"Red Tails" The Next George Lucas Production

Why? It sounds like a true collaboration & I like that!
Just like Lucas & Coppola on "Tucker", Lucas & Darabont with "Young Indy," Lucas & Spielberg with "Indiana Jones", Lucas & Henson with "Labyrinth", Lucas & Filoni with "Clone Wars." It makes it better to me!

 

One deeply amusing aspect of the negative reviews (and it shows up in many of those that I've read) is the sanctimonious affectation of how the "Tuskegee Airmen deserve better!"

I feel like sending them a greeting card with a message congratulating the little troopers on securing the moral high ground.

It's weird watching people who have made careers out of hip, ironic sneering suddenly become try to become unironic, genuine, and reverential for a couple sentences. Doesn't quite work. It sort of comes out of nowhere and it's kind of jarring, but it's funny.

 

the paper here in phoenix gave it a decent review last week. i saw it last night. it's a pretty good film.

 

Of course, all of these critics are busy preparing their own "suitable" Red Tails films, using their own money That's what I LOVE about critics, they always put their $$$ where their loud-mouths are...

 

I think the critics had an axe to grind with Lucas and that explains a lot of the bad reviews. Because Red Tails was a good film.

About that IGN article, I think they were just going for the non-SW, non-Indy stuff.

 

>>About that IGN article, I think they were just going for the non-SW, non-Indy stuff.<<

Yeah but they purposely skipped amazing films he produced such as:

Body heat
Powaqqatsi
Kagemusha
Mishima
Dreams
Young Indiana Jones (some of the best dramatic television I've ever watched, a monumental achievement, filmed entirely on location, and which included a near 20 hour dramatization of WWI.)

It was a hack-n-slash job done by a disgruntled "fan."

 

Dreams was Spielberg.

I understand what you're saying. Young Indy should have been there but otherwise, I think they were also going with the higher profile stuff.

 

"Dreams" was also Lucas (and Scorsese); and Kurosawa used ILM for the fx, he & Lucas oversaw them, using the then new "HD effects" basically early video compositing.

I repeat: they gunned for the predictable things they could shoot down. It was a typical bashing article that had no intention of looking into the other films he's produced.

 

Still no Australian release date I can find as of yet.

The trailers look predictable & mainstream, but that's trailers for you - I'm still really interested to see this film, the reactions seem to be as mixed as you would expect of something genuinely different & true to itself.

Seems to be doing decent business at the box office, anyway. What I really want to get out of this film is a movie that GL felt passionately enough about to see that it was done the way he wanted. That doesn't necessarily work every time, but I've always found that bad is better than boring.

That sounds extremely promising, probably the most encouraging thing I've read yet - look at the last thing GL did that was initially received as "a lot of fun, an homage to old sci-fi serials & comic books".

 

To add to my earlier observation about the actual director of the film being largely ignored... Well this doesn't always happen.

Go look up negative discussions of Red Tails and Howard the Duck. They mostly direct scorn at Lucas. Weirdly, in a fair few discussion in the same sort of venues there are attempts to deny him credit for The Empire Strikes Back. I've been told of the brilliance of Irvin Kershner a zillion times. I have no idea who directed Howard the Duck, even though I've heard scores of rants about George's responsibility for that film.

 

Saw "Red Tails" yesterday; it was absolutely fantastic! I loved how the opening was like Star Wars in a way. Fox logo, Lucasfilm Logo, blue lettering......then BAM!

 

I think Lucas has a "sleeper hit" on his hands!

 

Hopefully, it's more of a hit than a sleeper.

This second weekend will tell the tale.

 

Do we know how its played through the week?

 

Yes, it made abt $4 million over the week. We'll see how w/e #2 does. As of Friday it was at $23.5 million!

 

And don't forget the original Land Before Time. That was one of my favorites as a kid and is a great piece of animation: Surprisingly dark yet very warm and certainly unique (until the 20 something straight-to-video sequels anyway ).

 

I thought it had a really strong opening as well.

 

For the cinema numbers its playing at thats quite good isn't it?

 

It's solid. Guess we'll find out tomorrow. I'm seeing it again tomorrow anyway

 

According to Box Office Mojo, Red Tails earned 10.4 million for the weekend. It's made $33,780,000 so far.

 

Yes, it looks like it'll top out at around $40 million domestic.

I have to say I'm disappointed that SW fans decided to listen to the critics & not support this film. It's a perfectly enjoyable film, better than anything new playing right now, and I think it was a good film to throw in behind. I suppose the studios & critics are feeling pretty smug about it; a real shame. If SW fans had supported Red Tails, the film would have done serious numbers. Ten bucks and two hours of good movie watching, I guess it was too much to ask for.

I guess this falls in line with the other non-SW projects Lucas has produced, from More American Graffiti to Mishima to Tucker. And we can add another hobby-horse to the basher's list of easy targets, even 'though most of them will never even see the film, and if they did, not give it a chance to win them over.

Still, the numbers are respectable.

 

Given it's numbers so far I think it will do better than that.
It is over 30 mil now and had a 10 mil weekend. It would had to drop very hard to make less than 10 mil in the rest of it's run. 50 is likely and up to 60 mil is possible.

Regards
Nordom

 

Saw Red Tails again today. Bumped it up to 4 star for me. The movie has a few kins, but they are minor in comparison to what it does right. It's a beautiful little film. The theater was again filled, and again it was 95% African American, and again they loved the film. Time's gonna tell on this one. Give it a few years. The critics were 100% wrong.

 

Is it better then the the other Tuskegee movie?

 

Apples & oranges.

The HBO telefilm is an extremely stagey, theatrical, conventional drama. I like it a whole lot, it reminds me of a great old tv series, "Playhouse 90"; if you don't know about it, look it up. But there are virtually no aerial battles, just cockpit shots cut in with some very pedestrian plane photography (mostly reused from other films, like Memphis Belle) and stock footage from WW2

"Red Tails" is pure George Lucas. There are almost no major dramatic scenes in the film, only three, really, and one is cut short (sadly). Lucas's idea of drama is more documentarian. The love story is handled in the style of early 1970's cinema, think Michael & Appolonia in "The Godfather" or Sundance & Etta in "Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid." The performances are very naturalistic (this is what the critics are calling "stiff"). So if you think of things like "Philadelphia" and "Saving Private Ryan" as film drama, you are probably not going to appreciate Red Tails. Like all Lucas films, there is a "heightened reality" element, in this case, when the pilots are in the air, the film draws from WW2 era comic books & war movies. Does all of this work? For the most part "Yes." Watching it a second time I started picking up on nuances in the editing and performances, and realized that it's a very rich film, just not on the surface level of dramatic dialogue & Big Important Scenes; it also ran a whole lot smoother for me the second time. Also, as in all Lucas films, some of the characters are very quirky (Deacon & Raygun). I think Hemingway, Lucas, the two writers & the cast have created a very unique film -- warm, inspirational, exciting, offbeat, cool, and worth seeing.

For me, I prefer Red Tails: it's photographed better, it has more period music & period detail, it has the kind of heroic-archetype stuff only Lucas does just right, and it has full, elaborate aerial battles. But they are both good on their own grounds.

I'd say: see Red Tails on the big screen before it goes away & decide for yourself