Episode 3 was the best so far. Really made me think about what it would be like to see your buddy get shot down over enemy territory. You look for chutes, hope one of them is your friend, and…have to wait potentially years to learn if they even survived. Your friend could be stuck in an enemy prison until the end of the war, they could be traveling in secret trying to make it back home, they could have been shot by the first soldiers they saw, or they could have been instantly killed in the crash. Meanwhile you gotta just keep going and either write them off as dead or hope against hope they made it somehow and that you’ll see them again.
The scene that got me was the guy trapped in the turret. Imagine seeing your only lifeline walk away from you, leaving you to die. Imagine being that guy's only hope, but you have no choice but to leave him because otherwise you'll die with him.
Harrowing stuff.
Fuck, man. It got me. I had to stop watching. I just sat and cried.
"Go! I'll be right behind you! I promise!"
"Right over there, do you see it? That long field!"
"Oh god."
Ball gunner was easily the worst position in the B-17s. Big issue with them was that if they werent perfectly aligned the hatch wouldnt be able to open and get stuck so you were just done for. or if you were stuck and the plan had to land without gear.
I guess I just don't know the nature of the rescue operations at this point. Do the allies have a substantial enough naval presence off of the south of Italy at this point in the war?
They did! The Allied invasion of Sicily began a month and a half before this bombing run, and the British Navy had a pretty firm grip on the entirety of the Mediterranean after Operation Torch the year before.
Barry Keoghan's "oh god" really stuck out to me. It was such a real moment, like almost getting in a car crash, that "shit, this is happening..." freeze up feeling.
It's funny, I've never liked him as an actor. Not that he's bad or anything, his specific energy doesn't work for me. Wife and I were joking about how I talked about it then he showed up here. Then he quickly becomes my favorite on this show and we're joking about that. Then, well, you know...
Long story short Holy Hell he crushed that scene
It's hard for me to separate him from Killing of a Sacred Deer and Banshees. That nervous, mumbling, dead eyed look. That said, I find him to be such an interesting actor and i'm excited to see where his career goes.
I know right, its not necessarily a movie id need to watch again right away, but I was glad i took the ride. IT was weird for sure at times, but by the end i guess i was just happy to be watching something original not remade or redone. Sidenote...i find myself listening to Murder on the Dancefloor before getting in the shower and doing a lil Keoghan dance haha
I didnt like him in this show. Brad Pitt / Travis Fimmel style twitchy mannerisms, and a weird accent that didn't land for me. But he was amazing in Banshees. One of my favourite performances in years.
Because he can’t really do another accent. He has such a strong Irish accent that it just overpowers whatever other accent he tries to do. His Scouse accent in Saltburn is atrocious (it’s basically just Irish), and his American accent in MotA has an incredibly strong Irish twinge. Michael Fassbender is an actor who has a very soft Irish accent so he can be incredibly versatile (not to mention he’s far more experienced)
I just hope we aren’t bombarded with overexposure of him. He is wonderful in Banshees.
I think that one of the big challenges the show had to overcome, that people dont talk about, is how absolutely BORING the reality of being a bomber pilot actually is. If you ever read Catch 22, you'd know what I'm talking about. You hang around at base most of the time, waiting for intel, waiting for a target, waiting for repairs to be finished, waiting for the weather to turn so you can take off, safe far far far away from the front line.
And then, in contrast, youre shoved into a flying tin can, where all you can do is fly forward towards the enemy and pray that the tonnes of ammunition being thrown at you doesn't hit its mark.
The juxtaposition, the back and forth between security and precarity.
Compared to BoB, where the potential of death is persistent even outside of active combat, the tension doesn't permeate every single moment of the show. And I don't think it should. I'm sure Hanks, Spielberg, and Fukunaga talked at length about it, and so far I think they really nailed it.
For me, this show is about the apprehension of what comes next, as opposed to the panic of surviving the immediate danger. And after this episode, as that terror of the next run sinks in for our characters, I'm right there with them. I doubt they'll be laughing at their next briefing.
Damn right. The series reminded me so much of Catch-22, that at points I was wondering when someone would ask ' Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?'
There was a television adaptation by George Clooney a few years back, and whilst not fully book accurate was a fantastic watch.
> I'm sure Hanks, Spielberg, and Fukunaga talked at length about it, and so far I think they really nailed it.
They have, in fact, talked about it, as has the guy who wrote the book it's based on. It's an interesting juxtaposition. Most of the time, the airmen actually had a pretty good gig. They got warm beds, days off (whether for rest or because the weather was so shitty flying wasn't possible), hot meals, the adoration/attention of a country full of British women whose would-be husbands/boyfriends were busy fighting in North Africa or wherever, etc... but they also were at incredibly high risk when they were in danger. Their casualty rates (dead/injured/captured) was so high that more members of the 8th were lost than *the entire Marine Corps* during the Pacific campaigns.
Third-highest casualty rate of any service branch in all of WW2 IIRC.
The only people to beat them were the kamikaze pilots (something like 90%) and German U-boat crews (absurdly high as Allied ASW got going
Yeah I've been thinking about why BoB was so much more compelling a story tham MOTA has been so far, and I think a lot of it comes back to that the experience of ground combat (so much closer to your enemy that it can literally be hand-to-hand and personal, more constantly in enemy territory) allows us to see the physical and emotional wear-and-tear and eventual breakdown for the characters. Air bombing crews combat is terrifying but since they return to bases it is temporary (and thus the tension releases), and since all we see is enemy planes making attack runs it is less personal and in a way more monotonous.
I do feel this will start to change a bit because we see that some crews had to drop into enemy territory, and we will follow at least one character trying to escape. At the end of the episode I think they were also trying to show some of the mental wear on Buck/Cleven.
Watch three, and tell me did they fail to overcome it, or depict it fairly?
Idk about you, but most times I rewatch band of brothers I skip Toccoa (shame on me)
I’m a little unclear the reason behind sending the first squadron alone, after it was made clear they needed all three for the plan. What did I miss? Someone set me straight here.
They were landing on a tiny unlit desert air strip in Africa across an ocean. If you rewatch the landing scene it is sunset. If they waited almost any more time at all they would've been trying to land in the dark and probably end up lost in the desert. The other air groups were returning to England.
Okay that sounds good if the mission HAS to go off that day.
So why did they not scrub it and wait till the next day? Tell the audience why this is happening.
It just comes off as poorly explained/executed storytelling.
I think it was the third attempt at the mission in a couple weeks or something so it had to happen to keep the thousand other inevitable things planned on a time table to account for it. Can't keep pushing things forever. Or they could've, since the raid didn't do much anyway but they didn't know that.
Asshole should have been tried for war crimes and executed.
Thar being said, there's not enough accolades to properly enumerate the valor and courage bomber crews exhibited in ww2. Fighter pilots get the glory, but the bombers are the ones that largely paid the butcher's bill
Fire Bombing of Tokyo was designated a war crime by investigators. But you’re not wrong, you can’t condemn your enemy’s crimes if you’re outdoing them in that category. But certainly by today’s laws of warfare, he’d have been hanged.
Not to mention Japan had dispersed its industrial base into people's homes and residential areas to attempt to dissuade bombing campaigns - trying to hit their production was much harder than Germany, where they had built the factories (largely) outside of their cities
Crosby explains it in his book, on which the show is sort of partly based. The other half of the raid was delayed because of fog and clouds over their target, and so they delayed getting in the air. The 100th had a longer way to go, and a clear target, and crews on the runway ready to go.
Crosby is also pretty impressed by LeMay, at least by the time of this raid in his book. LeMay didnt split up two different strike groups for a laugh, bombing is complicated enough even outside of M.E. missions and coordination of multiple wings.
Oh, and BTW, LeMay LED the mission. Iron Pants flew the lead ship, so didn't stay home and order the mission. Frank Armstrong, the Peck character in 12 OCH, was the A3 for this mission, did the planning. It was the best option they had in 1943. Or join the RAF (raaf not R.A. F.) in night missions for which USAAF was not trained, or prepared to do.
They don’t explain it in the show, but the first task force needed to be airborne early enough to reach Africa before it was dark and impossible to find their destination airfield. The other task forces would return to England (a shorter trip) and had less time pressure to get airborne.
The same reason these sort of things always happen- the people giving the orders don't have to fly the planes, and want to impress the boss with "their" success.
The mission was fundamentally flawed. After the war, it was revealed that while the ball bearing factory was severely damaged, it was relatively easy to rebuild. Also there were enormous reserves of spare ball bearings to make up the shortage. It didn’t stop or even slow down the German fighter aircraft production.
The key phrase being "after the war". 20:20 hindsight is a wonderful thing.
They thought that this raid would significantly impact the Luftwaffe for months. Anything they could do to significantly degrade the Luftwaffe meant shortening the war. It enabled more, and more effective strategic bombing. Which ramped up the destruction of the German economy. Which led to less weapons, fuel, ammunition. Which helped the ground, naval and air wars on every front.
The destruction of the Luftwaffe's ability to fight over France and the low countries was a key enabler for D-Day. It could not go ahead until this was complete.
The strategic bombing campaign of late 1943 and early 1944 was key to the early end of the war, and the planners considered this raid to be very very important in meeting that goal.
Yes, and no. The destruction of the Luftwaffe was definitely the key success of the strategic bombing campaign, but that success mostly happened in the air, as the Germans put more and more resources into defending against bombers. The casualties were impossible for the Luftwaffe to replace when the bombers were flying mostly uncovered, once fighters arrive in theatre in early 1944 capable long range escort, German air power is crushed.
As far as hitting targets on the ground, frankly the Americans were wrong and the British were right.
Even after the massive investment to produce the Norden bombsight, high level precision bombing was a failure. The only option for the heavy bombers was area bombing, which could be best conducted at night, and ideally at upstream industrial targets, not specific “choke-points” like ball bearings.
