Tony Bill who produced it is a real pilot (see One Six Right). He said that soem of the unbelievable stuff really happened. Some that really happened he thought was too hard to believe like a pilot who had his plane go inverted and was hanging under it holing on the controls. He ended up landing safely.
IIRC, the pilot's name was "Strange" (!), and he wasn't holding onto the controls, but to the jammed Lewis gun drum that he had been trying to free.
It's been months since I've seen it, but only a few of the worst bits are sticking in my mind. Like the fact that the planes that the Lafayette Escardille pilots were flying seemed to have British markings, half the time. Nuhh-uhh.
There was a scene where a pilot ripped the wings of a German plane with his landing gear. I don't argue that it actually *happened* at one point, but the way they filmed it made the plane look like the pilot had jammed it in reverse. I expected to hear the American pilot go "Beep beep!" like the Road Runner.
This is, basically, the curse of CGI. Just because you have pretty models and can make them do whatever you want, DOESN'T mean what shows up will be realistic. The space combat scenes in "Star Wars" are a classic example. It just took thirty years for the same taint to reach the aviation world.
In the old days, they had to film these scenes with real planes and real pilots. What you saw was at least somewhat realistic, since actual airplanes were used and actual pilots had to fly them. Take a look at them flying under the bridge arches in "The Blue Max," for instance.
Nowdays, you've got a computer expert who has never handled a set of controls in his life deciding how the planes should move. Yes, the guy at the top was a pilot; I don't think it was enough.
Agrrhhh, just thinking about that movie raises my blood pressure. Talking back and forth between the airplanes in flight? Puh-leeeze.
Did you notice that they never actually *showed* any of the actors with the lion cubs? They'd show a lion trotting across the floor. One of the actors, in a waist-up shot, would look down at their feet, then the camera angle would switch to a close-up of the lion and some generic legs, and a generic hand would come down and pet the lion.
What really torqued me off was at the end...the "what happened after the war" stuff. All the people were *fictional*. You could make up whatever you wanted for them, after the movie ends. It's a good laugh in a comedy like "Animal House" (where you can make the eventual fates ironic) but it's stupid in any other sort of fiction.
Agrrhhhh.
Grab your Netflix lists and grab the 1958 movie, "
Lafayette Escadrille". It has the same problems with the plot going off the rails, but training sequences with the "penguins" are worth it. The director, in this case, was not only a pilot, but had been a member of the actual Lafayette Escadrille.
Ron Wanttaja
