06-26-2012, 07:58 AM
It started late and never really climaxed. It looked beautiful, maybe a bit too beautiful. According to this film, WWII was fought under azure skies filled with puffy clouds.
I read somewhere that Lucas originally wanted this to be two films. One film would be the struggle to get black pilots into the Air Corp. The second film would cover the Tuskegee airmen's struggle to actually fight the war. Red Tails starts with them in the war, so we never really get the back story. This was kind of confusing. I know the story, but it would have least been nice to touch on it.
So, this movie is basically about the struggle of the Tuskegee airmen to actually participate in the war. They struggle to get equipment. They struggle with their white counterparts. They struggle with their white superiors. And through it all, Cuba gets to smoke a pipe. There are subplots about drunken pilots and hotshot pilots and pilots falling in love with the locals. There is even a bad Nazi pilot who can't believe they are let these Africans fly planes.(All the Germans spoke German as if they were reading it out of a book) They even touch on the big escape from Stalag 18, which has almost the same escape scene as 'The Great Escape'.
So, the Tuskegee airmen become accepted and are given the big mission to bomb Berlin. Except they don't get to fly the whole way. White pilots are supposed to do the final leg of air cover for the bombers. But the white pilots don't show, so the airmen do the whole flight. This leads to a massive exciting air battle over Berlin where the Tuskegee's mettle is really shown. Except that doesn't happen. We never see the battle over Berlin. There is not big battle. There is a battle, but it seems kind of small.
All this being said, it was still better than Revenge of the Sith.
I read somewhere that Lucas originally wanted this to be two films. One film would be the struggle to get black pilots into the Air Corp. The second film would cover the Tuskegee airmen's struggle to actually fight the war. Red Tails starts with them in the war, so we never really get the back story. This was kind of confusing. I know the story, but it would have least been nice to touch on it.
So, this movie is basically about the struggle of the Tuskegee airmen to actually participate in the war. They struggle to get equipment. They struggle with their white counterparts. They struggle with their white superiors. And through it all, Cuba gets to smoke a pipe. There are subplots about drunken pilots and hotshot pilots and pilots falling in love with the locals. There is even a bad Nazi pilot who can't believe they are let these Africans fly planes.(All the Germans spoke German as if they were reading it out of a book) They even touch on the big escape from Stalag 18, which has almost the same escape scene as 'The Great Escape'.
So, the Tuskegee airmen become accepted and are given the big mission to bomb Berlin. Except they don't get to fly the whole way. White pilots are supposed to do the final leg of air cover for the bombers. But the white pilots don't show, so the airmen do the whole flight. This leads to a massive exciting air battle over Berlin where the Tuskegee's mettle is really shown. Except that doesn't happen. We never see the battle over Berlin. There is not big battle. There is a battle, but it seems kind of small.
All this being said, it was still better than Revenge of the Sith.
So much for the flickr badge idea. Dammit