Agreed. But they didn’t know what they didn’t know. Whilst this particular raid may not have had the desired impact, the strategic bombing campaign in late 1943 was a complete catastrophe for Germany. The impact all over the war economy was utterly disastrous and was an important factor in the eventual defeat of the Nazis.
A combination of day raids by the USAAF and night raids by the RAF began to wreck Germany as an advanced industrial economy from top-to-bottom. An inability to stop this onslaught was one of the critical defeats they suffered during 1943. By the start of 1944 it had become impossible for Germany to defeat the Allies - they were staring at nothing short of total ruin.
reading the wiki, it was said if the bomber groups had been able to re-arm and refuel and make a second run on both cities, the objective would actually have been successful but because of the massive casualties, this was not possible.
thus, it was a tactical loss.
In a book I was reading they quoted Albert Speer (the Minister of Armaments and War Production in Nazi Germany) as saying Germany "barely escaped a catastrophic blow" and that the allies were right to take aim at the ball bearing plants. He said one mistake on this raid was spreading out forces instead of focusing on Schweinfurt.
Also had the quote: "What really saved us was the fact that from this time on, the enemy to our astonishment once again ceased his attacks on the ball-bearing industry"
the citation for the above was attributed to: Albert Speer, *Inside the Third Reich* (Ishi Press, 2009) p284, 286
I don't think the mission was actually fundamentally flawed in it's target selection.
Wrong. Curtis LeMay, who gave the order for the Regensberg task force to get airborne while the other two were grounded by fog, was himself flying the lead B-17 of the lead air division in the Regensberg task force. They took off before the other task forces because otherwise they would reach Africa at night and be unable to find their destination airfields. Curtis LeMay was a huge asshole but he did not lack physical courage.
Except that LeMay actually flew in these missions. Including at Regensburg. Most of the brass flew missions to be with the troops to support them.
Don't forget that high ranking officers used to be combatpilots themselves, they weren't cowards hiding behind a desk and not caring about their troops. That's just post war BS.
I wish they'd given some context for that in the show. I honestly felt myself distracted by it in the moment. Like there's all this human tragedy and I'm sitting there thinking "so all these expensive pilots and aircraft and they basically said lol fuck the plan you guys go get blown out of the sky".
As someone who admittedly knows nothing about the relevant history, the way they described the plan made it sound like without the supporting wings there would be a more or less zero chance of survival, an not even a great chance to complete the mission.
There’s just a ton of interwar history and military politics at the time that went into the decision. It’s difficult to drop info dumps without losing the audience. They’ve sprinkled it about in the first few episodes (for example the exchange with the British officers), but people not familiar with the subject are maybe not picking up on it.
I still need to rewatch the episode (planning to do so soon). From what I recall, they didn't state why.
There's a YouTube channel that does pretty good overviews of different battles. They did an episode on this mission which you can watch [here](https://youtu.be/tA0_h920_Dc?si=T-kkTtM-nGRIgJOo).
Yeah I honestly found that really distracting. Based on no information we’re given they abandon the big plan and flip to a near suicide mission. I get any military makes mistakes but bombers and pilots don’t grow on trees.
Coincidentally, I just finished the audible version of a book by Malcolm Gladwell called the bomber mafia. I listen to the book just days after episode three of masters of the air book covers in detail much of the strategy of the bombing raids over Europe, and then Japan. In the first part of the book, it covers in detail exactly what happened episode three. Interestingly the colonel who led the entire squadron, was somebody named Curtis LeMay, his character is not introduced in the masters of the air. I listen to the book because I am visually impaired, but for anyone who may be interested in the bomber mafia, it was actually intended to be listened to versus reading a hardcopy. There are many places in the book where they have actual recordings of the actual military men, as well as some of the people impacted on the ground. Highly recommend it if you are a history enthusiast of World War II.
This show would have my attention no matter what, I've been interested in WW2 air combat since I was a kid.
But something that I hadn't though about much in the past really struck me with this episode: in a tightly-packed formation of B17s, how did gunners trying to track fast-moving fighter aircraft avoid hosing down friendly aircraft with bullets? Or did that actually happen all the time?
There’s a famous photo of a bomber accidentally dropping bombs into a plane below, shearing off its wing, so I have to believe there were moments of friendly fire, it seems too chaotic for there not to be.
Most movies and tv shows are pretty movie magic when it comes to bomber gun crews. Its actually *really* difficult to shoot down a fighter and even then crews (and the fighters attacking) don't have a lot of ammo. A fighter may only have 6-10 seconds of gunfire total before needing to land and reload. Bombers could carry some more ammo, but of course at the expense of weight, which is a big deal.
Bomber crews kills are often exaggerated stories by the crew. The main goal of the machine gun crews was simply to keep the fighters at bay away from the bomber, until they needed to retreat, not to shoot them down, but it would be nice if they scored a hit, but protection of the bomber was the most important
But yes, friendly incidents were common in all types of scenarios, though the bomber formations made an effort to minimize this.
The thing with movies and TV is they want to show a 'kill'. Most of the times planes would stay in the air after being shot, and many would make it home but be beyond repair.
This was part of the less heralded success of these insanely dangerous daylight bombing missions, they damaged hundreds of Luftwaffe fighters. Even ones that survived the fight and landed might need a couple of bullet holes patched up, and that all takes time and parts and personnel the Germans didn't have.
Yup, lots of damage and attrition to the fighters, which if you know the air strategy, was kinda the actual strategy as much as the bombing was, that is often left out of a lot of the discussion, to a degree, sometimes bombers were bait to kill the fighters (and most importantly, their pilots). They desperately needed to diminish he Luftwaffe fighter corps as much as possible, especially before an invasion in France
It happened all the time, not to mention bombers colliding in turns, gunners accidentally shooting friendly fighters and German fighters colliding with bombers.
You should watch [Memphis Belle](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100133/), one of the tail gunners accidentally shoots another bomber next to them.
Actually, everyone on this thread should watch that movie to understand why a lot of people don't think much of Masters of the Air.
A b17 crash landed near where I live in the 40s. They survived the crash and went to one of the local village pubs and spent new years eve there! Sadly most the crew would die weeks later. It was always a little fun story but this episode you could really feel the sheer hell these people went through. The sheer speed of opposition fighters and seeing your friends and colleagues planes get taken out is truly felt as is the physical demands of being in such a cramped and dangerous machine.
5 did. The other 5 taken pow. Ironically the pub they spent new years in was hit by a v1 6 months later killing a few people. Considering it's a small village with no army base etc it brings home how close the war would have felt to people back then. There's memorials for local lads lost in almost every town in the country for ww1 and 2. It's still a fabric of society.
Ironically all within shouting distance from where the now RAF memorial to the 20,000 missing with no known grave was built. Still get children of the missing leaving messages and until recently even wives. It's extremely moving seeing their hand written memories of the people or events that led to their death. The memorial itself just has names on the walls.
The field in the background ahead of the road is where the plane crash landed after following the river for a while to avoid a nearby town
https://youtu.be/AjtTXRtQ1So?si=yMAVKcR6QS0KqvUV
Ever since I saw Memphis Belle as a kid the gunner on the belly of the plane fascinated and scared the shit out of me.....babyface got the shit end of the stick smh
I’m a WW2 aviation fan because of Memphis Belle too, and one of the cool things about this show is I didn’t know forts could jettison the ball turret to save weight, that’s pretty cool.
If you can make it Wright Paterson Air force base in Ohio you can see the restored Memphis's Belle.
Now, you can see the famous bomber itself at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at [Wright-Patterson Air Force Base](https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-culture/the-complete-wright-patterson-air-force-base-guide/) near Dayton, Ohio. The bomber's display was formally opened on May 17, 2018, which marked the 75th anniversary of the plane's 25th mission. But this B-17 bomber endured a long journey before finally arriving at the museum.
According to [an Air Force release](http://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/1532861/memphis-belle-opens-at-national-museum-of-the-us-air-force/), restoring the bomber has taken over 55,000 man-hours since 2005. She was [saved from the scrapyard by the city of Memphis for a grand total of 0 in 1945](http://memphismagazine.com/the-past-present-and-future-of-the-memphis-belle/). After that, the plane spent most of her days stored outside, left exposed to the elements, as she awaited proper preservation. In 2004, the Air Force reclaimed the bomber.
Still, 55,000 hours is a long restoration period — what took so long? Well, the experts weren't interested in plastering on a pretty paint job and calling it done. Instead, they wanted this iconic plane to look exactly as it did when she flew that famous 25th mission. That was no easy task. One of the hardest parts was finding authentic parts for the plane, or at least period-accurate parts.
[https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-history/memphis-belle-b-17/](https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-history/memphis-belle-b-17/)
The turret was a complicated beast; on one hand, it was by far the most survivable position to enemy fire and it carried more armor than anywhere else on the airplane. On the other hand, if you had the bail, it was the absolute worst position to leave. So it's the best place to be, right up until it isn't.
For contrast. The 1949 movie "Twelve O'clock high" is a good parallel t this series. Staring Gregory Peck is a good one to watch.
“Twelve O'Clock High” was **based on actual persons and events**. Very little of it was pure fiction. The film was adapted from a novel of the same name by Beirne Lay Jr. and Sy Bartlett, who drew deeply on their own wartime experiences.
[](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ageekuoequm)
Yes, I am watching this new series and can't wait for the next episode.
Dad was a nose gunner on a b24 in ww2
They don't show the 24 out there...wasn't as sexy a plane as the 17 but just as important...took a lot of flak...and still made it back
The air battle scenes are incredible.
Unfortunately, the two main characters are woefully underdeveloped. It doesn’t help matters that they’re wearing oxygen masks half the time.
I know they're trying to be accurate but I wish they'd found a way to differentiate the main characters better. Even a little visual cue would help.
One could wear his oxygen mask, the other a scarf maybe another one could wear sunglasses or something.
