Masters of the Air (Apple TV+ series)...

[MinionZombie]

From the producers of Band of Brothers and The Pacific. Anybody been watching? It's got some stuff going for it, but woof, what a drop from both its predecessors. Sure, even The Pacific couldn't match the lightning in a bottle that was BoB, but Masters of the Air is a biiiig step down from The Pacific.

[Neil]

Oh! It's on my list to watch, but you've almost talked me out of it...

[MinionZombie]

Oh! It's on my list to watch, but you've almost talked me out of it... It's worth giving it a go, but it's major problem is it's very hard to get to know any of the characters, or even recognise who they are once you're up in identical looking planes in identical looking uniforms with oxygen masks on. I've felt almost no connection to any of the characters. Plus, in the few scenes that a British pilot turns up, the show kinda becomes xenophobic Hollywood yahoo 'we won the war' bullshit, painting them as just a bunch of sexist toffs who were totally cool with indiscriminately bombing civilians compared to the ever-so brave Americans who dared to fly by day and were ever-so precise in their bombing of just factories and only factories (that were operated by civilians and slave labour, but let's not mention that). I've done six so far, so only three left, but I won't be rewatching this. Ever. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen BoB and even The Pacific I've seen three or four times thus far and will rewatch that again.

[Neil]

I keep meaning to watch BoB again. Not watched Pacific. Your comments seem to suggest I should be watching that before MotA?!

[MinionZombie]

I keep meaning to watch BoB again. Not watched Pacific. Your comments seem to suggest I should be watching that before MotA?! While The Pacific isn't up to the standards of BoB, which was just perfection, it's still a really solid series (much more so when compared to the dreck that so often gets released these days). I think The Pacific suffered because it was never going to able to recapture BoB's magic, but also because the real life story doesn't gel with narrative linear storytelling as well as what you get with BoB. So yeah, if you've not yet seen The Pacific (what's taking you so long? ), watch that first. MotA can certainly wait.

[shootemindehead]

Personally, I thought that 'The Pacific' was better than 'Band of Brothers' in a number of respects. In a way it was far grittier. BoB gave the impression that Easy Coy. waltzed its way through the war and had an "easy" time of it all. Germans seemed to drop dead with a single bullet and US soldiers came off as only being able to be wounded. I've been...um..."acquiring" the episodes of 'Masters of the Air' and I'm looking forward to sitting down and watching it, given that the air war over Europe has been a study area of mine for more years than I care to remember. But I've been hearing some mixed reports about the show.

[MinionZombie]

I'll certainly agree that The Pacific was "grittier" than BoB, much more so at times (there's some really quite stomach-churning moments in the fog of war on the islands amidst the rotting corpses etc). However, I've never thought of Easy Co. as being depicted as 'having it easy'. The episode(s) around Bastogne, for instance, are pretty damn hard going. I think it's also fair to say that when BoB was being filmed vs when The Pacific was being filmed (the best part of a decade apart), the general audience's ability to deal with very visceral imagery had advanced. Perhaps it's also a difference between the two areas of conflict. In BoB the world they're fighting in isn't super far from home, in terms of their surroundings, but in The Pacific it's a totally different world. Also, yes - a very mixed reception to Masters of the Air. Prepare to not really know who the fuck most anyone is, especially during the flight sequences. You just can't really connect with the characters unlike in BoB and Pacific where you really got invested in those individuals.

[kidgloves]

I rewatched Band of Brothers and The Pacific not so long ago and I think MOTA is on par with Band. The Pacific I struggled to get through and still haven't completely finished it. The aerial scenes in MOTA are breathtaking imo. Absolutely loving the series

[shootemindehead]

I'll certainly agree that The Pacific was "grittier" than BoB, much more so at times (there's some really quite stomach-churning moments in the fog of war on the islands amidst the rotting corpses etc). However, I've never thought of Easy Co. as being depicted as 'having it easy'. The episode(s) around Bastogne, for instance, are pretty damn hard going. I think it's also fair to say that when BoB was being filmed vs when The Pacific was being filmed (the best part of a decade apart), the general audience's ability to deal with very visceral imagery had advanced. Perhaps it's also a difference between the two areas of conflict. In BoB the world they're fighting in isn't super far from home, in terms of their surroundings, but in The Pacific it's a totally different world. Also, yes - a very mixed reception to Masters of the Air. Prepare to not really know who the fuck most anyone is, especially during the flight sequences. You just can't really connect with the characters unlike in BoB and Pacific where you really got invested in those individuals. There's moments where we see the company having casualties, but you never get the impression that they had it that tough. More should have been shown. As far as general audience and their abilities to deal with visceral imagery, remember that BoB came after 'Saving Private Ryan', which shows some very graphic images of war. In fact 'Band of Brothers' probably wouldn't have been greenlit at all if it wasn't for the success of Spielberg's 1998 film. I think the producers just kinda missed a beat a little. Anyway, started watching 'Masters of the Air' last night and it's quite ho hum so far. I don't like any of the characters, not that I have to mind you, but they all come off as a bit dull, especially Elvis. Some of the stuff shown has been fine and the action within the aircraft has been quite good. People can tend to view the air war as being relatively clean, as in not as bloody as the war on the ground. But I think the first two episodes made a good effort at showing the effects of your aircraft being struck by flak, bullets and cannon fire. But there's also a bit of silliness going on too, when the bomb group scrubs their mission and drops their load into the sea, that just stinks of dramatic licence and an effort to portray bomber crews as the "good guys" who wouldn't dare bomb anyone if they didn't have to. The reality is that bombing missions were issued with secondary targets to head for is the first target was "unbombable" for some reason and a lot of the time it was just the nearest town to whatever facility was the original target. That kinda reminded me of that silly scene in 'Memphis Belle' where the crew missed their target and went around again. Something that never would have happened in real life because it would have been suicide. What was very good, however, was showing how confusing navigation was during the war. The scene where one of the B-17's gets lost and finds itself over France was based on a real incident involving the crew of Boom Town, who got lost and thought they were over England, when they were really over Brest. Really shows how easy it was to get lost in "the soup". As the show continues, I expect it to get more and more grittier though. The 100th Bomb Group earned the nickname "Bloody Hundredth" because their losses were quite high.

