disaster. How do you tell the story without characters? 

 

So you follow the characters to POW camps, introduce a love interest who is a spy (what a waste of time, but I guess they needed sex and a strong woman character) and add in the Tuskegee guys (for representation) to keep the story alive. But it's no longer the same story. I'd rather watch a dedicated spy film, or The Great Escape, or The Tuskegee Airmen. 

 

To me, it looks like they're trying to use the Band of Brothers format, when they should have used the Pacific format which switched among different Marine units. 

 

I do not understand how they didn't see this coming, given the fate of the 100th. Imagine if the Band of Brothers had landed on D-Day and been wiped out! Story is over! 

 

I think I'll rewatch 12 O'clock High with Greg Peck. 

[Blitzen]

Certainly it was the weakest so far .It tried to tell too much in too short a time. The 332nd deserves attention certainly, but in this series it felt, to me, forced , and trying to push it into the POW thread appeared awkward. I wasn’t bothered by the CG errors of the P-51’s- it was a pretty short sequence and certainly not as jaw dropping terrible as sequences in “RED TAILS!”

[DBFlyguy]

10 hours ago, 357th_KW said:

The 332nd had already flown a mission to Avignon, which is slightly further then Toulon.  And the route there goes right over Corsica, which was in Allied hands and was used regularly as an emergency fuel stop (pilots of the 332nd had already done so by the time of that raid).  Not to mention that they'd been to Ploesti and Bucharest multiple times by that point which are even further away.  That whole bit with the pilot talking about drag coefficients and range was just cringe worthy.

 

And they were equipped entirely with B/C model Mustangs at that point, nobody in the MTO got K-14 gunsights, they wouldn't have had HVARs yet, etc.  A really disappointing episode.

There are so many egregious errors concerning the 332nd depiction in the show the more I thought about it...the angrier I got.... why even bother including them if your gonna get so many things wrong!?!?  They literally killed off a person who was never shot down and went on to live a pretty successful public life after the war including being an author, meeting the Pope and being awarded a congressional gold medal

 

Ironically there has been a video on YT for years with Westbrook himself describing watching Macon being shot down on the mission in the episode:

 

This level of poor research and piss poor writing is astonishing honestly....

 

3 hours ago, Blitzen said:

Certainly it was the weakest so far .It tried to tell too much in too short a time. The 332nd deserves attention certainly, but in this series it felt, to me, forced , and trying to push it into the POW thread appeared awkward. I wasn’t bothered by the CG errors of the P-51’s- it was a pretty short sequence and certainly not as jaw dropping terrible as sequences in “RED TAILS!”

I  know people love to bash "Red Tails" it's not the best movie by a mile... but nothing in "Red Tails" was as egregious as the easily verifiable errors in Episode 8, nothing. That movie looks like a documentary after this crap in Episode 8.

Edited March 9, 2024 by DBFlyguy

[ACG_Bussard]

In the Historical Study No. 110 "The War against The Luftwaffe, AAF Encounter - Air Operations April 43 - June 44" I found further informations about the use of the W.Gr 21cm / 21 cm BR. It says about the attack on Schweinfurt on October, 14th 1943:

 

<< In reply Arnold cabled from the theater that the situation was serious. The rocket development of the GAF had now reached a point where it was hazard to our heavy operations, and there was evidence that planes had been hit by rockets, causing great damage. These rockets were usually lobbed into the formations from distances of 100 to 1700 yards. He urged that countermeasures be initiated at once to protect the bombers.

Meanwhile the German had perfected their tactics for the use of rocket-firing planes in combination with single-engine fighters, and as a result they were able to stage one of the most costly battles of the air war when the Eigth attacked Schweinfurt on 14 October. In the words of General Eaker, it was "the final countermeasure to our daylight bombing...a full scale dress rehearsal perfectly timed and executed." >>

 

The whole document you can download here, the quotes you can find on pages 68/69: https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/AAFHS/AAFHS-110.pdf

 

According to this, the shots of the 21 cm rocket shown in the series from near or in front would not have been so unrealistic after all.

Edited March 14, 2024 by Bussard*

[DBFlyguy]

WOW!  Episode 9 (series finale) is a MASSIVE improvement over the last few episodes, this guy (Tim Van Patten) should've directed the whole show!  And the visual effects are drastically improved, where was this budget for the other 8 episodes ?