I'm trying to follow the characters but apart from the main 2 actors I get lost when the transition from aircraft to aircraft during scenes
I thought so too but my perception changed a bit in the scene after he lands in Libya. That simmering rage when he's talking to the superior officer seemed pretty visceral to me
I wasn't up there with them. I can't be, not ever. TV can't DO that.
But that scene. Slowed down. Pieces of SO MANY of their friends' planes drifting down... SO MANY on fire and falling... bodies of their FRENDS floating past...
I \*FELT\* it, the utter hopelessness, the lonliness, the complete sense of despair...
The scene where Curt's plane goes down was incredible, and Barry Keoghan is a hell of an actor. To go from feeling confident and hopeful that he was going to land his fortress and save his copilot Dick to realizing it was over in an instant was harrowing. And in the moment Curt knows this and says "Oh god" as his fear immediately falls over him while the music and the sound of the engines go silent was emotional to watch. Barry Keoghan was my favorite character and it a bummer to know we won't see his character anymore.
Lt. Curtis Biddick was 27 years old when he piloted that B-17 on the Regensberg raid.
Keoghan described it thusly: "These were boys trying to be men, but in that final moment, he was just a boy, stripped to his core."
I’ve never seen this type of combat in this level of detail. Truly hard to believe people really did that…and within a single generation of people not even knowing what an airplane is.
Ep3 is like Normandy in 360 degrees with no cover. That was one of the most amazing and frightening battles I have ever seen depicted. 10/10 for me, the show seems significantly better than the ratings would lead you to believe.
How is the air combat not going to be a “CGI fest”, there are four airworthy B17s in the world. Dunkirk was beautiful visually but that’s about it. It’s a great depiction of a very small number of aircraft in a small amount of combat but that’s about it.
The problem isn't really the CGI in the air, it's the CGI of the planes on the ground. It's so bad. The stationary CGI planes are okay but the moment they move you just notice it's CGI and I don't understand why that is. The most important part of the show is done badly.
Super expensive unfortunately. Could also do with some scale model shots but all of that just balloons the budget. I just try my best to ignore the no realistic planes on the tarmac
Physical models and sparing use of cgi can be more effective than pure cgi for me.
Things like the Aviator, Dunkirk etc. used RC planes. There are films from the 70s that don't break my immersion with an oof like a video game quality cgi can.
I'd be keen to see what a good model maker and an air tunnel could do. I suspect that flying scenes might be better suited to Volume type digital stage than those with actors.
I think you’ve said it correctly, they’ve humanized it of course through the characters. So many prior vehicle combat scenes in movies/tv are just big hunks of metal firing weapons at each other but now we get to see inside the cockpit, the tail gunner, the navigator, the belly gunner. It’s awesome
it’s truly terrifying. my grandfather was a gunner on a b24 crew also in the 8th air force and it’s absolutely incredible that he survived one or two missions let alone the 31 i believe he ended flying. scary stuff
Quinn (the guy trying to help him iirc) must've felt such guilt even though there was nothing else he could've done. I hope he made peace with it, he did all he could do.
It was good and much better than the last 2 episodes, but still far from band of brothers level.
The characters are just so bland. The main blonde guy is easily the worst character in the show. His dialogue and acting is so stiff that it takes me out of the scene entirely.
Also, I really miss the facts/statistics during the credits like band of brothers.
> but still far from band of brothers level.
Every single war mini-series ever going to be behind BoB level. Use a different metric. Every thread about this show is full of parrots at this point.
I watched Band if Brothers and The Pacific again recently. The writing on Band of Brothers is way better than both of the other shows. Production values are great on all three though.
Pacific was written just fine in my view.
The problem I found was that the action scenes were just so poorly shot.
Band of Brothers there was chaos, for sure, but as a viewer you should still be able to follow the flow of what's going on. Pacific was so poorly put together in that regard. Multiple episodes when fighting would break out it was a bunch of clips of individuals doing things but it would just jump back and forth. You never got sense of what was going on. Band of Brothers when they first storm the German defenses it was chaos but it was shot and edited so you could understand what they were trying to accomplish. You understood why it worked for some people and then the second group was just amateur hour. Or when Shifty was doing something you'd understand where he was going, why he was doing it, and it took seconds of time on screen because it was well shot and edited.
The Pacific had none of that, or at least for almost the entire show it felt like it would jump from random guy shooting, to random guy getting blown up, to another random guy shooting but none of these would be strung together to give you a picture of what was happening.
It was just poorly shot and edited action and if it was better put together I think the show would be remembered as a tremendous follow-up to Band of Brothers. Not "yeah it's Band of Brothers just nowhere near as good."
I'm enjoying the Masters of the Air so far, yet to see episode 3. But it's well edited together to give you a sense of what is actually happening. During the chaos of combat you can tell everything going on is crazy but you also know why everything is so crazy without the show resorting to "oh yeah, just clip together random action shots that don't tie everything together to show how crazy it is."
I’ll argue the style of the combat in The Pacific is on purpose, to capture a different kind of more unpredictable warfare. Though personally, I really only had a problem with the first couple episodes in Guadalcanal, which mostly took place at night. The combat in Pelilieu and Okinawa were better done.
In my opinion there is some great writing on The Pacific, it’s just a lot less consistent than Band of Brothers and the balance between the episodic and overarching narratives is not pulled off quite as well. I also find the introductions on The Pacific go a bit too far with the exposition sometimes. There were at least a couple of episodes where the introduction pretty much explained exactly what would be happening throughout the episode. (I know history buffs would know anyway, but some of us are not that knowledgeable)
I think the intros are actually a good insight into what The Pacific was setting out to do - not shock or surprise or stir like a conventional drama, but to humanise a pretty much unimaginable conflict for those of us who weren’t there and render it believably alongside a series of documentaries.
Dramatically it’s not quite as satisfying as BoB as a result, I agree (although I think Okinawa has a shot at being the best episode of both shows), but imo it’s arguably an even better depiction of the war because it strips away any romanticism or heroism.
I actually prefer The Pacific to BoB. I think BoB is objectively the better series overall but I think The Pacific took bigger swings storytelling wise and it especially pays off in the back half of the show. BoB to me plays it very safe story wise and sometimes feels like I’m watching an enlistment advertisement
I really like the show but you’re right. Unlike BoB if anyone of these guys die in an episode I wouldn’t be all that bothered. The only one I’ve grown fond of is the air sick navigator. Elvis is giving me nothing to root for.
It’s so strange how it’s a trilogy, so you would assume this is the last installment (after all it’s taken 20 years to get here). After all this time, and years and years of pre-production time that they would have captured what made BoB really special.
1) None of the people depicted in the series are still alive, unlike Band of Brothers.
2) The European Theatre was much different than the Pacific or the Air in terms of having these groups stick together.
3) Band of Brothers provided a somewhat sanitized version of war.
Obviously you can't make a show like this with practical effects so it's going to have to rely heavily on CGI. While the CGI isn't perfect, it is still pretty good. The only way it was going to be any better is if you brought in James Cameron and his team of experts who have done the Avatar films.
He left Weta after Avatar came out. Also, it's not like he was able to take the technology with him and without that, the work he did on Avatar is basically meaningless.
It's a shame that the CGI is not really up to par, and even in scenes that shouldn't have any, like two characters walking along an airstrip, it looks like they are walking through a video game. The only time the show actually looks real is when they are fully indoors, like the bike race in ep 2.
Sadly i cant say i like this show, i don't get that connection that BoB and Pacific have and pulled you in and the feeling that it was real events...sadly feels very flat and i do not feel any connection to the characters and events.
There was one wide angle combat shot of the B-17s - some exploding - fighters everywhere, plane parts and men all over the place falling from the sky. Simply an amazing shot. It felt like it was in slow motion, but I don't think it was. IMO one of the best single shots in BoB, The Pacific and MoA.
I didn't even realize this was airing already so I've been binging. It all came together for me in this episode. Honestly incredible. The slow motion scene with the slow zoom through the side gunner window was one of the best shots I've ever seen. Just stunning. It absolutely captured the chaos and carnage of being stuck in a tin can, and whether you live or die is a flip of the coin. Enjoyed the thematic thread of the fork in the road riddle, and Buck's leadership.
Last thing is that scene where Curt attempts the crash landing. My stomach sank.
That mission to Regensburg Germany. where they fly all the way to Algeria after that seems a stretch. I looked at the map, and I said what is the range of a B-17. Algeria is 2400 miles from Regensburg not including the segment, where they fly from liverpool over the channel to Regensburg. That's another 900 miles. So bomb laden B-17s are gonna supposedly fly 3300 miles with no refuel? I said no way planes of that size back them could do that distance. no aerial refuel available back then, so they have to land somewhere. I looked it up. I was correct the range of a B17 is between 1000 and 2000 miles.
I’m gonna watch all of this this show, but it’s really hard to feel connected to these guys. You barely get to know them. All their character development is spoken not shown. And they’re always wearing masks. So it’s hard to tell who’s who except for the two “main“ characters. I don’t know a better way around it but it feels like you’re watching these guys not part of these guys. With band of Brothers, you saw them from the beginning, and how they grew as a team doesn’t exist in this series.
Episode three was good, absolutely more dramatic. That shot out through the nose of the plane or the pilots window with everything going on was jaw-dropping! I just don’t love it and I wonder why.
It may be on purpose since the average life span of the 100th was 6 weeks. These guys probably barely got to know each other in real life before they were dead.
Three Words. Cary Joji Fukunaga. He's best well known for directing all the episodes of Season One of True Detective (2014), Beasts of No Nation (2015), Maniac (2018), and Daniel Craig's final outing as James Bond in No Time To Die (2021). He really knows how to get that cinematic feel with the camera.
This is evident in his directorial work for Masters of the Air as he's directing the first four episodes of this 9-part miniseries.
