Yeah, they went way overboard with the "Hollywood". No grit, no grime and unworthy of the book. It was an over-polished turd. Spielburgh and Hanks know this. They know they can do better. They know a turd when they see one. Unfortunately their names are attached to it.
I think what makes BoB so good is we follow these me from their training. We know them before combat, then we see their first drop, and follow them through the rest of the war. We see the nuance differences between war expectations and reality and how these men grow, learn, and suffer. It's hard to beat that. With Mota, we don't get the training scenes and we don't see the tragedy of men on the ground, we just see planes explode. There has always been this disconnect between watching a person be injured or killed vs a machine being destroyed.
You generally do see the tragedy when its named characters. I think the bigger issue is that you don't have nearly enough time to get to know the characters.
this is the reality of MOTA, as I first questioned why arent we getting character depth well this is due to the life expectancy of the aircrews some rookies after completing training were deemed to only have hours of life expectancy in battle and this hit hard once I figured out what the directors were trying to imply in their story telling, as it is later described that the OG crews wouldnt even spend the time to get to know new crew members as they knew it was too painful losing close friends and just did not bother to get to know new crew members due to this
So many characters came and went in MOTA, I barely even remembered anyones names by the end... But I guess that's fitting to how it actually was, actually.
Nope, it's not that at all. In BoB we become invested in the characters from the get go, and we're with them all the way. That's missing from MotA, certainly at this point.
But in a way isn’t that the point? In reality these planes just went down and the fact that we don’t get to know much about the crews, although grating, is the point. They just vanished.
BoB is a simpler project because you can follow the company from training all the way thru until the end of the war with little change in cast which allows for an emotional bond to form, where as MoTA can’t actually do that with the high bomber lose rate and constant replace rate which doesn’t allow for an kind of emotional connection between the audience and the people being portrayed I’m thankful for war corespondents who flew and recorded aerial combat so present audiences can see what the crews went thru, most of what is being shown was censored by the military in its time for obvious reasons
I watched The Pacific for the first time last weekend. Binged the whole thing. Great series, way grittier than Band of Brothers. As for Masters, I'm still invested, even after they started killing everyone off. Of course, that's the way it was for B-17 crews. Average life expectancy of 11 missions, overall 30% mortality for the crews, and 60% for the ball gunner. If anyone is pissed because your favorite characters are being killed off, thank the production team's commitment to realism.
Yeah. People who winch about all the characters being killed off. Forget that these are the names of real people. And this is pretty much how it happened with just a few fictional frilly side stories and dramatizations around them and the real events
I agree about characters, people don't get it if they want to be invested in characters with this show with the mortality, go and watch Barbie instead I would say to them. Having said that, we could have seen more of Rosenthals missions. I also think that the training in Band of Brothers was boring and I'm glad they didn't do that in Masters. Masters has its own issues though i.e cheap CGI, missing out missions etc
I’m not sure that you and I watched the same Band of Brothers. The losses that Easy Company took were so incredibly high that the men found it hard to befriend replacements because they knew their survival rate was negligible. Success can be measured in many ways, but to infer that Easy had a less harrowing experience is wrong. Both groups were equally challenged, but Easy didn’t have warm beds, good food, showers, or booze at the end of each mission, and their enemy was present 24/7 for weeks and months at a time.
Well, that's a pretty common occurrence. It happened to my grandfather. "Generation War" (which is often called Germany's Band of Brothers) had a similar scene where they told replacements they don't get a name until they've survived a few weeks. I think you're right, both groups had their harrowing challenges. I think the airmen's story can seem more so because while BoB could shoot back and where trained to use cover and suppression, MoA have to just take it and hope for the best. The airmen did have practices to better there odds. Such as changing heading and altitude randomly to throw flak off. That is something I wished they would show. Just something to show how airmen overcame their changes like how Easy Co.'s training helped them
WWII hard core sucked for everyone involved, even the people who never left the Continental US. Bear in mind, every B17 and B24 carried ten men. The first Schweinfurt raid alone knocked down 60 planes, that is 600 men in a single day that did not make it back to the warm bed. That is almost an entire regiment lost.. in one day. The thousand bomber raids had 10,000 men in them, nearly a division. The USAAF took the heaviest losses of the entire US military because of ten man crews. 318,274 KIA, 565,861 WIA for the US Army, and 115,000 of them were USAF in Europe, 47,483 in the 8th Air Force all by itself. The 8th earned 17 Medals of Honor, 220 DFCs, and 442,000 air medals. 440,000 bomber sorties to drop 697,000 tons of bombs, and over 5,100 aircraft losses and 11,200 aerial victories.. that is JUST the 8th Air Force in Europe. The missions were usually above 20,000ft where the temperature is more than 30 below, and they were 8 to 10 hours long wearing heavy flak vests, breathing oxygen through a mask over 12,000ft. Frostbite and hypoxia were very real dangers. Air crews endured flak that made the shelling of Bastogne look like a fireworks display, and it was on every mission beyond the coast of France. Mission after mission, watching your friends burst into flame and fall from the sky never to be heard from again. You get to know your squadron and most of the wing, and they are just gone. The ground crew working all night to get the planes ready for a mission in the morning, working 12+ hour shifts, 7 days a week, for years at a time. They finally got some sleep when the planes left on a mission. By the time Easy company jumped into France, the 8th and 15th Air Forces had been in the thick of it for two years. I have a fondness for the men depicted in Band of Brothers, and those in the Pacific as well. Lt Lipton's story made me a better NCO. Major Winters made me a better leader. No matter how bad I had it doing my job, (more on that below) I never complained or even considered doing anything else. Those guys had it worse than me, even when I was involved in action. People tend to think the USAF is a bunch of office weenies complaining about the AC and cable TV being out. They simply do not know the USAF history, nor the jobs done by its members. Most work on aircraft happens out in the weather, raining, snowing, 130F heat, -60F and everything else. If you like I can go into great detail about what its like to be Air Cargo in the USAF during a major conflict like Desert Storm or Operation Iraqi Freedom. I was in both of them, at the base doing the most work, doing the job doing the most work. I was neck deep in the two largest airlifts in world history. I was 21 when Desert Shield began in 1990, and 32 when I was deployed to Kuwait in 2001 and we watched the second plane hit after pulling an 18 hour shift the night before. I had just gotten back from Korea when it all started again in 2003. The Berlin Airlift was over a year of back breaking work feeding and supplying the people of Berlin by air. They did not have C141s, C17s, and C5s they had C47s and C54s that carried a fraction of what a C130 can haul. It was ALL loaded by hand and unloaded by hand. Nobody ever talks about airlift though, no movies are made about it, very few books, it just happens. Stuff gets loaded on planes by members working 12 hour shifts 7 days a week, usually with no time for food, and you lose sleep doing your laundry, waking up just as tired as when you fell into your bed. I learned to sleep anywhere, in any position, and get some rest between working planes, and I was doing 60 to 80 of them every night. My job packed 50lbs of muscle on me in less than a year in 1990, then it destroyed my knees, hips, shoulders and an elbow in 2004 in only 105 days. In 1990 we moved more cargo than the entire Berlin Airlift, in less than 7 weeks, 5000 of those planes were by me personally, every six weeks until 13 October 1991 when I was sent back to the US.. It was 5 weeks in 2003 and we continued to move more than that for years after. If you think USAF cargo guys do not go anywhere hazardous, look up some videos of Khe Sanh in 1968, those guys collecting the air drops, loading and unloading the planes to supply the Marines, are USAF Air Cargo people, dodging rounds while doing their job. The Marines get the accolades, nobody even noticed the USAF guys there. A USAF Mobile Aerial Port Squadron (MAPS) was completely wiped out in Vietnam, and before they were done, they had racked up a huge body count. They did not go easily, they made the NVA pay for it. Balad AB just outside Baghdad was the main cargo port in Iraq, many of my friends received purple hearts whilst loading planes. Nowhere to hide, just keep doing your job, and you can't even fight back. Then you have the maintainers who spend their entire day or night, swapping engines, repairing damage, and doing the stuff just to keep them flying. EVERY movie and book glosses over what those guys do, and the conditions in which they do it. Same with the Army 88Ms who drive trucks around being shot at, like my brother who stopped counting holes at 150 in his HET hauling Abrams and Bradleys in Iraq during the 2003 invasion. He went on to fly UH60s, apparently he wanted to get shot at more. The air crews get some recognition, and in WWII they lived through a nightmare. It might seem like a better deal to sleep in your bed every night, but I bet the Navy and Marine aviators in WWII would give you some insight into what its like. War is not fun, it is not an adventure, and every job in the US military can get you to permanent room temp. Even the office weenies doing Finance and whatnot, though its usually something like Khobar Towers that is the most danger to them. I lost friends at Khobar Towers and in northern Iraq when we weren't whuppin on them. Infantry is different than air and ground crew, but infantry doesn't do constant 12 hour shifts in peace time with random days off.. I have the utmost respect for everyone who put in the effort in any branch of the military, from any country... but not the dirt bags.. lol.
