Der Rote Baron movie. Any good?

Stephan · 10 May 2009, 12:03 AM

Jeez I'm probably gonna get clobbered for this & told there have already been umpty ump number of previous threads about this, but there are likely a few like myself who haven't yet seen it & some who might like to chat it again in the here & now. I know it's not historically accurrate, but is it any good?

werner vontobler · 10 May 2009, 12:46 AM

I have seen this movie and I really wanted to like it, I enjoyed the special effects and seeing Albatross's ,but overall it was'nt the greatest film I have seen lately. Please dont get me wrong I am a huge fan of World War One History and there has been some really good films made on the period, if you get the chance see this one make your opinion I was just expecting a much more realistic depiction of "The Red Baron" to come out of Germany.
Yours Respectfully,
VonTobler

Stephan · 10 May 2009, 03:22 AM

That was supposed to be the point of it I thought, to show him as he sort of really was as a person. My pal has a pal system & ordered one of these. Gonna watch it next week. Maybe the Pippi Longstocking remake was better.

MK2 · 12 May 2009, 10:40 PM

I liked the movie and enjoyed (greatly) the combat and aerodrome scenes.

I never had any expectation of it being a documentary type movie like others have, so for what it is, I thought it was pretty good.

Overall definitely worth wathcing if you are a fan of WW1 aerial combat.

tcrean7828 · 12 May 2009, 11:51 PM

Mate,
I liked the movie very much, as I had bought it in the German Language.

My only remark would be that it really condensed his life and of course the meeting with Roy Brown was a lark, along with the touchie-feelie romance that apparently was needed to make the movie reach its final conclusion. IMHO they didn't need either items or at the least no Brown and just a slight tad of the romance.

The graphics were outstanding - when you compare them to FlyBoys. At least the German aircraft were not all the same color and they actually had some really really really good CG on the aerial graphics and combat scenes.

9 out ot 10 for entertainment, Historically 5 out of 10.

To me it was worth the monies that I spent on it and the s/h which was more than the movie.

ttfn

tcrean7828

tom

Thomas Trauner · 13 May 2009, 01:20 AM

After the movie is available on DVD with a reasonable price in Germany, I watched it a second time after I’ve seen it in the cinemas.
(After I watched it, it occurred to me that it was April 21st, which I found a bit horrific

)

I have to admit that I don’t like the movie at all. Some of the props a really good, some, very, very short views are pretty nice, but that’s it.
I did not even like the flight-scenes. The planes are too fast; they don’t behave like 100 hp powered crates.
And even the few “fighting” scenes are nonsense. Fighting H.P. 0/400 in the night, my god.
Bringing down a kite-balloon with a flare….
The attack on the Harry Tate (crewed by Brown!) is rather good, but that’s it.

And beside of this: The story is great nonsense, too. Even if you accept a relationship between MvR and his nurse, the story is so unbelievable, as the nurse turns him from a grim warrior into a thinking man demanding a cease-fire and peace from his emperor, while meeting Wilhelm II in some sort of “Atlantic-wall-bunker” at the west front….

The meeting with Brown between the front lines, the meeting of the nurse with Brown at MvR´s grave, what is that then nonsense again? The nurse sleeping together with the JG commander in a tent in the middle of a German aerodrome?
Fräulein Otersdorf is, by the way, clothed in the female style of modern, self-reliant woman, and behaves like that.
The complete impression the movie makes is simply wrong and much to soft compared to the grim reality of war and the society of 1917/18.

They only thing I liked was that the German pilots where rather young (except Voss) and behaved like rather normal beings and not like porridge-brained Prussian soldier-automatons.

Have a look. I think it’s important to look at concerning the “MvR-saga” but that’s it.

Thomas

rammjaeger · 13 May 2009, 03:27 AM

Stephan,

last christmas I have seen the DVD together with my brother-in-law.
Result: Yes, the movie and its story have plenty of weaknesses and did not meet the high expectations.

However, the movie is not worse than any average Hollywood movie made for pure entertainment.

By the way, Thomas:
Destroying balloons with a flare was not a mistake in this movie! The first German balloon hunter destroyed 2 balloons with his flare pistol in 1915. The first or one of the very first issues of the "Nachrichtenblatt" in 1917 reported a victory with a flare. As well I have a report about a British pilot who was killed when he tried to destroy a balloon with flares (after failed rocket and MG attacks). German ballon buster Heinrich Gontermann reported about use of flares as well. The use of flares was a real option against balloons and not invented by the makers of the movie.

crankcase · 13 May 2009, 03:55 AM

...everyone is putting their money on Peter Jackson eventually making "the mother" of all WW1 aviation movies, both technically and artistically...
marc

frontflieger · 13 May 2009, 07:44 AM

Hi all,

I think, some actors were bad chosen! e. g. 'Mr Voss' was too old and was more a 'fatherly friend'. The same with the nurse, she was more a motherly friend then a girlfriend. MvR looked like a big (tall, grown-up...) child.

But the equipment is great!

As mentioned before, have a look here.

Thorsten

Stephan · 13 May 2009, 12:28 PM

Thanks Thomas. Yes Manfred was both a thinking man & a determined warrior all though his career, not just later on as the film depicts. He was determined to succeed, but also had a conscious, ( had nightmares seeing his 1st Britishers face). Certainly the war & his wound to a degree wore on him as most of his pals died, but he lost none of his fire late in his career as others did. The best movie about him is yet to be made.