How did you all react to 'The scene'

I take it some caught this on AMC a little earlier. And funny the beginning thread on this subject, I too, have always considered that to be "the SCENE". I first saw this with my dad, when I was six or seven years old. I loved airplanes, built model airplanes, and my dad said it was a great movie. And my dad is rarely wrong. But to this day, I can still remember how I felt when I first saw that scene. Even as a kid, I can remember the utter disbelief I felt when he was telling them they were MODEL airplanes he built.

This movie did an incredible job of making you feel the thirst, exhaustion, dirt, and downright exhaustion the characters were feeling. To try and build a plane in conditions most of us couldn't even fathom, ordered around by Heinrich, a man that the crew doesn't like, but are so desperate for a miracle, they hold faith in his "airplane design" abilities...they push themselves to do what even still seems like a pipedream. So when Towns and Moran find out Heinrich's planes are nothing more than small models...every time, I can feel all of the hope they had just slip through their fingers. The disbelief and loss of hope they experience at that point, is like pouring salt on a very big wound. And the thing is, the movie is good enough, and by this point you're so wrapped up and involved in it, that you can really think and feel what they are. And you realize that Moran's insane laughter is actually insane weeping. And at that point, it would be easy to do both at the same time. And you know it took a lot to keep it from the rest of the crew. One can only speculate at that point what would've happened. Everyone's performance in this movie was so fantastic, you can't help but like the characters that you don't like and the reason you don't like them.

As remakes go, I'd pass on the remake. I only watched it because it aired on cable on morning, nothing else was on, and I was curious how it would hold up to the original. It had a good cast, but the movie itself falls far short of the original. And Dennis Quaid is definitely no Jimmy Stewart. Another actor playing the role of Towns could've improved it a bit, but not that much. I was glad when it ended, and I can say I saw it, so I can tell people how the original is far superior in so many areas and why. Didn't mean to rant, but I hope that younger folks who haven't seen the original, definitely sit down and at least give it a chance. I don't think it would take much for them to be sucked in with interest.

Hey Fock Wolfe, great quote. James is a buddy of mine. And most people don't quote him from his first album. Most will sing the first few lines of "Choctaw Bingo"!

"Said I should've been here, back about ten years. Before it got ruined by folks like me..." JM

I think the fact that Dorfmann is a designer rather than an actual airplane builder or mechanic also sets up the inevitable conflict with Townes. Townes--rather bitterly--says something like: "Lou, the little men with the slide rules are going to inherit the earth." Townes is an old-school, seat-of-the-pants pilot and Dorfmann is the new wave of lab-coated pencil pushers. It's a theme that gets explored in-depth a few years later in The Right Stuff.

I saw this as a kid and also reacted to the laughing while really crying with humour. Thought it was a great scene, it added more drama to their already desperate situation. 😲