- Joined
- Feb 8, 1999
- Messages
- 18,312
- Real Name
- Robert Harris
Red Tails (2012), the latest special effects offering from LucasFilm, and The Tuskegee Airmen, a 1995 HBO TV movie, cover basically the same fact-based story, but in very different ways.
Robert Markowitz' Tuskegee Airman, begins at the beginning, with fledgling recruits going the Army Air Corps, as the first Negro soldiers with both the dream as well as the necessary moxie, to want to fly in a military controlled by white America. It covers their early training, the wash outs and survivors on a playing field that was not designed to be level. Discrimination seems almost constant and overbearing. It is at the point that they've begun to work in the war effort, but only as deemed to be proper for the group, considered by at least some in Washington to have neither the intelligence nor desire to succeed, that Red Tails opens. To my mind, it's a proper move, as their is a presumption that the tale of The Tuskegee Airman should at least be reasonably known.
But at the point of merge, the are really two different films.
One, TTA, seems to take things much more seriously, and in a far more adult fashion, while Red Tails, which shows off extensive (read: huge) digital special effects, plays more like a film for teens, with what seems like far too much whoopin' and hollerin' in the cockpits -- almost taking on the feeling of a professional basketball game.
While technically, Red Tails is a far more accomplished work -- it's also 17 years newer -- my take is that The Tuskegee Airmen (with its cut ins of 16mm footage) is the better film.
If you really want to learn the story of these brave men (brave from a myriad of different aspects), my go to would be The Tuskegee Airman.
Interesting, Cuba Gooding, Jr., who has a smaller role in TTA, receives first billing in RT.
TTA was shot on 35mm for 4:3 TV broadcast in pre-HD days, but on the HBO Blu-ray is framed at 1.78 and is properly 1080p. Red Tails was shot with various Canon DSLRs, as well as a Sony F35 or three, and taken to a 2k DI for both 35mm scope prints, as well as D-Cinema.
Red Tails is an interesting film, but, at least to me, seems written and created for a less thoughtful. Those with an interest in digital effects should absolutely grab a copy, study it and try to figure out what's real and what's reel.
The Tuskegee Airman is Recommended.
RAH
Robert Markowitz' Tuskegee Airman, begins at the beginning, with fledgling recruits going the Army Air Corps, as the first Negro soldiers with both the dream as well as the necessary moxie, to want to fly in a military controlled by white America. It covers their early training, the wash outs and survivors on a playing field that was not designed to be level. Discrimination seems almost constant and overbearing. It is at the point that they've begun to work in the war effort, but only as deemed to be proper for the group, considered by at least some in Washington to have neither the intelligence nor desire to succeed, that Red Tails opens. To my mind, it's a proper move, as their is a presumption that the tale of The Tuskegee Airman should at least be reasonably known.
But at the point of merge, the are really two different films.
One, TTA, seems to take things much more seriously, and in a far more adult fashion, while Red Tails, which shows off extensive (read: huge) digital special effects, plays more like a film for teens, with what seems like far too much whoopin' and hollerin' in the cockpits -- almost taking on the feeling of a professional basketball game.
While technically, Red Tails is a far more accomplished work -- it's also 17 years newer -- my take is that The Tuskegee Airmen (with its cut ins of 16mm footage) is the better film.
If you really want to learn the story of these brave men (brave from a myriad of different aspects), my go to would be The Tuskegee Airman.
Interesting, Cuba Gooding, Jr., who has a smaller role in TTA, receives first billing in RT.
TTA was shot on 35mm for 4:3 TV broadcast in pre-HD days, but on the HBO Blu-ray is framed at 1.78 and is properly 1080p. Red Tails was shot with various Canon DSLRs, as well as a Sony F35 or three, and taken to a 2k DI for both 35mm scope prints, as well as D-Cinema.
Red Tails is an interesting film, but, at least to me, seems written and created for a less thoughtful. Those with an interest in digital effects should absolutely grab a copy, study it and try to figure out what's real and what's reel.
The Tuskegee Airman is Recommended.
RAH