main
side
curve
  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

"Red Tails" The Next George Lucas Production

Discussion in 'Lucasfilm Ltd. In-Depth Discussion' started by JediHPDrummer, Mar 2, 2005.

  1. Nagai

    Nagai Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Nov 15, 2010
    What type of fighters an bombers apear in the movie?

    Give some screenshots so i can make icons.
     
  2. Sword_Of_Goliath

    Sword_Of_Goliath Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Sep 22, 2010
    I don't know anything about airplanes, sorry :(
    P51's I think they're called (???) and "flying fortresses" and German jet planes.
    Just google "Red Tails movie"!
     
  3. Nagai

    Nagai Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Nov 15, 2010
    I am not making a banner.
     
  4. DarthBoba

    DarthBoba Manager Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jun 29, 2000
    FWIW, this is a niche movie in a niche that hasn't hasn't really seen the light of day in over fifty years; WW2 Air Force movies in general kinda vanished in the sixties and never really came back from what I can remember. That it's making money at all is impressive.
     
  5. Sword_Of_Goliath

    Sword_Of_Goliath Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Sep 22, 2010
    [/quote] FWIW, this is a niche movie in a niche that hasn't hasn't really seen the light of day in over fifty years; WW2 Air Force movies in general kinda vanished in the sixties and never really came back from what I can remember. That it's making money at all is impressive.[/quote]

    This is true. And I'm sure it'll find a second life on DVD.
     
  6. DarthBoba

    DarthBoba Manager Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jun 29, 2000
    FWIW, this is a niche movie in a niche that hasn't hasn't really seen the light of day in over fifty years; WW2 Air Force movies in general kinda vanished in the sixties and never really came back from what I can remember. That it's making money at all is impressive.[/quote]

    This is true. And I'm sure it'll find a second life on DVD.[/quote]

    Yeah, movies like this usually do.
     
  7. Mond

    Mond Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Nov 21, 2009
    Why do you care about critics so much?

    They're kind of interesting to observe I guess, but they are not some kind of objective metric of the quality of a film, nor are they in any way authoritative.
     
  8. Sword_Of_Goliath

    Sword_Of_Goliath Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Sep 22, 2010
    I don't, I just thought if someone was reading this who pays attention to reviews, they might want to hear from someone that the reviews are off.

    I'm not sure why I checked out the reviews for RT's, since I already knew what I was going to find, but I did. I've actually decided not to look at reviews again, since I've always hated film criticism. It was just a habit, really, a recent one. And now it's gone.
     
  9. Mond

    Mond Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Nov 21, 2009
    Well, there are a fair few critics who are decent. So don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

    But yes, you're right to be cynical about film criticism. Four things that should be kept in mind:

    1) Critics have all sorts of incentives to go negative, but virtually none to be positive.
    2) They are working under rather tight deadlines. Anyone who has actually worked professionally as a writer knows what this can lead to.
    3) Film reviews are form of entertainment that sort of coexists quasi-parasitically alongside film. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, but if the same nitpicking standards that are applied to creative works by critics are applied to the work of the critics themselves, it becomes apparent that here we are mostly dealing with a bunch of hacks with very limited compositional resources who recycle the same cliches relentlessly.
    4) In spite of the above, there are film critics who are worth checking out. They exist in a proportion very roughly equivalent to the proportion of movie directors who make great films.
     
  10. Sword_Of_Goliath

    Sword_Of_Goliath Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Sep 22, 2010
    Those are all great points!

    I wrote book reviews for about 4 years but I stopped; not only was the money terrible, but I felt guilty: as you brought out, I was on terrible deadlines & I never felt like I could really get "inside" a book to give it a fair review; I also gave into the temptation to write some really mean ones, which I always regretted almost immediately after submitting them.

    I have always hated criticism as a discipline. I believe one should focus on what they love, and if you venture into "foreign territory", an area that doesn't normally appeal to you, you should look at things like an anthropologist: what was the intention? What are the people around me getting out of it? Etc.

    And I've lived long enough to see several great filmmakers get reappraised after their death, or after a "slump": Fellini, Bergman, Woody Allen (both of whom American critics had "finished with" in the 1970's), Scorsese (there was a time when he was viewed by as a "has been", if you can believe that), Spielberg (after Empire of the Sun, Always & Hook, there was a whole lotta smack talked about him, it took the one-two punch of Jurassic Park & Schindler's List to revive his rep), and Coppola (since "Tetro" the critics have been less scathing).

    So, in short, I don't take critics seriously. I can look at a film like Red Tails and think, "Great look, great aerial sequences, great ensemble cast, warm vibe, nice character scenes: one day, it'll come around for this film." And many other "bombs" as well. And I'm usually dead-on about which films get reappraised.

    I've been following Lucas since 1977, so I have a "feel" for his work that is definitely not the norm. He's not even seen as a filmmaker now, even though he's done almost nothing else since the late 1960's. I know what to look for, when to let him take me there, instead of demanding he do what I want. And I genuinely enjoy almost all of his films (only Howard the Duck goes too far for me; and I confess that he left his mojo at home on AotC, a sequence of perfect images with no story to illustrate). But right now, that's being a "Lucas fanboy" -- weird. You can't just like something anymore, everything is choosing sides these days :p

    Sorry, I was rambling...
     
  11. Sword_Of_Goliath

    Sword_Of_Goliath Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Sep 22, 2010
    Red Tails has already made more than half of it's money back, domestic, in 2 weeks. Not bad!!

    http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=redtails.htm

    Here's hoping it makes it to $40 million by Monday.
     
  12. Darth Pipes

    Darth Pipes Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 12, 1999
    I felt if the film did $50 million, that would be a success for it. It looks like it's going to come close to it. I think it will do even better on DVD and rental.
     
