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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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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 19:07 |
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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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Eau de MacGowan posted:All this could be easily avoided by just fictionalizing the name of the units and soldiers and saying 'inspired by' or whatever, it might not be 100% accurate but the nerds can go read the book if they're interested and it opens the door to better drama and prevents slandering dudes who had the balls to go into war Sometimes the books themselves are wrong, though. There is a lot of sloppy research and even big chunks of plagiarism across Ambrose's work. Band of Brothers, Citizen Soldiers, and D-Day are remarkable just for the number of interviews Ambrose was able to get with WWII vets, but their memories are often wrong or biased. But you're right -- in the end, the shows are dramas and not documentaries. Eason the Fifth fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Jan 28, 2024 |
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Jan 28, 2024 17:10
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Rewatching The Pacific and Band of Brothers in between episodes of this. Noticed a few things: The crop of actors in this show seem impossibly young compared to the people who played e.g. Leckie and Guarnere (although Sledge will always be the kid from Jurassic Park). The men doing bombing runs into Germany weren't far removed from kids, but neither were the 17-year-olds jumping into Normady or fighting in Tarawa, so it's still strangely noticeable. BoB has some hard scenes but The Pacific is brutal and gets into the characters in an unpleasant but hugely important way. You could contrast the non-combat eps of BoB with Leckie's episodes away from combat (on libo in Australia and then on medical leave after his issues urinating himself); the first has a wholesome sense of brotherhood, while the second is gently caress-you honest. It was completely accidental, but BoB aired right before and the first couple of months after 9/11, and I think the sense of patriotism and nationalism carried over into the public sentiment for the show. The Pacific came out in 2010 after a decade of war and uncomfortable truths about American brutality and I don't think it's an accident the series reflected that. I'm wondering what (if anything) Masters of the Air will inherit from the present.
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Jan 30, 2024 23:23
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It did, but it was themed around drawing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ahVL4u6rmI
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Jan 31, 2024 19:01
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Mullitt posted:Sorry, I meant the look of the whole show. I was just also noting that the intro for Masters of the Air mimics the look of BoB but not the rest of the show. Oh I gotcha, sorry I misread. The Pacific did do the washed-out look too, and sometimes it didn't always work. Not giving MotA a pass since it's 14 years later and much more money, but the Pacific had some particularly bad-looking CGI shots: 
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Jan 31, 2024 19:16
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The Das Boot movie, while older, still also holds up, can't recommend it enough.
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Feb 4, 2024 21:10
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Oasx posted:I’m re-watching Generation Kill, it’s interesting that all these military shows have in common is that the leaders are all either incompetent or don’t care how many soldiers die to accomplish a mission, and there is no real way to complain about a bad leader.  In my limited personal experience (OIF I) good leaders were really loving good and hypercompetent in their MOS (especially warrant officers), but bad ones were comically bad and absolutely crushed morale. This was true from squad leaders all the way up to battalion COs. But that said, leadership skill probably falls along a bell curve. Most leaders are just average folks who get things right most of the time, and people don't tend to write books or make movies about them.
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Feb 6, 2024 15:11
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Hmm, kind of a wet fart in a lot of parts that werent in the sky im sorry to say, but the show has reminded me how good The Great Escape and Stalag 17 are, so 2.5 thumbs up (out of 5 thumbs total)
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Mar 19, 2024 01:33
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toggle posted:I just watched all 3 Peleliu episodes from the Pacific back to back. It was really exhausting. While it's great TV, it's also just not enjoyable to watch. You come out of Band of Brothers with a romanticized idea of war, but then the Pacific (even though it uses the same soaring Spielberg soundtrack) pretty much sets you straight about just how terrible combat really is.Then there's Masters of the Air, which
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Mar 29, 2024 02:48
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Jerusalem posted:I'm embarrassed to say that until I saw the (terrible) movie Pearl Harbor I was woefully ignorant of the Tokyo Firebombing response from the US, and even seeing it portrayed as a heroic and amazing thing by valiant plots in that terrible movie had me going,"...wait, isn't that a war crime?" Yep, the one in Pearl Harbor was the Doolittle Raid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doolittle_Raid?wprov=sfla1
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Apr 4, 2024 01:54
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I'd definitely read Jerusalem's write ups of the series 
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Apr 8, 2024 03:34
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George H.W. oval office posted:Winters then eventually becomes a general manager and Sobel is an inventory manager that didn't show proper respect Winters, interviewed at the end of this analogy: No....but I served in a company.
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Apr 12, 2024 20:22
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Thanks for the title change 
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Apr 22, 2024 02:55
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Bulky Bartokomous posted:At times, yes, but I liked him more and more every time I watched the series. He is a really well rounded character, as written and as acted. The Pacific lets you see even the "good" main characters be dickheads, in a way BoB does not. he's the McNulty of the Pacific. Good at what he does, and a likeable rear end in a top hat most of the time, but he has an inflated sense of himself and sometimes can't get out of his own way.
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Apr 22, 2024 13:15
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there are really two halves of The Pacific: Leckie's story in the first half, Sledge's in the second half, with Basilione running between both of them. I think it's the next episode on Pelileu where Leckie meets Sledge and sort of hands the story off to him, and the series gets much better. I admire that the writers tried to do something different from Band of Brothers, but it doesn't always land the way it should. Edit - I missed Arc Hammer's post which said everything I did, only better Edit 2: while i think BoB is on balance better than The Pacific, the single-take landing on Pelileu is, for my money, the best sequence in the Spielberg WWII universe, better than any battle in BoB and even better than Omaha Beach in Saving Private Ryan. On every level it's a god drat marvel. Eason the Fifth fucked around with this message at 05:44 on Apr 29, 2024 |
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Apr 29, 2024 05:32
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 19:07 |
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It isn't bad when they're in the air (some of the sequences are absolutely harrowing, even if the CGI is flakey in parts), but everything else is pretty sub-par.
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May 9, 2024 19:45
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