Masters of the Air - first episode in January 2024

[TheKinksFan]

Now it's finally coming, the first episode will be aired on Apple TV + 26th of January. I haven't watched any tv shows shows for years, but I will definitely subscribe for the duration of the show. 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/tv/2023/10/06/masters-of-the-air-apple-tv-release-date/71075094007/

[Eric Mc]

I'll wait for the DVD.

[ckw]

Hmm - every time I think I'll cancel my Apple TV account, they come up with something new to keep me hooked. I'm no Apple fan, but of all the streaming services I've tried Apple seems to have the best quality to dross ratio.

 

Cheers

 

Colin

[TheKinksFan]

I hope there will be a DVD released, the series could well be worth watching several times.

[Phil Evans]

There is now what they call a "teaser" up on Apple TV+. Looks good

[spruecutter96]

On 10/9/2023 at 5:35 PM, TheKinksFan said:

I hope there will be a DVD released, the series could well be worth watching several times.

I agree with you on the DVD, but I wouldn't want to put money on a DVD or Blu Ray release. Physical media is rapidly becoming a thing of the past, unfortunately.

 

If you want to watch the whole series for "free", wait until the 15th March (last episode), sign up for Apple TV's one week free-trial and binge it. Just remember to cancel your subscription after 7 days. 

 

Cheers. 

 

Chris.   

 

PS: If you decide to stay with Apple, "Slow Horses" is excellent and well worth paying your monthly subscription for.  

Edited January 16 by spruecutter96
Amending some information

[marvinneko]

It was so awful I quit in the first episode. Acting, dialogue, story, CGI all incredibly painful and clunky. The story seemed pretty random. I was expecting something mediocre where I could still enjoy the planes, but I just couldn't bear it any longer. Cartoonish and short attention span-ish in the worst way.

[tomthounaojam]

In comparison to "Band of Brothers" and "The Pacific," the acting in this is subpar, with some moments being the weakest. Nevertheless, I do find it enjoyable to watch. If I were to give it a rating out of 10, I'd go with 6.5/10. The CGI appears quite realistic at times, but there are instances where it doesn't quite look right.

[Never a Pro]

Is it just me, but I get really annoyed when they talk about feathering the props, yet I haven’t see one single prop properly feathered, along with the completely irrealistic battle damage that makes no sense…?

[Mike]

I've watched both episodes, and I'm still not sure about it.  I enjoy the flight scenes, but something about the lead actors bugs me.  The "cool" guy seems to be trying too hard to be Clint Eastwood, but with a big pair of dumb lips, and his buddy with the spiv moustache is a bit too much of a weasely-looking dude to warm to.  The problem with any military show is that in uniform people tend to look like each other, as they've only got their faces to distinguish them.  When they put on oxygen masks it makes it more difficult to tell them apart too, and that's with my glasses on

 

As is usual with air war shows, the bullet wounds all seem to be coming in rifle calibre sizes for the most part, even though the 190s and 109s would be throwing bigger stuff at them, which would do a lot more damage.  It reminds me of a scene from Red Tails (the later awful one) where a guy in a Mustang is playing chicken with a 262, and gets shot a few times as they close.  Little round holes from 20mm or 30mm shells ain't gonna happen.

 

The combat sequences gave a reasonably good impression of the carnage, insofar as they left you in a similar state to the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan.  Not quite as extreme, but it went some way to convey the horror of war, which is far more sensible than glorifying it.  If more people watched SPR, maybe there would be fewer wars?

[ckw]

11 minutes ago, Mike said:

The combat sequences gave a reasonably good impression of the carnage, insofar as they left you in a similar state to the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan.  Not quite as extreme, but it went some way to convey the horror of war, which is far more sensible than glorifying it.

 

Agreed. If material like this had been available in the 1930's I wonder if there would have been so many young lads keen to join the air force? As with all art, realism is not the issue, its the impression that matters and despite its many faults I'll give 'Masters of the Air' credit for conveying the sense of fear in combat flying (not that I'm in any position to judge the realism of that). 