 

Finally, an 8th AF fighter group

Spoiler

(78th FG out of Duxford)

finally gets to make a recognizable cameo!

 

 

Edited March 15, 2024 by DBFlyguy

[Majpalmer]

Van Patten is an old hand at HBO. He directed 20 Sopranos episodes, and several for Sex and the City, The Wire, Deadwood, Rome, the Pacific, Boardwalk Empire, and Game of Thrones, to name a few. Yea, they should have brought him in earlier. 

[DBFlyguy]

Really good interview with the supervisor of the visual effects team for the show, he goes into why there was a CGI quality disparity between the episodes and readily admits they all should've been at the standard of Episode 9 was but there were things out of his control, time and money wise.  He also explains why there aren't B-17G's in the later episodes.

 

 

Edited March 17, 2024 by DBFlyguy

[Irishratticus72]

Told the wife as soon as I saw his name come up, "this is going to be a quality episode, he's got form".

[LukeFF]

GREAT end to the series. ??

[Lusekofte]

I had no problems with any of the episodes. 
I just found them pretty much entertaining. 
It respectfully showed the slaughter bomber crews experienced 

last episode was a good one. 

[Robli]

I liked the first seven episodes in general, about telling the story. There were some silly things about the visuals etc, but I did not let them bother me much. Episode 8 was unfortunately a major disappointment and I don't know if that carried over to episode 9 for me (seeing as everybody else liked that one), but I did not really enjoy that either. Half of the last episode was more like an epilogue rather than part of the story, understandably, so maybe that also made it different.

[Irishratticus72]

9 hours ago, LukeFF said:

GREAT end to the series. ??

They should have had Van Patten show run the whole thing.

 

[Majpalmer]

I think they could have saved money on actors, most of whom, other than Austin Butler, were unknown to me anyway. What they should have done was to use the IL-2 pilot image generator to create the supporting actors. That would have made it so much more immersive for me. ?

[6FG_Big_Al]

All in all a sweet series.

I really enjoyed the the first episodes. I was a bit sad that the later ones shifted from the flights more to the PoW's/Strategic Staff etc. as main storyline. I see the appeal not to show the attacks and the struggle of the crews over & over again since it might be quite repetitive but I think they could have shown flights like the large scale introduction of the P-51 as long range escort & the corresponding ease on the bomber crews. Or the "menace" of the 262 (eventhough I honestly don't know if the 100th encountered any).

An attack from the german perspective (like in the episode when Rosie was last man standing would have been interesting) as well as of course the story/sight from the fighter pilots escorting the good old heavies to target. Escpecially considering we got something with our Red Tail pilots (just bombing stuff in the mediterranian). I know I'm probably a bit nitpicky here but overall I enjoyed it 8/10

 

[DBFlyguy]

Overall, I'd give the series a 6.5/10.  Episodes 3, 5, 6 and 9 were the best IMO.  The show suffered from pretty weak writing/narrative choices and really inconsistent visual effects.  The introduction of the largely fictional Wingate character was pretty much where the writing took a nose dive for me and then the complete tokenization of the Tuskegee Airmen in Episode 8.

 

Spoiler

I really think the show should've focused on primarily Rosie Rosenthal as the main driving force from his training in the states to when he arrived in October 1943 then from there to VE Day, Crosby honestly after he started cheating on his wife became very unlikable to me. Buck, Bucky, Crosby etc could've been background supporting characters but we really didn't need a bunch of Stalag Luft sequences...

 

I typically watch both "Band of Brothers" and "The Pacific" once a year, I don't see myself doing that with "Masters of the Air".

 

[Irishratticus72]

2 hours ago, DBFlyguy said:

Overall, I'd give the series a 6.5/10.  Episodes 3, 5, 6 and 9 were the best IMO.  The show suffered from pretty weak writing/narrative choices and really inconsistent visual effects.  The introduction of the largely fictional Wingate character was pretty much where the writing took a nose dive for me and then the complete tokenization of the Tuskegee Airmen in Episode 8.

 

  Hide contents

I really think the show should've focused on primarily Rosie Rosenthal as the main driving force from his training in the states to when he arrived in October 1943 then from there to VE Day, Crosby honestly after he started cheating on his wife became very unlikable to me. Buck, Bucky, Crosby etc could've been background supporting characters but we really didn't need a bunch of Stalag Luft sequences...