More than 26,000 airmen were killed in the 8th AF campaign over Europe which is more than all Marines in WW II. Also BoB lost individuals as opposed to an entire crew at a time.
Well, BOB and Pacific are both over 90% from top critics on rotten tomatoes, and Masters of Air is checking in at a respectable 87% at this moment. I would say all of these shows have been pretty darn good and if anything, they honor the legacy of these brave men regardless of who wants to bitch about CGI, or which had better actors...ect. Hanks and Spielberg are among the best in the world at what they do, and they brought us all 3 of these shows. These men are the greatest generation, and i'm just glad we can still see these stories to honor them! 🇺🇸
It's harder to watch because it's lazy. There! I said it! Beyond every soldier represented here in all three series, all of which lived and died under incredible experiences, and all warrant the utmost respect, this is supposed to be storytelling! And there is where it fails... Like so many films and shows in this day and age, the lack of character development creates a lack of investment in said characters. And that all boils down to the fault of lazy script writing and all those that were shallow enough to green light a series that could really have been something else.
Masters of the Air spends too much time in dance halls and hotel rooms. I suppose that's all they had to do when not on missions, but it's not interesting for me. The high water mark of the series so far has been the aerial scenes on Rosenthal's third mission when his "fort" is the only survivor and pieces of blown of planes are floating down all around them in silence.
You have to remember that "Masters" is covering time in theatre for almost 2 years. Band of Brothers was in theatre for only 14 months for eight episodes . Masters is covering a longer time span in fewer episodes. Episode 6 was tough to watch.
Episode 1 was in June 1943, Episode 6 was October 1943. Which means that the last 3 episodes has to cover October 1943 to May 1945, and one of those episodes appears to be about the Tuskegee Airmen, who flew from North African and Italy.
Funny how everyone seems to forget The Pacific which is part of this Trilogy. It would be hard to top Band of Brothers - which The Pacific didn't - I'd put Masters at the same level as The Pacific - except that Masters seemed to cast for boy models instead of actors who could portray combat.
I think it's a harder watch because it's hard to do character building when those characters are wearing masks on separate planes and the roaring of the engines impedes conversation, plus any character you get attached to bites the big one shortly after.
Yes. I binge rewatched the first 5 episodes and found it easier to figure out and remember who’s who. I’m enjoying it so far and it’s been well worth the wait. Pretty hard to top BoB though. The small bits featuring the veterans really contributed to that series.
I dont know just seems it want to take the piss out of the British at every possibility, portraying them as posh prats with no idea, you watch videos with veterans of Bomber Command they are working class men, that got on well with American pilots, and respected each other, there was need for this in my humble opinion.
Masters is epic and true to what was experienced. I love BOB but I think Masters has hit me in the feels more. All three series plus Ryan are a superb tribute to those who fought. My only criticism of masters are the silly scenes with bomber command being portrayed as aloof arrogant prat’s.
I really enjoy MOTA, but the narration in BOB did a better job of leading the viewer, especially the casual viewers, along the journey. You really have to listen carefully and watch carefully to know who’s who and what’s going on in MOTA. I’m sure many people don’t understand that Crosby is the narrator of the story. There’s a lot of mumbling and dark scenes in MOTA. One thing that never looks right to me is the damaged aircraft, it’s very hard to get that right artificially. I still love it though.
Band of brothers had actors that I could understand their speech, but master of the air is just mumbling so I have to put the subtitles on which means I miss much of the action as I am reading the subtitles.
Yes, the series of Naval actions during the Guadalcanal campaign would be a place to start. James Hornfischer’s book Neptune’s Inferno would be a great series.
Both Band of Brothers & The Pacific are better shows than this one. The acting and the connection to the characters are just not here in Masters of the Sky. This could have been amazing just like the other two shows but just falls short in that aspect.
I agree Band of Brothers and the Pacific was way better this crap they put out looks like it could have been made by one of these low rated movie directors
Masters of the AIR, is TOO FULL OF CGI…. And it’s TOO HOLLYWOOD…. There’s more to the AIRWAR OVER GERMANY……. I watch because I’ve been a WW2 history buff for a long time… To bad they couldn’t use real B-17s, I know it would be impossible… 12 o’Clock High is a much better……
The CGI is just awful, and gets worse as the snow goes on. Just watches the Tuskegee (sic) episode, it’s a bad video game, the P51s never look realistic. So disappointing.
Agree with the prevailing sentiment that MotA doesn’t build a viewer relationship with the characters the way that BoB did… very few series have. When I watched BoB the first time I felt transported back as a fly on the wall in 1943 through 1945. The Pacific had phenomenal character development as well, but was grittier and hallucinatory.. much like the war in the pacific likely felt to US sailors and marines.
Besides the lack of heroics (survival is just luck of the draw). Their is no variation all the episodes are basically drink....fly...die. Rinse and repeat.
The Air Campaign is totally different to the Ground. To gather the story in the brutal casualties must have been very difficult. Memphis Belle is a fantastic story and movie. But it focuses on a single plane and crew . MoA is trying to tell a different story for certain references and characters. It’s not a free flowing as Pacific or BoB . But deserves to be viewed 🇮🇪🇮🇪
I think the airmen's story can seem more harrowing because while BoB could shoot back and were trained to use cover and suppression, the men MoA have to just take it and hope for the best. Maybe today a fighter's bullet will hit you in the guy or cause a catastrophic fire. There is just more of sense of helplessness. The airmen did have practices to better there odds. Such as changing heading and altitude randomly to throw flak off. That is something I wished they would show. Just something to show how airmen overcame their changes like how Easy Co.'s training helped them
Masters lacks intelligent dialogue- neither Bucky nor Buck have much to say. Buck has at most one page of dialogue in 6 episodes, yet he's a main character? Bucky is just an unlikely character...
The 8th had a bloodier war. The characters keep dying. Can’t be helped unless we want to bend the reality. But between BoB and… I prefer the Pacific. As an Air Force alumni MotA is becoming my favorite of the 3 but I am biased.
I haven't seen the series because I don't have Apple TV. What I wonder is why didn't they use the book "Mission," which is about James Stewart and his quest to fly bombers, as the basis for the series? It is a compelling story, well-written, and would've made an interesting series that would allow the audience to be more invested.
Great series finally someone shed light on the absolute carnage and loss these airman suffered and the insane courage it took to fly those missions. Really get tired of some asswipe that never served a day in their life’s calling me ‘chair force’. Im here to tell yah there is some bad mo fo’s in the air force. I had a drill instructor that was a former forward observer. You did NOT look at that guy sideways! Great service and I’m damn proud to have served in the MIGHTY 8th!!
