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quote:Masters of the Air is a 2024 American war drama streaming television miniseries created by John Shiban and John Orloff and developed by Orloff for Apple TV+.[2] It is based on the 2007 book Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany by Donald L. Miller and follows the actions of the 100th Bomb Group, a B-17 Flying Fortress unit in the Eighth Air Force during World War II; the unit was nicknamed the “Bloody Hundredth” due to the heavy losses it incurred in combat missions.[3] The series serves as a companion to Band of Brothers (2001) and The Pacific (2010). It is also the first series to be produced by Apple Studios, in cooperation with Playtone, and Amblin Television. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA-1JCRguZ0 The show was announced like ten years ago or something, I remember my old man talking about it back in the early 2010's. First two episodes air tonight and the rest air every Friday through March 15th. For like the three people here in TVIV who have not seen Band of Brothers (2001) or The Pacific (2010), they are two absolutely remarkable miniseries created and produced by Steven Spielberg about, respectively, the Army Airbone's Easy Company and the Marine Corps' 1st Marine Division during World War II. First reviews have said that Masters of the Air generally meets their caliber and, although not without its faults, slots right in as a companion piece. Edit: overall final goon consensus is that the show isn't nearly as good as BoB or The Pacific, but has a few decent scenes (especially in the first half). I'm cool with talk about BoB and The Pacific being un-spoiler-tagged since they're so old, but I'll probably use tags for any MotA stuff. But of course it's up to your own discretion. Eason the Fifth fucked around with this message at 01:35 on Mar 19, 2024 |
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Jan 27, 2024 02:29
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This started out really solid I think. The air combat looks really good! I did not realize the belly gunner had to get locked into that tiny little ball under the plane. I cannot imagine being stuck in that little thing and coming under machine gun fire, holy poo poo.
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Jan 27, 2024 03:02
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First ep impressions: --Buck and Bucky have a similar relationship to Winters and Nixon in Band of Brothers, which has to be intentional and mostly works, except Austin Butler feels like he's starring in a different show than everyone else. The dialogue is generally mostly good but there are some clunkers. --The combat scenes are just as graphic and brutal as anything in BoB or The Pacific. --There is (obviously) a lot of influence from Memphis Belle and grandpa shows like Baa Baa Black Sheep and 12 O'clock High, but MotA still does some things nobody's seen before, even if the CGI is a little spotty sometimes. --The soaring Spielbergian soundtrack is more distracting than anything, and I think the show would work much better if the music was used half as much (though to be fair, Band of Brothers also had this problem sometimes). The lack of music for the final battle in Saving Private Ryan or the beach assault in The Pacific made them absolutely harrowing. Here the music feels like a cue for the audience. Despite my nitpicks there, the show is still really watchable and I'm enjoying it! I don't think it can reach some of the heights that BoB did, but I also don't think it's able to. Those real-life veteran interviews in BoB carried a lot of weight and really grounded the show as something that happened to real people. That opportunity is almost entirely gone now. Eason the Fifth fucked around with this message at 05:42 on Jan 27, 2024 |
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Jan 27, 2024 04:59
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Really enjoyed episode 1, but can't help but think it's a major missed opportunity that they didn't make the entire first episode centered around training like they did with BoB. Really interesting to see some of the ins and outs of flying one of those behemoths
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Jan 27, 2024 05:19
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Posted a little about it in the Apple TV thread, but yeah the first episode didn't really grab me and I think it's down to us coming to these characters supposedly already fully formed and competent in their roles (sans actual combat situations) without seeing how they got there. There has been no chance to really build up the character dynamics, relationships, become familiar with personalities etc like was done so effectively in Band of Brothers through their basic training leading into D-Day. I'll keep watching because I imagine familiarity will help out and the pedigree of the show is too strong not to give it a chance, but I perhaps went in with far too high expectations.
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Jan 27, 2024 05:46
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the last signal... posted:Really enjoyed episode 1, but can't help but think it's a major missed opportunity that they didn't make the entire first episode centered around training like they did with BoB. Really interesting to see some of the ins and outs of flying one of those behemoths I did really enjoy the whole startup sequence they did. I love little details like that. I also like the old instructional videos that show how to use the norden bomb sight and whatnot. Including those things would have given us a chance to get to know the characters more and understand what they are doing.
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Jan 27, 2024 05:56
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the last signal... posted:Really enjoyed episode 1, but can't help but think it's a major missed opportunity that they didn't make the entire first episode centered around training like they did with BoB. Really interesting to see some of the ins and outs of flying one of those behemoths They didn't even have to show ALL of the training - just their last bombing practice run before making the flight to England. I felt like the entire Greenland sequence was superfluous since we already figure out Bucky is an rear end in a top hat naturally through how he acts.
