MovieChat Forums > Der Rote Baron (2008) Discussion > No wonder it went straight to dvd

No wonder it went straight to dvd

posted 15 years ago by theladsdad
22 replies | jump to latest

What a shame. I thought this was going to be a great watch but found it to be pretty dull and unintersting. Although I'm no expert I've had a long term interest in wartime aviation. I found the film showed me very little of the Manfred I've learned about. I'm sure most people reading this know that it's been known for quite some time that Roy Brown didn't shoot down The Red Baron. Why did they miss out his last dogfight? The way he landed his plane after taking the fatal shot was truly astounding. There are many photographs of his funeral, I can't understand why the ending of his life was completely left out of the film and yet they found it ok to put in all that ridiculous nonsense about Roy and Manfred having cosy little chats throughout the course of the war.

[–] quendino 14 years ago

The death of Red Baron is still a mistery so the film makers didn't want to spoil it. Nobody really knows what happened during his last dogfight - the only thing I can mention here is that it happened during a day mission, not a night flight, as depicted in the film. The chat between the 2 is understandable - the 2 best soldiers of enemy countries meeting somewhere in the middle - it's something that has been seen since the war exist. It didn't happen with the 2 guys, but then again, it's a film, and it can symbolize the fact that pilots have always been pilots, leave aside that they were enemies.

[–] Traianus 14 years ago

The death of Red Baron is still a mistery so the film makers didn't want to spoil it. Nobody really knows what happened during his last dogfight - the only thing I can mention here is that it happened during a day mission, not a night flight, as depicted in the film.

It's not so much that it's mysterious anymore but rather the legend of the mystery that endures - it was arguably World War I's most famous mystery. Through a confluence of eye-witness reports and ballistics data, we actually do have a pretty amazingly accurate picture of what did happen, and some of the studies now out are quite conclusive. Even if one wants to argue that we don't know exactly what happened, the OP is correct in asserting that it is certain that it was not Brown who shot Richthofen down (no matter how badly some might still want to believe it). Nonetheless, the event continues to fascinate, and I do agree with you in that it was ok of the filmmakers to not get into it.

[–] HenryCW 14 years ago

In the film, Richthofen was killed in a day mission - though his death was not shown. There was a night fighting scene in the film but Richthofen was not killed in that scene.

[–] andyandjelena 13 years ago

The death of Red Baron is still a mistery.

No his was killed by ground fire.

[–] WhiskeyRiver-AZ 12 years ago

Ok,to clear this up here's the full report on the whole issue::

Richthofen was fatally wounded just after 11:00 am on 21 April 1918, while flying over Morlancourt Ridge, near the Somme River.49°56′0.60″N 2°32′43.71″E
At the time, the Baron had been pursuing (at very low altitude) a Sopwith Camel piloted by a novice Canadian pilot, Lieutenant Wilfrid "Wop" May of No. 209 Squadron, Royal Air Force. In turn, the Baron was spotted and briefly attacked by a Camel piloted by a school friend (and flight commander) of May's, Canadian Captain Arthur "Roy" Brown, who had to dive steeply at very high speed to intervene, and then had to climb steeply to avoid hitting the ground. Richthofen turned to avoid this attack, and then resumed his pursuit of May.
It was almost certainly during this final stage in his pursuit of May that Richthofen was hit by a single .303 bullet, which caused such severe damage to his heart and lungs that it must have produced a very speedy death. In the last seconds of his life, he managed to make a hasty but controlled landing in a field on a hill near the Bray-Corbie road, just north of the village of Vaux-sur-Somme, in a sector controlled by the Australian Imperial Force (AIF). One witness, Gunner George Ridgway, stated that when he and other Australian soldiers reached the aircraft, Richthofen was still alive but died moments later.[43] Another eye witness, Sergeant Ted Smout of the Australian Medical Corps, reported that Richthofen's last word was "kaputt".

There,..the mystery is pretty much solved.It wont make a difference though.Manfred von Richthofen will always be a hot topic,and will always be a hero.You may not like it,yu may like it,either way,its the truth.100 years from now,people will hold him up as the epitome of Chivalry.Whether you like it or not.Personally,I like it.And this
movie.
"If it's death from a Saxon sword that frightens you,..stay home"

[–] culainn64 11 years ago

Nonsense...you no nothing of history and the facts than. We don't know exactly who made the kill shot but we know it wasn't a unicorn. You should work for Hollywood.

[–] blackhawkswincup2010 14 years ago

I downloaded this film (legally, believe it or not), and was puzzled by the seeming disjointedness of the storytelling. It was also hard to understand, even though I speak English, German, and some French.

I was a real fan of WWI aeroplanes and aces when I was a kid. Some pilots were very chivalrous, and others were cold-blooded killers who cared not a damn for the lives of others, and those pilots were on both sides. Manfred and Lothar were those types, respectively, in one family.

Historically this film is something of a crock, as most historical films are. There was no friendship between Brown and von Richthofen. The planes moved much slower than was portrayed in the film and were not nearly as manoeuverable. Many of the wrong planes were used, as has been the case in nearly all WWI air movies.

All that said, I liked the film, and in particular the way von Richthofen was portrayed in the script and acted by Schweighoefer.