[MinionZombie]

I rewatched Band of Brothers and The Pacific not so long ago and I think MOTA is on par with Band. There's moments where we see the company having casualties, but you never get the impression that they had it that tough. More should have been shown. As far as general audience and their abilities to deal with visceral imagery, remember that BoB came after 'Saving Private Ryan', which shows some very graphic images of war. In fact 'Band of Brothers' probably wouldn't have been greenlit at all if it wasn't for the success of Spielberg's 1998 film. I think the producers just kinda missed a beat a little. ... As the show continues, I expect it to get more and more grittier though. The 100th Bomb Group earned the nickname "Bloody Hundredth" because their losses were quite high. 1) Well ... Saving Private Ryan was a movie, whereas BoB was television. Sure, it was HBO, but it was also right at the very beginning of "the golden age of television", so even though HBO could show far more than standard telly, it wasn't just showing anything and everything either - and I'd argue that it shows much more now compared to then. 2) I will give MOTA credit on showing the impact, if you will, of their missions - the sights of these utterly wrecked planes limping back to base shot-through all over, of having to make emergency landings without wheels down, of the concussive bombardment in the air from flak etc is all done quite well. They do go into the losses a bit, but again, because we can barely connect to anyone - or even know how long 'Airman #234' on screen in front of us right now has actually been in the story - the real sense of that loss is, well, lost. BoB, though, really feels those losses. You see these guys together from boot camp and so when they start getting killed you miss them, you see that hole in the group dynamic, and you see how the newbies coming in just don't fit in etc.

[shootemindehead]

Mmmm, I don't recall feeling any loss in 'Band of Brothers' really. Frankly there should have been more scenes of Easy Coy. taking them. But that's an aside complaint to the show over all. I just felt that 'The Pacific' showed a grimness that 'Band of Brothers' lacked. Although that had one of two duff episodes too. Leckie spending time in Australia was kinda boring if I'm honest. As to 'Masters of the Air', I'm only two episodes in, but so far I've had little trouble remembering who's who. But I've read the book the series is based on, so that probably helps. Unfortunately, it's an accepted side effect where war movies/TV shows are concerned, in that anything beyond squad level, and people can start to have trouble telling one soldier from the next. This is why most war movies reduce themselves to a "men on a mission" type scenario.

[EvilNed]

Watched first two episodes. My main take away is that it's poorly directed. It's stale. None of the characters ever interrupt each other and their interactions feels like that of a pre-New Hollywood era tv series, but with impeccable production values. Just tiny details that make it too smooth and polished for it to elevate my viewing experience to something stressful or gritty. In the first episode the volume of the engines rumbling is exactly the same wether we're inside the plane, or outside looking in. The characters barely need to raise their voices to make themselves heard over what must be very loud engine noises. Austin Butler has exactly one facial expression, and a perfect example of what's wrong with modern day Hollywood. When there's too much money involved the creators, producers and investors are too afraid to alienate one audience or another. They go for a generic and polished aesthetic and portrayal rather than what I think a series like this needs: Gritty realism. All of this is why I don't like modern movies in general and modern tv in particular.

[MinionZombie]

Just watched episode 7. Generally decent, but it still feels all a bit scattered and loosely-knitted in terms of its storytelling. For instance, there's a mission setting off, but we get no sense whatsoever of how many planes are leaving, what their mission is etc - but we see them coming back and the planes being counted ... of course, the problem here is: WE DON'T KNOW HOW MANY SET OFF. So is fifteen planes good or bad? Oh, it's bad apparently. It's only later in the episode that we learn it was thirty planes that took off. To be fair, the scenes of the wounded airmen being dragged off the battered planes did give a sense of the mess and detritus of the post-battle scene, and they do address how the surviving airmen are feeling awfully angered at being treated like cannon fodder. It still feels unfocused as a show, though. There's all this stuff going on, but none of it feels all that cohesive, and while a clued-up viewer will probably fare better, it should also work for someone who's just going on what the show is, well, showing them - but you tend to feel lost too often. For instance - it's been a couple of episodes since we last saw a couple of young airmen who had to abandon their aircraft and wound up lost somewhere in France/Belgium - we last saw them pulling into a train station in Paris - and then nothing, until a very slapdash moment in this episode. It's all played out in a wide shot with some quick voice over and that's it all done and dusted. The guys who've successfully made their way back don't even get a close up let alone any dialogue, and that's them swept aside. This is the sort of thing that constantly keeps me from gaining any kind of attachment to all these characters.

[shootemindehead]

So, I'm at Ep.3 and it was pretty damn good. Focusing on the disastrous (and completely useless) Schweinfurt/Regensburg raid in August 1943. The scenes of air combat were very well handled, even if it all looked very CGIish in execution. But while we see things from the aircrew's POV, it leaves out the greater picture. Losses on this mission were nothing short of catastrophic, with 60 bombers downed and nearly a further 100 damaged, many beyond repair. It'll be interesting to see if the show goes into the further ramifications of the raid, in that the American's continued to ignore British intel with regards to the pointlessness of attacking ball bearing plants and the fact that 8th Air Force Command learned nothing and ordered another raid in October, resulting in more hideous losses, which effectively ended deep penetration raids for the next half year. But all in all, easily the best episode yet.