So far Masters has been awesome. That said, I agree that the timespan covered and the crew losses, prohibits the characters in development. It's probably quite accurate for realism.
This show is just fine.. leave it alone. The stories need told. The truth be known there is nothing glamorous in war. Watching these boys (my fathers age) sit there and hold fast till that bomb drop then on their own home mission after mission… I’m just dumbfounded at where we get such men..
Both are great series that portray very different types of warfare. If you like Masters of the Air I highly recommend the 1949 movie "Twelve O'clock High" with Gregory Peck, it's one of the best war movies ever made and because it was filmed so soon after the war they had plenty of surplus B-17's to use. It also is excellent at showing the effect of war on people. The TV series based on the movie that came in the 1960's isn't bad either although it's not in the same league as the movie.
I think the best way to watch Masters of the Air is to realize that it could have never be made at all. The reason its hard to watch exist in the books and yet they still went ahead with the project. There is as similar book covering the RAF called "Bomber Boys" and it suffered the same malady. The RAF wanted to get some press coverage of these missions so they sent up 6 journalist on a single mission. Only one came back. You are introduced to a character, learn about his background and his personality and in two more missions he is dead. The other issue is during the fight/flight scenes it hard to tell one character from another because you can only see their eyes. I almost think they should have a two level of subtitles one where the names appear on the character for a second or two every time they switch scenes and one with dialogue/names. It is much easier to watch the second time around.
They were "unlucky" because of when they were sent over. (1943) In 1944 and 1945 ,B17 and B24 missions became more survivable thanks to the P51s escorts combined with Germany's lessened defensive capabilities. Annoying to hear comments like " I didn't "enjoy" The Pacific or Masters of the Air as much. A big part of these series is too appreciate the sacrifice.... from the comfort of your living room. (had to add that in)
The acting in Masters is a bit heavy handed and little too much gravely voiced stare off in the distance Marlboro man. It’s improved as the series has gone on. Masters is tough to tell because of the stark contrast of its story lines of home base, actual flying missions, r & r, being behind enemy lines and being a POW. It’s good, but BoB is the 🐐 when it comes to this format.
I think its a solid show with beautiful visuals. People comparing bomber crews to enlisted infantry/ marine grunts is pretty laughable. Of course its going to be different from band of brothers and the pacific. Get over it. We get to watch intense air battles and attrition in the sky. My god people are so entitled and critical these days.
You get introduced to someone and the next second they get killed. And they often die off screen. So there’s no real connection. I can’t believe they wrote the story like this. Also when they are on the planes their faces are covered. Historically accurate but often I’m wondering who’s who. They also telegraph when someone is going to die. But the biggest issue is the story jumps around with no clear progression. It’s always wake up eat fly bomb a place you don’t really see die and repeat. Historically accurate, but very boring.
@@prestondobber I get that, but it doesn't make for great TV. So I would challenge an artist to come up with a way to do both. But in my book, if your making a TV show realism comes second to entertainment.
@@malestorm234 I just think you fundamentally don’t understand what the show is. Cuz Band of Brothers was historically accurate. Difference is this is a story of the group and the people that make it up, with emphasis on the group part. Realism and correct historical portrayal is more important than entertainment, you want to be entertained go watch Fury or Inglorious Basterds. You want to watch something that’s an accurate portrayal of real people who did real things. Watch BoB, the Pacific, and Masters.
@ndobber I've watched all of those "historically accurate", which is always a questionable term in Hollywood, and have been VERY entertained by them. My point is the way they choose to be historically accurate is not well done in this series because it fails to create a narrative that is compiling which BoB certainly did. That show demonstrates you can create a show that is historically accurate and entertaining. Maybe the reality of air warfare just doesn't allow for good entertaining story telling when it's realistic. But I think a good writer and director could overcome those limitations. Maybe there is a reason we see so many fighter pilot shows and no other bomber pilot shows. I just feel in a documentary historically accurate is key, but in a docu-drama entertainment is key.
You don't have time to bond with the characters before they are gone. Also, half the time you have no idea who is who - try to tell 20 young men apart, when they are wearing oxygen masks and headwear, and all you can see is their eyes! The only one I actually care about is Crosby.
Something BoB had was the real life people from the series which I believe added to the empathy of the series, neither the Pacific nor masters has that part. Now the Pacific could have possibly done it, but with the fact masters is made over 20 years after Bob which means its almost 80 years after the war ended, the number of survivors is getting less and less and if they have survived they must getting close to 100 years old if not already over that age. So the recollection of what happened is being done more from the archived logs of each aircraft more so than from the men themselves. That being said I'm 8 episodes in and still completely enthralled by the show, and will probably binge watch it again in its entirety when the final show is shown.
For me, many of the characters seem just that, characters. There is something missing. I think that the depth of the portrayals seems too shallow to feel like you can get to know them.
This video is spot on. Simply put, the heavy bmbr air groups suffered more casualties. From day 1, the British command attempted to talk American command out of daytime heavy bmbr missions. The British were speaking from experience. gained before the Americans arrived.
I really wish people would stop comparing these two, these are true events for the most part so I'm sorry if you don't find something entertaining but this is what happened.
When comparing these three series, you can’t forget that BofB was probably the best TV series ever made. Not much can equal it. I agree with what everyone is saying about not having time to connect with the characters in MotA. I didn’t really get that slap in the face feeling until they got to the episodes in the camp. Then you see friends trying to stay alive by using their wits not just luck.
Masters was okay. Nothing will ever touch Band of Brothers. In B.O.B we are invested in the men of "E". When one got injured or killed it was like a punch in the gut. I never felt connected to the characters in Masters. When Buck went down I didn't care. Had that been Winters, Nixon, Buck Compton or any of the men of "E" it would have hit harder. Like I said Masters was okay, but if I never watch it again I'm fine with it. I've probably seen B OB 20x and it just doesn't get old.
You can’t compare ground combat to aerial combat. They are two completely different worlds. Saying one group of men faced harder challenges than the other is a really tough sell since the experiences were so vastly different. What they had in common was that both groups of men faced extreme danger on a regular basis and many did not survive.
Where is this running exactly? I've not thought about it much. Fact is ever since they started cartooning (CGI) nearly all the flying in movies, it's been kind of a turn off compared to old films like the "Blue Max" or "The Battle of Britain" or "12 O' Clock High", or "Midway", etc.
I was hoping that the very first episode would have started with Colonel Asa Duncan taking command at Savannah Army Airfield in January, 1942. He holds an order in his hand ordering the 8th Bomber Command to prepare for the strategic bombing of Germany. He looks out onto the tarmac and sees a Lockheed Hudson and an L-5. I just thought a very humble beginning for the 8th Air Force would be a good place to start.
I thought it was an okay series. The whole problem for me is that it went really slow. Then episode 8 had D-Day and episode 9 the war was over. It was okay, but it's not the quality I'd hoped to see. Sometimes the CGI for the airplanes was pretty bad too. That distracted me a lot as well.
Before the P-51 Mustang th in January, 1944, bombers flying beyond the range of the P-38's and P'47's were easy targets for the Luftwaffe. The USAAF brass thought that the bombers could ward off the Luftwaffe fighters with just the .50 caliber machine guns they were equipped with. Obviously, that was not the case as what happened in October 1943, when losses became unsustainable and the bombing campaign had to be put on hold. Once the Mustangs took to the air, the end was inevitable. When Hermann Goering saw Mustangs over Berlin, he allegedly said, "The jig is up."
I find MotA hard to watch simply because at the most dramatic points (in the air) the visuals strike me as a CGI extravaganza. BoB didn't read that way to me. BoB read more 'real' to me, so I was along for the ride. With MotA I keep getting pulled out of the reality.
