It is sad this series did not gel the way it should have. Of course, the early war situation, in which crews were lost so quickly that some were literally unknown to anyone else in the unit, did not allow the training and character development segments as in BoB, did not help. I felt that much of the history was glossed over to concentra…
It is sad this series did not gel the way it should have. Of course, the early war situation, in which crews were lost so quickly that some were literally unknown to anyone else in the unit, did not allow the training and character development segments as in BoB, did not help. I felt that much of the history was glossed over to concentrate on the few characters they did feature. The refusal of the unit production manager to scrape up the money to add chin turrets for the B-17Gs is emblematic of the secondary place the 8th AF history seems to have had. ANY series dealing with the 8th AF bomber war was going to have to concentrate on a few key actions that changed the history of the organization. They ignored the second Schweinfurt raid, which was the mission that proved that unescorted daylight bombing was not sustainable. There was no discussion of the daylight bombing doctrine that led the 8th brass to refuse drop tanks for the escorting fighters for 1942 and 1943, or the leadership changes in 1944 that corrected the errors of the earlier war period. I know Spielberg has a thing for the P-51 Mustang, but no real mention of the P-47 (I did see some apparent P-47s in an episode, unidentified). There was some fine work by the art and prop departments in recreating Thorpe Abbotts, but most of it appeared for only seconds. There wasn't a lot of the normal planning activity you'd expect, so much was unexplained. Uniforms appeared to be quite good based on what I've seen on the web. At least it inspired me to buy a repro A-2 leather jacket to replace an old jacket that gave out. Frankly, you'll get a lot more history from good old war movies, specifically "Twelve O'Clock High" and "Command Decision", even though neither has a much air-to-air action. A lost opportunity.....
Then there is the CGI..... When the CGI worked (done by one of the better of the 10 VFX houses they used for the effects), they were effective, to me in the mass flight scenes with the contrails - a lot of that looked OK to me. That said, most of the combat sequences sucked. Video game scenes that were nothing like what the 8th AF actually faced, aligned with such poorly done B-17 damage scenes that I suspect no one at any of the VFX houses had ever flown in an airplane or looked at much real WW2 combat footage. And so much of it was sloppy - B-17 propellers turning the wrong way, control surfaces misaligned.....what were they thinking? Where was the "script girl".....? The writing was not my style, but as I posted elsewhere, my $300 million was tied up in pork bellies, so Apple got the shot at this series..... It could have been so much better. The last couple of episodes were obviously rushed, but I did like the last four minutes - the departure of the 100th BG's B-17s from Thorpe Abbotts back to the US. It was a poignant moment and I thought the CGI was pretty good, but again in the last sequence, when Cleven's and Egan's B-17 turned onto the runway, the elevators were misaligned..... Sigh.
It is sad this series did not gel the way it should have. Of course, the early war situation, in which crews were lost so quickly that some were literally unknown to anyone else in the unit, did not allow the training and character development segments as in BoB, did not help. I felt that much of the history was glossed over to concentrate on the few characters they did feature. The refusal of the unit production manager to scrape up the money to add chin turrets for the B-17Gs is emblematic of the secondary place the 8th AF history seems to have had. ANY series dealing with the 8th AF bomber war was going to have to concentrate on a few key actions that changed the history of the organization. They ignored the second Schweinfurt raid, which was the mission that proved that unescorted daylight bombing was not sustainable. There was no discussion of the daylight bombing doctrine that led the 8th brass to refuse drop tanks for the escorting fighters for 1942 and 1943, or the leadership changes in 1944 that corrected the errors of the earlier war period. I know Spielberg has a thing for the P-51 Mustang, but no real mention of the P-47 (I did see some apparent P-47s in an episode, unidentified). There was some fine work by the art and prop departments in recreating Thorpe Abbotts, but most of it appeared for only seconds. There wasn't a lot of the normal planning activity you'd expect, so much was unexplained. Uniforms appeared to be quite good based on what I've seen on the web. At least it inspired me to buy a repro A-2 leather jacket to replace an old jacket that gave out. Frankly, you'll get a lot more history from good old war movies, specifically "Twelve O'Clock High" and "Command Decision", even though neither has a much air-to-air action. A lost opportunity.....
Then there is the CGI..... When the CGI worked (done by one of the better of the 10 VFX houses they used for the effects), they were effective, to me in the mass flight scenes with the contrails - a lot of that looked OK to me. That said, most of the combat sequences sucked. Video game scenes that were nothing like what the 8th AF actually faced, aligned with such poorly done B-17 damage scenes that I suspect no one at any of the VFX houses had ever flown in an airplane or looked at much real WW2 combat footage. And so much of it was sloppy - B-17 propellers turning the wrong way, control surfaces misaligned.....what were they thinking? Where was the "script girl".....? The writing was not my style, but as I posted elsewhere, my $300 million was tied up in pork bellies, so Apple got the shot at this series..... It could have been so much better. The last couple of episodes were obviously rushed, but I did like the last four minutes - the departure of the 100th BG's B-17s from Thorpe Abbotts back to the US. It was a poignant moment and I thought the CGI was pretty good, but again in the last sequence, when Cleven's and Egan's B-17 turned onto the runway, the elevators were misaligned..... Sigh.