Masters of the Air

Norman_Conquest

Norman_Conquest

Well-known member
This production by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg is along the lines of Band of Brothers and The Pacific and based on the American Heavy Bomber Crews and their missions to fly into occupied Europe.

I've just watched the first two episodes of this and I am enjoying it so far, it certainly got me hooked. It must have been difficult for these guys to climb into those B-17s after watching their mates killed and knowing the next mission could be their last.

Worth a watch if you haven't started watching it already.
 
SE4 Red said:
I've enjoyed it so far but the CGI isn't great. Surprised at how much of it there is and a lot of it just seems unnecessary.
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Watched a video recently about how after Band of Brothers, The Pacific was a massive financial mistake from a business perspective for HBO. A large part of the huge costs came from minimising the use of CGI and instead doing it all for real.

HBO declined the offer to take MOTA because they were burned with Pacific. Presumably, the use of CGI is to minimise the costs of the production.

Looking forward to seeing this but as others, am awaiting all episodes being available. In the meantime, watching BOB and Pacific again with my lad.
 
Emmersons_BrazillianDong said:
Watched a video recently about how after Band of Brothers, The Pacific was a massive financial mistake from a business perspective for HBO. A large part of the huge costs came from minimising the use of CGI and instead doing it all for real.

HBO declined the offer to take MOTA because they were burned with Pacific. Presumably, the use of CGI is to minimise the costs of the production.

Looking forward to seeing this but as others, am awaiting all episodes being available. In the meantime, watching BOB and Pacific again with my lad.
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I’m not sure how this series could be made without large parts of it being CGI. I think it would have been impossible to recreate the fighter scenes and as you mentioned, the costs would be immense.

I get what you mean about watching it all together, I wish I had left it alone until all the episodes were available.
 
Norman_Conquest said:
I’m not sure how this series could be made without large parts of it being CGI. I think it would have been impossible to recreate the fighter scenes and as you mentioned, the costs would be immense.

I get what you mean about watching it all together, I wish I had left it alone until all the episodes were available.
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The video was more about the business decision and it's impact rather than the technical details, but they shot real life sequences in The Pacific and then supplemented with CGI to make the scale look much bigger. It was used in The Pacific but the cost for CGI at the time would have been much greater too.

Would be relative peanuts now with the proliferation and development of the tech in CGI.

Here's the video if its of any interest

 
Personally I think it's terrible - the actors are a bit wooden, the story is none existent and the way they portray themselves (the Americans) as the great saviours is an insult.

I can't warm to any of the characters in the way I did for Band of Brothers or the Pacific.

It's just the American bomber crew going on a day light raid, why are they going on that raid, what part of the war is it, what affect will it have on the outcome etc.

Look at us we are American this is our fire power we can do all this and send up this amount of bomber crew's.

We all know the Russians won the war.

We all know I'm here until the end of the series though 🤦🤦🤦
 
Emmersons_BrazillianDong said:
The video was more about the business decision and it's impact rather than the technical details, but they shot real life sequences in The Pacific and then supplemented with CGI to make the scale look much bigger. It was used in The Pacific but the cost for CGI at the time would have been much greater too.

Would be relative peanuts now with the proliferation and development of the tech in CGI.

Here's the video if its of any interest

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Thanks for the link, I will watch that later.

I was talking to my eldest son about Band of Brothers and The Pacific and how I regularly revisit BoB, yet have only watched The Pacific once. BoB was a hard act to follow and The Pacific was always going to be compared to it and come up short. I need to go back and watch it with a more open mind.
 
I'm just watching :

World War 2 - The Call of Duty: A Complete Timeline​

Watch World War 2 - The Call of Duty: A Complete Timeline | Prime Video

Track the main events of World War II with the help of remarkable archive footage and see exactly what happened, and when. Learn about Pearl Harbor, The Battle of Britain, D-Day, the dropping of the atomic bomb and more. From the early battles right through to the complexities of the endgame...
www.amazon.co.uk

& it's very interesting - certainly - "We all know the Russians won the war." shines a spotlight on what their real intention was - in the early years of the war they were very much aligned with Hitler ( non-aggression pact ) & carving up western Europe & the Baltic states.

I've seen many, inc World at War though this is very much a time line perspective plus viewed from all sides with insight & commentary of how the various countries & leaders were thinking & acting.

Not at all an action series like the above, however an intriguing documentary so far, esp with how Putin is going & 'mistakes' our leaders then & now did & are making.. ( IMHO )
 
Dan Snows History Podcast has the one of the writers behind this on his show. He talks about how accurate the details are on each mission. Why CGI was used etc.
 
Clearly CGI was going to be used but it just seems quite excessive and not very good for what you would think was quite a large budget.
 
Norman_Conquest said:
Thanks for the link, I will watch that later.

I was talking to my eldest son about Band of Brothers and The Pacific and how I regularly revisit BoB, yet have only watched The Pacific once. BoB was a hard act to follow and The Pacific was always going to be compared to it and come up short. I need to go back and watch it with a more open mind.
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I really enjoyed it, thought it demonstrated the total difference between the European and Pacific Theatres but BOB would always be a really difficult act to follow.

I relised I've watched BOB four times now but The Pacific only once
 
I'm looking forward to watching it. Yet I'm very much part of the binge generation so I'll hold out and watch them all at once. The hard bit is avoiding spoilers.

I watched a YouTube documentary recently about how much of a financial disaster The Pacific was for HBO. I didn't realise it nearly sunk them.

I thought it was decent enough yet nothing will ever compere to Band of Brothers. The cast and story made one of the best TV series ever made. I'd argue the 'best'. I watch it a couple of times a year. The effects still stand up to anything you see today. I still get invested in the characters even though I know what's going to happen.

I will go into MOTA on its own merits. Absolutely no point in compering anything to Band of Brothers.
 
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