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Masters of the Air (Apple TV+)


DBFlyguy

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I’ll give Masters of the Air a try when it comes out.  I had to give up on For All Mankind.   I saw it got excellent ratings, but I felt it was a little too much like a soap opera.  The Hippy guy that looked like David Cosby got on my nerves, the immigrant girl who is good at math but happens to be a pyromaniac, Gordo being a complete dick to the returning Vietnam guy, and the incessant musical interludes every few minutes were just too much! 

 

 

Edited by Sea Serpent
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I wish at some point there would be the story told either by Film or TV of the disastrous Ploesti mission. The amount of MoH, the actual mission, the bravery and heroism.... it's such an incredible story, I hope one day it gets the showcase it truly deserves. 

 

Looking forward to this, assuming Shweinfurt mission will likely be the pinnacle event? 

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On 10/22/2023 at 1:52 AM, golani79 said:

Gonna read the book again at some point - can recommend it to everyone who loves reading and is interested in the topic!

I'll probably pick up the book after the show finishes, I've learned that reading the book before tends to lead to "that's not like the book" disappointment..

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  • 2 weeks later...

Teaser trailer finally released!!!!!

 

I have thoughts and questions.....

  • It seems like there were next to no actual flying aircraft involved in the series? I think I saw one actual flying airplane in the whole trailer (P-51).  After Dunkirk, Top Gun: Maverick and Devotion.... this kinda seems a step backwards...
  • I'm not sure if the overall tone lines up with "Bands of Brothers" and "The Pacific"....granted it is just a teaser trailer..
  • While the Tuskegee Airmen (332nd FG) are my personal heroes,  they never escorted the 100th BG (or any 8th AF Bomb Groups) during the war, I've seen their full mission records... them being in the show is..."interesting"... while there are several 8th AF fighter groups (ie 352nd, 357th & 56th FG) that could've and honestly should've been used instead to give a more historically accurate depiction of the war the 8th AF fought.
  • It's very CGI heavy, which goes back to my first thought...

 

Granted, it is just the teaser trailer, and I am still very much looking forward to watching the show

Edited by DBFlyguy
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I've been chatting via reddit with some folks that evidently were part of the production of the show.  Supposedly one of the episodes focuses on some of the 100th BG crew that were captured after being shot down during a raid and held at one of the Stulag Luft POW camps, while there they encounter Robert H Daniels (a Tuskegee Airman/Redtail) who was shot down during an unrelated mission against a radar station in France.  That mission is depicted is also in the episode. 

Also, one of the recurring characters (6 episodes) is Robert H Becker who was an ace (7 kills) with the 357th FG (the same fighter group Chuck Yeager, Bud Anderson and Richard Peterson were apart of) and they will be depicted actually escorting the 100th BG during some of the sequences.  

So, it appears this series is taking more of a "The Pacific" approach and jumps around a bit to different units versus the "Band of Brothers" approach that stuck primarily with the same company (Easy Company) with small sprinkles of other companies.  We'll all see in January ....

Edited by DBFlyguy
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  • 4 weeks later...

To me it just comes across as to yehaa, and far too cliched. Along the lines of Memphis Belle. But maybe that's a reflection of the actors.

Whereas I think 12 O'clock High was a much more accurate depiction of people in a stressful situation. As both the Pacific and Band Of brothers portrayed.

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I have Apple+, I'll give it a shot regardless

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1 hour ago, Boom said:

To me it just comes across as to yehaa, and far too cliched. Along the lines of Memphis Belle. But maybe that's a reflection of the actors.

Whereas I think 12 O'clock High was a much more accurate depiction of people in a stressful situation. As both the Pacific and Band Of brothers portrayed.

It definitely feels very Hollywood.  Memphis Belle is actually more along the lines of what I was hoping for just with more fleshed out characters and better technology (production).  I'm kinda disappointed how bad the CGI for the aerial sequences look in comparison to something as old as Memphis Belle or more recently Maverick and Devotion...  The CGI just doesn't look convincing...

I'm still gonna watch it and most likely will enjoy it overall but I really wish they would've done the hard work of doing trying to shoot at least some of the footage practically and toned done the obvious CGI.

Heck even this obviously much lower budget movie has more convincing aerial sequences in my opinion...

 

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Why not wait for the full product instead tearing it down from a short trailer?

Convincing CGI isn't that easy and with today's technical possibilities and higher resolution and frame rates it often is even more visible / distinguishable than in earlier times. Also depends on how much money the production is willing to spend.

I am not too concerned that it wont be any good - if it is anything like BoB/Pacific in regards of production quality I think we are in for a treat.

