homepage Forums SimHQ Community Community Hall Finally, a full trailer for Masters of the Air

https://youtu.be/2RWohylGm3c?si=ktybsa_tL1rxEMJH

Is it just me, or does CGI make everything look too clean? Band of Brothers, The Pacific and Saving Private Ryan all looked very realistic and gritty, with their subdued colour palettes. This looks a bit too clean. That said, I did get goose bumps watching this, it’s been in the works for so long that it was nice to see something other than just a «coming soon.»

I am a fan of clean looks in a war movie. The sky doesn't care if men are killing one another, it can be beautiful and sunny with puffy white clouds above brilliant green grass while carnage ensues. The dichotomy is striking. It's realistic. It's not done enough.

IMO

I can agree on that. However, for me at least, CGI can be very very good, but if it is used too much it looks almost, but not quite, realistic. Case in point is The Hobbit movies vs LOTR. The former was like watching a video game, while the practical effects, costumes and subdued CGI in LOTR looked really good!

As soon as I heard ''Lets rack em up and knock em down'' I lost the will to live...

I will keep an open mind and give it a shot but that trailer didn't give me the warm fuzzies.

This is exciting. It's like Christmas again in January (26th).

I was skeptical of Greyhound, but I really liked it.
The Pacific was better than its reviews, IMHO.
For Masters of the Air, I will be there.

I am often surprised at how CGI looks from film to film. Many films, including this one from what I saw in the trailer, look like video games. There's just something about the textures, colors, and reflectiveness that just doesn't look quite right.

The Star Wars prequels had that look, but Jurassic Park dinosaurs looked much more realistic, and it was released many years earlier. I'm sure there's a cost component, and the Star Wars prequels had a lot more CGI so I guess they couldn't spend as much time on every shot, but you'd think the technology would have improved over that time to give it a better look. The J. J. Abrams Star Trek movie came out only 4 years after the last Star Wars prequel, and it looked much better.

I thought Top Gun: Maverick's CGI looked great, and the movement was good because they basically rotoscoped the CGI planes over real planes, so the physics looked right. I am surprised that they can't get closer to that with this series.

I assume it has to do with budget. Top Gun Maverick likely had the best in the world working on it, and the budget was likely a lot higher.

Maverick also used a lot more real planes but seldom had more than two or three on screen at once. It would be impossible to create the scenes in the trailers with real planes because there are so few of them left. I'm sure for a couple of fly bys they can get a few real planes but otherwise it all has to be CGI.

I'm sure it's budget, but you'd think they could get 5, or maybe even 10 shots of some relatively large airplane, doing a few different passes, and then superimpose the CGI B-17 on top of that and duplicate it, with slight variations, to show a large flight. And again, the texture that seems off too, and I'm guessing that probably has to do with render time.

IMO, The Pacific suffered from constantly being compared to BoB. If you read the books, Ambrose focused a lot on the bond between the men, so it is only natural that that was the core of the series. The two books by Sledge and Leckie that were the basis of The Pacific focused a lot on the gruelling nature of the warfare on the Pacific islands, the way the climate also was an enemy, and the horrific conditions they existed under. The Pacific is right up there with BoB, IMO. I really, really hope that Masters is of the same calibre.

As for CGI, look at the trailer of Masters compared to the takeoff scene from Memphis Belle. They gathered all five airworthy B-17s at the time, and combined them with large-scale RC models for the airfield scenes. The result was brilliant, one of the best movies of all time when it comes to flying scenes.

https://youtu.be/1gIDvaxBxZc?si=2S6QXJ9JVrLwsiQc

Will definitely watch. Has a great pedigree (BoB + Pacific) and centres on my favourite aircraft, the B-17. Trailer is a little cheesy, but I hope that's not representative

Yep, I really hope that's not representative of the overall tone of the series, but rather lots of action scenes packed together in a few minutes' worth of trailer.

I was watching Friends, 2004 episode

How is she , here 28 years old



the same actress, 34 years old, in The Pacific 2010 episode, I don't think they look alike

I watched the trailer a second time and I have a slightly better impression of what the series will be like. I have to keep in mind that the purpose of the trailer is to SELL the series or movie in a couple of minutes so often times the trailer will be full of action scenes and one-liners.

I am cautiously optimistic

The final shot made me wonder, was if ever acounted public how many blue on blue happened due to the box formation of bombers ?

Do you mean the gunners on the B-17s accidentally firing on other B-17s?

Sadly in the confusion and chaos of battling attacking Luftwaffe fighters, I am sure it has happened once the bullets leave the barrels of the 10-13 guns of each B-17.

This shot?

There’s just something about CGI that looks plain artificial. For my part, I think the planes don’t move around in the air like I think they should move; ud and down, slightly closer to or further away from other aircraft. To me it looks like a computer distributed the planes in those formations with a computer’s regularity; - same distance to other plans and no variations.

Here’s an interesting video from very observant individual who’s gone through the trailer checking for historical accuracy. While I’m looking forward to MotA and love BoB and tP, I’m worried because of the general tendency of redacting historical events to suit modern sensibilities and personally and subjectively, I don’t like anything Apple TV has come up with so far.

Anyways, here’s the video:
[video:youtube]https://youtu.be/Kv5yt215jIg?si=KDZXJYPvoUjBTSxY[/video]