Legends of Flight (2010)

I never saw this, so I would be voting "neutral" (5), regretting if unable to opt out. However the "cartoon" reference was telling about directors who sacrifice the real thing for CGI. The whole dependency on CGI is utterly stupid, and it ruined what could have been a stellar "The Aviator" (2004), IMHO. That film took a real live airworthy Lockheed 1049G Constellation, in perfect flying order, flown all the way from Kansas City to Burbank, only to be replicated as the budding TWA. No flying scenes with the rare living airplane at all...NONE. I was pretty shocked despite DiCaprio's stellar acting ability, as well as the other players. A TERRIBLE loss indeed.

This film is nothing more than an advertisement for Boeing. I was hoping to learn about the 787 and the Airbus A380, but this film only made casual reference to the A380, and it was a clear attempt to advertise for Boeing. More than that, we learn only little about the 787. The story is difficult to follow, the acting scenes are boring and insulting to the viewer, and the CGI graphics are ridiculous. Boeing feels threatened by Airbus, and rightly so, Airbus, at the moment, builds better airplanes. I think Boeing's executives would be much better off trying to develop better airplanes rather than attempting act in propaganda films.

Having just watched a DVD version, I think it would have been great to watch on the IMAX screen, but there, as I was here, I think I would have been disappointed with the fact that most of the aerial footage was CGI :( I also quickly tired of the 'acting' all through the film.I thought the CGI fly through of the CAD design work was good, and most likely accurate, although probably not as highly detailed as reality.Would be interesting to go back and walk through slowly and study some of the structure and systems. I don't know why the bird simulations had to be such poor quality, maybe to offset the look of the CGI'ed aeroplanes?All of the cockpit footage was shot on the ground, and in a simulator.I think the general public would love it, as well as the 'humble' part of the script showing that even the people at Boeing are human and make mistakes, although they also pointed out the same applies to Airbus. I guess the end result is that anyone that gets really involved with something (like me and aeroplanes) tends to end up being disappointed by the lack of detail in media destined for general public viewing.

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.