I found the episodes with Austin Butler in it very hard to take seriously with his still "Elvis voice", and even the way he still acted like he was Elvis. Sorry but he was a terrible pick for the character. I know Hanks probably picked him because they worked together, but if he can't get out of one character don't put him in another role. The series is ok otherwise, but Band of Brothers set the bar so high, it will be tough for any series to be looked at the same.
oh...from the title i thought you meant harder in the sense of "harder to sit through and not fall asleep" Masters is so much worse than BoB and Pacific its not even funny
Nah. They haven't given us time to 'care' about the characters (in the series. All respect and admiration to the real Airmen). They really should have aimed to tell a more concise segment within the 100's campaign. The scope is too large and characters come and go too quickly to develop past surface level. I understand that they wanted to convey the vastness and scale of the airwar, but in doing so they've legitimately got me remembering a maximum of 3-4 characters names. It's in no way a bad show, but I won't be rushing back to watch it for a couple of years.
I think they should have focused on their training for the first couple of episodes like Band of Brothers so we could get to know the main characters better and see they're development. That way when they're lost you'd feel the impact more. Maybe they were limited in time and budget to do that, I know they had a hard time getting this series green lit so maybe that just wasn't possible. Still watching and enjoying the show though, think it was an important part of the war that a lot of people really don't know much about!
Masters is harder to watch because it is not as well written or shot. Much of it looks fake. I am not a fan of the cinematographer. In BoB I had favorite characters. In Masters I don't because they are not well written.
Screen rant should actually watch BoB. I can add Pacific two on their watch list. BoB: solid 9.5/10 Pacific: 8.7/10 Masters is fare below. 6/10 at max.
Band of Brothers was superior in that you can invest in the characters from beginning to end of the war. MOA has a similar issue that the Pacific had, you just dont get to know the characters as well. Another issue…..for most of the scenes of combat, you have all the characters in masks. It does make it tough to follow who is who. I think they should have just gone with a more unrealistic view and had the actors skip the masks.
Neither M of A or Pacific come close to equaling B o B. In hindsight, I suppose it was wrong to assume MOA would since every battle is a repeat of the prior. They fly, deal with flak, fighters, drop their bombs and return...rinse and repeat. The Pacific should have been just as action packed as Band but instead they focused on too many personal stories that in the end, just weren't that interested. Makes me appreciate even more just how special Band really is.
Its hard to follow when you get limited or no background on the characters, and they don't last long. Then add their is no heroics just like in real life survival is just luck of the draw.
One thing that drives me nuts has been the constant anti-British cracks. At times, the series has been such a flag-waver that I want to puke. Before the "USA-USA-USA" crowd jumps in, just remember who showed up over two years late.
As I told another poster. This streams from Hollywood writing if they were not attacking the British they would be attacking the US Navy. Then add to the fact that the bombing campaign was a failure. So flag waiving and showing how effective they were compared to their "rival" services is all they got.
My father joined the Army Air Corp, soon to be the Army Air Force, as a mechanic in 1936. He was part of the force sent to Africa to take part in the invasion of French North Africa, only my dad and some others were sent to Egypt first early to gain experience from the British who had been using P-40's for about a year in combat and that was the plane that the US started the war in Africa using. He had stories of the British- the regular grunts were ok and you could learn a lot from them, neither the average Brit soldier nor most US personnel being trained had much use for most of the British officers who were class conscious and contemptuous and that the fastest way to pick a fight with an Aussie was to call him a Brit.
MotA missed the opening opportunity to demonstrate the scale and complexity of the whole war, then "zoom" in on someone we can relate to. that was something BoB, Pacific, All Quiet on the Western Front, did well in their respective Pilot Episode. BoB did a wonder job expressing the numbers lost, in the Laundromat scene. MotA just had the Maj Harding /discount Brad Pitt from Inglorious Basterds, deliver a little line like... "we are our boys".... no.. they need to Show that there are 10 men per plane. Secondly, all WWII movies shoe arty and motor rounds. No one yet has shown a 200 pounder, and 40+ planes releasing it from a perspective other than from the bomb site our gunners position. I has a grand story to tell... the budget seems ot be too small.
The reason it’s hard to watch is that is garbage!! We don’t get a chance to ‘know’ the characters. The CGI is often unrealistic. Not to mention the historical inaccuracies! And then I keep expecting ‘ol mate to burst in to an Elvis impression. I’m so disappointed. I had such high expectations, given the legendary producers. I watch each episode praying it’ll get better. But alas I gave up after last night. 😢
I disagree, MoA was much easier to watch than both BoB and The Pacific. Im not saying that MoA is better but MoA did better at narrating that can work with almost every audience not just historian and enthusias people. When i first watch BoB, it took me to episode 5 to remember which guy is Winters. MoA characters mostly focus on 4 major characters which is easier to narrating and follows
BoB over the decades even chaned my thinking, changed my moral, relationship to duty, job, fellow people, and I became a different person - I hope in the positive way. MotA gave me nothing so far, I just cannot relate the characters. It's hard to watch, because it's not real, not personal. It looks more lik a 60's war drama with modern CGI.
I disagree. While I am enjoying Masters of the air I haven't been feeling any sense of dread and haven't really cared when any of the characters have died. Probably because most of the time all you're seeing is planes going down and not individuals dying
went a bit overboard on the glamour looks? can't stop seeing Elvis up there ...
Yeah, they went way overboard with the "Hollywood". No grit, no grime and unworthy of the book. It was an over-polished turd.
Spielburgh and Hanks know this. They know they can do better. They know a turd when they see one. Unfortunately their names are attached to it.
Definitely, miscast imo🤷♂️
I think what makes BoB so good is we follow these me from their training. We know them before combat, then we see their first drop, and follow them through the rest of the war. We see the nuance differences between war expectations and reality and how these men grow, learn, and suffer. It's hard to beat that. With Mota, we don't get the training scenes and we don't see the tragedy of men on the ground, we just see planes explode. There has always been this disconnect between watching a person be injured or killed vs a machine being destroyed.
You generally do see the tragedy when its named characters. I think the bigger issue is that you don't have nearly enough time to get to know the characters.
this is the reality of MOTA, as I first questioned why arent we getting character depth well this is due to the life expectancy of the aircrews some rookies after completing training were deemed to only have hours of life expectancy in battle and this hit hard once I figured out what the directors were trying to imply in their story telling, as it is later described that the OG crews wouldnt even spend the time to get to know new crew members as they knew it was too painful losing close friends and just did not bother to get to know new crew members due to this
It also helped that the real BoB guys were mostly still alive when that series came out. Making it more relatable
So many characters came and went in MOTA, I barely even remembered anyones names by the end... But I guess that's fitting to how it actually was, actually.
Nope, it's not that at all. In BoB we become invested in the characters from the get go, and we're with them all the way. That's missing from MotA, certainly at this point.
But in a way isn’t that the point? In reality these planes just went down and the fact that we don’t get to know much about the crews, although grating, is the point. They just vanished.
@togoso Yes, but then it becomes almost like a documentary. If it's going the way I think, well get more involved when Stalag Luft 3 comes into it.
Agreed. Hopefully that will bring it together.
BoB is a simpler project because you can follow the company from training all the way thru until the end of the war with little change in cast which allows for an emotional bond to form, where as MoTA can’t actually do that with the high bomber lose rate and constant replace rate which doesn’t allow for an kind of emotional connection between the audience and the people being portrayed I’m thankful for war corespondents who flew and recorded aerial combat so present audiences can see what the crews went thru, most of what is being shown was censored by the military in its time for obvious reasons
It's the same thing as The Pacific. Hard to get invested when characters don't have discernable character traits
I watched The Pacific for the first time last weekend. Binged the whole thing. Great series, way grittier than Band of Brothers. As for Masters, I'm still invested, even after they started killing everyone off. Of course, that's the way it was for B-17 crews. Average life expectancy of 11 missions, overall 30% mortality for the crews, and 60% for the ball gunner. If anyone is pissed because your favorite characters are being killed off, thank the production team's commitment to realism.