 

Cheers

 

Colin

[FalkeEins]

On 10/9/2023 at 4:32 PM, ckw said:

Hmm - every time I think I'll cancel my Apple TV account, they come up with something new to keep me hooked. I'm no Apple fan, but of all the streaming services I've tried Apple seems to have the best quality to dross ratio.

 

 

try Paramount+  loads of good stuff, especially Costner's 'Yellowstone', Sheridan Smith in 'Castaways' and Nicole Kidman in 'Lioness'. First episode of MoftheA is free to watch I believe although signing-in with a QR code is probably beyond my ken!

[wellsprop]

I've enjoyed the first two episodes, they're not on the same level as Band of Brothers or the Pacific, but I'm hoping they'll pick up a bit in the next couple episodes. 

 

The only thing I did struggle with is the the flight behaviour of the aircraft on take-off and landing really was wrong. The CGI was convincing but the flight characteristics weren't.

 

Still enjoyable!

[Mike]

19 minutes ago, wellsprop said:

The only thing I did struggle with is the the flight behaviour of the aircraft on take-off and landing really was wrong. The CGI was convincing but the flight characteristics weren't.

At least they didn't all have chocolate wing spars like the B-17s in Red Tails (not the Larry Fishburne one from the 90s).

[ckw]

2 hours ago, FalkeEins said:

try Paramount+

Been there, tried it for a month, cancelled. Very little appealed to me.

 

Cheers

 

Colin

[ckw]

21 minutes ago, Mike said:

The only thing I did struggle with is the the flight behaviour of the aircraft on take-off and landing really was wrong. The CGI was convincing but the flight characteristics weren't.

You have to engage your 'suspension of disbelief'. This isn't a documentary - approach it as you would any CGI driven Sci Fi film. You don't find people moaning about the flight characteristics of the Millennium Falcon (actually that probably isn't quite true :)). 

 

If they didn't use CGI, much of the drama couldn't be portrayed (near misses in cloud). We've probably all read of various hair raising instances on bombing raids and thanks to CGI we can now perhaps get a better feel of what that was really like. That said, I'm not generally a CGI fan, particularly when its employed to save costs but sometimes you need it to show things that are otherwise unshowable. I suspect the decision to do it all in CGI was a creative choice - I find films that mix reality scenes with CGI scenes more distracting - so you could have real B17s taking off, then switch to CGI for formation/combat stuff but then, to my eye at least, the CGI becomes more obvious and intrusive. As it is I think 'Masters of the Air' scores points for visual continuity.

 

Mind you, so far I'm not a fan of the acting! I'd happily see the episodes reduced to 30minutes and cut out most of the stuff on the ground

 

Cheers

 

Colin

[Bozothenutter]

Just watched ep.1

Quite underwhelmed...

Aircraft are nice enough...

Acting is quite wooden, dogfight scenes are quite good, the crews feeling of impotence is palpable. 

Then they land and Punch and Judy are back.

For an American series they did remarkably little mansplaining.

It all felt a bit rushed, ferry flight, quick trip to the bar, first mission, quick landing, with obligatory count and missing crews.

After landing everybody screaming "interrogation!" "Interrogation!", which they then do not explain as being a debrief. 

All boxes were ticked, grumpy commander, close friends, weak/incompetent friend (who'll probably come good), religious guy, padre.

Felt a bit 'on rails' tbh.

Will ofcourse watch every episode because "AIRCRAFT!" 🤣🫣🤪 

 

Oh, and the 'running model' B-17's were easy to spot, as they look like weathered model kits.

Had the same with a A6M zero that was used in a movie, was downloading pics of it, but something was off. A quick Google told me it was a prop.

[Retired Bob]

2 hours ago, Bozothenutter said:

Just watched ep.1

Quite underwhelmed...

Aircraft are nice enough...

Acting is quite wooden, dogfight scenes are quite good, the crews feeling of impotence is palpable. 

Then they land and Punch and Judy are back.

For an American series they did remarkably little mansplaining.

It all felt a bit rushed, ferry flight, quick trip to the bar, first mission, quick landing, with obligatory count and missing crews.

After landing everybody screaming "interrogation!" "Interrogation!", which they then do not explain as being a debrief. 

All boxes were ticked, grumpy commander, close friends, weak/incompetent friend (who'll probably come good), religious guy, padre.