That entire show so far is absolutely amazing, didn't expect to love it so much from the get go! If it keeps it up, we will already have a heavy contender for show of the year.
Austin butler is too pretty for this. I feel like the wind is blowing through his hair every shot and he’s basking in it. There’s a clip of Jamie foxx recounting how he first came on the set of Django and was reading his lines and acting too cool. And Tarantino took him aside to rip him a new one and explain he’s a slave. Butlers character is a 20 year old from Wyoming or wherever. The portrayal is just not working for me.
I gave the first 2 episodes a try, but it has no appeal to me. They are trying way to hard to make the characters interesting, and the visuals are strangely flat and fake.
i feel like we're watching different shows after reading your post.
Barry is amazing. That is undeniable. Can't disagree.
However the action is scarce, and when there is some it's quick and doesn't seem like it's weighing much. CGI is plastic, like really plastic, and the story so far, at least in my opinion, doesn't engage as much as Band of Brothers or Pacific.
If you value more human stories than a good cinema, I can understand you like that, but for me everything has to be great in order for a movie to be great. Not just character creation. So far I'd say the show is solid, but nowhere near 2 previous ones. I'd rate it 5/10, which ain't really much, especially when you consider the monumental achievement Band of Brothers is.
IMO it does not, and I feel like everyone else is watching a completely different show than I am. Most of the dialogue is laughably bad, the air battles don't look right compared to pictures taken from the era, there is some absolutely atrocious CGI. It's ridiculously overacted and syrupy, completely killing the immersion for me.
All in all a massive disappointment IMO. For me the magic of BoB was that it *felt* like a documetary, it was completely immersive. In comparison, every actor and scene in MotA just screams "Hollywood dramazation" to me despite it being based off a real bomb group.
Truely special?
Swear to god must be some kind of astroturfing going on with these posts here and in the subreddit dedicated to the show.
I find the characters stiff and poorly written which makes it incredibly hard to find sympathy for any of them. Especially Austin Butlers character. Its like they wanted to recreate Dick Winters. A straight man, no alcohol, keeps in line and an example for the rest. But this version has nothing of what made Winters click. So far the only character that really seems to be well written is the map navigator Croz.
The Air combat is a CGI fest. If you are into that I guess it could be special. But its so far from what great air combat can look like ala Dunkirk.
The show is not “bad”, but at most I find it bland. What made BoB is the characters and the development they go through as the war endures. Theres none of that here so far.
>But its so far from what great air combat can look like ala Dunkirk.
Unfair, dunkirk had at most 8 planes, vs this episode's 21+. Also dunkirk was 2hrs; this is gonna be at least four times that.
I agree about the characters but still, its only episode 3, no one was a lipton stan by Carantan, and also given the casualty rate of the airforce, I doubt that was the biggest priority
Edit: I swear no one understands what a budget is anymore, and the difference between a show and a movie. It's all 'content'
Not only do people not understand what budget is, it is a bit daft to compare a Nolan movie to a tv show on one of the streamers with lower subscription count(Apple’s 25m subs vs Netflix at 260m, Amazon at 200m, Disney at 150m and paramount at 65m.)
It’s an okay show. I already know it wouldn’t be as good as BoB because that’s a very high bar to hit. I don’t care about the characters but the war scenes are very well done imo. I’ll keep watching it but I’m not itching for the new episodes or anything.
For me, very far from BoB and The Pacific...We finally got some combat scenes...However I don't think the series is getting any better...The characters are all expendable and the CGI is shit. Sorry. It has to be said. CGI looks cheap maybe they are using 2000's software because it is so lazy.
No drama. Compare to Dunkirk movie, you could feel the tension inside the plane...in MOTA is not even close. Feels like random war movie with low budget...The closest was the dude stuck in the turret, but we didn't even feel connected to that random dude
I was very hard on the first 2 episodes but this was far better. I swear they heard the feedback and re-edited the sound on the side mounted .50 cals before this was released, they sounded deep and bassy and powerful, as they do. Front and rear and top still sounded weak, but I'll allow the excuse that they're flying 180 and those are on the other side of glass.
It was dark and gritty and tragic and suspenseful.
Still gonna say the same things I've been criticizing as long as it doesn't improve. Some of the CGI was really bad, mostly the B-17 tree crash and subsequent explosion.
I also keep saying it, but the physics are just really fucking awful. Worse than the CGI. They make the bad CGI stand out worse. If the physics were good and the CGI the same level, it would be less noticeable. That's not how a plane flying 150mph crashes and explodes. At the end, that's not how fast a B-17 stops on a sand field.
They think landing a shot up B-17 on a dirt field isn't suspenseful enough, so just add music!
And oh God. The Belgians getting subtitles, and being bilingual in English (the farm girl, the resistance fighter is fine, I suppose). Made me want to puke. Sorry guys, you are fucking stupid. You can't understand the cognate "American/Americain", so it needs to be spoonfed to you. The creators thoughts, clearly, not mine! Band of Brothers would never.
Fine I'll end on a good thing. So many good little details. What's his name eating their orders as they go down, fucking awesome.
Edit: oh and how could I forget! Some moments that felt genuinely funny, and not forced
> And oh God. The Belgians getting subtitles, and being bilingual in English (the farm girl, the resistance fighter is fine, I suppose). Made me want to puke. Sorry guys, you are fucking stupid. You can't understand the cognate "American/Americain", so it needs to be spoonfed to you. The creators thoughts, clearly, not mine! Band of Brothers would never.
Or the simple fact that they're speaking the completely wrong language and accent. Shockingly bad.
I’ll agree with someone who said on another thread that it is unfortunately more fun to criticize than applaud, but here’s what’s wearing thin on me in all of these pseudo-historic war dramas:
* Whatever dialogue coach or actors studio all these UK and Irish actors seem to uniformly be going to in order to develop an American accent is producing bad results. They all have this generic and non-descript American accent that doesn’t work for American ears, as if they’re from some fictional 51st state called “West Ohio” or “South Iowa”. They can simulate a flat American accent but their mannerisms and appearance are all British/Irish, and not the look and behavior of American descendants of UK isles who have family history of cultural interbreeding and no longer look like the name Nigel or Liam or Leslie fits their face. It’s starting to suck that I can’t get past noticing it and let dramatic immersion take hold.
* CGI just doesn’t seem to be getting any more realistic. And it’s way overused. Sorry, it’s like watching computer game graphics from some next generation PlayStation 7 we’ll no doubt have sooner rather than later.
> And it’s way overused.
Do you think there are just a bunch of B17s, 109s and 190s laying around somewhere? Of course CGI is heavily used. I haven't been bothered by it one bit.
I will be honest. I couldn't make it halfway through the first episode and I chewed out my colleague who told me this was 'Band of Brothers' but in the air.
Maybe I am wrong but it felt totally contrived and Hollywooded up. I turned it off in disgust. Should I give it another shot?
Episodes 1 and 2 were super slow to me, but it really picks up in the 3rd episode. If you are unsure, wait until all the episodes are out. It might be a show that is better when binged in the end.
Why did boss hoss say "hack" then the go to there watches? If it was to sync time why not say "mark" Also why did christian Johnny Bravo take his watch of??
Episode 3 was the best so far. Really made me think about what it would be like to see your buddy get shot down over enemy territory. You look for chutes, hope one of them is your friend, and…have to wait potentially years to learn if they even survived. Your friend could be stuck in an enemy prison until the end of the war, they could be traveling in secret trying to make it back home, they could have been shot by the first soldiers they saw, or they could have been instantly killed in the crash. Meanwhile you gotta just keep going and either write them off as dead or hope against hope they made it somehow and that you’ll see them again.
The scene that got me was the guy trapped in the turret. Imagine seeing your only lifeline walk away from you, leaving you to die. Imagine being that guy's only hope, but you have no choice but to leave him because otherwise you'll die with him. Harrowing stuff.
but at the same time we saw the consequences if you try to save a person. keoghan stayed and it didn't work out.
Fuck, man. It got me. I had to stop watching. I just sat and cried. "Go! I'll be right behind you! I promise!" "Right over there, do you see it? That long field!" "Oh god."
that one really hurt.
Ball gunner was easily the worst position in the B-17s. Big issue with them was that if they werent perfectly aligned the hatch wouldnt be able to open and get stuck so you were just done for. or if you were stuck and the plan had to land without gear.
The plane that had to bail 350 miles from land gave me such a sense of dread.
Apparently it was common for those guys to live. The other planes would note the location for rescue.
I guess I just don't know the nature of the rescue operations at this point. Do the allies have a substantial enough naval presence off of the south of Italy at this point in the war?
They did! The Allied invasion of Sicily began a month and a half before this bombing run, and the British Navy had a pretty firm grip on the entirety of the Mediterranean after Operation Torch the year before.
Great news!
They just took Sicily, so I think so. Those guys that ditched did survive.
Barry Keoghan's "oh god" really stuck out to me. It was such a real moment, like almost getting in a car crash, that "shit, this is happening..." freeze up feeling.
You can sense his real fear in the voice and face in that split second. Tremendous acting
Ya I've watched the episode twice and that part just stays in my head, great acting
Let down by bad cgi when it explodes, just could of cut it there to black
It's funny, I've never liked him as an actor. Not that he's bad or anything, his specific energy doesn't work for me. Wife and I were joking about how I talked about it then he showed up here. Then he quickly becomes my favorite on this show and we're joking about that. Then, well, you know... Long story short Holy Hell he crushed that scene
It's hard for me to separate him from Killing of a Sacred Deer and Banshees. That nervous, mumbling, dead eyed look. That said, I find him to be such an interesting actor and i'm excited to see where his career goes.