Yeah. People who winch about all the characters being killed off. Forget that these are the names of real people. And this is pretty much how it happened with just a few fictional frilly side stories and dramatizations around them and the real events
You’re wrong about the ball gunner stats. It was safer than most other stations
I agree about characters, people don't get it if they want to be invested in characters with this show with the mortality, go and watch Barbie instead I would say to them. Having said that, we could have seen more of Rosenthals missions. I also think that the training in Band of Brothers was boring and I'm glad they didn't do that in Masters. Masters has its own issues though i.e cheap CGI, missing out missions etc
The all Germans are evil sentiment in this show annoys me a bit, Bob atleqst knew the difference between Nazis and regular germans
I’m not sure that you and I watched the same Band of Brothers. The losses that Easy Company took were so incredibly high that the men found it hard to befriend replacements because they knew their survival rate was negligible. Success can be measured in many ways, but to infer that Easy had a less harrowing experience is wrong. Both groups were equally challenged, but Easy didn’t have warm beds, good food, showers, or booze at the end of each mission, and their enemy was present 24/7 for weeks and months at a time.
Well, that's a pretty common occurrence. It happened to my grandfather. "Generation War" (which is often called Germany's Band of Brothers) had a similar scene where they told replacements they don't get a name until they've survived a few weeks.
I think you're right, both groups had their harrowing challenges. I think the airmen's story can seem more so because while BoB could shoot back and where trained to use cover and suppression, MoA have to just take it and hope for the best.
The airmen did have practices to better there odds. Such as changing heading and altitude randomly to throw flak off. That is something I wished they would show. Just something to show how airmen overcame their changes like how Easy Co.'s training helped them
WWII hard core sucked for everyone involved, even the people who never left the Continental US. Bear in mind, every B17 and B24 carried ten men. The first Schweinfurt raid alone knocked down 60 planes, that is 600 men in a single day that did not make it back to the warm bed. That is almost an entire regiment lost.. in one day. The thousand bomber raids had 10,000 men in them, nearly a division.
The USAAF took the heaviest losses of the entire US military because of ten man crews. 318,274 KIA, 565,861 WIA for the US Army, and 115,000 of them were USAF in Europe, 47,483 in the 8th Air Force all by itself. The 8th earned 17 Medals of Honor, 220 DFCs, and 442,000 air medals. 440,000 bomber sorties to drop 697,000 tons of bombs, and over 5,100 aircraft losses and 11,200 aerial victories.. that is JUST the 8th Air Force in Europe.
The missions were usually above 20,000ft where the temperature is more than 30 below, and they were 8 to 10 hours long wearing heavy flak vests, breathing oxygen through a mask over 12,000ft. Frostbite and hypoxia were very real dangers.
Air crews endured flak that made the shelling of Bastogne look like a fireworks display, and it was on every mission beyond the coast of France. Mission after mission, watching your friends burst into flame and fall from the sky never to be heard from again. You get to know your squadron and most of the wing, and they are just gone. The ground crew working all night to get the planes ready for a mission in the morning, working 12+ hour shifts, 7 days a week, for years at a time. They finally got some sleep when the planes left on a mission.
By the time Easy company jumped into France, the 8th and 15th Air Forces had been in the thick of it for two years. I have a fondness for the men depicted in Band of Brothers, and those in the Pacific as well. Lt Lipton's story made me a better NCO. Major Winters made me a better leader. No matter how bad I had it doing my job, (more on that below) I never complained or even considered doing anything else. Those guys had it worse than me, even when I was involved in action.
People tend to think the USAF is a bunch of office weenies complaining about the AC and cable TV being out. They simply do not know the USAF history, nor the jobs done by its members. Most work on aircraft happens out in the weather, raining, snowing, 130F heat, -60F and everything else.
If you like I can go into great detail about what its like to be Air Cargo in the USAF during a major conflict like Desert Storm or Operation Iraqi Freedom. I was in both of them, at the base doing the most work, doing the job doing the most work. I was neck deep in the two largest airlifts in world history. I was 21 when Desert Shield began in 1990, and 32 when I was deployed to Kuwait in 2001 and we watched the second plane hit after pulling an 18 hour shift the night before. I had just gotten back from Korea when it all started again in 2003.
The Berlin Airlift was over a year of back breaking work feeding and supplying the people of Berlin by air. They did not have C141s, C17s, and C5s they had C47s and C54s that carried a fraction of what a C130 can haul. It was ALL loaded by hand and unloaded by hand. Nobody ever talks about airlift though, no movies are made about it, very few books, it just happens. Stuff gets loaded on planes by members working 12 hour shifts 7 days a week, usually with no time for food, and you lose sleep doing your laundry, waking up just as tired as when you fell into your bed.
I learned to sleep anywhere, in any position, and get some rest between working planes, and I was doing 60 to 80 of them every night. My job packed 50lbs of muscle on me in less than a year in 1990, then it destroyed my knees, hips, shoulders and an elbow in 2004 in only 105 days.
In 1990 we moved more cargo than the entire Berlin Airlift, in less than 7 weeks, 5000 of those planes were by me personally, every six weeks until 13 October 1991 when I was sent back to the US.. It was 5 weeks in 2003 and we continued to move more than that for years after.
If you think USAF cargo guys do not go anywhere hazardous, look up some videos of Khe Sanh in 1968, those guys collecting the air drops, loading and unloading the planes to supply the Marines, are USAF Air Cargo people, dodging rounds while doing their job. The Marines get the accolades, nobody even noticed the USAF guys there. A USAF Mobile Aerial Port Squadron (MAPS) was completely wiped out in Vietnam, and before they were done, they had racked up a huge body count. They did not go easily, they made the NVA pay for it.
Balad AB just outside Baghdad was the main cargo port in Iraq, many of my friends received purple hearts whilst loading planes. Nowhere to hide, just keep doing your job, and you can't even fight back.
Then you have the maintainers who spend their entire day or night, swapping engines, repairing damage, and doing the stuff just to keep them flying. EVERY movie and book glosses over what those guys do, and the conditions in which they do it. Same with the Army 88Ms who drive trucks around being shot at, like my brother who stopped counting holes at 150 in his HET hauling Abrams and Bradleys in Iraq during the 2003 invasion. He went on to fly UH60s, apparently he wanted to get shot at more.
The air crews get some recognition, and in WWII they lived through a nightmare. It might seem like a better deal to sleep in your bed every night, but I bet the Navy and Marine aviators in WWII would give you some insight into what its like.
War is not fun, it is not an adventure, and every job in the US military can get you to permanent room temp. Even the office weenies doing Finance and whatnot, though its usually something like Khobar Towers that is the most danger to them. I lost friends at Khobar Towers and in northern Iraq when we weren't whuppin on them.
Infantry is different than air and ground crew, but infantry doesn't do constant 12 hour shifts in peace time with random days off.. I have the utmost respect for everyone who put in the effort in any branch of the military, from any country... but not the dirt bags.. lol.
More than 26,000 airmen were killed in the 8th AF campaign over Europe which is more than all Marines in WW II. Also BoB lost individuals as opposed to an entire crew at a time.
Well, BOB and Pacific are both over 90% from top critics on rotten tomatoes, and Masters of Air is checking in at a respectable 87% at this moment. I would say all of these shows have been pretty darn good and if anything, they honor the legacy of these brave men regardless of who wants to bitch about CGI, or which had better actors...ect. Hanks and Spielberg are among the best in the world at what they do, and they brought us all 3 of these shows. These men are the greatest generation, and i'm just glad we can still see these stories to honor them! 🇺🇸
It's harder to watch because it's lazy.
There! I said it!
Beyond every soldier represented here in all three series, all of which lived and died under incredible experiences, and all warrant the utmost respect,
this is supposed to be storytelling!