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Jan 27, 2024 06:06
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It's a pedantic thing, but the "fights" (punching, not flying!) so far have felt weirdly shot, like it doesn't remotely look like the other person is being hit, and it made the RAF pilot having to be carried away by his mates feel really weird because there was no sense at all that the American guy had really drilled him. I think the earlier scene showing him punching Bucky in the face was meant to showcase what a good/dangerous boxer he was but that punch looked about a foot away from hitting anybody as well. Again, an oddly pedantic thing, obviously I'm not expecting the actors to actually punch each other but you'd think a production this high budget would be able to shoot and edit a fight to actually look like the punches were connecting. On the positive side of things, I love the interior sets for the airplanes, and I would absolutely eat up them spending more time showing how the navigators operate, the use of charts vs. "eyeballing" it like Crosby had to do to find their initial target, the difference between a training flight and a combat flight when it comes to handling the pressure etc. Love learning things like the use of the flare gun to signal planes back into formation, the little kids who hero worship the 19-year-old crew chief, the way the "treat" of a big meal before a flight has come to be viewed with somewhat dread by the crews who call it "the Last Supper", the arguments between the RAF and the USAF about the benefits of precision daytime bombings vs. blanket night bombing, Buck admitting he agrees with the RAF but sided with his guys because "I didn't like the delivery" etc. There is definitely potential in this series and I hope they can pull it off.
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Jan 27, 2024 06:21
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I'm sad they don't have the veteran interviews at the start, but I can understand why. It's kind of refreshing to see early-model B-17s--I wonder when the changeover to the -G will happen. Also: day fighter Ju-88's?
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Jan 27, 2024 06:22
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Ju-88s did get used as daytime interceptors on occasion.
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Jan 27, 2024 06:37
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Madurai posted:Also: day fighter Ju-88's? Seemed like they weren't intended to fight the bombers and maybe just saw them as a target of opportunity before moving on.
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Jan 27, 2024 06:38
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The good: - as the everyone else say, the combat scenes - the attention to detail on the planes The bad: - Feels like Austin Butler is acting like a pilot in those 1940s movies about the flying fortresses instead of a pilot of a flying fortress - Characters are not only super thin, but miss the depth and variety of BoB.
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Jan 27, 2024 09:44
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Madurai posted:I'm sad they don't have the veteran interviews at the start, but I can understand why. 1944, they were throwing everything up in the air.
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Jan 27, 2024 10:08
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joepinetree posted:The good: I feel like there are moments, like when they just clear the cliff and knock rocks off it that wouldn't have appeared in BoB or the pacific - right? Like, there is much more of an unreality to this miniseries. i'm not sayin the other two weren't dramatized or exaggerated but this feels like a step towards film instead of the pseudo-documentary style that characterized the other two. I don't know. I love the area of operation/theatre and setting! I recommend both: Bomber Boys - Fighting Back 1940 - 1945 by Patrick Bishop Fighter Boys : Saving Britain 1940 by the same author
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Jan 27, 2024 10:52
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This show is 10000% selling itself on Austin Butler's matinee idol vibe. I mean, those opening credits alone...
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Jan 27, 2024 13:19
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Open Source Idiom posted:This show is 10000% selling itself on Austin Butler's matinee idol vibe. I mean, those opening credits alone... He's a handsome devil with hair to match.
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Jan 27, 2024 13:28
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Whenever I watch shows like this I always wish there was a guide that would show me the names and pictures of all the characters, and a dumbed-down guide to how all the various military ranks work and what the jobs are. I enjoyed the first episode but have two questions When they went on the bombing run they were over the target but couldn't see it for the clouds, but why abort the mission instead of just taking a chance and dropping the bombs when they were sure they were at the right place? Also, why drop the bombs in the water instead of bringing them back to the base and using them the next time?
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Jan 27, 2024 13:39
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Oasx posted:Whenever I watch shows like this I always wish there was a guide that would show me the names and pictures of all the characters, and a dumbed-down guide to how all the various military ranks work and what the jobs are.
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Jan 27, 2024 14:00
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Lampsacus posted:a) they weren't close enough to the target yet and it isn't worth the risk of flak when they aren't bombing precisely. b) weight needs to be dropped for fuel reasons. I believe they would have enough fuel to get back with the bombs but it's better math to have more fuel when it's an absolute ungainable resource in the air. Bombs are relatively unlimited when compared to the possibility that that extra fuel may be needed. That makes total sense, I was thinking perhaps there would be an extra risk if a plane had to land badly with bombs on it.
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Jan 27, 2024 14:22
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Generally speaking you don't want to land a plane with explosives or highly flammable external fuel tanks on board. They're designed to take off with those installed but landing is always trickier. Fighter planes with fuel pods for example often had a designated drop point just ahead of the runway for their spent pods so they could he collected and reused.