 

I typically watch both "Band of Brothers" and "The Pacific" once a year, I don't see myself doing that with "Masters of the Air".

 

Get out of my head!

[Robli]

18 hours ago, 6FG_Big_Al said:

I think they could have shown flights like the large scale introduction of the P-51 as long range escort & the corresponding ease on the bomber crews

 

That was also my expectation at the end of Episode 7, when watching the teaser about Episode 8. Thought that now the Mustangs are coming and that will make a big difference in the bombing campaign and also interesting and curious to see what is the connection between the Bloody 100th and Tuskagee Airmen. Well, there was no connection, other than pilots from both groups possibly talking to each other in a POW camp, and the major turning point for bombers life was practically skipped. It was like watching Snowhite and when the saviour prince is about to appear then suddenly there is a chapter of Cinderella in it's place. 

Overall I would probably give the series a 7 out of 10.

[DBS]

I really wanted to love this but for every decent episode it was followed by a really mediocre one. Episodes 3, 5, and 9 were the highlights for me.

 

I thought they would have decent reason for portraying the Red Tails but I guess it really was to hit the diversity target presumably set by Apple. Giving them part of one episode and then being background for prison shots just smells of tokenism to me.

 

From what I'd read and heard from promotional interviews they seemed to be taking accuracy very seriously, but then we get cartoonish animation (thinking particularly of the P-51 throwing its drop tanks) and B-17F's being used in the last months of the war.

 

Overall it was a disappointment and I don't think it will have half the lasting power of Band of Brothers or even The Pacific.

Edited March 19, 2024 by DBS

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

In the future  AI would be made better movies, look at SORA and it  is just beginning and Hollywood is already scared.

 

 

Edited March 19, 2024 by 1PL-Husar-1Esk

[=IRFC=Tunes]

In a nutshell, what was the reason for not including B-17Gs? Because their full-scale replicas were Fs? or what?

[DBFlyguy]

3 minutes ago, =IRFC=Artun said:

In a nutshell, what was the reason for not including B-17Gs? Because their full-scale replicas were Fs? or what?

Yep.  The producers didn't want to spend the extra money or time to convert the full scale replicas into G's.

[=IRFC=Tunes]

Kinda wish they cut a few of the more “famous” actors’ salaries and put that into the VFX budget. Writing was on the money for the most part.

 

Like you said, though, Ep. 9 nailed it. I think the Munster raid was up there too.

Edited March 19, 2024 by =IRFC=Artun

[Lusekofte]

Covering the mighty 8 and 100 th should have been a 20 season a’ 9 episode deal. 
Still the serie would not been covering all things. Compared to Pacific and brother in arms we would have made better connection with the historical person in the series. By the nature of this series it was to little connection with the actors and the one I did connect to was killed. And those surviving did not get enough screen time.  

[GrinderX9]

All in all a 7/10 from me. I enjoyed all the episodes with action in the sky, the rest was okay, but disapointing in comparison. Its still a good show in my eyes. We are all a bit starved on good ww2 and ww1 flying movies. 

 

Reminds me I should rewatch Dark blue world.

Edited March 21, 2024 by GrinderX9

[Comes]

On 3/8/2024 at 3:58 PM, kestrel79 said:

The "rock your wings" to get the tanks off animation didn't really look real to me. The physics didn't look like it had the weight of a real airplane.

 

Can someone explain, why they did that in the first place? Was that a thing?

 

 

Overall I really liked it. I think the writing and characters were great, did not have any problems with that. 

My biggest issue is the CGI, that sometimes just was not really good  The last episode lokked great, though.

 

[Aapje]

 

 

The same channel has a lot of interesting fact check videos (channel owner gives tours at a museum).

[Vishnu]

Just finished the series.   Some cool aerial fights, but the plot was meh.

 

It was no Band of Brothers.

[Majpalmer]

I'd rate it third of the three. But I enjoyed it. Could have been so much better. 

[Lusekofte]

It simply is not made for flightsim addicts like us. If it was it would go bankrupt. 
If one manage to look at it as a series / movie. I give it a third place of the three of them. Mostly because if one should have a chance to get a relation to the characters in this kind of movie. You simply need to spend more time with them. It should at least been 18 episodes. And I do agree Tuskagee focus in such a narrow space serie was way too much. They should be mentioned but spending a episode in this short serie was too much