This could be good...Check out the trailer

http://www.airventure.org/news/2011/110729_gathering.html

Kevin

looks real good!

Excellent. 720p version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpA6TC0T_Lw&feature=related

I just hope they make an accurate historical movie. Remember that movie "Pearl Harbor" a few years ago... a complete big-budget joke that pissed off a lot of genuine Pearl Harbor veterans and put ridiculous words in the mouths of historical figures like Jimmy Doolittle. I truly hope they do history right with this one.

Actually, it looks like its a remake of the HBO film "Tuskegee Airmen". Even some of the dialogue seems identical.

I just get bummed about a lot of CGI dogfights. Just looks cheesy.

I find myself enjoying older flying movies more than the recently made ones because they actually had the planes and did the shots in the air. Maybe that concept doesn't hold true for the movie going public now or maybe we just don't have the planes anymore to pull off the scenes envisioned by the director. Movies like: Great Waldo Pepper, Aces High, Blue Max, Bat 21, Dawn Patrol, Von Richthofen and Brown, Always, Dark Blue World, Hell's Angles, Battle of Britain, and Air America are good examples. Maybe they have some close up cockpit scenes that were filmed in the studio but they did at least have some real air to air shots.

Pearl Harbor and Fly Boys are almost video games during the air to air scenes. I knew they put a fair amount of effort and did some air to air stuff but it is hard to pick out.

Wasn't Cuba Gooding in Tuskegee Airmen too?

William "Bill" Holloman spoke on the history of the Tuskeege Airmen at CWU here in Ellensburg in May, 2010. He was also working as a consultant for the new "Red Tails" movie at that time. I believe he is one of the main characters in the movie but I can't rember who plays his part. Hearing his talk is one of the aviation related high points of my life. He was excited about the movie and spoke about his efforts to be sure it was historically accurate. Bill died in June of 2010.

emflys wrote:I just get bummed about a lot of CGI dogfights. Just looks cheesy.

CGI is not as good as the real thing, but there would be no way either logistically or financially to recreate those scenes with the real aircraft. There are not that many still flying and if there were, the operational costs would be astronomical.

tcj wrote:William "Bill" Holloman spoke on the history of the Tuskeege Airmen at CWU here in Ellensburg in May, 2010. He was also working as a consultant for the new "Red Tails" movie at that time.

Ed Shipley has also been a major consultant on the CGI and flight scenes. There were entire scenes where the flying was not realistic and after Shipley discussed it with Lucas they were completely redone for accuracy.

Here's the story straight from Ed:

"ASB has been helping consult on the flying sequences with the Mustangs for over year.... its been very cool to see this movie come together. The flying is mostly CGI... I wasn't sure about how it would really come out at first... but George's team has nailed it. For the first time ever the epic scale of aerial combat has been captured. No one could ever find the real planes or money to do it in the lens... George has the technology and skill set to make it all from scratch....

End of the day.... it's a dog fighting movie.... over an hour of aerial combat.... it's off the hook."

"I've been looking at the Red Tail CGI for almost two years now. These guys are really driving for as much detail as they can... for example they were at the Gather of Mustangs and Legends taking photos of the tiny details of the Mustangs metal... which they then used to skin into the wire frames they built. ASB took two Mustangs up to Skywalker and attacked the ranch so their sound design folks could capture the noise the Stangs made. It goes on and on. As I watched the CGI come together... one of the things that I was quite taken back by was the scope of the number of aircraft in the air. Hundreds of them... these are not numbers that Lucas made up so he could make the movie bigger... it's how it really was. No one has been able to generate that number of planes in the air before. Additionally, because of the CGI they were able to place the camera (and audience) in places to watch the action where no one has ever been before.... which at times makes some of the shots overwhelming... but when was the last time anyone sat still at 20,000 feet and had a hundred B-17's come by while they were being attacked?

All I can tell you is that these guys have attacked the dogfight sequences with great effort and passion..."

"A quick little story about how the folks at Skywalker care about the detail in Red Tails.... so I'm up at the ranch and they take me down to George's private theater to look at some of the fighting sequences coming in. One of the shots shows a Red Tail Mustang zooming in very fast for a re-join on the wing of a B-17. He comes motoring in... then just kinda slows down real fast and falls into formation. So I casually mention that I've done rejoins with Mustangs on B-17's and there is no way you can charge in that fast without blowing past the 17. I said you need to show the Mustang drop 2 notches of flaps to slow it down... then suck them up when it gets on the wing.... So next time I'm up at the Ranch.... they show the same scene to me again... and I'll be damn if they didn't redo the shot with the Mustang dropping two notches of flaps to slow down.

That's what I like about these guys... the stories like that go on and on...

Shipley"



If this movie is half as accurate as I expect it to be it will be awesome and should be required viewing for high school history classes. George Lucas is not usually one to cut corners, he doesn't have to...he is George Lucas...he has earned it. This movie has been a long time project for him and one that he wants to be accurate...not one that was pushed to the screen to make a deadline. When you are doing a project because of a personal desire to see it done and not for "fortune & glory" you tend to do it to a higher standard.

If it is anything less than one of his best, I will be surprised and very disappointed.

Just my .02

Tuskegee Airmen were tough, gutsy, and skilled airmen. They knew what they were going to face knowing the realities(carnage) of escorting bombers to their target in Germany and back in DAYLIGHT.

I know a Mustang pilot who flew escort on one of the first daylight raids into Germany. Only 5 of his squadron(?) made it to target. He was one of them. A Messerschmidt got on his tail and he was shot down. He bailed out but the canopy broke his back. When he landed he was beaten by the locals. He was sent to a POW camp. By the end of the war they were using sawdust to make bread. The guards were starving also. It was the camp that the movie The Great Escape was modeled after.

His wife told me about it. He never has mentioned it. Greatest man I ever met.

emflys wrote:I just get bummed about a lot of CGI dogfights. Just looks cheesy.

How about this for a CGI dogfight. LOL




Same company did this one...hard to tell these are computer generated, but there is not a single real aircraft in the video...could not figure out how to embed it in HD but you can select it.