 

 

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LOOK's GREAT !

 I like historical accuracy and consistency of sources. I read the book "Masters of the air" and I don't remember there being anything about the 332FG Tuskegee Airman, expect one mention. This is a book primarily about 8AF. So one question. What's about 8AF/FC? FG56, FG357 (Yoxford Boys) and other FG's. They flight as escort 8AF Bombers from 1943 to 1945. Don't they deserve for glorification because of Political Correctness?

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10 hours ago, golani79 said:

Why not wait for the full product instead tearing it down from a short trailer?

Convincing CGI isn't that easy and with today's technical possibilities and higher resolution and frame rates it often is even more visible / distinguishable than in earlier times. Also depends on how much money the production is willing to spend.

I am not too concerned that it wont be any good - if it is anything like BoB/Pacific in regards of production quality I think we are in for a treat.

 

 

We've had two trailers (teaser and full) and while they are only previews, I think it's pretty fair to say this is how the CGI is going to look in the final release.  Apple is the richest company on the planet, I was just expecting them to pull out all the stops for this one, especially when its most likely the last time the air war in Europe will be looked at by Hollywood in this scale (a full TV show).  But, I'm definitely gonna still watch it and root for it to be as good as Band of Brothers and The Pacific!

 

8 hours ago, Sobilak said:

LOOK's GREAT !

 I like historical accuracy and consistency of sources. I read the book "Masters of the air" and I don't remember there being anything about the 332FG Tuskegee Airman, expect one mention. This is a book primarily about 8AF. So one question. What's about 8AF/FC? FG56, FG357 (Yoxford Boys) and other FG's. They flight as escort 8AF Bombers from 1943 to 1945. Don't they deserve for glorification because of Political Correctness?

The 357th FG (Yoxford Boys) will be depicted in some form in the show.  One of the named characters is Capt. Robert Becker who was assigned to the 357th FG, 362nd FS with 7 kills.  He's supposed to be in 6 episodes according to a discussion I've had with someone who worked on the show.  This person also confirmed the Tuskegee Airmen (332nd) are only featured in 1 episode and covers a fairly bloody mission (12Aug1944) they flew to Toulon, France where several were shot down, captured and ended up in a Stalag Luft POW camp alongside some of the main characters of the show. 

 

Some new promo images just released:

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On 12/7/2023 at 5:49 PM, DBFlyguy said:

I think it's pretty fair to say this is how the CGI is going to look in the final release

I didn´t say that it will look different in the final release - I just said that it is hard to make convincing CGI in nowadays. Even with a good budget and time and all the technical possibilities.

Higher resolutions and higher framerates make CGI more distinguishable from real content compared to older productions with lower resolution and lower framerate.

Another problem as well is the fact that we already know that certain things are going to be CGI and therfore we will look at these scenes with a more critical eye.

 

 

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14 hours ago, golani79 said:

I just said that it is hard to make convincing CGI in nowadays. Even with a good budget and time and all the technical possibilities.

Godzilla Minus One has some grand CGI effects. That whole movie cost about half than an average episode of She-Hulk. You can make great effects with little costs if you know what you are doing and it shows how broken of a shop Hollywood has become. I think the tools have just gotten so powerful that absolutely mediocre tradesmen can pull off some colorful whatever. And mediocre staff is (at least in the sourcing) cheaper than talented staff.

What also CGI does, it simply allows you to easily arrange your actors in a way that is most convenient for your camera work. This means not only your CGI artists can be mediocre, also your camera work can be mediocre as most problems can be arranged away. But having actors in the wrong places always shows and makes the whole scene somewhat uncanny, even tough you are getting a shot full of action. Having no idea about (or not really caring) how things really looked doesn't help either. Also, mediocre CGI artists love to copy from other movies instead of real world looks. A decade of doing super hero movies where nothong matters at all as long as there are big-badda-boms probably degenerated the trade even more. Same as Hollywood script writing has gone the way of the Dodo in the age of just slushing out content.

Looking at the trailer, I think they could have done worse and I look forward to watching it. Without expecting too much though, but giving the producers the benefit of the doubt. Track record counts for me.

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An interested video on some of the trailer.  He makes some good points but nothing major IMHO

He does get one bit wrong though, those are P-40s, not P-51s.  The Tuskegee Airman episode (Ep.8  )is going to cover a bit of their time flying P-40s as well:

Masters_Of_The_Air_Photo_010803.jpg.photo_modal_show_home_large.thumb.jpg.364d2c8aaff3b0bb2bbfc1db54c9f065.jpg

Edited by DBFlyguy
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