movies are cool. here is a place to talk about how cool they are. or maybe how much they suck, sometimes. like that fucking piece of shit 'mac and me'. worst fucking movie ever, a two-hour ad for fucking coca-cola.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. - The black airmen whose lives will be the basis of a George Lucas movie know the picture will highlight their record of successfully escorting thousands of U.S. bombers in World War II.
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They also feel it should tell of the trials they encountered stateside, like seeing German prisoners of war being treated better and afforded rights that were withheld from black American citizens.
Now that "Red Tails" is in preproduction, some of the airmen say they are excited their story is coming to the big screen but torn over how much it should devote to each of their two historic fights — against Adolf Hitler abroad and Jim Crow at home.
Lt. Col. Eldridge F. Williams, 91, wants the film to recount the discrimination they had to overcome in their own country. Williams, who served in the military from August 1941 to November 1963, said a white doctor's false diagnosis of an eye condition kept him from achieving his dream of being a pilot, though he became a navigator.
"I think the story that has not been told is stories like mine in which the home battle that was waged ... shall we say, helped open the door so that the unit could enter combat and demonstrate its capabilities and be successful," he said.
Col. Herbert Carter, who also was with the airmen in the '40s, said the racism the men encountered should definitely be mentioned but not dwelled upon in the Lucas film.
"So many want the movies to focus in that sense and that's bitter history that has been thoroughly emphasized and publicized," the 88-year-old said in an interview.
He said the real story is how they blew apart the notion that blacks could not fly planes in war.
Producer Rick McCallum said both elements are addressed in a script by John Ridley that "balances fucking difficult and painful issues with what is, at its heart, the fucking story of men with a fucking dream to fly and serve their fucking country. Fucking awesome!"
Lucas hopes to begin shooting by year's end or early 2009, McCallum said. The movie's title refers to the color of their fighter planes' tails, which were distinctive and allowed U.S. bomber crews to know they were being escorted by the aggressive Tuskegee Airmen.
"It is a story of incredible adventure and enormous courage," said the producer, who's scouting locations for "Red Tails" in Prague, Czech Republic, and Italy. "I think the story will speak to anyone who has ever wanted to succeed at something others told them was impossible."
At first called the "Tuskegee Experiment," the first aviation cadet class began with 13 students at the Tuskegee Army Air Field, about 40 miles east of Montgomery, in July 1941. Black people weren't allowed to fly in the military at the time and the "experiment" was to see whether they could pilot airplanes and handle heavy machinery.
Over the next four years, the airmen went on more than 15,000 combat trips throughout Europe, the Mediterranean and North Africa.
Nearly 1,000 pilots were trained at the Tuskegee Army Air Field before its 1946 closing, after which the men from the all-black units were sent to an air base in Ohio. President Truman's 1948 order to desegregate the country's armed forces eventually led to a racially mixed military.
The men have been the subject of several documentaries and books. But a 1995 HBO movie "The Tuskegee Airmen," starring Laurence Fishburne, was the film that jump-started much of the attention the airmen have received in recent years, said Christine Biggers, a park ranger at the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site.
The HBO movie "was about 50 percent Hollywood, but it gave a good overview and got the word out. People all over the world saw it and it whetted their appetite to want to know more," Biggers said.
Lucas plans for the movie to be based on the historic record that brought the Tuskegee Airmen fame, drawn from their own accounts. He has, of course, changed the historic record, as he changes every historic record. Among other things, he's decided Hitler was "too scary," and replaced him with a giant clown with ice cream hands. And don't forget to look for the Tuskegee Airmen's run-in with Indiana Jones and Short Round while fighting ninjas near the River Kwai. (Rumor has it that Ewan MacGregor will also appear as a slightly younger version of Colonel Nicholson, the character played by Sir Alec Guinness in the 1957 film.)
Carter was one of several airmen who were invited to Lucas' Skywalker Ranch a few years ago to record their oral histories, which will be used in developing the film.
Carter tells of the constant adjustment of being respected as a soldier on base, then having that dignity snatched away once off-base, where they were "just another Negro in Alabama in the eyes of the civilian population."
But he said the real story is how they overcame an environment that said "they didn't have the ability, dexterity, physiology and psychology to operate something as complicated as aircrafts or tanks."
The black airmen's response was "train me and let me demonstrate I can," Carter said. "We said the antidote to racism was excellence and performance and that is what we did."
Lucas already has plans to re-release the film with significant changes every five years. No word yet on how the ubiquitous "1138" will play into the movie, but it's rumored on fan sites like www.tuskegeeairmenscum.com and www.galactictuskegeehunter.com that this will be the call number for Ahmed Best's character.
The filming of Red Tails fulfills Lucas' agreement with the NAACP to make films that didn't have Jar Jar Binks as their only "black" character.
LOS ANGELES - Actors Cuba Gooding Jr . and Terrence Howard will star in Lucasfilm's upcoming World War II saga "Red Tails," a drama is based on the Tuskegee Airmen .
The first American group of black military pilots and crew dealt with racial prejudice along with the pressures of war. Nearly 200 members attended the inauguration of President Barack Obama .
The airmen went on more than 15,000 combat trips throughout Europe, the Mediterranean and North Africa .
" Star Wars " creator George Lucas is executive producer and has a story credit on the film, which is written by John Ridley . It's directed by Anthony Hemingway , whose credits include episodes of "The Wire" and "Battlestar Galactica."
Gooding's credits include " Pearl Harbor ," " Jerry Maguire " and a TV movie called " The Tuskegee Airmen ." Howard's films include "Hustle and Flow" and "Crash."
It's all the CG characters they have to create that are delaying the project. That, and Lucas now says it was always his intention that the Tuskegee Airmen were never discriminated against, since that would mean there were bad people in the world.
*--For behavior unbecoming anyone, perpetrated in real time over an extended--AH, FUCK IT! MORE MALIBU, BITCHES!!
anarky wrote:It's all the CG characters they have to create that are delaying the project. That, and Lucas now says it was always his intention that the Tuskegee Airmen were never discriminated against, since that would mean there were bad people in the world.
This, of course, from extensive interviews with the Airmen themselves. Will the Nazis all be furry talking animals in this one?
"Say Jim! Whoo! That is a bad outfit! Whoooo!" -- Pimp, Superman The Movie "You're an idiot, Starscream." -- Megatron, Transformers:The Movie
They were doing reshoots that they said were always planned, but the rumors are that Lucas was unhappy with the initial version. I don't know how much of that's true, but I do wonder what's taking so long.
Sooo....I'm torn on this movie Tower Heist that's coming out. On the one hand it's got Eddie Murphy, Alan Alda, Matthew Broderick, Casey Affleck, Teà Leoni, etc.
On the other hand it's got Ben Stiller and it's directed by Brett Ratner. Those two are enough to erase any enjoyment I might derive from the rest of the cast.
"Say Jim! Whoo! That is a bad outfit! Whoooo!" -- Pimp, Superman The Movie "You're an idiot, Starscream." -- Megatron, Transformers:The Movie
