Ideas for a new WWII air war movie

[Jiggersfromsphilly]

Tom,

Somebody wrote that novel in the 70s about the need for collaboration of Japanese and USN types joining forces to defeat the soviets due to some sort of magnetic force field or some other kind of Sci Fi reason, that disabled all jets

I think it was called " The Last Carrier" or something like that.

[Walrus 7]

Didn't the US have to do something like that in Korea, recall Corsairs from the National Guard for ground attack because the jets weren't suitable?

Walrus

[RickH]

Tom,Jiggers, The books were a series called The Seventh Carrier. It's about a Yamato sized carrier that was supposed to be part of the Pearl Harbor attack. Instead of sailing with the rest of the fleet it was built in secret and sent north to hide until rendevous. It was hiding in a fjord and a Glacier collapsed and trapped it for 40 years. When they broke out they resumed their original mission. The warbirds are resurrected around the world when the Chinese send up a Star Wars sattelite designed to home in on ICBM exhaust and laser them shortly after takeoff. Satellite goes wild and starts torching anything that has hot turbine exhaust. The world reverts to WWII aircarft and guess where the biggest concentration is...of course...the Seventh Carrier. It becomes the main instrument for the good guys in a WWIII scenario against a large middle eastern force trying to take over the world.

[aerojock]

I always wanted to see White Lightnin in a movie of Martin Caiden's "The Last Dog Fight". But with The GArdners selling the P-38 It won't happen.
a
Aero

[Chris Brame]

There was a novel written in the 1970s about some disgruntled vintage aircraft broker who loads up a surplus B-17 with surplus 500-lb bombs and flies it around New York City threatening to bomb the place if he doesn't get paid a big ransom. It was supposedly written by a famous aviation writer under a pseudonym... somehow I don't think anybody is going to want to make a movie about airborne attacks on New York anymore...

[tom d. friedman]

what was the flick with ole cleft chinned kirk douglas as the usn admiral of a carrier in the 80's, they go through a time warp right at the 1941 pearl harbor attack, (what a co-inka dink ) they try to re-write history by attempting to thwart the attack with 70's /80's aviation technology, re: ww 2 japanese zekes tangling with grumman f-14 tomcats. kind of a cornball plot, but it was fun to watch, ole kirk must have needed the dough pretty bad to do that piece of celluloid!! overall though a 4 barfer on the warbird movie scale

[dj51d]

what was the flick with ole cleft chinned kirk douglas as the usn admiral of a carrier in the 80's, they go through a time warp right at the 1941 pearl harbor attack:

The Final Countdown

[tom d. friedman]

your right dj51d....... you win the new car & luggage!!!

[DryMartini]

I had talked to the author of the book, (about
a B-17 crew who was shot down and interred)
who said he was in talks about a possible movie.
Unfortunatly, he passed suddenly - must have
been a year ago now. The book was a good read.

[Nige GSX1400]

How about letting Speilberg do a Battle of Britain?

Then he could have lots of B17s and P51s fighting off the evil 'Hun' while we English/ Canadians/ Poles/ Czechs and others cower in a shelter.

Sorry but 'Saving Private Ryan' is rubbish in some respects. And makes my temper rise the way it ignores anyone but the U.S. and the Germans.

On June 6th 1944 the British and Canadians put MORE men ashore than the U.S. did. BTW I am not having a moan at the REAL U.S. contribution to winning the war. Its a fact without the US we couldnt have won.

It just pees me off we get 1 mention and thats a moan about 'Monty'.

So Mr Speilberg, and who knows maybe Tom Hanks, how about a BOB 2? starting with the murder of British troops by SS LSAH in May 1940 near Wormhoudt, then the miracle of Dunkirk, then the battle itself and the Blitz.

If it ever happened though no way would they beat the music of the 68 BOB movie. And it would need some excellent camera/CGI work to beat some of the shots of aircraft used in the 68 version.

[bdk]

Seems odd that you are waiting for an American to make a film from the British perspective of Britain's contribution to the war effort! Why doesn't the outfit that makes all those James Bond films do it? Then all we'll hear on the WIX is how it is second rate compared to the original because it only had 3 109s flying. One an E-model, another a G-model, and the third a Buchon- with the rest of the german fighter aircraft being repainted CJ-6s and twin Beeches as the bomber force.

[DazDaMan]

How about letting Speilberg do a Battle of Britain?

