MovieChat Forums > Der Rote Baron (2008) Discussion > In Defense Of The Red Baron

In Defense Of The Red Baron

posted 14 years ago by wamcal
38 replies | jump to latest

I think the message board has been grossly unfair to this movie. I know people have pointed out flaws and I won't dispute them but consider this: The budget on this film was $22 million US dollars (huge by European standards.) By contrast, Sex and The City 2 cost $100 million. I completely understand star salaries, US production and marketing costs but ahem... Maybe these guys bit off more than they could chew hoping to create an epic for American audiences but they still did a great job visually with what they had to spend. I'm sure to the trained eye the planes and maneuvers were inaccurate but I thought the aerial sequences were pretty exciting for us laymen. And as an historian pointed out to me, they re-created the overall military and civilian environment with painstaking detail. Also, I take into account what I believe is the point of this movie. Germans have been apologizing for years (and rightfully so) for the heinous aspects of their history. Shame is part of their national psyche. These people endeavored to make an anti-war film while at the same time honoring their heroes and celebrating some noble parts of their past. Although created or embellished, plot devices like the meetings with Brown or even the love interest served this purpose well and propelled Richthofen's personal evolution... and...No story? I disagree. There were some problems but at heart it's about a phenomenal WWI flying ace and warrior with scruples, relationships with people around him, and snapshots of his career. It's all pretty basic- He flew, he led, he fought, and he died. Much more than that and they REALLY would have been making stuff up or getting off topic. I had mixed feelings about not showing his last dogfight but I think the filmmakers may have been going for a more poetic ending where we respect his life, not his death. For me, I thought it was a decent glimpse of a legend made real and what it was like on the the other side of the history I've been taught as an American.

[–] mr_osse 12 years ago

I totally agree with you. Vastly underrated movie with an amazing score

[–] Zarathustra_Speaks 11 years ago

Sorry this really was the closest European film makers could get to producing a Pearl Harbour - sure it looked very good indeed and the actors battled heroically against an abysmal script but the plot was so ridiculously contrived and history treated with such contempt that its a positive insult to the memory of the Red Baron and to everyone who fought in WW1.

You expect this kind of dreck from Hollywood but we Europeans generally don't plumb these idiotic depths.

[–] templars65 11 years ago

When you finish getting a kick out of your pretentious self, maybe quit this site.

Spelling Pearl Harbor incorrectly is the kind of thing I'd expect from children but we adults generally don't plumb these idiot depths.

[–] 11 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Zarathustra_Speaks 10 years ago

Pardon me for being English (and we English for having invented your language) and for my spelling 'Harbour' correctly....

[–] HenryCW 10 years ago

If you are English, you can use "harbour" as a common noun. But "Pearl Harbor" is a proper name since Hawaii was a US possession (now state) and so the only acceptable spelling is "Harbor".

[–] Zarathustra_Speaks 10 years ago

English-English: we love our silent u's and have harbours, labour, honour, favours, armour.....

It's not right and not wrong - just the way we write.

And while I see the point about proper nouns any number of British publications disagree e.g. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1043354/Devastation-Pea rl-Harbour-revenge-attacks-revealed-BBC-project-2-000-feet-Pacific.htm l and http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2011/dec/04/guardian-teache r-network-resources

[–] HenryCW 10 years ago

That some British writers insisted on using "Pearl Harbour" doesn't make it right. In fact, they should have known better. Suppose there is a publication in Britain called Journal of British Labour Relations or an organization called Centre of British Studies, it would be equally inappropriate for an American writer to change the spellings to "Labor" and "Center". The point is that for proper names, you have to use the original names and thus the associated spellings, whether they are "correct" or otherwise.

Suppose my parents named me "Hennry" or even "Hennrree", it is meaningless for anyone who writes to me to change it to "Henry" because that is generally the way it is spelt in England and America. If you do, you would be writing to someone else.

[–] Zarathustra_Speaks 10 years ago

I actually agree with you on proper nouns and if I were writing a fully footnoted work of scholarship would be mortified if some reviewer pointed out that I'd written Pearl Harbour rather than Harbor.

But we're talking bollocks (another English phrase) on the internet about a not very good film and so you apply a looser colloquial standard and accept minor errors in English as long as the meaning is clear.

When a newspaper does it they are slightly more culpable but before we had the internet journalism was as the name says a largely ephemeral trade where people expected errors (in the old days of print-only the Guardian was so full of typographic errors that readers jokingly called it the Grauniad).

If you were to talk about the British Labor Party online I would certainly not mock you as an ignorant buffoon - I'd just assume that you were an American, politely point out that it is Labour not Labor and address your actual argument.