Felt a bit 'on rails' tbh.

Will of course watch every episode because "AIRCRAFT!" 🤣🫣🤪 

I watched the first 2 episodes last night, I feel it's a victim of modern entertainment, start straight off with some action before viewers get bored and switch over.

In general I agree with all that Bozothenutter has said.  I was expecting an aerial version of Band of Brothers.  Some Stateside training with some fatal accidents so they realised this wasn't  a game.  Some easier 'milk runs' over France, there would have been fighter escorts until they they reached the limit of their range and had to turn back, then the German fighters would attack.

Having read "A clash of Eagles" and other books on daylight bombing missions I had an idea of what to expect, but without the knowledge of what happened in these air battles it made these first episodes dis-jointed and rushed.  Not sure it's going to get any better but we'll see.

Edited January 29 by Retired Bob
error

[Phas3e]

 

I watched the first two and quite enjoyed them. Granted I'm also not sitting there looking for something to dislike, I'm just treating like entertainment for the general masses.

 

There were very nice touches too like the bombers and crews are fresh so they arent covered in nose art, the flight uniforms are clean, and the ground crew were still painting on unit markings before the second mission.

They even had a control van and "follow me" jeep which you dont often see.

 

I'll admit the physics looked a bit strange on take off, it did seem like they floated into the air with a full load of fuel and bombs.

 

Also the head writer just did an interview on "we have ways" podcast with James Holland and made some good points, The 8th bomber command lost an "Easy Company" worth of men daily, so the story cant be told like it was in Band of Brothers.

 

I'm having fun with it and dont see why anyone else cant.

[Graham Boak]

I don't know of anyone who sits looking for something to dislike, except for those deranged individuals who watch political programmes.  But errors, a poor script, and bad acting do sometimes leap out at you.  Seems worth giving it a miss rather than missing doing something better.  Models to make, books to read, forums to visit, or just relaxing/tuning out/time wasting.  

[FalkeEins]

 watched free episode...thought it was stunning. How can you go wrong with Spielberg/Hanks? Will watch it again, may even subscribe.  I know Thorpe Abbotts and its tower- one of the best museums in East Anglia. The way its been brought to life here is quite something..

[FalkeEins]

 

Thorpe Abbotts a few summers ago on my hols. Although the old airfield is now virtually fully returned to agriculture, stretches of the southern perimeter track are reasonably well-preserved  - heavily-laden B-17s once picked their way along this route...

 

[spruecutter96]

Good or bad? Well, this is the best we are ever likely to get, folks. I can't see Hollywood making another series based around WW2 bombing-missions, not after this one. It needed the clout and track-record of Spielberg and Hanks to get this one made. 

 

If a director of Peter Jackson's financial-repute couldn't get the money together for a re-make of the Dambusters, then another series looks very uncertain. The fact is that WW2 series are very much targeted at the older generations. For the modern "Yooth", the war happened WAY too long ago to be of any relevance in their lives (the latest made-up feud between utterly vacuous, fame-hungry "stars"..... well that's a very different matter, of course). Dear Lord, am I sounding like my Dad now? 

 

I'm looking forward to watching the series, but I ain't expecting Shakespeare In The Clouds . 

 

Cheers. 

 

Chris.  

Edited January 31 by spruecutter96
Amending some information

[Graham Boak]

I would suggest that in these series the dialogue and characters are very much aimed at a younger generation, hence some of the problems with credibility.

 

As for a long time ago: I can imagine this from how far ago WW1 seemed in my youth.  Yet it was much nearer.

 

[Agent K]

All good and interesting points raised here, I took it for what it was, and understand the compromise made to get it made in the first place and to be able to market it. Would we see anything else as good, or anything that covered the subject elsewhere? I doubt it, hence for that reason itself it's very good.

 

CGI has, ultimately it's limitations, albeit it is very good and convincing these days. To add to the overall quality and accuracy it's worth listening to the "We have ways" podcast where they speak with one of the shows creators and episode writers, John Orloff. He goes into good detail on how all the correct aircraft are tracked in the correct position in CGI so they are accurate to the actual mission, and also thus method of attack, destruction etc. It's a very interesting listen.