The Red Baron (2008)

[MisterCairo]

fftopic:

Oh good doctor, how the Australians just can't give it up! Roy Brown received credit for the kill, and it has never been revoked.

The fact is that the standards used to determine a "kill" during the First World War included things such as rendering an aircraft unserviceable, forced landings, and so on. You didn't need to kill the pilot or destroy the aircraft. There are recorded kills where the "killed" pilot and plane were back in the air the same day.

If Brown's manoeuverings forced the Baron to follow a certain path, lower his altitude, and thus expose himself to Aussie gunfire, it still counts as Brown's kill using the standards of the time.

Brown had 12 confirmed kills. The Baron was one.

 

[Kinney]

Hopefully, Red Tails will be a better film then Tuskegee Airmen!

They have a large part of the cast from HBO's The Wire, it seems, so I expect at least a decent picture from it.

Why does everyone dislike Red Baron? Because of its gross inaccuracies, or because they think its a bad picture? I watched it from an entertainment standpoint and was not let down. That's not to say I think it's a good picture, necessarily, just that I enjoyed it. Maybe Spielberg will come out with a WW1 air combat mini series!

 

[Chas]

The population of war movie enthusiasts includes a very high proportion of armchair generals and history buffs. Many are very well read in their favorite genres and expect a fair degree of historical accuracy and are very vocal about their displeasure when they see it butchered.

I haven't seen the movie myself, but when I heard that there was a love interest involved in the script, I automatically gave it a pass. WWI is a specialty area of mine, and particularly WWI aviation.

Richtofen was not that interested in romantic entanglements, and there is some speculation that he was in fact, gay. That is pure speculation of course, because in nothing I have read on the man was there any indication that there was anyone special in his life. He loved his mother, though, like a good Prussian Aristocrat. A cult of personality has grown up around him, and a lot of myths fly around him like a lot of people who are hero-worshipped.

My assessment of him was that he was a better than average pilot who scored a lot of kills in hopelessly mismatched duels with vastly inferior a/c. A total of 36 of his 80 confirmed kills were against FE2b's and RE 8's, which the RFC kept in service long after they were hopelessly outclassed by the German a/c they were sent against them. His talents were mostly as a leader of a crack unit of fighter pilots. He wasn't the best pilot of the war, by any stretch. At the end of the day his luck ran out, and he died doing exactly what he warned young pilots about - persuing an "easy kill" whithin the range of ground fire and getting caught in what fighter pilots call "target fixation".

 

[Spitfire]

Being neither a armchairgeneral or WWI history buff, but instead I am a guy who happens to teach film at university- I have worked with-, written and directed several films thoughout my worklife (Ads or commercials that is)
So I do happen to know something about filmwork.
There is nothing really wrong with The Red Baron, except the flyingscenes seems akward and too fast, it's average acting, average photography, average editing and all in all: An average story.
It's like eating Fastfood. Easy and forgettable.

 

[Kinney]

Thank you Chas and Spitfire for your informative posts.

I suppose if I knew more about Richtofen, maybe it would have bothered me more. I did scoff at the landing scenes between Richtofen and Joseph (Ralph?) Fiennes, portraying Brown, I think. That came across as hokey. Overall, I think the quality wardrobe department has lifted the film in my eyes, and I would watch it again simply for that.

I think somebody mentioned earlier that pilots from different geographic regions wore different uniforms? Can anybody expound upon this? For instance, Werner Voss has some kind of plaid overcoat, whereas another pilot wears a nappy fur coat.

 

[Stearmen]

Golden BB

fftopic:
If Brown's manoeuverings forced the Baron to follow a certain path, lower his altitude, and thus expose himself to Aussie gunfire, it still counts as Brown's kill using the standards of the time.

Brown had 12 confirmed kills. The Baron was one.

By your standards it should have been Wilfrid Reid "Wop" May who got the credit for Richthofen. It was May that the Baron was chasing at the time of his death, may flew very low and erratic which was from inexperience not skill, it saved his life. Brown made one ineffectual pass, we know because all witnesses said he pulled out of the fight long before the crash and Richthofen would have crashed much sooner if Brown had administered the fatal shot! Richthofen died because he disregarded the Dicta Boelcke written by his mentor Oswald Boelcke! In it, he spoke of not getting low behind enemy lines and don't get what we call today, Target Fixation, where you want the kill so bad you ignore your own safety! In the end we will never know for sure since every one on the ground was spraying the air with .303 rounds. We know for sure that he had one bullet round in his body and it most likely came from the ground. It may have been nothing more then the fabled Golden BB!

 

[Smithy]

Very well said Stearman :eusa_clap

Even Brown himself never thought he'd bagged MvR.

Anyone interested in the events of the 21st April 1918 should read Franks and Bennett's "The Red Baron's Last Flight" which is without doubt the most indepth and forensic account.

The movie? Crap in terms of both film making and historical accuracy.

 

[VitaminG]

The actor who played Werner Voss was way too old to be accurate from what I noticed.

the actor, Til Schweiger, said as much himself in the dvd extras lol

I did enjoy the movie though

 

[Chas]

I'm of the position that ground fire killed Richtofen. Or more precisely Richtofen killed Richtofen; he, like a lot of crack pilots who were kept flying rather than being given desk jobs eventually developed a sense of doomed fatalism and pretty much expected to killed eventually. They did things that seem to me to suggest a death wish. There were many great pilots of that war; Ray Collishaw, Frank Luke, Raoul Lufbery, Charles Nungesser and others. When I was a new nursing grad I was incredibly lucky to work briefly in a long term care facility with one old fellow that actually knew Albert Ball. He remembered him very well, and shared with me that the memory that the general consensus of the guys in his squadron was that Ball was nuts.

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[MisterCairo]

No, Wop May doesn't qualify using the standards of the day (they are not "my" standards). While May was the Baron's intended target, and while he was intensely following him, Brown's chase outlasted May's flight. Regardless of the origin of the fatal round, using the criteria of the day Brown got credit. His humble response notwithstanding (Brown was not a glory hound).

 

[Stearmen]

Fatal .303

Our local PBS station is rerunning a special on who shot down The Red Baron Tuesday, it may be on yours, check listings. I have seen it, well done and in the actual area of the last fight! Still won't settle the fight over who fired the fatal .303, but still good viewing!