Red Tails: the first movie about racism not to include Morgan Freeman

[seriousfic]

Red Tails is, of course, the story of the first all-bad dialogue flight group in WW2, at a time when those with good dialogue (such as Walt from Breaking Bad and George Hearst from Deadwood) believed bad dialogue speakers shouldn't be allowed to serve. These men bravely said "No! That is unfair. Those with bad dialogue are just as good as those with good dialogue. Saying people with good dialogue are better than people with bad dialogue is unfair. We're just as good as people with good dialogue, except in terms of dialogue." And the people with good dialogue said "Christ, that was redundant. We got the point by the second line."

I'm not sure what the point of giving the bomber pilors bad dialogue was, though. Maybe they were just the ancestors of Nicky Katt in The Dark Knight. It makes you wonder what they said when the camera was off them. "A-ha! We're dropped our bombs! Our mission was a success! The mission was to drop bombs! It was successful!"

Okay, straight-up, on the cheese-o-meter, this movie is pretty much Battle: Los Angeles with a social conscience. As for it being as bad as the Star Wars prequels; well, Red Tails doesn't have the production design or the lightsabers (which is about all there is to recommend about the Star Wars prequels), but it does have something so important that I'm pretty sure George Lucas included it purely by accident. Character motivation.

The characters in Red Tails want to prove themselves against racist detractors, win the war, and become aces. Compare that to the prequels, which is full of people who are just doing their job with no ambitions, hopes, or fears. Episode 1--Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon don't give a shit about Naboo, they're just doing their job. Episode 2--Anakin cares about protecting Padme, but he spends the movie getting exactly what he wants, being with Padme while Obi-Wan investigates (cough no conflict cough). And he's just doing his job. Episode 3--Christ, what even are people doing in that film? Anakin's with Palpatine and trying to save his wife--three movies in, finally a goal. But we spend even more time with Obi-Wan and Yoda, who are fighting people that are morally on the same level as the corrupt, clone-enslaving Republic. Which is their job.

Also, most of the prequel characters are Jedi, who aren't allowed to show emotion. And a career politican, who is encouraged not to show emotion. And Jar-Jar, who sucks. So at least the guys in Red Tails are happy about accomplishing their goals, sad about encountering setbacks, and so on. I'd say Red Tails gets Filmmaking 101 right, but that'd be saying a bit much. However, it at least gets Intro To Filmmaking 101 right. So there's that.

ETA: By the way, there's been a lot of talk about Red Tails' box office success in terms of what it means for race relations in Hollywood. Like, if you go on The Daily Show and say that people are racist if they don't get see your movie, could that have something to do with your movie's success? Now, don't get me wrong, good on Lucas for putting his money where his mouth is while he played the race card like a motherfucker.

But tell me this. If Lucas really cared that much about African-Americans, don't you think he would've included more than two black guys in six Star Wars movies? Just saying, maybe it's more... un-racist if you cast black people in parts that have nothing to do with race. I know that Luke's parents and Obi-Wan had to be white because of simple continuity, but was there any reason Qui-Gon, Jar-Jar, Dexter Jettster, and Count Dooku all had to be either white guys or alien monsters? Food for thought.

ETA2: And does anyone think it's a little weird that, in a movie about racism and the evils of dehumanizing people, Nazis are shown as subhuman monsters that deserve to be burned alive while their planes are still on the ground, the heroes laughing triumphantly? I know they're Nazis and all but... the Big Bad doesn't even do anything particularly evil. He just has a scar. At least in Flyboys, the gratuitiously evil German killed downed pilots so you knew he had a bullet in the eye coming from James Franco (sure to get jeers in German Hell from all the cool guys who were killed by Bruce Willis).

Comments

[morwen_peredhil]

Thankfully, I happened to rewatch AOTC the night before I saw Red Tails, which made me mind RT's bad dialogue and wooden romance less, since at least they didn't involve Hayden Christensen or favorable comparisons to sand.

I suppose I can understand why George Lucas didn't go with "Hey, it sucks less than the prequel trilogy!" in the marketing campaign, though.

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

But at least Padme and Anakin both spoke the same language.

[jlbarnett.livejournal.com]

I think Qui-Gon wasn't black because he was going to die in the first movie, Jar-Jar wasn't black because they needed a new non-human character for the prequels, and Dooku wasn't black because he was evil. I have no idea who the other guy was.

[lejo.livejournal.com]

Point being if you had a diverse cast, none of those reasons would matter. Sam Jackson could die in Deep Blue Sea because there wasn't THE black guy. (admittedly, there were TWO black guys, but you know what I mean)

Have a balanced cast, what happens to the character happens regardless of if they're PoC or not. That's the ideal.

[jlbarnett.livejournal.com]

I'm not a big Star Wars guy, I'll admit it. But I never got the feeling that Star Wars had a huge cast, at least not of important people

So, sure you could cast more non-white extras but when it comes to characters how do you decide what's balanced?

[colonel-green.livejournal.com]

The other black guy was supposed to die too, but the test audiences liked him so much that the reshot the movie so that he lived and someone else the audience hated died instead.