What do you think of the Corsair movie Devotion?

[MADLOU]

 Overall I thought it was o.k. but the Corsair flight scenes were great.

[-Rudel-]

I wish the cockpit shots matched the external airframes.

-1D canopy, noting the armor plate up top.

 

-5 Canopy does not have canopy armor plate.

[GTFreeFlyer]

I expected more Corsair, less story.  Was happy with the flying scenes.  Honestly can’t remember the plot now. 

[Qcumber]

To be fair it is not a film specifically about the Corsair, but it does steal the show. There is also good footage of the F8F Bearcat and A-1 Skyraider. Well worth watching. 

[Jackjack171]

13 hours ago, GTFreeFlyer said:

I expected more Corsair, less story.  Was happy with the flying scenes.  Honestly can’t remember the plot now. 

It is the story of Jesse L Brown; The US Navy's first African American aviator and the first African American Naval Officer killed in the Korean war. It also highlights the friendship that he had with fellow squadron mate Thomas Hudner. The Corsair action just added more flavor to the movie!

Edited Sunday at 07:30 PM by Jackjack171

[Gunfreak]

Too much Elizabeth Taylor. Not enough Korea.

[Victory205]

It's an amazing story, the two books written on it are excellent. The movie is typical Hollywood. Pilots hanging out on the flight deck while their buddies are landing, long straight in approaches, taking down giant bridges with rockets, MiG engagement that didn’t happen, but they got the important point across.  
  
It’s perplexing that flight simmers focus on rivet counting and the airplane footage (which was gorgeous), and can’t remember the relationship and devotion between wingman that resulted in a Medal of Honor.

The Elizabeth Taylor part actually happened, the crew of USS Leyte actually raised over $24,000 in today’s dollars and donated it to Daisy Brown for her college fund. Hudner’s home town held a parade, gave him $9000 as a gift, which he actually donated to daisy. Hudner had a long career, did an exchange tour with the USAF, flew F84’s and F101, back to the USN, where he served as a squadron CO flying F8’s on USS Ticonderoga (flying Crusaders on 27C Essex class carriers requires formidable fortitude), staff jobs and finally, a carrier XO. He never considered himself a hero. Hudner and Brown both had ships named in their honor.

How did you miss all of that?

Want to know what a real “badass” looks like? Look no further than the lives of Jesse Brown and Thomas Hudner.

Edited Sunday at 05:32 PM by Victory205
Added image

[Qcumber]

29 minutes ago, Victory205 said:

It's an amazing story, the two books written on it are excellent. The movie is typical Hollywood. Pilots hanging out on the flight deck while their buddies are landing, long straight in approaches, taking down giant bridges with rockets, MiG engagement that didn’t happen, but they got the important point across.  
  
It’s perplexing that flight simmers focus on rivet counting and the airplane footage (which was gorgeous), and can’t remember the relationship and devotion between wingman that resulted in a Medal of Honor.

The Elizabeth Taylor part actually happened, the crew of USS Leyte actually raised over $24,000 in today’s dollars and donated it to Daisy Brown for her college fund. Hudner’s home town held a parade, gave him $9000 as a gift, which he actually donated to daisy. Hudner had a long career, did an exchange tour with the USAF, flew F84’s and F101, back to the USN, where he served as a squadron CO flying F8’s on USS Ticonderoga (flying Crusaders on 27C Essex class carriers requires formidable fortitude), staff jobs and finally, a carrier XO. He never considered himself a hero. Hudner and Brown both had ships named in their honor.

How did you miss all of that?

Want to know what a real “badass” looks like? Look no further than the lives of Jesse Brown and Thomas Hudner.

I didn't know that. I did enjoy the film though and have watched it several times. I need to get the books. 

[Jackjack171]

2 hours ago, Victory205 said:

It's an amazing story, the two books written on it are excellent. The movie is typical Hollywood. Pilots hanging out on the flight deck while their buddies are landing, long straight in approaches, taking down giant bridges with rockets, MiG engagement that didn’t happen, but they got the important point across.  
  
