Compared to Memphis Bell... - Fortress (2012) Discussion

[–] jkholman 12 years ago

Having watched only the first half of the film last night, I am already seeing this as better in story quality than Memphis Belle.

- JKHolman

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[–] pasnat 12 years ago

OP, you have obviously never seen "12 O'Clock High." It's not only the best movie about B-17s ever, it's one of the greatest war movies ever made.

Memphis Belle? Okay, not great.

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[–] connorarroyo-1 12 years ago

"Twelve O'Clock High" starring a young Gregory Peck is very good.. Also very good from one year prior is "Command Decision" with Clark Gable and Walter Pidgeon. Both those movies were much closer to the actual events portrayed.

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[–] WarEagle-3 11 years ago

I have never seen Command Decision, but I have 12 O'Clock High and Memphis Belle in my DVD collection. Both excellent films.

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[–] sstaytru 10 years ago

The "War Lover", with Steve McQueen and Robert Wagner, is an excellent B-17 movie.

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[–] kmsoars 9 years ago

Agreed, but for a modern Fortress yarn this is better than Memphis Belle (which was real in name only) and I won't even go into how bad Red Tails was. Shame on you George Lucas!

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[–] jejozi 11 years ago

Memphis Belle has a bigger budget, better writing, better acting and better SFX. But I'm a sucker for WWII movies so I liked it.

This will be the high point of my day; it's all downhill from here.

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[–] libertarian45 9 years ago

At least there's no Matthew Modine in it....I hate him in everything he's ever done. He is the worst part of Memphis Belle.

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[–] HenryCW 9 years ago

Memphis Belle was somewhat better than this one, though both were not particularly good. In the older film, we all know that the plane was to survive the last mission, but the plot of this film was also very predictable. We all know that the new officer (Michael) would eventually win the respect and trust of the crew. The only thing uncertain was who were to live and who were to get wounded or die.

The flying and fighting scenes of this film were generally not too good, with all the usual problems whenever CGI is used in films instead of the "real" thing. The fire and smoke from guns and explosions always appeared a little too "clean". Usually it worked with one or two planes, but the scenes looked unreal and fake whenever large formations of planes were involved. The sandstorm in the film was even worse.

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[–] schlob77 9 years ago

Memphis Bell has it's own set of unrealistic issues that I won't go into here. To use that movie as the benchmark is setting the bar very low.

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[–] au561 9 years ago

The best movies about the B-17 are in order,
Twelve O'Clock High 1949
Air Force 1942
The War Lover 1962
Best movie about American Strategic Daylight Bombardment,
Command Decision 1948
Best Contemporary Documentary,
The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress (1944)

And some very good scenes in,
The Best Years Of Our Lives 1946

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[–] silverr8c 8 years ago

About 10 or 15 years ago I got to meet Colonel Robert K. Morgan who was the real pilot of the plane but his name was never mentioned in the movie. I posted a picture of me standing next to him and as you can see he was pretty old when I met him, but the guy's mind was sharp as attack. He was able to stand and talk for at least an hour without needing any notes. I was able to go inside the plane and walk around, and was able to sit in the pilot's seat in a plane that was taken apart and put on display. What amazed me was how small to plane was inside with no room to walk around. I had the chance to go for a ride and kind of regret not doing it to this day. They wanted a lot of money for a ride that lasted 20 tp 30 minutes and back then I did not have as much money as I have now. The owner of the plane that restored the plane allow Colonel Morgan to fly it and from what I was told he was still able to fly the plane and had not lost any of his skills.

Anyhow listening to the guy that was the real pilot was better than any movie. I read that shortly after I met Colonel Morgan he fell and got injured while entering the plane, I was amazed he was able to get into the plane at his age because there were a couple ways to enter any one way required you to be an acrobat, the guy was about 30 years older than I was an I do not think I could have used the pilot's entrance. He died a short time later

(Wikipedia sad he fell outside the airport in Asheville, but the story I remember was he fell getting in the plane)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v308/silvercorvette/meandrobertmorgan.jpg

Since 1950 all but two mass shootings happened in gun free zones, notice a pattern?

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[–] chrissso 7 years ago

Well Memphis Bell has an IMDB rating of 6.9 (24,000 voters) ... while this film has 5.0 rating (1,600) voters ... so there are not many who agree with you.

This film had way too much CGI ... at least MB looked real.

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