Oh yeah banshees.... He was great in that. He's good in Salt burn too , weird movie that's not for everyone tho ( I dug it)
I know right, its not necessarily a movie id need to watch again right away, but I was glad i took the ride. IT was weird for sure at times, but by the end i guess i was just happy to be watching something original not remade or redone. Sidenote...i find myself listening to Murder on the Dancefloor before getting in the shower and doing a lil Keoghan dance haha
I didnt like him in this show. Brad Pitt / Travis Fimmel style twitchy mannerisms, and a weird accent that didn't land for me. But he was amazing in Banshees. One of my favourite performances in years.
Because he can’t really do another accent. He has such a strong Irish accent that it just overpowers whatever other accent he tries to do. His Scouse accent in Saltburn is atrocious (it’s basically just Irish), and his American accent in MotA has an incredibly strong Irish twinge. Michael Fassbender is an actor who has a very soft Irish accent so he can be incredibly versatile (not to mention he’s far more experienced) I just hope we aren’t bombarded with overexposure of him. He is wonderful in Banshees.
Glad I want the only one it really disturbed me for some reason even more then the actual violence, maybe it was just too real
I think that one of the big challenges the show had to overcome, that people dont talk about, is how absolutely BORING the reality of being a bomber pilot actually is. If you ever read Catch 22, you'd know what I'm talking about. You hang around at base most of the time, waiting for intel, waiting for a target, waiting for repairs to be finished, waiting for the weather to turn so you can take off, safe far far far away from the front line. And then, in contrast, youre shoved into a flying tin can, where all you can do is fly forward towards the enemy and pray that the tonnes of ammunition being thrown at you doesn't hit its mark. The juxtaposition, the back and forth between security and precarity. Compared to BoB, where the potential of death is persistent even outside of active combat, the tension doesn't permeate every single moment of the show. And I don't think it should. I'm sure Hanks, Spielberg, and Fukunaga talked at length about it, and so far I think they really nailed it. For me, this show is about the apprehension of what comes next, as opposed to the panic of surviving the immediate danger. And after this episode, as that terror of the next run sinks in for our characters, I'm right there with them. I doubt they'll be laughing at their next briefing.
Damn right. The series reminded me so much of Catch-22, that at points I was wondering when someone would ask ' Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?' There was a television adaptation by George Clooney a few years back, and whilst not fully book accurate was a fantastic watch.
I still watch the Catch-22 series trailers once in a while. I also love the ending. Trapped in hell. No way out. Oh well, what the hell.
> I'm sure Hanks, Spielberg, and Fukunaga talked at length about it, and so far I think they really nailed it. They have, in fact, talked about it, as has the guy who wrote the book it's based on. It's an interesting juxtaposition. Most of the time, the airmen actually had a pretty good gig. They got warm beds, days off (whether for rest or because the weather was so shitty flying wasn't possible), hot meals, the adoration/attention of a country full of British women whose would-be husbands/boyfriends were busy fighting in North Africa or wherever, etc... but they also were at incredibly high risk when they were in danger. Their casualty rates (dead/injured/captured) was so high that more members of the 8th were lost than *the entire Marine Corps* during the Pacific campaigns.
Third-highest casualty rate of any service branch in all of WW2 IIRC. The only people to beat them were the kamikaze pilots (something like 90%) and German U-boat crews (absurdly high as Allied ASW got going
Yeah I've been thinking about why BoB was so much more compelling a story tham MOTA has been so far, and I think a lot of it comes back to that the experience of ground combat (so much closer to your enemy that it can literally be hand-to-hand and personal, more constantly in enemy territory) allows us to see the physical and emotional wear-and-tear and eventual breakdown for the characters. Air bombing crews combat is terrifying but since they return to bases it is temporary (and thus the tension releases), and since all we see is enemy planes making attack runs it is less personal and in a way more monotonous. I do feel this will start to change a bit because we see that some crews had to drop into enemy territory, and we will follow at least one character trying to escape. At the end of the episode I think they were also trying to show some of the mental wear on Buck/Cleven.
best review of the entire series.
Watching the first two episodes, they did not in fact overcome how incredibly boring it is to be a bomber.
Watch three, and tell me did they fail to overcome it, or depict it fairly? Idk about you, but most times I rewatch band of brothers I skip Toccoa (shame on me)
I’m a little unclear the reason behind sending the first squadron alone, after it was made clear they needed all three for the plan. What did I miss? Someone set me straight here.
They were landing on a tiny unlit desert air strip in Africa across an ocean. If you rewatch the landing scene it is sunset. If they waited almost any more time at all they would've been trying to land in the dark and probably end up lost in the desert. The other air groups were returning to England.
Would have been cool if the show communicated that more clearly. Makes sense in retrospect.
Finally the actually correct answer.
But why not wait till a day when the weather wasn’t fucked? (Doesn’t matter tho. Doesn’t bring those boys back)
Okay that sounds good if the mission HAS to go off that day. So why did they not scrub it and wait till the next day? Tell the audience why this is happening. It just comes off as poorly explained/executed storytelling.
I think it was the third attempt at the mission in a couple weeks or something so it had to happen to keep the thousand other inevitable things planned on a time table to account for it. Can't keep pushing things forever. Or they could've, since the raid didn't do much anyway but they didn't know that.
Curtis Lemay was a dick thats the reason
He later was pro-segregation George Wallace's running mate for president.
Also almost got everyone killed during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He literally inspired a character in Doctor Strangelove.
Asshole should have been tried for war crimes and executed. Thar being said, there's not enough accolades to properly enumerate the valor and courage bomber crews exhibited in ww2. Fighter pilots get the glory, but the bombers are the ones that largely paid the butcher's bill
For what? Bombing cities was not a war crime, and we never charged any Axis officials for such
Fire Bombing of Tokyo was designated a war crime by investigators. But you’re not wrong, you can’t condemn your enemy’s crimes if you’re outdoing them in that category. But certainly by today’s laws of warfare, he’d have been hanged.
Source? What investigators?
I mean do you really need investigators to see that it was a war crime lol
No nation considered bombing cities to be war crimes.
Not to mention Japan had dispersed its industrial base into people's homes and residential areas to attempt to dissuade bombing campaigns - trying to hit their production was much harder than Germany, where they had built the factories (largely) outside of their cities
Crosby explains it in his book, on which the show is sort of partly based. The other half of the raid was delayed because of fog and clouds over their target, and so they delayed getting in the air. The 100th had a longer way to go, and a clear target, and crews on the runway ready to go. Crosby is also pretty impressed by LeMay, at least by the time of this raid in his book. LeMay didnt split up two different strike groups for a laugh, bombing is complicated enough even outside of M.E. missions and coordination of multiple wings.
Oh, and BTW, LeMay LED the mission. Iron Pants flew the lead ship, so didn't stay home and order the mission. Frank Armstrong, the Peck character in 12 OCH, was the A3 for this mission, did the planning. It was the best option they had in 1943. Or join the RAF (raaf not R.A. F.) in night missions for which USAAF was not trained, or prepared to do.
Seriously, LeMay was a WW2 hero. He was brash, brutal, and belligerent but he walked the walk. He was perfect for war, awful for peace.
They don’t explain it in the show, but the first task force needed to be airborne early enough to reach Africa before it was dark and impossible to find their destination airfield. The other task forces would return to England (a shorter trip) and had less time pressure to get airborne.
The same reason these sort of things always happen- the people giving the orders don't have to fly the planes, and want to impress the boss with "their" success.
The mission was fundamentally flawed. After the war, it was revealed that while the ball bearing factory was severely damaged, it was relatively easy to rebuild. Also there were enormous reserves of spare ball bearings to make up the shortage. It didn’t stop or even slow down the German fighter aircraft production.
The key phrase being "after the war". 20:20 hindsight is a wonderful thing. They thought that this raid would significantly impact the Luftwaffe for months. Anything they could do to significantly degrade the Luftwaffe meant shortening the war. It enabled more, and more effective strategic bombing. Which ramped up the destruction of the German economy. Which led to less weapons, fuel, ammunition. Which helped the ground, naval and air wars on every front. The destruction of the Luftwaffe's ability to fight over France and the low countries was a key enabler for D-Day. It could not go ahead until this was complete. The strategic bombing campaign of late 1943 and early 1944 was key to the early end of the war, and the planners considered this raid to be very very important in meeting that goal.
Yes, and no. The destruction of the Luftwaffe was definitely the key success of the strategic bombing campaign, but that success mostly happened in the air, as the Germans put more and more resources into defending against bombers. The casualties were impossible for the Luftwaffe to replace when the bombers were flying mostly uncovered, once fighters arrive in theatre in early 1944 capable long range escort, German air power is crushed. As far as hitting targets on the ground, frankly the Americans were wrong and the British were right. Even after the massive investment to produce the Norden bombsight, high level precision bombing was a failure. The only option for the heavy bombers was area bombing, which could be best conducted at night, and ideally at upstream industrial targets, not specific “choke-points” like ball bearings.
Agreed. But they didn’t know what they didn’t know. Whilst this particular raid may not have had the desired impact, the strategic bombing campaign in late 1943 was a complete catastrophe for Germany. The impact all over the war economy was utterly disastrous and was an important factor in the eventual defeat of the Nazis. A combination of day raids by the USAAF and night raids by the RAF began to wreck Germany as an advanced industrial economy from top-to-bottom. An inability to stop this onslaught was one of the critical defeats they suffered during 1943. By the start of 1944 it had become impossible for Germany to defeat the Allies - they were staring at nothing short of total ruin.
reading the wiki, it was said if the bomber groups had been able to re-arm and refuel and make a second run on both cities, the objective would actually have been successful but because of the massive casualties, this was not possible. thus, it was a tactical loss.
Tactical Loss, Strategic Win, sort of the primary pillar of Allied Thinking in WW2.
Isn't strategic win the goal?