Then he could have lots of B17s and P51s fighting off the evil 'Hun' while we English/ Canadians/ Poles/ Czechs and others cower in a shelter.

Sorry but 'Saving Private Ryan' is rubbish in some respects. And makes my temper rise the way it ignores anyone but the U.S. and the Germans.

On June 6th 1944 the British and Canadians put MORE men ashore than the U.S. did. BTW I am not having a moan at the REAL U.S. contribution to winning the war. Its a fact without the US we couldnt have won.

It just pees me off we get 1 mention and thats a moan about 'Monty'.

So Mr Speilberg, and who knows maybe Tom Hanks, how about a BOB 2? starting with the murder of British troops by SS LSAH in May 1940 near Wormhoudt, then the miracle of Dunkirk, then the battle itself and the Blitz.

If it ever happened though no way would they beat the music of the 68 BOB movie. And it would need some excellent camera/CGI work to beat some of the shots of aircraft used in the 68 version.

While I understand your gripes about SPR, among others, one of the reasons why Battle of Britain wasn't a critical success is because there were too many characters, making the action rather difficult to follow sometimes (to the general public), among other things. If you include so many different side-stories from different PoVs, then it gets a bit messy and the narrative goes all to hell.

Look at a Stephen King book - he includes a bazillion characters, the story goes on forever and a day, and you often forget why someone is doing something. Same situation - but hey, his books sell by the assload. I wish I could do the same!

A Battle of Britain-set story would HAVE to concentrate on a select handful of pilots - perhaps half a dozen rookies and their flight commander - in order to work fairly well.

At least, that's my opinion.

[Nige GSX1400]

My comments were not so much aimed at the 60s film I agree with a lot of the points about it being overly complicated etc. I would agree totally with the idea of picking say 4 pilots and concentrating on them.

My suggestions would be
Flt Lt Nicholson V.C. (the only RAF V.C. of the BOB)

Squadron Leader Douglas Bader (lost both legs but still fought in the BOB and repeatedly attempted to escape from captivity when shot down)

Flt Lt Sailor Malan (a tough leader of men played, in the 60s film by Robert Shaw)

Sgt Ray Holmes (famously rammed a bomber which was heading for Buckingham Palace bringing himself and the bomber down)

and no I dont mind U.S. actors playing British roles its the acting that counts not the nationality.

BTW many of the people behind the Bond films in the 60s were involved with the 60s BOB film. They were also often American as many in the Bond 'family' still are.

My main gripe with Saving Private Ryan remains though that the role played by other nations is forgotten by Hollywood. Would it have hurt to mention the roles played by Brits, Canadians, Poles, Free French etc on D-Day. Darryl Zanuck managed it and then years later Speilberg altered some scenes from the Longest Day and re used them e.g. the 'what does bitte bitte mean?' comment by the G.I. after he shoots Germans trying to surrender.

Besides that Tiger would have looked much better being blown away by a Tempest than a P51

[ww2John]

Actually, HBO should do another mini-series (ala "Band of Brothers") to give the Battle of Britain a "proper treatment" on the screen. You would have enough time to show many stories and still make good film(s).

HBO spent about 120 million $ for the 12 episodes of "Brothers" and Spielberg/Hanks, et al never forgot to tell us a good film story in each episode...they did not just "shoot the book". Loved the book and loved the series.

So, my vote is to give BoB the same treatment.

[bdk]

BTW many of the people behind the Bond films in the 60s were involved with the 60s BOB film. They were also often American as many in the Bond 'family' still are.

My main gripe with Saving Private Ryan remains though that the role played by other nations is forgotten by Hollywood. Would it have hurt to mention the roles played by Brits, Canadians, Poles, Free French etc on D-Day.

After thinking on this a little more, it reminded me of a UK chap I used to work with. His constant complaint was that he felt Americans didn't realize anyone else fought the Germans. I used to get him all riled up by saying things like, "It's just like when the Americans beat the Germans in the Battle of Britain."

WW2 was a very foreign war to most Americans I think, and even more so as time goes on and the veterans pass. How many veterans fought alongside other Allied nationalities? Probably a low percentage. I don't think many Americans (other than a few of us) really have studied WW2 more than superficially. Unless it is an essential part of the story that disparate countryman fought together, then it probably wouldn't warrant mention.

Of course Hogan's Heroes did feature an Englishman (Newkirk) as the brain of the bunch, but that wasn't intended to be much of a history lesson.