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Masters of the Air | Apple TV+ (WWII miniseries from Spielberg, Hanks)

wayoung said:
Too bad The Black Sheep Squadron (AKA Baa Baa Black Sheep) doesn't stream anywhere.
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I've watched a few of them recently (I think on the H&I channel) and frankly, they don't hold up very well. Robert Conrad was great as Pappy Boyington, but the acting and plots were all very hokey. The battle scenes are fun to watch, but the show, on a whole, is not as cool as I thought it was, as a kid.
 
Although I would be interested to see a more serious take on the Black Sheep in the same style as Masters of the Air, Band of Brothers, and The Pacific. Probably not gonna happen any time soon, though.
 
Black Sheep Squadron, or the history of VMF-214, would probably make a good miniseries, but not a full-on TV show. The old show was a classic Don Bellisario TV show, right down to the use of the same actors that appeared in all his other shows. The problem is that it's hard to make a show about a fighter squadron stuck on a Pacific Island in WWII and make it interesting. Most of what goes on IRL is hardship punctuated by boredom, marked with short periods of intense action. As a weekly show, it doesn't really work. There's only so many variations on 'the colonel is pissed because we hijacked his case of scotch' that you can run with.
 
wayoung said:
Free services have the best selection of older shows/movie. Tubi, Pluto, Gem in Canada. Still not a ton of them. Only ones willing to pay for the rights I guess, picking up the scraps left by the big streamers.
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Using hi def antenna I get H&I over the air for free. They air black sheep, TOS, STNG,VOY,ENT,DS9, ......and a whole lot more. Best of all its free!
 
Jedi Marso said:
Side note: I saw Greyhound and thought it was a terrible movie. Hanks really fell flat on this one. It needed some characterization and story to give it some heart. It was essentially the second act of a movie without the remainder.
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I didn't even mind the lack of characterization so much as the pace of the action sequences. All the maneuvers and incidents seemed plausible as individual actions, but happened way too quickly, both in speed and frequency. It was as if the filmmakers were adapting a WW2-based video game, rather than history directly, or if a whole TV season's worth of action sequences were stitched together.

But I agree, a Pacific Theater naval series (maybe even multiple seasons) would be fantastic.
 
Masters of the Air is due out later this month on Apple TV+.

Based on a book published in 2007, it's from the same production company as Band of Brothers and The Pacific:

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Here is the opening title sequence:

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Is anyone here looking forward to watching it?
 
^ Hells Yes, I'm looking forward to this. Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg are on board this production too. Looks like it will awesome!
 
I have never seen so much vomiting in any non satire show before and i am only 2/3 through the first episode.:lol:

But overall, i like it so far.
 
I'm enjoying it overall. I particularly like seeing the mechanics of the bomber crews and I love the intensity of the bomber runs.

I do wish there more distinctive characters. Aside from the core three leads (Butler, Turner, and Keoghan), only Boyle's Crosby stands out. Everyone else just kind of falls into the background. I know it's not fair to compare to Band of Brothers, but one of the things I loved the most about that series was how there were so many different characters within the fold and watching them develop over the course of the story. It's early days with only two episodes so hopefully more characters will stand out. I particularly want to see more of the 19-year old mechanic (blanking on his name), especially after how Part Two briefly touched on the importance of the mechanics and how they get little recognition...and then promptly moved on.
 
The Nth Doctor said:
I'm enjoying it overall. I particularly like seeing the mechanics of the bomber crews and I love the intensity of the bomber runs.

I do wish there more distinctive characters. Aside from the core three leads (Butler, Turner, and Keoghan), only Boyle's Crosby stands out. Everyone else just kind of falls into the background. I know it's not fair to compare to Band of Brothers, but one of the things I loved the most about that series was how there were so many different characters within the fold and watching them develop over the course of the story. It's early days with only two episodes so hopefully more characters will stand out. I particularly want to see more of the 19-year old mechanic (blanking on his name), especially after how Part Two briefly touched on the importance of the mechanics and how they get little recognition...and then promptly moved on.
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Ken Lemmons was the plane ground crew chief.

I wonder if we will ever see the bombers being escorted by fighters (P47's and P38's, and later the P51).
 
Kraig said:
Ken Lemmons was the plane ground crew chief.

I wonder if we will ever see the bombers being escorted by fighters (P47's and P38's, and later the P51).
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For sure as seen in the title sequence, a couple of Red Tails in dogfights though i think this will have to wait until at least the last third of the show when the P51s started to provide long range air cover.

It looks like a great series but as with the good Doctor above i struggle to keep up with all the characters apart from the main leads. What kind of shocked me was how young some of the crews were and appeared. I swear to god that i saw children playing a dice game dressed in Air Force uniforms and they went out to fight over Nazi Germany - an incredible generation.

It will be hard for the show to even come close to the legend that is Band of Brothers but it doesn't have to as long as it tells its own story well.
 
Well...

Watched the first one and was kind of underwhelmed. I have to say, they committed the ultimate sin here and did no research on how planes actually look in flight, or in relative motion to one another. The actions scenes look very cartoonish to me. I know not everyone cares about that, but as a pilot and former military pilot it just drives me bonkers. The Midway movie remake had a lot of the same issues.

We'll see how this goes moving forward. So far none of the characters really pop. During the first episode of this I kept casting my mind back to Memphis Belle and what a great cast and movie that was. This, so far, seems like an empty knockoff.
 
For us uninitiated, can you talk about what about the motion of the planes is inaccurate? I was a sailor who wasn't on a carrier so all I know are from films and shows.
 
The Nth Doctor said:
For us uninitiated, can you talk about what about the motion of the planes is inaccurate? I was a sailor who wasn't on a carrier so all I know are from films and shows.
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Mostly it is trying to impart a sense of speed, coupled by the inevitable steep-bank 'peel aways' that totally defy the laws of physics. Also pairs of planes practically glued together performing the above-mentioned impossible moves. It's a hard thing to articulate. My best advice would be to watch the 1969 movie 'Battle of Britain', filmed largely with real aircraft, or watch some dogfight videos posted by players of DCS or other 'realistic' flight sims.
 
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