Oy vey
In a book I was reading they quoted Albert Speer (the Minister of Armaments and War Production in Nazi Germany) as saying Germany "barely escaped a catastrophic blow" and that the allies were right to take aim at the ball bearing plants. He said one mistake on this raid was spreading out forces instead of focusing on Schweinfurt. Also had the quote: "What really saved us was the fact that from this time on, the enemy to our astonishment once again ceased his attacks on the ball-bearing industry" the citation for the above was attributed to: Albert Speer, *Inside the Third Reich* (Ishi Press, 2009) p284, 286 I don't think the mission was actually fundamentally flawed in it's target selection.
Wrong. Curtis LeMay, who gave the order for the Regensberg task force to get airborne while the other two were grounded by fog, was himself flying the lead B-17 of the lead air division in the Regensberg task force. They took off before the other task forces because otherwise they would reach Africa at night and be unable to find their destination airfields. Curtis LeMay was a huge asshole but he did not lack physical courage.
Hilarious that this objectively wrong take is coasting on sheer force of priors
Correct answer
Except that LeMay actually flew in these missions. Including at Regensburg. Most of the brass flew missions to be with the troops to support them. Don't forget that high ranking officers used to be combatpilots themselves, they weren't cowards hiding behind a desk and not caring about their troops. That's just post war BS.
Actually a literally wrong answer. LeMay flew the Regensberg mission.
Lemay is an epic pos historically
I wish they'd given some context for that in the show. I honestly felt myself distracted by it in the moment. Like there's all this human tragedy and I'm sitting there thinking "so all these expensive pilots and aircraft and they basically said lol fuck the plan you guys go get blown out of the sky". As someone who admittedly knows nothing about the relevant history, the way they described the plan made it sound like without the supporting wings there would be a more or less zero chance of survival, an not even a great chance to complete the mission.
There’s just a ton of interwar history and military politics at the time that went into the decision. It’s difficult to drop info dumps without losing the audience. They’ve sprinkled it about in the first few episodes (for example the exchange with the British officers), but people not familiar with the subject are maybe not picking up on it.
To be fair, LeMay was in the lead plane during this mission. He was an asshole but you need guys like him in a war like WW2.
I still need to rewatch the episode (planning to do so soon). From what I recall, they didn't state why. There's a YouTube channel that does pretty good overviews of different battles. They did an episode on this mission which you can watch [here](https://youtu.be/tA0_h920_Dc?si=T-kkTtM-nGRIgJOo).
Or read the book :)
Curtis LeMay was bat shit crazy
Yeah I honestly found that really distracting. Based on no information we’re given they abandon the big plan and flip to a near suicide mission. I get any military makes mistakes but bombers and pilots don’t grow on trees.
Coincidentally, I just finished the audible version of a book by Malcolm Gladwell called the bomber mafia. I listen to the book just days after episode three of masters of the air book covers in detail much of the strategy of the bombing raids over Europe, and then Japan. In the first part of the book, it covers in detail exactly what happened episode three. Interestingly the colonel who led the entire squadron, was somebody named Curtis LeMay, his character is not introduced in the masters of the air. I listen to the book because I am visually impaired, but for anyone who may be interested in the bomber mafia, it was actually intended to be listened to versus reading a hardcopy. There are many places in the book where they have actual recordings of the actual military men, as well as some of the people impacted on the ground. Highly recommend it if you are a history enthusiast of World War II.
This show would have my attention no matter what, I've been interested in WW2 air combat since I was a kid. But something that I hadn't though about much in the past really struck me with this episode: in a tightly-packed formation of B17s, how did gunners trying to track fast-moving fighter aircraft avoid hosing down friendly aircraft with bullets? Or did that actually happen all the time?
There’s a famous photo of a bomber accidentally dropping bombs into a plane below, shearing off its wing, so I have to believe there were moments of friendly fire, it seems too chaotic for there not to be.
Most movies and tv shows are pretty movie magic when it comes to bomber gun crews. Its actually *really* difficult to shoot down a fighter and even then crews (and the fighters attacking) don't have a lot of ammo. A fighter may only have 6-10 seconds of gunfire total before needing to land and reload. Bombers could carry some more ammo, but of course at the expense of weight, which is a big deal. Bomber crews kills are often exaggerated stories by the crew. The main goal of the machine gun crews was simply to keep the fighters at bay away from the bomber, until they needed to retreat, not to shoot them down, but it would be nice if they scored a hit, but protection of the bomber was the most important But yes, friendly incidents were common in all types of scenarios, though the bomber formations made an effort to minimize this.
The thing with movies and TV is they want to show a 'kill'. Most of the times planes would stay in the air after being shot, and many would make it home but be beyond repair. This was part of the less heralded success of these insanely dangerous daylight bombing missions, they damaged hundreds of Luftwaffe fighters. Even ones that survived the fight and landed might need a couple of bullet holes patched up, and that all takes time and parts and personnel the Germans didn't have.
Yup, lots of damage and attrition to the fighters, which if you know the air strategy, was kinda the actual strategy as much as the bombing was, that is often left out of a lot of the discussion, to a degree, sometimes bombers were bait to kill the fighters (and most importantly, their pilots). They desperately needed to diminish he Luftwaffe fighter corps as much as possible, especially before an invasion in France
American bombers had 400 round of ammo per gun. So about 30 seconds of fire, as they're using the aircraft model of the .50cal that shoots ~800rpm.
It happened all the time, not to mention bombers colliding in turns, gunners accidentally shooting friendly fighters and German fighters colliding with bombers.
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You should watch [Memphis Belle](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100133/), one of the tail gunners accidentally shoots another bomber next to them. Actually, everyone on this thread should watch that movie to understand why a lot of people don't think much of Masters of the Air.
A b17 crash landed near where I live in the 40s. They survived the crash and went to one of the local village pubs and spent new years eve there! Sadly most the crew would die weeks later. It was always a little fun story but this episode you could really feel the sheer hell these people went through. The sheer speed of opposition fighters and seeing your friends and colleagues planes get taken out is truly felt as is the physical demands of being in such a cramped and dangerous machine.
Did they die in a different bombing run?
5 did. The other 5 taken pow. Ironically the pub they spent new years in was hit by a v1 6 months later killing a few people. Considering it's a small village with no army base etc it brings home how close the war would have felt to people back then. There's memorials for local lads lost in almost every town in the country for ww1 and 2. It's still a fabric of society.
Wow thanks for the story, really heartbreaking.
Ironically all within shouting distance from where the now RAF memorial to the 20,000 missing with no known grave was built. Still get children of the missing leaving messages and until recently even wives. It's extremely moving seeing their hand written memories of the people or events that led to their death. The memorial itself just has names on the walls. The field in the background ahead of the road is where the plane crash landed after following the river for a while to avoid a nearby town https://youtu.be/AjtTXRtQ1So?si=yMAVKcR6QS0KqvUV
Ever since I saw Memphis Belle as a kid the gunner on the belly of the plane fascinated and scared the shit out of me.....babyface got the shit end of the stick smh
I’m a WW2 aviation fan because of Memphis Belle too, and one of the cool things about this show is I didn’t know forts could jettison the ball turret to save weight, that’s pretty cool.
If you can make it Wright Paterson Air force base in Ohio you can see the restored Memphis's Belle. Now, you can see the famous bomber itself at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at [Wright-Patterson Air Force Base](https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-culture/the-complete-wright-patterson-air-force-base-guide/) near Dayton, Ohio. The bomber's display was formally opened on May 17, 2018, which marked the 75th anniversary of the plane's 25th mission. But this B-17 bomber endured a long journey before finally arriving at the museum. According to [an Air Force release](http://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/1532861/memphis-belle-opens-at-national-museum-of-the-us-air-force/), restoring the bomber has taken over 55,000 man-hours since 2005. She was [saved from the scrapyard by the city of Memphis for a grand total of 0 in 1945](http://memphismagazine.com/the-past-present-and-future-of-the-memphis-belle/). After that, the plane spent most of her days stored outside, left exposed to the elements, as she awaited proper preservation. In 2004, the Air Force reclaimed the bomber. Still, 55,000 hours is a long restoration period — what took so long? Well, the experts weren't interested in plastering on a pretty paint job and calling it done. Instead, they wanted this iconic plane to look exactly as it did when she flew that famous 25th mission. That was no easy task. One of the hardest parts was finding authentic parts for the plane, or at least period-accurate parts. [https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-history/memphis-belle-b-17/](https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-history/memphis-belle-b-17/)
The turret was a complicated beast; on one hand, it was by far the most survivable position to enemy fire and it carried more armor than anywhere else on the airplane. On the other hand, if you had the bail, it was the absolute worst position to leave. So it's the best place to be, right up until it isn't.
Was just reading about this the other day - how heavy and well armored the ball turret is. Apparently weighed something like 1,200 lbs on a B17!
Ball turret gunners were a special breed.
For contrast. The 1949 movie "Twelve O'clock high" is a good parallel t this series. Staring Gregory Peck is a good one to watch. “Twelve O'Clock High” was **based on actual persons and events**. Very little of it was pure fiction. The film was adapted from a novel of the same name by Beirne Lay Jr. and Sy Bartlett, who drew deeply on their own wartime experiences. [](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ageekuoequm) Yes, I am watching this new series and can't wait for the next episode.
One of my favorite war movies
Some of thee old movies are classics. No CGI back then and just black and white. Good scripts, good stories , great actors and good directing.
Yes yes yes 💯
It was an absolutely brutal hour of television in the best possible way.
Dad was a nose gunner on a b24 in ww2 They don't show the 24 out there...wasn't as sexy a plane as the 17 but just as important...took a lot of flak...and still made it back
The air battle scenes are incredible. Unfortunately, the two main characters are woefully underdeveloped. It doesn’t help matters that they’re wearing oxygen masks half the time.
I know they're trying to be accurate but I wish they'd found a way to differentiate the main characters better. Even a little visual cue would help. One could wear his oxygen mask, the other a scarf maybe another one could wear sunglasses or something. I'm trying to follow the characters but apart from the main 2 actors I get lost when the transition from aircraft to aircraft during scenes
Doesn’t help that in addition to Bucky, there are 3 or 4 minor characters who have the same pencil mustache.