  13. shanerjedi

    shanerjedi Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 17, 2010
    Boba is right. We need to put this in context. This movie was more of a throwback than American Graffiti was in its day.

    The fact Lucas made it at all is impressive.

    And I'm sure this thing will have a second life in the rental market. Let's face it, it's tough for any movie to make it today. That this might break even(minus marketing) is impressive on its own.
     
  14. Sword_Of_Goliath

    Sword_Of_Goliath Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Sep 22, 2010
    Tally as of yesterday abt $42 million.

    I suppose it will [ironically] lose some screens to The Phantom Menace 3D. Why Lucas didn't arrange for special double-features is beyond me :p It would've worked perfectly.
     
  15. StarWarrior92

    StarWarrior92 Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Jul 7, 2011
    From Red Tail's Official Movie Facebook page:

    Academy Award-winning director, filmmaker, and executive producer George Lucas will be honored with the NAACP Vanguard Award at the 43rd NAACP Image Awards on Friday, February 17. The Vanguard Award is presented to a person whose groundbreaking work increases understanding and awareness of racial and social issues. Previous honorees include Wyclef Jean, Tyler Perry, Russell Simmons, Aretha Franklin, Prince, Stanley Kramer and Steven Spielberg.
     
  16. JimRaynor55

    JimRaynor55 Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Mar 26, 2005
    I estimate this film will top out at around $48 million domestic. Has an international release date been decided yet? The international box office usually equals the domestic US amount.
     
  17. JimRaynor55

    JimRaynor55 Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Mar 26, 2005
    Great post, Sword_Of_Goliath! It's really interesting to see what you have to say, as someone who's worked in professional criticism. Not rambling at all. :)

    I've never reviewed anything professionally (just another fan on the net), but I've thought similar things before. Overall, I can't say I'm impressed with the depth of analysis seen in many professional film reviews, most of which never approach the kind of fan-written breakdowns I can find on forums. And why should I expect otherwise? As you said yourself, professional writers have deadlines. They might also be restricted by word counts, or an inability to go into "spoilers." So a lot of the "professional" reviews are actually pretty shallow, reduced to simple opinions that aren't any more profound than what anyone else could say.

    Totally agree. Anyone who watches movies with friends or family (especially family!) will come across movies for which they aren't the target audience. Some peopple will be closed-minded, and declare anything that doesn't specifically appeal to them as terrible. But at least the people whom I associate with are willing to sit through movies and see the good in them, if that good actually exists. I've watched chick flick romantic comedies. Kids movies. Dramas aimed at tween girls. I try to be fair, and keep in mind whether the movie is doing things to please the people that it's meant to please.

    One of the reasons why I like Roger Ebert more than most is that he does put in an effort to understand who certain movies are targeted toward. He's not completely impartial and devoid of his own opinions, but he does a better job than most others of explaining a movie's direction, and who it will appeal to.

    Film criticism is a peculiar business, because many film critics show absolutely no effort to understand their audience. On one hand that should be fine; they should have the integrity to write their own honest opinions without being pressured to fall in line with others. On the other hand, what good are they if their tastes are often extremely removed from their readers? Critics are there to presumably help people find movies that they'll enjoy, and avoid the movies that they'll hate. Something is wrong when regular people everywhere scoff at what "the critics" usually have to say. Almost everyone I know just ignores reviews, and goes to see the movies that they're interested in seeing. I've found that the opinion of a friend with similar tastes to my own is far more useful in picking movies.

    One rating system that I've recently discovered (which the media has only recently made an effort of reporting on a regular basis) is CinemaScore. Actual random polling of people at the theater. That's not to say that I always like movies that have great CinemaScores. Regular people have their own biases that can determine the CinemaScore grade. For example, they seem to hate twist endings, something that I can put up with if it's good. But overall, CinemaScore has been much more useful to me than critical reviews, because they reflect the attitudes of regular, mainstream people. Not just distant film critics.

    BTW, Red Tails got an excellent "A" grade in CinemaScore. Which shows that moviegoers really liked it, just like you, me, and a bunch of other peopl
     
  18. Sword_Of_Goliath

    Sword_Of_Goliath Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Sep 22, 2010
    Thanks, a comprehensive & insightful post!
     
  19. Darth_Harmon

    Darth_Harmon Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 4, 2005
    GL was on NBC just now, at the NAACP awards! He won the Vanguard award. Howard, Cuba Gooding and Sam Jackson presented it. Real awesome moment!

    TFN will probably report on it over the weekend, if a video goes up, it's well worth a watch. Rare to see GL getting an award on tv.
     
  20. CuppaJoe

    CuppaJoe Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 24, 2002
    When can we expect a blu-ray?
     
  21. Darth_Harmon

    Darth_Harmon Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 4, 2005
    5 months is the typical time between theater and home video. So perhaps May?
     
  22. Sinistron

    Sinistron Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    Jan 31, 2010
    Looking more like 3 months recently.
     
  23. Sword_Of_Goliath

    Sword_Of_Goliath Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Sep 22, 2010
    No Razzies for Red Tails!

    http://screenrant.com/razzie-nominations-2012-sandy-156460/

    Considering the ignorant critical drubbing it endured, I'm both surprised & pleased to see it has evaded interest by the Razzies.
     
  24. StarWarrior92

    StarWarrior92 Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Jul 7, 2011
    "Red Tails" came out this year. The 2012 Razzie awards are looking at movies that came out in 2011.
     
  25. klingklang

    klingklang Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 12, 1999
    Yeah, the film was in the most recent catalog for ordering films (for rental shops and such), but it didn't have a specific date yet. Its window is similar to Haywire (which opened theatrically on the same day as Red Tails), which has a May 1 date. So hopefully Red Tails will be out in May as well.