And there is where it fails...
Like so many films and shows in this day and age, the lack of character development creates a lack of investment in said characters.
And that all boils down to the fault of lazy script writing and all those that were shallow enough to green light a series that could really have been something else.
Masters of the Air spends too much time in dance halls and hotel rooms. I suppose that's all they had to do when not on missions, but it's not interesting for me. The high water mark of the series so far has been the aerial scenes on Rosenthal's third mission when his "fort" is the only survivor and pieces of blown of planes are floating down all around them in silence.
You have to remember that "Masters" is covering time in theatre for almost 2 years.
Band of Brothers was in theatre for only 14 months for eight episodes .
Masters is covering a longer time span in fewer episodes.
Episode 6 was tough to watch.
Episode 1 was in June 1943, Episode 6 was October 1943. Which means that the last 3 episodes has to cover October 1943 to May 1945, and one of those episodes appears to be about the Tuskegee Airmen, who flew from North African and Italy.
The pacific?
Band the brothers was phenomenal… how can someone say it’s hard to watch talk about gripping and captivating…
Read the title again
Funny how everyone seems to forget The Pacific which is part of this Trilogy. It would be hard to top Band of Brothers - which The Pacific didn't - I'd put Masters at the same level as The Pacific - except that Masters seemed to cast for boy models instead of actors who could portray combat.
That’s how the airforce is portrayed in general so I don’t blame them.
The Pacific was much better than this mess.
I think it's a harder watch because it's hard to do character building when those characters are wearing masks on separate planes and the roaring of the engines impedes conversation, plus any character you get attached to bites the big one shortly after.
Yes. I binge rewatched the first 5 episodes and found it easier to figure out and remember who’s who. I’m enjoying it so far and it’s been well worth the wait. Pretty hard to top BoB though. The small bits featuring the veterans really contributed to that series.
It's harder to watch because it is not very good!
I don't think I've ever seen "bites the big one" in print before, it's oddly amusing.👍
You don’t know what you’re talking about mate.
I dont know just seems it want to take the piss out of the British at every possibility, portraying them as posh prats with no idea, you watch videos with veterans of Bomber Command they are working class men, that got on well with American pilots, and respected each other, there was need for this in my humble opinion.
They also conveniently forgot and left out that it was the RAF that initially escorted them, which is a dishonour to those pilots.
Way too Hollywood. Way too focused on the USAAF holding some moral high ground whilst the RAF don’t. Memphis Belle was far better.
Masters is epic and true to what was experienced. I love BOB but I think Masters has hit me in the feels more. All three series plus Ryan are a superb tribute to those who fought. My only criticism of masters are the silly scenes with bomber command being portrayed as aloof arrogant prat’s.
I really enjoy MOTA, but the narration in BOB did a better job of leading the viewer, especially the casual viewers, along the journey. You really have to listen carefully and watch carefully to know who’s who and what’s going on in MOTA. I’m sure many people don’t understand that Crosby is the narrator of the story. There’s a lot of mumbling and dark scenes in MOTA. One thing that never looks right to me is the damaged aircraft, it’s very hard to get that right artificially. I still love it though.
Band of brothers had actors that I could understand their speech, but master of the air is just mumbling so I have to put the subtitles on which means I miss much of the action as I am reading the subtitles.
They should do a series on the role the navy did during the war.
Yes, the series of Naval actions during the Guadalcanal campaign would be a place to start. James Hornfischer’s book Neptune’s Inferno would be a great series.
Watched all three series (BoB, Pacific, MotA)…riveting, amazing. True courage exhibited by these hero’s everyday. Mad respect for all!
Amen
That’s not what’s being discussed.
Both Band of Brothers & The Pacific are better shows than this one. The acting and the connection to the characters are just not here in Masters of the Sky. This could have been amazing just like the other two shows but just falls short in that aspect.
Idk man I couldn’t finish the first episode of The pacific. Although Master of the air isn’t Band of Brothers it’s a lot better then the pacific imo
I agree Band of Brothers and the Pacific was way better this crap they put out looks like it could have been made by one of these low rated movie directors
@@leviathon98yea no…
Bob and MOTA are a 180 degree out, aviation is totally different than the infantry and to try and compare the two doesn’t make sense.
It’s aight, it just feels like the same thing every episode
Tbf there can't really be THAT much different stuff to show once you've seen a couple bomb runs.
Because Tom hanks looked at walking dead and game of thrones right in the eyes and said “ hold my beer”
U understand that the show is not fictional right. It is based on real ppl with the corresponding casualty rates.
@@ShawnF0912still a bad show
@@nrsrymj it's a good show
@@ShawnF0912 oh ok
Masters of the AIR, is TOO FULL OF CGI….
And it’s TOO HOLLYWOOD….
There’s more to the
AIRWAR OVER GERMANY…….
I watch because I’ve been a WW2 history buff for a long time…
To bad they couldn’t use real B-17s, I know it would be impossible…
12 o’Clock High is a much better……
The CGI is just awful, and gets worse as the snow goes on. Just watches the Tuskegee (sic) episode, it’s a bad video game, the P51s never look realistic. So disappointing.
Agree with the prevailing sentiment that MotA doesn’t build a viewer relationship with the characters the way that BoB did… very few series have. When I watched BoB the first time I felt transported back as a fly on the wall in 1943 through 1945. The Pacific had phenomenal character development as well, but was grittier and hallucinatory.. much like the war in the pacific likely felt to US sailors and marines.
As much respect as I have for the air crews of WW2, nothing compares to the horrors of a US Army Infantryman in WW2
Besides the lack of heroics (survival is just luck of the draw). Their is no variation all the episodes are basically drink....fly...die. Rinse and repeat.
1943 was a horrendous year for US bomber crews in Europe.
The Air Campaign is totally different to the Ground. To gather the story in the brutal casualties must have been very difficult. Memphis
Belle is a fantastic story and movie. But it focuses on a single plane and crew . MoA is trying to tell a different story for certain references and characters. It’s not a free flowing as Pacific or BoB . But deserves to be viewed 🇮🇪🇮🇪
What about HBO the Pacific possibly the most vile Theatre of war for an Allied soldier to have found themselves in the Second World War
Dissappointed in this series. Could do much better character development and added some better storylines in addition to the bombing runs.
I think the airmen's story can seem more harrowing because while BoB could shoot back and were trained to use cover and suppression, the men MoA have to just take it and hope for the best. Maybe today a fighter's bullet will hit you in the guy or cause a catastrophic fire. There is just more of sense of helplessness.
The airmen did have practices to better there odds. Such as changing heading and altitude randomly to throw flak off. That is something I wished they would show. Just something to show how airmen overcame their changes like how Easy Co.'s training helped them
Loved Band of Brothers. Disappointed in The Pacific because of its lack of focus. I'm not going to watch Masters of the Air because it looks shite
Masters lacks intelligent dialogue- neither Bucky nor Buck have much to say. Buck has at most one page of dialogue in 6 episodes, yet he's a main character? Bucky is just an unlikely character...
The 8th had a bloodier war. The characters keep dying. Can’t be helped unless we want to bend the reality.
But between BoB and… I prefer the Pacific. As an Air Force alumni MotA is becoming my favorite of the 3 but I am biased.
I was expecting allot more combat and action but it’s turned into a drama/suspense
I haven't seen the series because I don't have Apple TV. What I wonder is why didn't they use the book "Mission," which is about James Stewart and his quest to fly bombers, as the basis for the series? It is a compelling story, well-written, and would've made an interesting series that would allow the audience to be more invested.
I agree. I read James Stewart’s bio and it was incredible. He was a true hero.