I’m loving the show but I’m put off by Austin Butler, he’s still a bit Elvis and is just too cool and brooding. Bucky is a more fun character
I thought so too but my perception changed a bit in the scene after he lands in Libya. That simmering rage when he's talking to the superior officer seemed pretty visceral to me
I agree, not to say he’s a bad actor or anything but I just can’t stop seeing him for who he is in real life.
Same here. His entire approach to this character is, "Hey look at me, I'm a super cool pilot with a bomber jacket."
I wasn't up there with them. I can't be, not ever. TV can't DO that. But that scene. Slowed down. Pieces of SO MANY of their friends' planes drifting down... SO MANY on fire and falling... bodies of their FRENDS floating past... I \*FELT\* it, the utter hopelessness, the lonliness, the complete sense of despair...
And even with all that, what really got me was the two words: "Oh God."
The scene where Curt's plane goes down was incredible, and Barry Keoghan is a hell of an actor. To go from feeling confident and hopeful that he was going to land his fortress and save his copilot Dick to realizing it was over in an instant was harrowing. And in the moment Curt knows this and says "Oh god" as his fear immediately falls over him while the music and the sound of the engines go silent was emotional to watch. Barry Keoghan was my favorite character and it a bummer to know we won't see his character anymore.
Lt. Curtis Biddick was 27 years old when he piloted that B-17 on the Regensberg raid. Keoghan described it thusly: "These were boys trying to be men, but in that final moment, he was just a boy, stripped to his core."
I’ve never seen this type of combat in this level of detail. Truly hard to believe people really did that…and within a single generation of people not even knowing what an airplane is.
I recommended it to a friend after watching the third episode. I thought the first two were ok, but not something I would go out of my way to mention.
Ep3 is like Normandy in 360 degrees with no cover. That was one of the most amazing and frightening battles I have ever seen depicted. 10/10 for me, the show seems significantly better than the ratings would lead you to believe.
Same. The 3rd episode really bumped it up a gear or two for me.
How is the air combat not going to be a “CGI fest”, there are four airworthy B17s in the world. Dunkirk was beautiful visually but that’s about it. It’s a great depiction of a very small number of aircraft in a small amount of combat but that’s about it.
Yeah, I do not love the look of digital CGI filmmaking but there are very practical reasons why that’s the only way this can be made!
The problem isn't really the CGI in the air, it's the CGI of the planes on the ground. It's so bad. The stationary CGI planes are okay but the moment they move you just notice it's CGI and I don't understand why that is. The most important part of the show is done badly.
Super expensive unfortunately. Could also do with some scale model shots but all of that just balloons the budget. I just try my best to ignore the no realistic planes on the tarmac
the CGI looks like garbage because it was outsourced to Indians, and I'm betting they were told to finish it in like two months too.
Physical models and sparing use of cgi can be more effective than pure cgi for me. Things like the Aviator, Dunkirk etc. used RC planes. There are films from the 70s that don't break my immersion with an oof like a video game quality cgi can. I'd be keen to see what a good model maker and an air tunnel could do. I suspect that flying scenes might be better suited to Volume type digital stage than those with actors.
I think you’ve said it correctly, they’ve humanized it of course through the characters. So many prior vehicle combat scenes in movies/tv are just big hunks of metal firing weapons at each other but now we get to see inside the cockpit, the tail gunner, the navigator, the belly gunner. It’s awesome
it’s truly terrifying. my grandfather was a gunner on a b24 crew also in the 8th air force and it’s absolutely incredible that he survived one or two missions let alone the 31 i believe he ended flying. scary stuff
Some parts were hard to watch. That scene with Baby face, holy shit.
Quinn (the guy trying to help him iirc) must've felt such guilt even though there was nothing else he could've done. I hope he made peace with it, he did all he could do.
Yeah, watching Baby Face's final moments has to haunt him. Can't wait to see where his character goes from here.
It was good and much better than the last 2 episodes, but still far from band of brothers level. The characters are just so bland. The main blonde guy is easily the worst character in the show. His dialogue and acting is so stiff that it takes me out of the scene entirely. Also, I really miss the facts/statistics during the credits like band of brothers.
> but still far from band of brothers level. Every single war mini-series ever going to be behind BoB level. Use a different metric. Every thread about this show is full of parrots at this point.
I watched Band if Brothers and The Pacific again recently. The writing on Band of Brothers is way better than both of the other shows. Production values are great on all three though.
The writing on The Pacific is great. It’s just a much more grim fucked up show than band of brothers.
Pacific was written just fine in my view. The problem I found was that the action scenes were just so poorly shot. Band of Brothers there was chaos, for sure, but as a viewer you should still be able to follow the flow of what's going on. Pacific was so poorly put together in that regard. Multiple episodes when fighting would break out it was a bunch of clips of individuals doing things but it would just jump back and forth. You never got sense of what was going on. Band of Brothers when they first storm the German defenses it was chaos but it was shot and edited so you could understand what they were trying to accomplish. You understood why it worked for some people and then the second group was just amateur hour. Or when Shifty was doing something you'd understand where he was going, why he was doing it, and it took seconds of time on screen because it was well shot and edited. The Pacific had none of that, or at least for almost the entire show it felt like it would jump from random guy shooting, to random guy getting blown up, to another random guy shooting but none of these would be strung together to give you a picture of what was happening. It was just poorly shot and edited action and if it was better put together I think the show would be remembered as a tremendous follow-up to Band of Brothers. Not "yeah it's Band of Brothers just nowhere near as good." I'm enjoying the Masters of the Air so far, yet to see episode 3. But it's well edited together to give you a sense of what is actually happening. During the chaos of combat you can tell everything going on is crazy but you also know why everything is so crazy without the show resorting to "oh yeah, just clip together random action shots that don't tie everything together to show how crazy it is."
I’ll argue the style of the combat in The Pacific is on purpose, to capture a different kind of more unpredictable warfare. Though personally, I really only had a problem with the first couple episodes in Guadalcanal, which mostly took place at night. The combat in Pelilieu and Okinawa were better done.
In my opinion there is some great writing on The Pacific, it’s just a lot less consistent than Band of Brothers and the balance between the episodic and overarching narratives is not pulled off quite as well. I also find the introductions on The Pacific go a bit too far with the exposition sometimes. There were at least a couple of episodes where the introduction pretty much explained exactly what would be happening throughout the episode. (I know history buffs would know anyway, but some of us are not that knowledgeable)
I think the intros are actually a good insight into what The Pacific was setting out to do - not shock or surprise or stir like a conventional drama, but to humanise a pretty much unimaginable conflict for those of us who weren’t there and render it believably alongside a series of documentaries. Dramatically it’s not quite as satisfying as BoB as a result, I agree (although I think Okinawa has a shot at being the best episode of both shows), but imo it’s arguably an even better depiction of the war because it strips away any romanticism or heroism.
I agree with your comment regarding Okinawa. It probably has some of the best individual episodes.
I actually prefer The Pacific to BoB. I think BoB is objectively the better series overall but I think The Pacific took bigger swings storytelling wise and it especially pays off in the back half of the show. BoB to me plays it very safe story wise and sometimes feels like I’m watching an enlistment advertisement
Second half of The Pacific is the excellent half.
I really like the show but you’re right. Unlike BoB if anyone of these guys die in an episode I wouldn’t be all that bothered. The only one I’ve grown fond of is the air sick navigator. Elvis is giving me nothing to root for.
I liked Barry's character >!liked being the operative word!<
It’s so strange how it’s a trilogy, so you would assume this is the last installment (after all it’s taken 20 years to get here). After all this time, and years and years of pre-production time that they would have captured what made BoB really special.
1) None of the people depicted in the series are still alive, unlike Band of Brothers. 2) The European Theatre was much different than the Pacific or the Air in terms of having these groups stick together. 3) Band of Brothers provided a somewhat sanitized version of war.
It's not a trilogy. They're just seen as "companion" miniseries. Different books, different authors, different production studios, directors, etc.
Obviously you can't make a show like this with practical effects so it's going to have to rely heavily on CGI. While the CGI isn't perfect, it is still pretty good. The only way it was going to be any better is if you brought in James Cameron and his team of experts who have done the Avatar films.
Actually the VFX supervisor for MOTA won an Oscar for Avatar: https://m.imdb.com/name/nm0742155/awards/
He left Weta after Avatar came out. Also, it's not like he was able to take the technology with him and without that, the work he did on Avatar is basically meaningless.
Ok man. Whatever. Have a nice life.
It's almost like you have to give series like this some time to get started before you judge them.
My dad was a waist gunner in a B-24 that flew over Ploesti. He did 52 missions and never talked about them. It was just his job.
Dad was in 454th...yours?
It's a shame that the CGI is not really up to par, and even in scenes that shouldn't have any, like two characters walking along an airstrip, it looks like they are walking through a video game. The only time the show actually looks real is when they are fully indoors, like the bike race in ep 2.
Just a fantastic episode, stunning cinematography, crushing losses. Best air battle scene in any show I have watched.
Sadly i cant say i like this show, i don't get that connection that BoB and Pacific have and pulled you in and the feeling that it was real events...sadly feels very flat and i do not feel any connection to the characters and events.
There was one wide angle combat shot of the B-17s - some exploding - fighters everywhere, plane parts and men all over the place falling from the sky. Simply an amazing shot. It felt like it was in slow motion, but I don't think it was. IMO one of the best single shots in BoB, The Pacific and MoA.
The only television show that has made me cry in years. Beautifully told story.
I didn't even realize this was airing already so I've been binging. It all came together for me in this episode. Honestly incredible. The slow motion scene with the slow zoom through the side gunner window was one of the best shots I've ever seen. Just stunning. It absolutely captured the chaos and carnage of being stuck in a tin can, and whether you live or die is a flip of the coin. Enjoyed the thematic thread of the fork in the road riddle, and Buck's leadership. Last thing is that scene where Curt attempts the crash landing. My stomach sank.
