I'm an aviation nut, a real airplane aficionado, and a student pilot. So, naturally, I'm looking forward to this IMAX film with great expectations. And, because of my addiction to airplanes and anything airplane related, probably had a higher level of expectation than normal. I'm an IMAX card holder so I watched this at a pre-screening event and didn't pay anything to see it. And going into the movie, I really wanted to like this film, because it's about airplanes, it's IMAX, it's Canadian. Unfortunately, it really failed to deliver on anything except two or three great scenes involving the 787 Dreamliner and a Harrier Jet. The rest of the film involved some mildly interesting shots of the Boeing manufacturing facility, but that was it.
By far my biggest complaint about this film is that Stephen Low relied far, far, far too heavily on computer-generated birds and airplanes. Why do some directors insist on replacing perfectly good objects in real life (birds, airplanes) with computer graphics? One scene involved a bi-plane that actually looked real . . . until the thing did a barrel roll in a most unnatural way. You have to see it to know what I mean. Why? Why do this? Why make entire scenes look like something out of Flight Simulator X? And why keep using CAD-style birds and bees? Not to mention one painful scene involving a "fly-through" of a computer rendering that looks like Tron on acid.
IMAX directors also have to get rid of the cheese factor. For example, why does Low set up the people in the film to "act"? He films them supposedly working away in one scene in a boardroom discussing something, but you can tell from their dialogue that they're acting. And really poorly acting. If this is a documentary type film, which it is, why have goofy acting segments? Another example of cheese: trying to work in (computer generated) fighter jets flying 20 feet from a Canadian warship. Not gonna happen!
Finally, the film is entitled "Legends of Flight" but I can't figure out what the "legend" is. What legend? Low could've started with the legend of Icarus and the dreams of Da Vinci, but he doesn't. The entire "legend" is the manufacture of one airplane. The story is barely coherent with unrelated scenes jammed together. All in all, a wasted opportunity. The only 10% of this film that I enjoyed was the widescreen shots of the A380 and the 787.
By far my biggest complaint about this film is that Stephen Low relied far, far, far too heavily on computer-generated birds and airplanes. Why do some directors insist on replacing perfectly good objects in real life (birds, airplanes) with computer graphics? One scene involved a bi-plane that actually looked real . . . until the thing did a barrel roll in a most unnatural way. You have to see it to know what I mean. Why? Why do this? Why make entire scenes look like something out of Flight Simulator X? And why keep using CAD-style birds and bees? Not to mention one painful scene involving a "fly-through" of a computer rendering that looks like Tron on acid.
IMAX directors also have to get rid of the cheese factor. For example, why does Low set up the people in the film to "act"? He films them supposedly working away in one scene in a boardroom discussing something, but you can tell from their dialogue that they're acting. And really poorly acting. If this is a documentary type film, which it is, why have goofy acting segments? Another example of cheese: trying to work in (computer generated) fighter jets flying 20 feet from a Canadian warship. Not gonna happen!
Finally, the film is entitled "Legends of Flight" but I can't figure out what the "legend" is. What legend? Low could've started with the legend of Icarus and the dreams of Da Vinci, but he doesn't. The entire "legend" is the manufacture of one airplane. The story is barely coherent with unrelated scenes jammed together. All in all, a wasted opportunity. The only 10% of this film that I enjoyed was the widescreen shots of the A380 and the 787.
Tell Your Friends