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Jan 27, 2024 14:43
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There's also the matter of weight. Planes are designed with a max takeoff weight and a max landing weight. It's a lot easier on the landing gear and a lot easier to go around in case of a botched landing with a lighter plane. Also, there's no point in bombing something if you can't tell if you hit it or not. They said in the show, the British are happy bombing anything German. The Americans want results. You can't check the results if you just drop bombs through clouds and can't see what was hit.
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Jan 27, 2024 16:44
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I brought it up in the other thread but the use of compositing is terrible in this show. Like how everyone was complaining about how soulless The Mandalorian felt in the scenes that you could tell were just an actor surrounded by an LED screen, I get that same feeling interspersed randomly throughout this show. And it’s not even consistent. One scene at an airfield will feel completely real and in-world, and the next, there’s a very obvious mismatch between the absolute black points of the subject and the background it’s being composited into. And that mismatch seems emphasised by a kind of gaussian blur filter that’s been applied to the CGI rendered parts of the scenes alone (whether whole or in part), like a bad Snapchat filter to hide wrinkles. I just revisited Memphis Belle again, which was my favourite movie as a kid and I must’ve watched dozens of times in Jr. High, and while I understand there are definitely fewer B17s now than there were in 1990 to use as props or set pieces, Memphis Belle also got crafty with scale models in a way that would have been worth revisiting here. Instead we get these very obviously, poorly composited B17s that I’m questioning whether they’re even to-scale in the scenes they’re placed in for lack of anything else to compare them against size-wise, and what’s worse is seeing them wobble like gelatin. Whose job was it to measure wing flexibility physics of these planes and apply that same math to the models in this show? Because there’s a scene in episode one where the plane is warping so much as it bounces down the runway that it looks like it has no internal structure at all, and what structure it does have seems arbitrary and weird. Like it’s a helium filled balloon. I’ve seen these planes in person. I raced a B17 down a service road delivering pizza to an airshow as it was taking off on the runway directly beside me. Its wings were not “doing the worm” as I watched it overtake me and depart the surly bonds of Earth or whatever that phrase is. Just some real goofy stuff. I hope the rest of the series spools up nicely because I’ve got my RCAF veteran grandpa into the idea of getting together and watching it every week from here on out. I, on the other hand, will be watching The Pacific for the first time to get ahead of any spoilers in this thread. 
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Jan 27, 2024 19:31
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XYZAB posted:I hope the rest of the series spools up nicely because I’ve got my RCAF veteran grandpa into the idea of getting together and watching it every week from here on out. I, on the other hand, will be watching The Pacific for the first time to get ahead of any spoilers in this thread. Spoilers: The allies win.
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Jan 27, 2024 19:56
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Anyone know which mission they were previewing for next weeks episode? I kind of want yo read up on it
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Jan 27, 2024 21:54
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Flikken posted:Anyone know which mission they were previewing for next weeks episode? I kind of want yo read up on it From: https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/bloody-100th-bomb-group On August 17, 1943, the 4th Bomb Wing conducted the first shuttle mission flying from East Anglia, bombing the German aircraft factory at Regensberg, and then continuing to North Africa
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Jan 27, 2024 22:12
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Flikken posted:Anyone know which mission they were previewing for next weeks episode? I kind of want yo read up on it I see the 100th bomb group was in the Regensburg part of the famous 8/17/1943 Schweinfurt/Regensburg raid. I bet that’s what’s happening in episode 3. There are many places to read about the mission, and it is horrific. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/schweinfurt-regensburg-raid-august-17-1943
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Jan 27, 2024 22:18
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Reading around the reviews online, I think Allan Sepinwall is the take that is closest to mine. The thing he says about you being able to describe every character in a single sentence is true.
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Jan 27, 2024 22:53
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joepinetree posted:Reading around the reviews online, I think Allan Sepinwall is the take that is closest to mine. The thing he says about you being able to describe every character in a single sentence is true. BoB was no different two episodes in. Most of the characters had barely had a word said other than banter.
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Jan 27, 2024 23:06
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Stegosnaurlax posted:BoB was no different two episodes in. Most of the characters had barely had a word said other than banter. That's not true at all. Hell, you barely see Sobel the rest of the series and you already have a very strong idea of who he is. You may not know all characters but you have a strong sense of a few. George Luz, Bill Guarnere, Winters, Sobel and Speirs have well defined characteristics by the end of 2.