So why can't someone who one hopes does understand that we are separated by a common language extend me the same level of courtesy?

My negative opinion on The Red Baron is fair game - my intelligence and command of my native language is not.

[–] HenryCW 10 years ago

To make it clear, I am not in any way agreeing with the other user's rude comments on your post.

[–] Zarathustra_Speaks 10 years ago

Taken for granted.

[–] nickm2 10 years ago

Sorry Zarathustra, but I must insert a bit of humor RE: the use of the letter 'u':

We had a local punk band in San Francisco back in the 1970s; the lead singer's stage name was 'Pearl Harbour' (aka: Pearl E. Gates) and her band was called 'The Explosions'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_Harbor_and_the_Explosions

Why can't you wretched prey creatures understand that the Universe doesn't owe you anything!?

[–] Zarathustra_Speaks 10 years ago

I am actually old enough to remember Pearl Harbour and the Explosions (as I am pretty sure they called themselves when they toured here in I think the early 80s) - her using the English-English spelling may well be related to US punks being far more popular in the UK than they ever were in the US (The Ramones etc virtually lived here).

[–] nickm2 10 years ago

Ah so you're able to be 'carbon dated' like me eh? ; Many moons later it occurred to me that Pearl was attempting an exercise in 'poor taste'.

Why can't you wretched prey creatures understand that the Universe doesn't owe you anything!?

[–] templars65 11 years ago

I also wholeheartedly agree that this film has been grossly underrated. Yes, there are some exaggerations. Yes the whole side romance thing is unlikely. Yes, they portrayed him rather inaccurately. Yes, the performance of the planes, though not as comical as Flyboys thank goodness, are a little bit overdone. No WW1 strut would hold up under some of the exaggerated moves that are pulled.

The look however of the film, the planes themselves, and the combat (though I wished it were pulled back a little) delivered. The period feel was well done in all of the battle scenes. If one takes it as merely an entertaining film and puts aside the historical inaccuracies, the film is far better than the bad reviews it's gotten.

[–] jm44849 11 years ago

This movie is one of the best flying movies ever made. Have these critics ever noticed how terrible these movies are about combat flying. The Red Baron can make one dizzy with the flying graphics that are so well orchestrated giving the impression that the viewer is experiencing the flying themselves.
What were these critics thinking when they shot at this film? I would like one of them to find me a movie about combat flying that can come close to the range of experiences that these men and women went through.

No this movie was a breakthough in not only the best flying movie ever made, but the characters within the film produced exceptional action performances.

[–] fozzy325-202-569814 10 years ago

The movie was blaaa.... to much romance. and why make false scenes. this man was amazing. he shot down 80 planes. Why make false parts for the movie. There was no night raids and no night fighting.

Oh man. its as bad as red tails

[–] TorontoScarlett 10 years ago

OMG @wamcal, he dies in the movie? That's a bit of a spoiler for those of us who don't know their history. Guess I should have known...

I am watching this movie as we speak (on VCR, believe it or not) and enjoying it very much. Imagine shooting at your own propellers in the hope that the ammo would bounce off and get through to the enemy... And the wreath the British pilots dropped for their "brave and chivalrous foe"... You can't make this stuff up.

Update... Just finished this "movie", realized that what I was watching was not the movie, but a documentary, and a very interesting one at that. Now I have to find the movie of the same name...

[–] Darkehmen 10 years ago

I agree with the O.P.

All my life, Richthofen has been one of my personal heroes, and all in all, I liked this movie.

I didn't even mind the romance; actually, I quite enjoyed that aspect. And I, for one, found the flying scenes to be quite convincing.

Manfred's real character was somewhat different from his portrayal in the film, but there was enough left of him that I could accept this as a film biography of the man.

There are a few aspects of the film that grated on me, though: the fictional Jewish pilot and the absurd scene of Richthofen crying over his death, and the bizarre insubordination to the Kaiser. Neither would ever have happened in real life.

Likely, though, that's the only way that this movie would ever have gotten made. As someone else pointed out, the movie could easily have been nothing but a "We're so ashamed" film, but at least there was an attempt to show some of the nobility of Richthofen's character and to pay tribute to some of his greatness -- probably as much as is possible in today's Cultural Marxist climate.

[–] KaZenPhi 8 years ago

Maybe people don't like this movie because it takes a nightmarish almost apocalyptic war that large portions of the world are still shaken by and makes it look like the wachowski's speed racer movie?

I don't know how anyone can defend the flying scenes. Granted the planes look like the real thing despite the cartoony colours but in the air they behave like they are from a star wars movie. And here I thought Flyboys was as low as you can go.