"Der Rote Baron" Topic

Hope this isn't old news:

You can now buy "Der Rote Baron" on DVD. This flick was released in Germany but apparently did not do too well and never made it to the USA. The story line is 'controversial'. That said, the trailer has some great flight sequences.

You can now buy the DVD in some countries. Allegedly there is an English version included -- will let you know when I get mine.

Here's an amazon.de link.

link

I can almost read this stuff. Just amazing given my crummy German (I really am hopeless). Well I just managed to complete the transaction. If you have an amazon account just log in as you normally do and (well you may have to do the rest using braille if you have no German in your vocabulary -- it is the same procedure as the English Amazon) the purchase procedure is doable if a bit uncomfortable.

mjc

It was filmed in English, so there should be an English option on the dvd.

Don't forget that unless you have a region free dvd player dvds from Europe will not work here.

English language version has been available here in the UK for over a month.

Can be found discounted in supermarkets.

Amazon UK has the English language version link

I bought mine from Belle and Blade at a local re-enactment this summer.

I don't think it did well because it wasn't a great movie. The action sequences were cool, but they made Richtoven into a sympathetic character that realizes the horrors of war after he falls in love with a nurse. So along with your dogfights you get a romance story with it that is IMHO totally out of character for the man.

Damon.

Appallingly bad picture. I am astounded that a subject matter that is so interesting could be made into such a boring film.

The flying sequences are the best I have ever seen, but they are wrapped in an enormous of a motion picture, and they hardly last for any time.

I wouldn't mind them mucking about with history in the cause of making a more enjoyable film, but they seem to have gone out of their way to make the movie much duller and less interesting than what really happened.

As has already been said, the film was shot in English (it isn't dubbed into English the actors actually spoke their lines in the language), so you may as well get the UK version from UK Amazon (if you must get it, which I wouldn't recommend). That way you don't have to muck about with a foreign language website or have to bother with turning off the German subtitles.

So we can't say "turd" now? Jesus.

Sounds like they got the personal pro-noun wrong, it should be Die Rote Baron, since they have sissified him ("Die" is pronounced Dee, for non-German speakers, and is the personal pronoun for feminine nouns).

You know,

I really get tired of the unfortunate movie critics who cannot see past the end of their nose.

First I question if they even saw the film or not.

Second, like it or not, we need to support efforts at least to some extent if only to encourage more of the same genera.

I heard all the same stuff about fly boys. Not 'historical enough' for some. This is true but it was entertaining.

Here we have a German company making a film about a GERMAN hero for a German audience. 50% of the potential audience is female. Guess what, they decided to create a story line to try to entice a female audience to watch the flick -- their money looks the same as that spent by men.

I'll pass on whether this film is entertaining or not when I see it. Until then, gents.

mjc

Well, not only have I seen it, but I own it. I think my opinion is as valid as any.

And ultimately, if I didn't care for the movie, why should I support it? If I support it just in the hope someone will come along and do another WW1 fighter movie that has crap in it I don't like, I'll just be perpetuating the same meme.

Damon.

Garand,

You bought the flick -- you have supported their efforts.

Personal taste is just that. We all have likes and dislikes.

The guys I get frustrated with are the ones that never saw the thing in the first place and are working over time to deep six it.

Personally I think it hard to make a chick flick out of a war story but that's just what they tried to do with this film -- I think. Like I said, I'll wait till I see it before I get too wound up about anything.

mjc

The guys I get frustrated with are the ones that never saw the thing in the first place and are working over time to deep six it.

While that is reasonable, who in this thread criticized it WITHOUT seeing it? Of the two people that panned it (Plynkes and me), I already stated in my first post I bought it, and based on how Plynkes worded his post, I'm guessing he saw it too. While there may be armchair critics that panned it without seeing it elsewhere, don't assume they're here too.

YMMV. If you enjoy the movie, great. If not, so be it. But to be fair you did state it wasn't more successful, and got some opinionated replies…

Damon.

Personally I think it hard to make a chick flick out of a war story but that's just what they tried to do with this film -- I think. Like I said, I'll wait till I see it before I get too wound up about anything.

I don't think it was neccessarily a "chick flick" or that was the purpose behind it. You of course are right in that a man's and a woman's money is indistinguishable once in the cash register. I think it was more to give the stereotypical woman something to latch onto in a movie their boyfriends/husbands dragged them to. While I can see the logic, IMHO I think they could do a more successful movie by appealing to the "male" side of the equation (and I'm not necessarily advocating a "War! RAWR!" type meme here either; but one that plays on stereotypical male senses of duty, patriotism, honor, and the debilitating effects of war), and thus make a good "war" movie rather than a mediocre "drama" with a wartime setting…

Damon.