Masters is a good watch but I doubt Iwould watch it more than once, the actors and characters arent as good as BoB
I think it was meant to be watched more than once. I didn’t get invested in characters in BoB until I watched it multiple times
Great series finally someone shed light on the absolute carnage and loss these airman suffered and the insane courage it took to fly those missions. Really get tired of some asswipe that never served a day in their life’s calling me ‘chair force’. Im here to tell yah there is some bad mo fo’s in the air force. I had a drill instructor that was a former forward observer. You did NOT look at that guy sideways! Great service and I’m damn proud to have served in the MIGHTY 8th!!
I can’t do it my Dads plane was shot down to hard for me to watch.
Don't worry, it doesn't look real, at all.
So far Masters has been awesome. That said, I agree that the timespan covered and the crew losses, prohibits the characters in development. It's probably quite accurate for realism.
This show is just fine.. leave it alone. The stories need told. The truth be known there is nothing glamorous in war. Watching these boys (my fathers age) sit there and hold fast till that bomb drop then on their own home mission after mission… I’m just dumbfounded at where we get such men..
It's a very good tv show!
CGI is bad, the writing is cliche ridden and the acting is average at best.
Both are great series that portray very different types of warfare. If you like Masters of the Air I highly recommend the 1949 movie "Twelve O'clock High" with Gregory Peck, it's one of the best war movies ever made and because it was filmed so soon after the war they had plenty of surplus B-17's to use. It also is excellent at showing the effect of war on people. The TV series based on the movie that came in the 1960's isn't bad either although it's not in the same league as the movie.
I think the best way to watch Masters of the Air is to realize that it could have never be made at all. The reason its hard to watch exist in the books and yet they still went ahead with the project. There is as similar book covering the RAF called "Bomber Boys" and it suffered the same malady. The RAF wanted to get some press coverage of these missions so they sent up 6 journalist on a single mission. Only one came back. You are introduced to a character, learn about
his background and his personality and in two more missions he is dead. The other issue is during the fight/flight scenes it hard to tell one character from another because you can only see their eyes. I almost think they should have a two level of subtitles one where the names appear on the character for a second or two every time they switch scenes and one with dialogue/names. It is much easier to watch the second time around.
This is a very good point. The story problems lie as much with the subject matter as they do with the writers.
They were "unlucky" because of when they were sent over. (1943) In 1944 and 1945 ,B17 and B24 missions became more survivable thanks to the P51s escorts combined with Germany's lessened defensive capabilities.
Annoying to hear comments like " I didn't "enjoy" The Pacific or Masters of the Air as much. A big part of these series is too appreciate the sacrifice.... from the comfort of your living room. (had to add that in)
Sorry but to "appreciate the sacrifice" you have to know something about the person doing the sacrifice. Showing the aircrews as clogs does not help.
@@kwaii_gamer No you don’t. Only those who lack imagination need that.
@@catherinelw9365So I need to use my imagination to care...thank you for proving my point.
The acting in Masters is a bit heavy handed and little too much gravely voiced stare off in the distance Marlboro man. It’s improved as the series has gone on. Masters is tough to tell because of the stark contrast of its story lines of home base, actual flying missions, r & r, being behind enemy lines and being a POW. It’s good, but BoB is the 🐐 when it comes to this format.
BoB had better overall actors/acting & better writing than either The Pacific or MoTA unfortunately.
I think its a solid show with beautiful visuals. People comparing bomber crews to enlisted infantry/ marine grunts is pretty laughable. Of course its going to be different from band of brothers and the pacific. Get over it. We get to watch intense air battles and attrition in the sky. My god people are so entitled and critical these days.
You get introduced to someone and the next second they get killed. And they often die off screen. So there’s no real connection. I can’t believe they wrote the story like this. Also when they are on the planes their faces are covered. Historically accurate but often I’m wondering who’s who. They also telegraph when someone is going to die. But the biggest issue is the story jumps around with no clear progression. It’s always wake up eat fly bomb a place you don’t really see die and repeat. Historically accurate, but very boring.
It’s almost like that’s how it went down in real life 🤯
@@prestondobber I get that, but it doesn't make for great TV. So I would challenge an artist to come up with a way to do both. But in my book, if your making a TV show realism comes second to entertainment.
@@malestorm234 I just think you fundamentally don’t understand what the show is. Cuz Band of Brothers was historically accurate. Difference is this is a story of the group and the people that make it up, with emphasis on the group part. Realism and correct historical portrayal is more important than entertainment, you want to be entertained go watch Fury or Inglorious Basterds. You want to watch something that’s an accurate portrayal of real people who did real things. Watch BoB, the Pacific, and Masters.
@ndobber I've watched all of those "historically accurate", which is always a questionable term in Hollywood, and have been VERY entertained by them. My point is the way they choose to be historically accurate is not well done in this series because it fails to create a narrative that is compiling which BoB certainly did. That show demonstrates you can create a show that is historically accurate and entertaining. Maybe the reality of air warfare just doesn't allow for good entertaining story telling when it's realistic. But I think a good writer and director could overcome those limitations. Maybe there is a reason we see so many fighter pilot shows and no other bomber pilot shows. I just feel in a documentary historically accurate is key, but in a docu-drama entertainment is key.
You don't have time to bond with the characters before they are gone. Also, half the time you have no idea who is who - try to tell 20 young men apart, when they are wearing oxygen masks and headwear, and all you can see is their eyes!
The only one I actually care about is Crosby.
Something BoB had was the real life people from the series which I believe added to the empathy of the series, neither the Pacific nor masters has that part. Now the Pacific could have possibly done it, but with the fact masters is made over 20 years after Bob which means its almost 80 years after the war ended, the number of survivors is getting less and less and if they have survived they must getting close to 100 years old if not already over that age. So the recollection of what happened is being done more from the archived logs of each aircraft more so than from the men themselves.
That being said I'm 8 episodes in and still completely enthralled by the show, and will probably binge watch it again in its entirety when the final show is shown.
For me, many of the characters seem just that, characters. There is something missing. I think that the depth of the portrayals seems too shallow to feel like you can get to know them.
Because band of brothers was good. Saved everyone from watching the video.
This video is spot on. Simply put, the heavy bmbr air groups suffered more casualties.
From day 1, the British command attempted to talk American command out of daytime heavy bmbr missions. The British were speaking from experience. gained before the Americans arrived.
I really wish people would stop comparing these two, these are true events for the most part so I'm sorry if you don't find something entertaining but this is what happened.
Im beginning to think Screen Rant is sponsored by Disney.
This doesn't hold a match to bob. The pacific on the other hand was in its own sokething special too. But on a different level from bob.
When comparing these three series, you can’t forget that BofB was probably the best TV series ever made. Not much can equal it. I agree with what everyone is saying about not having time to connect with the characters in MotA. I didn’t really get that slap in the face feeling until they got to the episodes in the camp. Then you see friends trying to stay alive by using their wits not just luck.
Masters was okay. Nothing will ever touch Band of Brothers. In B.O.B we are invested in the men of "E". When one got injured or killed it was like a punch in the gut. I never felt connected to the characters in Masters. When Buck went down I didn't care. Had that been Winters, Nixon, Buck Compton or any of the men of "E" it would have hit harder. Like I said Masters was okay, but if I never watch it again I'm fine with it. I've probably seen B OB 20x and it just doesn't get old.
You can’t compare ground combat to aerial combat. They are two completely different worlds. Saying one group of men faced harder challenges than the other is a really tough sell since the experiences were so vastly different. What they had in common was that both groups of men faced extreme danger on a regular basis and many did not survive.
I enjoyed both shows
Hearing the opinions of the layperson is always interesting. It's incredible how some people just totally fail to grasp art.
Both of these shows are phenomenal in their own ways. I think they are both great pieces of TV
What happened to the other voice guy and the music
The writing is bad and i don't give a damn about any characters in Masters.
MoA is a harder watch because it's lower quality. Nothing more.
No its a lot more than that....