I plan to watch it a few more times to get more of the details straight, but this movie isn't nearly as bad as a great many people (among those few who have actually seen it) seem to think.

[–] SabreSpud 14 years ago

Hopefully you look back this late after posting...

Many of the wrong planes were used, as has been the case in nearly all WWI air movies.

Okay, I consider myself fairly decent WW1 airplane knowledgable, so:

-Lanoe Hawker flew an Airco DH2 not an SE-5

Outside of depicting a few SE-5a too early, I was impressed that for Jasta 1 we saw numerous coloured Fokker Dr1 (especially Werner Voss' dark green/black) as well as a smattering of D-VII, Albatross D-V as I have always believed (as opposed to 'Flyboys' where everyone flew either Niuports or Dr1's) squadrons were fairly diverse in that the 'veterans' like the Richtofen brothers got the newer planes first and the 'rookies' received older like Albatross'.

So what other anomolies did I miss?

You Can't Fool Me...I'm a Moron!

[–] blackhawkswincup2010 14 years ago

And so I have.

I'm not sure Richthofen started out with an Albatros at the beginning, either. Might have flown an Eindekker (complete with wing-warping instead of ailerons), but his movie starts in '16, so I'm not real sure of my timetables. I also thought I saw a Spad 13 in one of the air battles, and that's another anachronism.

[–] HenryCW 14 years ago

Richthofen never scored any of his victories on the Fokker Eindecker. He once shared a monoplane with a pilot named Reimann, who was shot down when flying the plane but escaped unhurt. Richthofen was then given another monoplane but crashed on takeoff. Soon afterwards, in June 1916, he was ordered to Russia to fly two-seaters.

Then he returned to the Western Front as one of Boelcke's select pupils. He had his first official victory on September 23, 1916, shooting down an English F.E.2b two-seater. He was flying an Albatros D.II.

[–] blackhawkswincup2010 14 years ago

No offense, but it seems as though you have even less of a life than I had. :)

Hey, I'm just as big a geek when it comes to Rickenbacker. I must have read his autobio about two dozen times growing up.

[–] HenryCW 14 years ago

You didn’t really think I could remember all those dates, did you?

Actually the information was from Dale Titler, The Day the Red Baron Died published back in 1970. There is an appendix in the book that shows the details of Richthofen’s 80 official victories, including dates and locations, the aircraft models, squadron and serial numbers, and the names and fates of the occupants. I actually have on hand a copy of this book, which my father bought when it was first published at that time. I have to turn the pages very slowly or the book is about to disintegrate. I have a number of books on the two World Wars published forty to fifty years ago (and of course some recent ones). I would hope to buy new copies to replace the old ones, but I believe almost all of them (including this one) are out of print.

Titler’s book was – as far as I know – the first that tried to put together evidence systematically to assert that Richthofen was killed by ground fire, though the question of who brought him down had been disputed ever since his death.

I have only a passing interest on this particular topic. But you don’t need to have read many books to answer questions in the IMDb message boards. You just need to have ready on hand a few good ones.

[–] jmartz11 13 years ago

Like other fil;ms there were NO dh2 around so they used se5s

[–] Bry-2 13 years ago

Since they were all CGI, there could have just as easily been DH-2s, but the SE-5a is a much sexier looking plane, so that's probably the reason they went with that model.

Just a guess.

--If they move, kill 'em!

[–] RbSnedlap 11 years ago

There are actually a couple of replicas in existance that would have made good references if they`d been willing to make the effort.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_1XDAguncM
I guess Hawkers plane wasn`t on screen long enough to make it worthwhile.

"Any plan that involves losing your hat is a BAD plan.""

[–] malonedave-1 13 years ago

Actually... unless I'm mistaken, Richthofen stared as an observer and that was where he scored his first kill. He became a pilot later....

[–] HenryCW 13 years ago

Yes, I had read about that, but that presumably was unconfirmed and I don't think the pilot (whatever his name was) got any credit for it either. The Baron's 80 official victories were from flying single-seaters.

[–] 13 years ago

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[–] Zarathustra_Speaks 11 years ago

Because script writing school tells you that you need to have a central conflict that gets resolved and just having the Baron shot down by a random Australian machine gunner on the ground would hardly have met that criteria.

The amusing thing is that despite the other Pearl Harbor scale absurdities of the script they did baulk at actually showing Brown shooting him down....

[–] 11 years ago

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[–] Vic_Hitler 7 years ago

Good movie - I enjoyed it.

Glad to see they didn't back that preposterous Australian theory that the Baron was actually shot down by Sgt Skippy from the ground with a lucky shot.

I saw that goofball documentary that had more holes than the Warren Report, and somehow, I just knew there would be a few snivelers complaining about the movie.

Fact is...
"Everybody knows" Roy Brown shot him down. The official record of the RAF has always said this, and never changed.

And never will. Piss and moans aside.

[–] liscarkat (16434) 6 years ago

You have enclosed "everybody knows" in quote marks, indicating some level of qualification. Roy Brown was shooting at von Richthofen at the same time as Cedric Popkin. Forensic evidence strongly suggests that it was probably Popkin's bullet that clipped the Baron's heart.