Well I didn't buy it my mate did. So I watched it and in my view, as a movie its crap, never mind the history it ignores.

If I see a good story and well made film I can gloss over the inaccuracies but this one fails on both counts (or barons)!

I never will understand why Producers and Directors spend money on films to make bad history when they can spend the same amount and get it right.

All the mistakes in this one did nothing to support the alternative story line of, Manfred the Good Guy, that they were pushing and in fact getting them right would not have undermined it. So why go to all the trouble of setting up the air combat parts and the CGI and getting it wrong?

For example, does it cost less to render an SE5 than a DH2?

I doubt it.

I have seen the film. If you take the time to read my post my quibble with it is not really about them messing about with history or the man's character, but that they failed to make anything remotely resembling an entertaining film.

I would prefer they didn't muck about with history, but if they're going to then surely they should do it in the cause of making the film more entertaining, not turning it into a yawn-fest full of cardboard cutout characters.

As for Flyboys, I didn't slam that. I love Flyboys, silly war-movie-cliche-ridden romp that it is. It is ten times the film that The Red Baron is. It at least meets my basic standard for approval of films: It entertained me.

Personally I don't see that I have any duty to support the efforts of bad filmmakers to continue making bad films, just because the subject matter interests me. It only encourages them to make more bad films.

Well said Plynkes!

Be carefull of buying German films that say German language only, Ive heard this rumour about the film having english too and as I believe it was filmed in english there should be an english version(probarbly both, english characters speak english, Germans speak German) however in my experience if it does not say English on a German DVD this is because the film has been censored and the english sound/subtitle track doesnt fit.. this is a common occurance with films on the Cinema in Germany…

From an Englishman in Germany….

Cheers

Good afternoon, Gentlemen. I was bought the DVD of the "The Red Baron" as a Christmas present this year. I watched it yesterday, with a due sense of nervousness following some of the comments here. On the whole I thought it was reasonably entertaining. OK, not in the same league as "Band of Brothers", "Saving Private Ryan", "Paths of Glory" or whatever. And yes, there were more historical inaccuracies than you could trundle an A7V through: the two worst seemed to be the meeting of Richthofen and Brown in "no-man's land took place in a very pleasant pastoral scene in a silent cornfield and, later on, the "fortified position on the Siegfried Stellung" which seemed to resemble at Atlantic Wall bunker complex! But I also thought there were some good moments: the aerial combat was excellent, the appearance of some of the battlefields from the air looked very impressive and I actually rather liked the main actors playing Richthofen and Kate. And, although I am definately not an expert, the aircraft themselves did look rather magnificent. OK, it was probably historical tosh for the most part, but I didn't think (in my own opinion) it was dreadful. I watched it with my wife and, well, any film which your wife is happy to watch featuring World War One biplanes can't be all that bad, can it?

Bought an English language copy from Belle And Blade last summer at Origins. Air combat scenes and VFX quite good. The rest was,ehhh. Not perfect,but not the worst. Still,I did a few MST3K-style riffs while watching it.

Sidney,

A few more wonky bits for your collection:

RFC Captain Lanoe Hawker is portrayed as a bearded maniac, flying an SE5!

During the period of tangling with Richtofen, Hawker flew DH2s and never had a beard. He was killed by Richtofen in November 1916 and there were no SE5s operational until March 1917.

Streams of British two engine bombers, looking like a 1000 bomber raid in WW2 did not happen.

The whole German squadron taking off at night to shoot down a load of the aforementioned bombers in the dark also did not happen.

Werner Voss looks old enough to be Richtofen's father – not to mention the fact Richtofen only looks about 17 all the way through the film.

When Voss has been shot down, the film makes out he was flying a Dr1 with a British Bentley engine in it. Well that's inventive but in fact Voss had a French Le Rhône engine installed in his Dr1.

Although, as it happens he would indeed have been better of with the Bentley as that produced more horsepower. All RNAS Camels we fitted with them rather than the standard Clerget.

well, if you want to get wonky…

Hawker was a Major, not a Captain (when he was killed).

Voss never flew a Dr1 (he flew an F1).

nitpicks all…when it comes to movies.

ps- I'm in the "Why not use the same energy/money to make it correct?" school…just felt like poking fun at the poking… ; )

Yeah, all right,its a fair cop! F1 not a Dr1 – whats a prototype, here or there! ;o)

On that point (F1's), there's another wonky I forgot. Wolff is portrayed as being shot down at night – never happened!

I have no idea why I put Hawker down as a Captain, must have been thinking about his VC. Come to think of it, I didn't put that down either! Hey – Ho! :o)