It’s perplexing that flight simmers focus on rivet counting and the airplane footage (which was gorgeous), and can’t remember the relationship and devotion between wingman that resulted in a Medal of Honor.

The Elizabeth Taylor part actually happened, the crew of USS Leyte actually raised over $24,000 in today’s dollars and donated it to Daisy Brown for her college fund. Hudner’s home town held a parade, gave him $9000 as a gift, which he actually donated to daisy. Hudner had a long career, did an exchange tour with the USAF, flew F84’s and F101, back to the USN, where he served as a squadron CO flying F8’s on USS Ticonderoga (flying Crusaders on 27C Essex class carriers requires formidable fortitude), staff jobs and finally, a carrier XO. He never considered himself a hero. Hudner and Brown both had ships named in their honor.

How did you miss all of that?

Want to know what a real “badass” looks like? Look no further than the lives of Jesse Brown and Thomas Hudner.

Thank you for the more in-depth explanation. I had read the book before the movie. And yes, Hollywood HAD to be Hollywood! I concur with everything you said, especially the rivet counting.

I later found out that Thomas Hudner went back to North Korea in 2013 to retrieve Jesse's remains. That is truly the measure of a man, and a friend in my eyes. Talk about badass!

[Art-J]

@Victory205 I'd say it's impossible NOT to "miss all of that" simply because:

a) It's "just" an episode from forgotten war - forgotten even amongst majority of flight simmers. Upcoming title from 1C might change that (like 1st iteration of Il-2 series changed perception of East Front air warfare back in 2001), we'll see;

b) The script was simply so-so and the whole movie turned out to be mediocre at best. Which is very unfortunate, because the story in itself is indeed exceptional and deserves to be told/shown to aviation enthusiasts and casual audience alike.

And yet, when reading your post above sounds more interesting than watching the whole movie, you know that the latter didn't do its job very well.

[MAXsenna]

Which service streams it?

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[Qcumber]

12 minutes ago, MAXsenna said:

Which service streams it?

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Amazon in the UK. 

[MAXsenna]

Amazon in the UK. 

Thanks! Unfortunately not on Amazon here in Norway.
Well, I found in my usual backup place in any case.

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[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

Amazon has it here in Belgium too.

[MADLOU]

One part I DEFINITELY did not like was when Jesse Brown was reciting racial epithets that had been spewed against him in his past.  I am a 70 year-old African-American who has experienced similar racism in the south as a youngster and totally understand what he went through but 1) did he actually do that in in real life? 2) If so,  I can't understand why he would do it (but I am not a psychologist) and have never heard of any other African-Americans doing the same and 3) even if he did do such a thing, I don't think they should have included it in the movie.  It did nothing to add clarity to his relationship with Hudner and racism was not a focus of the movie.

[Victory205]

58 minutes ago, Jackjack171 said:

Thank you for the more in-depth explanation. I had read the book before the movie. And yes, Hollywood HAD to be Hollywood! I concur with everything you said, especially the rivet counting.

I later found out that Thomas Hudner went back to North Korea in 2013 to retrieve Jesse's remains. That is truly the measure of a man, and a friend in my eyes. Talk about badass!

Yes he did! Hudner lived into his early nineties, humble to the end.

I think I knew about the story before the books because as I finished up the RAG, I was penciled in to go to VF32, within which Brown and Hudner’s legacy was preserved. It’s a long story, squadron CO infighting with the Fighter Wing One, but they ended up sending another pilot from my class, who happened to be African-American, which given Jesse Brown’s legacy, was pretty cool. What “saved me” in the end, what that VF32 was deployed at the time, and I did not have a passport. My RAG classmate did, so he went, and went to TARPS training and picked up 84 during workups. VF32 was not in a good place at the time, with old jets, bad leadership, and assigned to an old ship. We both found out about all of this after the fact.