Where is this running exactly? I've not thought about it much. Fact is ever since they started cartooning (CGI) nearly all the flying in movies, it's been kind of a turn off compared to old films like the "Blue Max" or "The Battle of Britain" or "12 O' Clock High", or "Midway", etc.
I agree. The CGI in this series is pretty terrible
@@FatGuyinaLittleWoodsThere you go then.
I was hoping that the very first episode would have started with Colonel Asa Duncan taking command at Savannah Army Airfield in January, 1942. He holds an order in his hand ordering the 8th Bomber Command to prepare for the strategic bombing of Germany. He looks out onto the tarmac and sees a Lockheed Hudson and an L-5. I just thought a very humble beginning for the 8th Air Force would be a good place to start.
I thought it was an okay series. The whole problem for me is that it went really slow. Then episode 8 had D-Day and episode 9 the war was over. It was okay, but it's not the quality I'd hoped to see. Sometimes the CGI for the airplanes was pretty bad too. That distracted me a lot as well.
Before the P-51 Mustang th in January, 1944, bombers flying beyond the range of the P-38's and P'47's were easy targets for the Luftwaffe. The USAAF brass thought that the bombers could ward off the Luftwaffe fighters with just the .50 caliber machine guns they were equipped with. Obviously, that was not the case as what happened in October 1943, when losses became unsustainable and the bombing campaign had to be put on hold. Once the Mustangs took to the air, the end was inevitable. When Hermann Goering saw Mustangs over Berlin, he allegedly said, "The jig is up."
I find MotA hard to watch simply because at the most dramatic points (in the air) the visuals strike me as a CGI extravaganza. BoB didn't read that way to me. BoB read more 'real' to me, so I was along for the ride. With MotA I keep getting pulled out of the reality.
I found the episodes with Austin Butler in it very hard to take seriously with his still "Elvis voice", and even the way he still acted like he was Elvis. Sorry but he was a terrible pick for the character. I know Hanks probably picked him because they worked together, but if he can't get out of one character don't put him in another role. The series is ok otherwise, but Band of Brothers set the bar so high, it will be tough for any series to be looked at the same.
Yes, I was surprised to see butler in this too.
War is hell period.
oh...from the title i thought you meant harder in the sense of "harder to sit through and not fall asleep" Masters is so much worse than BoB and Pacific its not even funny
I think that characters from BoB are much more deeply shown and we get to know them more, rather than ones in MotA.
Nah. They haven't given us time to 'care' about the characters (in the series. All respect and admiration to the real Airmen).
They really should have aimed to tell a more concise segment within the 100's campaign. The scope is too large and characters come and go too quickly to develop past surface level.
I understand that they wanted to convey the vastness and scale of the airwar, but in doing so they've legitimately got me remembering a maximum of 3-4 characters names.
It's in no way a bad show, but I won't be rushing back to watch it for a couple of years.
I think they should have focused on their training for the first couple of episodes like Band of Brothers so we could get to know the main characters better and see they're development. That way when they're lost you'd feel the impact more. Maybe they were limited in time and budget to do that, I know they had a hard time getting this series green lit so maybe that just wasn't possible. Still watching and enjoying the show though, think it was an important part of the war that a lot of people really don't know much about!
Masters is harder to watch because it is not as well written or shot. Much of it looks fake. I am not a fan of the cinematographer. In BoB I had favorite characters. In Masters I don't because they are not well written.
Screen rant should actually watch BoB.
I can add Pacific two on their watch list.
BoB: solid 9.5/10
Pacific: 8.7/10
Masters is fare below. 6/10 at max.
The USAAF had the highest casualty rate of the entire AMERICAN military.
The Pacific was a hard watch for me, but I watch all these type shows.
Band of Brothers was superior in that you can invest in the characters from beginning to end of the war. MOA has a similar issue that the Pacific had, you just dont get to know the characters as well. Another issue…..for most of the scenes of combat, you have all the characters in masks. It does make it tough to follow who is who. I think they should have just gone with a more unrealistic view and had the actors skip the masks.
Even Adam Sandler would have been a better choice than Austin Butler.... what were they thinking?
Wonder if there will be another WWII mini series. The Big E would be a great subject.
I doubt it they are losing money
Hot take. Masters of the Air is mid.
Neither M of A or Pacific come close to equaling B o B. In hindsight, I suppose it was wrong to assume MOA would since every battle is a repeat of the prior. They fly, deal with flak, fighters, drop their bombs and return...rinse and repeat. The Pacific should have been just as action packed as Band but instead they focused on too many personal stories that in the end, just weren't that interested. Makes me appreciate even more just how special Band really is.
Pacific had like 2 good episodes the rest sucked.
Its hard to follow when you get limited or no background on the characters, and they don't last long. Then add their is no heroics just like in real life survival is just luck of the draw.
I love masters of the air haha
both easy company and the 100th bomb group had about a 50% fatality rate i think
No it's harder to watch because it's not as near as good as band of Brothers
One thing that drives me nuts has been the constant anti-British cracks. At times, the series has been such a flag-waver that I want to puke.
Before the "USA-USA-USA" crowd jumps in, just remember who showed up over two years late.
They weren't late.
Who do you think was supplying the British.
As I told another poster. This streams from Hollywood writing if they were not attacking the British they would be attacking the US Navy. Then add to the fact that the bombing campaign was a failure. So flag waiving and showing how effective they were compared to their "rival" services is all they got.
We weren’t late, we showed up just in time to bail the Brits out……again! It’s gets old saving Brits from their own wars for over 100 years! 😂😂😂
My father joined the Army Air Corp, soon to be the Army Air Force, as a mechanic in 1936. He was part of the force sent to Africa to take part in the invasion of French North Africa, only my dad and some others were sent to Egypt first early to gain experience from the British who had been using P-40's for about a year in combat and that was the plane that the US started the war in Africa using. He had stories of the British- the regular grunts were ok and you could learn a lot from them, neither the average Brit soldier nor most US personnel being trained had much use for most of the British officers who were class conscious and contemptuous and that the fastest way to pick a fight with an Aussie was to call him a Brit.
MotA missed the opening opportunity to demonstrate the scale and complexity of the whole war, then "zoom" in on someone we can relate to. that was something BoB, Pacific, All Quiet on the Western Front, did well in their respective Pilot Episode.
BoB did a wonder job expressing the numbers lost, in the Laundromat scene.
MotA just had the Maj Harding /discount Brad Pitt from Inglorious Basterds, deliver a little line like... "we are our boys".... no.. they need to Show that there are 10 men per plane.
Secondly, all WWII movies shoe arty and motor rounds. No one yet has shown a 200 pounder, and 40+ planes releasing it from a perspective other than from the bomb site our gunners position. I has a grand story to tell... the budget seems ot be too small.
The reason it’s hard to watch is that is garbage!!
We don’t get a chance to ‘know’ the characters. The CGI is often unrealistic. Not to mention the historical inaccuracies! And then I keep expecting ‘ol mate to burst in to an Elvis impression.
I’m so disappointed. I had such high expectations, given the legendary producers.
I watch each episode praying it’ll get better. But alas I gave up after last night. 😢
This review is laughable
I disagree, MoA was much easier to watch than both BoB and The Pacific. Im not saying that MoA is better but MoA did better at narrating that can work with almost every audience not just historian and enthusias people. When i first watch BoB, it took me to episode 5 to remember which guy is Winters.
MoA characters mostly focus on 4 major characters which is easier to narrating and follows
BoB over the decades even chaned my thinking, changed my moral, relationship to duty, job, fellow people, and I became a different person - I hope in the positive way. MotA gave me nothing so far, I just cannot relate the characters. It's hard to watch, because it's not real, not personal. It looks more lik a 60's war drama with modern CGI.
I disagree. While I am enjoying Masters of the air I haven't been feeling any sense of dread and haven't really cared when any of the characters have died. Probably because most of the time all you're seeing is planes going down and not individuals dying