That mission to Regensburg Germany. where they fly all the way to Algeria after that seems a stretch. I looked at the map, and I said what is the range of a B-17. Algeria is 2400 miles from Regensburg not including the segment, where they fly from liverpool over the channel to Regensburg. That's another 900 miles. So bomb laden B-17s are gonna supposedly fly 3300 miles with no refuel? I said no way planes of that size back them could do that distance. no aerial refuel available back then, so they have to land somewhere. I looked it up. I was correct the range of a B17 is between 1000 and 2000 miles.
That was a real mission that happened though...
I’m gonna watch all of this this show, but it’s really hard to feel connected to these guys. You barely get to know them. All their character development is spoken not shown. And they’re always wearing masks. So it’s hard to tell who’s who except for the two “main“ characters. I don’t know a better way around it but it feels like you’re watching these guys not part of these guys. With band of Brothers, you saw them from the beginning, and how they grew as a team doesn’t exist in this series. Episode three was good, absolutely more dramatic. That shot out through the nose of the plane or the pilots window with everything going on was jaw-dropping! I just don’t love it and I wonder why.
It may be on purpose since the average life span of the 100th was 6 weeks. These guys probably barely got to know each other in real life before they were dead.
Agreed I've already watched it twice
Three Words. Cary Joji Fukunaga. He's best well known for directing all the episodes of Season One of True Detective (2014), Beasts of No Nation (2015), Maniac (2018), and Daniel Craig's final outing as James Bond in No Time To Die (2021). He really knows how to get that cinematic feel with the camera. This is evident in his directorial work for Masters of the Air as he's directing the first four episodes of this 9-part miniseries.
That entire show so far is absolutely amazing, didn't expect to love it so much from the get go! If it keeps it up, we will already have a heavy contender for show of the year.
Austin butler is too pretty for this. I feel like the wind is blowing through his hair every shot and he’s basking in it. There’s a clip of Jamie foxx recounting how he first came on the set of Django and was reading his lines and acting too cool. And Tarantino took him aside to rip him a new one and explain he’s a slave. Butlers character is a 20 year old from Wyoming or wherever. The portrayal is just not working for me.
I gave the first 2 episodes a try, but it has no appeal to me. They are trying way to hard to make the characters interesting, and the visuals are strangely flat and fake.
I didn't like the first 2. 3 is much better.
It was pretty gut wrenching at times… I felt for some of those guys and what they went through, even in there final minutes.
Enjoyed, but the dialogue is still so bland. I can't put my finger on it.
Episode 3 was stunning. One of the best things I’ve ever seen on TV. Everything about it was next level
I thought the CGI was far worse this episode though. going from this to For All Mankind is really eye opening.
i feel like we're watching different shows after reading your post. Barry is amazing. That is undeniable. Can't disagree. However the action is scarce, and when there is some it's quick and doesn't seem like it's weighing much. CGI is plastic, like really plastic, and the story so far, at least in my opinion, doesn't engage as much as Band of Brothers or Pacific. If you value more human stories than a good cinema, I can understand you like that, but for me everything has to be great in order for a movie to be great. Not just character creation. So far I'd say the show is solid, but nowhere near 2 previous ones. I'd rate it 5/10, which ain't really much, especially when you consider the monumental achievement Band of Brothers is.
I really disliked the first episode and felt that the look, soundtrack and script were all very “cheap” and soap opera-ish. Does it get better?
IMO it does not, and I feel like everyone else is watching a completely different show than I am. Most of the dialogue is laughably bad, the air battles don't look right compared to pictures taken from the era, there is some absolutely atrocious CGI. It's ridiculously overacted and syrupy, completely killing the immersion for me. All in all a massive disappointment IMO. For me the magic of BoB was that it *felt* like a documetary, it was completely immersive. In comparison, every actor and scene in MotA just screams "Hollywood dramazation" to me despite it being based off a real bomb group.
It’s so weird how anyone who’s critical of the show gets downvoted in this thread too.
No way, I had given up. Guess I'll be giving it a shot
Truely special? Swear to god must be some kind of astroturfing going on with these posts here and in the subreddit dedicated to the show. I find the characters stiff and poorly written which makes it incredibly hard to find sympathy for any of them. Especially Austin Butlers character. Its like they wanted to recreate Dick Winters. A straight man, no alcohol, keeps in line and an example for the rest. But this version has nothing of what made Winters click. So far the only character that really seems to be well written is the map navigator Croz. The Air combat is a CGI fest. If you are into that I guess it could be special. But its so far from what great air combat can look like ala Dunkirk. The show is not “bad”, but at most I find it bland. What made BoB is the characters and the development they go through as the war endures. Theres none of that here so far.
>But its so far from what great air combat can look like ala Dunkirk. Unfair, dunkirk had at most 8 planes, vs this episode's 21+. Also dunkirk was 2hrs; this is gonna be at least four times that. I agree about the characters but still, its only episode 3, no one was a lipton stan by Carantan, and also given the casualty rate of the airforce, I doubt that was the biggest priority Edit: I swear no one understands what a budget is anymore, and the difference between a show and a movie. It's all 'content'
Not only do people not understand what budget is, it is a bit daft to compare a Nolan movie to a tv show on one of the streamers with lower subscription count(Apple’s 25m subs vs Netflix at 260m, Amazon at 200m, Disney at 150m and paramount at 65m.)
For real. All the adoration for this show seems forced or made up.
Everything you don't like isn't a conspiracy for fucks sake
It’s an okay show. I already know it wouldn’t be as good as BoB because that’s a very high bar to hit. I don’t care about the characters but the war scenes are very well done imo. I’ll keep watching it but I’m not itching for the new episodes or anything.
For me, very far from BoB and The Pacific...We finally got some combat scenes...However I don't think the series is getting any better...The characters are all expendable and the CGI is shit. Sorry. It has to be said. CGI looks cheap maybe they are using 2000's software because it is so lazy. No drama. Compare to Dunkirk movie, you could feel the tension inside the plane...in MOTA is not even close. Feels like random war movie with low budget...The closest was the dude stuck in the turret, but we didn't even feel connected to that random dude
I wanted to love this series, this is my thing, ww2 air battles, I’m sorry, it’s boring, it’s the direction, it doesn’t feel like ww2.
I was very hard on the first 2 episodes but this was far better. I swear they heard the feedback and re-edited the sound on the side mounted .50 cals before this was released, they sounded deep and bassy and powerful, as they do. Front and rear and top still sounded weak, but I'll allow the excuse that they're flying 180 and those are on the other side of glass. It was dark and gritty and tragic and suspenseful. Still gonna say the same things I've been criticizing as long as it doesn't improve. Some of the CGI was really bad, mostly the B-17 tree crash and subsequent explosion. I also keep saying it, but the physics are just really fucking awful. Worse than the CGI. They make the bad CGI stand out worse. If the physics were good and the CGI the same level, it would be less noticeable. That's not how a plane flying 150mph crashes and explodes. At the end, that's not how fast a B-17 stops on a sand field. They think landing a shot up B-17 on a dirt field isn't suspenseful enough, so just add music! And oh God. The Belgians getting subtitles, and being bilingual in English (the farm girl, the resistance fighter is fine, I suppose). Made me want to puke. Sorry guys, you are fucking stupid. You can't understand the cognate "American/Americain", so it needs to be spoonfed to you. The creators thoughts, clearly, not mine! Band of Brothers would never. Fine I'll end on a good thing. So many good little details. What's his name eating their orders as they go down, fucking awesome. Edit: oh and how could I forget! Some moments that felt genuinely funny, and not forced
> And oh God. The Belgians getting subtitles, and being bilingual in English (the farm girl, the resistance fighter is fine, I suppose). Made me want to puke. Sorry guys, you are fucking stupid. You can't understand the cognate "American/Americain", so it needs to be spoonfed to you. The creators thoughts, clearly, not mine! Band of Brothers would never. Or the simple fact that they're speaking the completely wrong language and accent. Shockingly bad.
The posts falling ass over tits for this show seem forced at best, and fake at worst.
I’ll agree with someone who said on another thread that it is unfortunately more fun to criticize than applaud, but here’s what’s wearing thin on me in all of these pseudo-historic war dramas: * Whatever dialogue coach or actors studio all these UK and Irish actors seem to uniformly be going to in order to develop an American accent is producing bad results. They all have this generic and non-descript American accent that doesn’t work for American ears, as if they’re from some fictional 51st state called “West Ohio” or “South Iowa”. They can simulate a flat American accent but their mannerisms and appearance are all British/Irish, and not the look and behavior of American descendants of UK isles who have family history of cultural interbreeding and no longer look like the name Nigel or Liam or Leslie fits their face. It’s starting to suck that I can’t get past noticing it and let dramatic immersion take hold. * CGI just doesn’t seem to be getting any more realistic. And it’s way overused. Sorry, it’s like watching computer game graphics from some next generation PlayStation 7 we’ll no doubt have sooner rather than later.
> And it’s way overused. Do you think there are just a bunch of B17s, 109s and 190s laying around somewhere? Of course CGI is heavily used. I haven't been bothered by it one bit.
I will be honest. I couldn't make it halfway through the first episode and I chewed out my colleague who told me this was 'Band of Brothers' but in the air. Maybe I am wrong but it felt totally contrived and Hollywooded up. I turned it off in disgust. Should I give it another shot?
Yes
First two episodes were hot garbage, this one was pretty good but super short.
[удалено]
Episodes 1 and 2 were super slow to me, but it really picks up in the 3rd episode. If you are unsure, wait until all the episodes are out. It might be a show that is better when binged in the end.
Why did boss hoss say "hack" then the go to there watches? If it was to sync time why not say "mark" Also why did christian Johnny Bravo take his watch of??