As you stated, the story was relatively unknown until the books came out, The Flight of Jesse Leroy Brown in 1998, and Devotion in 2015, the latter being picked up as a movie.

Both books are worth the investment, although some of the prose in Devotion is a little dumbed down for the masses, calling the carrier’s island “the tower” and so forth, it still captures the history well.

[Victory205]

2 hours ago, MADLOU said:

One part I DEFINITELY did not like was when Jesse Brown was reciting racial epithets that had been spewed against him in his past.  I am a 70 year-old African-American who has experienced similar racism in the south as a youngster and totally understand what he went through but 1) did he actually do that in in real life? 2) If so,  I can't understand why he would do it (but I am not a psychologist) and have never heard of any other African-Americans doing the same and 3) even if he did do such a thing, I don't think they should have included it in the movie.  It did nothing to add clarity to his relationship with Hudner and racism was not a focus of the movie.

Agree, that part was over done, but the book does mention that when Jesse was young, based on advice that his mother shared with him, he did recite epithets into a mirror in order to desensitize himself so he wouldn’t react to the insults that he knew would be coming. I don’t recall the book stating that he did that in later life, but you know how scriptwriters can be.

Brown was also a devoted Christian, which was left out of the flick if I recall correctly. The books describe that aspect of his life as probably what got him through the challenges more than retribution or anger. I’ve only seen the movie once, as the ending is pretty emotional, but it sends a powerful message that is felt even when sitting here typing this message!

Both of those guys were professional fighter pilots who succeeded in a tough business, and got the job done under difficult circumstances. I’m glad that the story, even the “Hollywoodized” version, finally made it into the public view. The only other aspect that I wish they would have included is more of Jesse’s early life. The guy went from sharecropping, mesmerized by airplanes flying over as he stood in his fields, to the cockpit of Navy fighters at war, meeting Elizabeth Taylor on liberty along the way.

It’s kinda neat that the Magnitude3 F4U-1D brought it to the forefront again too. 

Edited Sunday at 11:24 PM by Victory205

[Qcumber]

7 minutes ago, MADLOU said:

One part I DEFINITELY did not like was when Jesse Brown was reciting racial epithets that had been spewed against him in his past.

Thanks for sharing that. It is very out of character with way that Jesse is otherwise portrayed in the film. I found it very difficult to watch and I am not sure how it really contributed to the story. 

[Nealius]

I enjoyed it but at the same time it didn't leave a memorable impression. Something felt slightly off with the acting or perhaps the script. Perhaps that means I need a rewatch. 

[kennyuk77]

Here in the UK, I enjoyed it, it is a sad film for a number of reasons, quite poignant. Worth watching though.

[Victory205]

17 hours ago, Nealius said:

I enjoyed it but at the same time it didn't leave a memorable impression. Something felt slightly off with the acting or perhaps the script. Perhaps that means I need a rewatch. 

The books are more interesting than the movie. Hollywood has been turning out cartoon scripts that assume that their audiences are comprised of idiots that need to be coddled.

2 hours ago, kennyuk77 said:

Here in the UK, I enjoyed it, it is a sad film for a number of reasons, quite poignant. Worth watching though.

The music added to the sadness for sure. It’s a sad, but inspiring story. Hopefully, Jesse and Tom are flying wing on each together again.

[Nealius]

8 hours ago, Victory205 said:

Hollywood has been turning out cartoon scripts that assume that their audiences are comprised of idiots that need to be coddled.

Oh definitely. That's one of the reason I've been excited about that new film "Warfare" as it avoids all of that. "Greyhound" was pretty good at avoiding it as well. There's not enough appreciation of films that don't coddle the audience.

Edited yesterday at 03:30 AM by Nealius

[Steel Jaw]

What is 1c's new sim?

[MAXsenna]

What is 1c's new sim?

That Korea.

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