So, before I go further, there's going to be some spoilers in this post. If you want to be completely spoiler free, you should probably check it out after you've watched Masters of the Air. With that out of the way, as I'm watching this show, I have some knee-jerk reactions to it. Yes, it is based on real life people. The soundtrack is awesome, and the opening credits pull at the emotions as you see so many young and beautiful men doing the jobs they were assigned to take on the big bad evil of the twentieth century: Adolf Hilter and his goons. You can't help but feel for every single life lost in this series, which is absolutely the intent. But from a storytelling point of view, it's difficult to follow because entire crews flying the airplanes just die off/get killed. So, you really don't ever get to know anyone except for maybe Rosie, who is extraordinarily gifted in leading his crews to safety amidst towering odds. Like...literally his plane is the only one that survives a bombing mission in one particular episode.
But the thing is: the story doesn't follow Rosie. He's just part of it. So you've got all of these other characters that are only there for a brief moment and then they're just gone. Dead. Shot down. I'm not sure what I would correct or advise if I could to fix this except...maybe...they should have tried to tell a smaller story? I think there were too many storylines going on and for many, they just didn't seem fulfilling because (again) they were just abruptly ended when the character/person got killed.
By starting so far back with the Bucks, they couldn't follow the same crew at all. So that meant more characters, less time to bond with them, and it was essentially a revolving door of turnover. At one point it was really difficult to figure out which character was which. The prisoner of war storylines that they explored were interesting, because it gave us a break from that "in the sky" narrative. Also, I love Austin Butler, but I really wish he'd stop acting like he's the new Clint Eastwood with the whispering and the Elvis-esque acting that he's continued to do since he starred as Elvis in the movie. It feels a lot like Austin Butler has kind of adopted Clint Eastwood in the same way that Christian Slater went full on Jack Nicholson early in his career (and that bugged me too as Christian Slater was not Jack Nicholson). For reference, watch the movie Heathers. It's an ancient movie by today's standards, but if you ever watch it, you will see what I mean with Christian Slater basically acting like Jack Nicholson. It's kind of ridiculous.
However, I don't want to leave you with the impression that I didn't like this series. I loved it, and I'd recommend watching it. But I didn't love it so completely that I feel it is above my criticisms. It had excellent action sequences, cinematography, and acting. If anything, the storytelling suffered because sticking with real men and trying to cover so many at once managed to create a story where nothing really significant got touched upon in any meaningful detail, unless you count "killed in action" as a meaningful thing.
I will be away from the blog all of next week, but thanks for visiting. I'll return for the April 3rd posting of the Insecure Writer's Support Group. I've got some things I need to take care of that require my attention.
That would be a problem since in the early years of the war, bomber groups suffered a lot of losses. It wasn't until the last couple of years when longer-range escorts like the P-51 Mustang became available that bomber crews probably had a better survival rate. That's part of why in Catch-22 Yossarian hates Cathcart and the brass because they keep increasing the number of missions flown before rotating back to the States.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, this might be the kind of story that lends itself better to a movie like "Memphis Belle" than a series.
@P.T.: Your comment vanished for some reason, but I hear what you are saying. A movie like "Memphis Belle" would have been a better choice than a series. I did feel a little bad that I was like, "This story isn't really good because the characters keep dying" and knowing that they weren't really characters. These were (at one time) real people. But then I was like...no...this is a story...and because of that it shouldn't be above criticism.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the comment went to Spam or something. Anyway, the problem is always with biopics or series that real people aren't literary characters and real life doesn't flow in nice dramatic arcs.
Delete@P.T.: That's why I think they should have chosen Rosie "Rosenthal." He was alive through 52 bombing missions because somehow he just had the right combination of skill and luck and extraordinary circumstance to make it out alive through this deadly assault on Europe. If the story had followed Rosie though, I think it would have gotten tedious always being in the plane. So I understand why they jumped around to the different characters. But by the end of the series, there was probably fifty characters and it was just impossible to get to know them all. We didn't even get to the Tuskeegee airmen until episode 8 and there are only 9 episodes for the whole series. So an entire episode spent with new characters eight episodes into this thing.
DeleteThis is why in many movies set during war, they merge characters so we can get a more emotional thru-line. I've been wondering if I should try this series. Currently I'm watching The Buccanneers and Lessons in Chemistry, but when I finish one of them I'm going to need something else to watch. This was looking interesting to me, and your review isn't turning me off of it.
ReplyDelete