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Jan 27, 2024 23:30
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I can excuse the characters for now but if in 2 more episodes they still feel as flat and lacking of pathos as they currently do, it'll be a rough watch personally. What I can't really excuse is this XYZAB posted:One scene at an airfield will feel completely real and in-world, and the next, there’s a very obvious mismatch between the absolute black points of the subject and the background it’s being composited into. And that mismatch seems emphasised by a kind of gaussian blur filter that’s been applied to the CGI rendered parts of the scenes alone (whether whole or in part), like a bad Snapchat filter to hide wrinkles. The bolded bit leaps out here:  If each episode truly has the reported budget of around $30 million, the current CGI is inexcusable
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Jan 28, 2024 00:00
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The narration also feels very heavy-handed. We're only two episodes in. I hope it hits some kind of stride, but this is not what I was expecting after so long in development with a quarter of a billion dollars spent.
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Jan 28, 2024 01:19
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Only watched the first episode but the characters do not seem that interesting and I think they rushed into the combat scenes instead of just letting the character stew and develop properly for a few episodes. The whole thing with the bar in Greenland was a lot of screen time to basically cast a single character as a zany "cool" guy. I feel like it could have been spent a lot better working with the dynamic of people from all over with different backgrounds trying to work as a crew. They even touch on it when they talk about farm boys flying in planes. That's interesting. I don't care that some idiot trashes bars for funsies and I'm pretty sure it's not going to pay off in any meaningful way..
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Jan 28, 2024 02:28
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I wasn't foolish enough to expect them to recapture the lightning in the bottle that BoB was. I'm enjoying this a lot so far, but it definitely feels more like a modern Apple TV show than the old HBO series. Not necessarily a bad thing, just slightly different. It's still got the staples I love though. Eagerly awaiting the next episode, and probably going to get the steelcase DVD set for this once it finishes.
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Jan 28, 2024 02:35
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the writing and acting is frankly terrible. its like everyones painfully aware theyre in a Band of Brothers spinoff
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Jan 28, 2024 02:43
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mistermojo posted:the writing and acting is frankly terrible. its like everyones painfully aware theyre in a Band of Brothers spinoff Username/replyUsername combo
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Jan 28, 2024 02:44
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Its not perfect but I enjoyed the second episode more, so hope that trend continues.
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Jan 28, 2024 03:12
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Someone earlier mentioned that they missed the clips of interviews of the actual people from easy company in BoB. I feel like that probably helped the actors for BoB. They were able to watch the interviews of the people they were portraying and some even got to meet the real people. Obviously, most if not all of the people portrayed in this show are dead by now, so all they'd be able to do is watch interviews if any are available.
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Jan 28, 2024 03:33
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The big thing for me that affects the show right now is the use or misuse of music. Band of Brothers makes a very conscious decision to not play music during the action sequences and The Pacific plays music only once during battle when Basilone dies at Iwo Jima. Cutting the music and letting the sounds of battle speak for themselves goes a long way towards making the fights terrifying. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCrw_uMWlgI It creates a nice juxtaposition between the heroic swell of the music when they take off in episode 1 to the stark reality of combat and the helplessness of paratroopers during a drop in Episode 2. Music is language. If you can say the same thing in one sentence vs five, then the one will do. The music in the bombing scenes in episode 1 feels like the four extra sentences repeating the "feel tension now!" of the first sentence. Also not really feeling the main theme song just yet. Band of Brothers has an iconic theme that's instantly recognizable. The Pacific has a theme that invokes the Band of Brothers style but doesn't quite hit it. I can't really pin down Masters of the Air's theme besides being a Greatest Hits of Music for the Greatest Generation with all the mournful brass and layered strings you expect from a WW2 score. That all being said, I did enjoy the first episode a good bit. The actual operation of a B17 was really fascinating to watch and I appreciated the interceptors being FW-190s rather than BF-109s because I'm a nerd like that.
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Jan 28, 2024 03:54
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I think its less not having the original people, and more that apple probably wanted to play it safer than hbo. A lot of the characterization in both BoB and Pacific was less than flattering.
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Jan 28, 2024 04:17
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 19:50 |
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That could be true. Also, some of the less flattering characterization from BoB was from the people themselves mischaracterizing other people who weren't able to speak for themselves. For instance, Lt. Dike. He was portrayed as being an incompetent buffoon despite having performed several heroic acts that they didn't tell us about. The show has him breaking under pressure and being unable to command the attack on Foy when, in reality, he had a shoulder wound and was messed up from that. Plus you had people like Winters and Lipton who seemed to just not like him, so they didn't care if they got the facts right. So I guess it's a double edged sword. If you build a show out of the after action reports, then you can get as realistic depiction of what happened as you can, but maybe you don't get the personality of what happened. And if you build a show off what the survivors say later, you can get a really charismatic depiction, but it can end up slandering real life people. So I can see Apple wanting to play it safe how it depicts people.
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Jan 28, 2024 04:38
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