The new drama that started last week has a work that has little publicity, but veteran drama fans will not miss it.
That is the last installment of the "World War II Trilogy" co-produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, and the masterpiece "Air Combat Heroes" by Apple TV+ at the beginning of this year.
The first two parts of the "World War II Trilogy", "Band of Brothers" and "Pacific War", both have a very good reputation, and have also caused a lot of discussion among the audience, and have become indispensable masterpieces in the history of war dramas, with super high ratings of 9.6 and 9.0 on Douban respectively.
In particular, "Band of Brothers", which was broadcast in 2001, had a far-reaching impact in China and shaped the aesthetics and standards of a generation of military drama fans.
What the trilogy has in common is that it doesn't just focus on World War II, but it's also based on blockbuster military fiction or non-fiction.
Band of Brothers is based on the novel of the same name by Stephen Ambrose, and The War in the Pacific is inspired by Eugene Shreitge's memoir "With Old Things" and Robert Ritchie's novel "The Steel Helmet on My Pillow".
The production bigwigs behind the scenes of this drama are gathered
This time, "Heroes of Air Combat" is adapted from the documentary novel by historian Donald Miller, focusing on the U.S. Army Air Corps, the Airborne Division Company in "Band of Brothers", and the Marine Corps in "Pacific War".
One of the directors, Carey Fukunaga, once attracted attention for his outstanding performance in the first season of "True Detective", and later directed "007: No Time to Die".
The two protagonists in the play are the calm and pragmatic Major Kraven, played by Austin Butler, who appeared in Quentin's "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood", but is better known for his role as Presley in "Elvis".
The other is the bohemian, romantic Major Egan, played by British actor Callum Turner, who is sought after by many fans because of his sexually intense image in "The Queen and the Country" and "The Only Living Boy in New York".
The story of the series revolves around the 100th Bombardment Group, where the two are Allied pilots who are tasked with battling the Germans and bombing important enemy military installations, and in the process, they also face the test of courage, camaraderie, and life and death.
The first two episodes of the series have been released so far, and although the story is only a small part of the story, we can also get a glimpse of the general shape of this war masterpiece.
On the one hand, Kraven, who had only experienced training and had never been in actual combat, was caught off guard by unexpected situations when he went out on his first mission.
For example, the clouds were too thick and the field of vision was extremely poor, and several bombing groups could not form a formation and missed the opportunity; the dense and dangerous antiaircraft guns were woven into a minefield, and once they broke in, life and death were uncertain, not to mention the elusive German fighters, which completely suppressed the US bombardment fighter phalanx with speed and firepower.
As a result, Craven was defeated and could only drop bombs on the canal, completely unable to hit the German submarine bases.
On the other hand, in addition to the failure of the mission, there were serious losses in personnel and equipment. Of the 19 bombers, 3 were lost, and 30 flight personnel were killed in an instant.
When the series shows this episode, it not only allows us to see the tragedy of the war, but more importantly, highlights the great accident in the process of air combat.
Whether it is antiaircraft artillery shells or strafing by fighter planes, the US bombardment planes are like being in a line of fire without cover, and they can only be slaughtered, and it is very difficult for them to have a chance to fight back.
You know, whether in "Band of Brothers" or "Pacific War", soldiers will at least have trenches, tanks, hills and other shelters, and will not completely expose the location, which means that they will not be completely passive.
But these pilots in "Heroes of Air Combat" understand after two missions: death is like a shadow.
Therefore, in addition to showing a large number of thrilling air combat scenes, the series also has a delicate outline of fear.
For example, at breakfast before the mission, a soldier knocked over a salt shaker, which immediately caused displeasure among his comrades, and Egan gave him a "lucky money" before the mission.
Small details such as these are inserted in every corner of the play.
This seemingly superstitious act actually reveals the extreme anxiety and panic of the pilots, who can only rely on all kinds of luck accumulated in private to improve their confidence in carrying out the mission, so that they can live without fear.
It can be said that judging from the two episodes that have been updated so far, whether it is the protagonist or the supporting role, it is possible that they will be sacrificed in the follow-up story.
It is worth mentioning that the ultra-high mortality rate of the US Army Air Force is not accidental, and the reason is closely related to the bombing strategy formulated by the US military leadership.
Because in order to pursue precision bombing, most of the U.S. military missions are carried out during the day and in thin clouds, so as to effectively destroy the German military strongholds. This naturally gave the Germans an opportunity, and they quickly located through radar and used anti-aircraft guns and fighters to form a fatal blow.
In contrast, the RAF has a much lower mortality rate. They used night bombing, not in pursuit of precise positioning, and simply dropped bombs in the Nazi sphere of influence and turned back.
The play also specially arranged a scene of a clash between the US and British troops in a bar, and the goal was to highlight the danger of the US bombing mission.
Therefore, the 100th Bombardment Group, where Craven and Egan belonged, also had a nickname - "Bloody 100 Bombardment Group", and they lost a total of 229 aircraft and 785 flight personnel throughout the war.
In addition to the pathos of this story, the production of "Heroes of Air Combat" is also worth mentioning.
The show is no longer produced by HBO, the producer of the first two installments, but by streaming upstart Apple TV+, which cost $250 million.
Audiences who are familiar with the theme of air combat should know that unlike other war-themed film and television dramas, air combat scenes are difficult to shoot. After all, whether it is the scene of a fighter jet flying at a rapid pace or the explosion and crash of a bomber, it is subject to cost factors and cannot be fully restored.
Therefore, delicate and undiscordant special effects pictures have become an important criterion for the level of such film and television works.
In this sense, "Heroes of Air Combat" is presented quite well. Whether it's a trap formed by an anti-aircraft gun in the clouds, or a fighter shell that shoots through the glass, causing a cabin explosion, it is difficult to distinguish the real from the fake.
According to reports, the show is also the first project to be produced by Apple TV+'s in-house studio, which not only uses on-site virtual production technology to create aerial images with LED backdrops, but also uses CGI for post-processing to incorporate explosions and other elements.
Of course, all the structures in the cabin, including the cockpit, the fuselage of the bomber plane, and the position of the gunner in the tail, have all been verified by historical data, and restored as much as possible, so that the actors' performances are more immersive with the texture of the real thing.
In fact, the pilot theme has always been the "aristocracy" in war films, on the one hand, the high production cost makes the film more often presented in the form of a big production;
At the same time, this genre also combines the freedom and romance of soaring in the blue sky, the heroism of not knowing if you can return home, the heroism of sacrificing your life for the country, and the imagination of the image of the pilot itself to form a unique aesthetic pleasure.
A little farther, there are classic masterpieces "Top Gun" and "Pearl Harbor", which integrate the narrative mode of youth growth into the military genre of air combat, and with young actors in their prime, it can be said that the "lethality" is huge.
Pearl Harbor
More recently, there is disaster film master Roland Emmerich's "The Battle of Midway", which shows the grand scenes in air battles and naval battles extremely hot, which is a more worthy air combat film in recent years.
And the more creative and realistic is Christopher Nolan's "Dunkirk". Although the pilot played by Tom Hardy only accounts for one-third of the film, Nolan's use of perspective and the clever interspersing of aircraft battles are impressive.
From this point of view, the performance of "Air Combat Heroes" on the theme of air combat may not be as good as the name and novelty of these war films, but in the specific details of air combat, the subtle display of fighters and bombers, and the complex psychology of flight personnel, this drama is still remarkable.
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