NickD said:slefain said:My only complaint was the theater didn't have the sound turned up. I should have been able to feel the car engines. I know the place had good speakers because stuff was exploding in the theater beside us.
They had it cranked in the theater I went to, but Midway was playing next to us and you could still hear and feel that playing in our theatet
To be fair, any time Midway comes on when I have the Sabaton disk in the car, I have to crank it too.
To be fair...
I too was annoyed by the “press on the gas to go faster as both cars are running down the Mulsanne,” phenomenon but after thinking about it, it’s more acceptable as they were maybe trying to show how drivers had to walk the line between speed and breaking the car by pushing it too hard.
My wife and I both liked it so I guess that means they made a good racing movie that can also entertain people who don’t like cars. I didn’t go in expecting a documentary and was pleasantly surprised by a lot of the things they “got right.”
On the way home my wife was asking a bunch of questions about the history of the story, the other years GT40s won, Lee Iacocca’s role at Ford, and so on. That was neat since she doesn’t usually take an active interest in car stuff.
Just got back from seeing it in IMAX. Sound was great, and the picture was really cool- all those old cars.
But in terms of the noises, they had all of the correct engine sounds- as you can hear them throughout- so I'm not sure why they did other sounds when the engine would drown everything else out. And I'm not a fan of hearing WOT as the car goes through corners...
Dramatically, it was a good movie- mostly a character study of Ken Miles than anything else. Which is ok, and in the context of the story- where they had to keep out a LOT of it, what they left out was ok. But it still missed a lot of the story, and really sided against the Duce and how he screwed over Miles. While he did have an iron fist, there was a lot of inspiration within Ford, Shelby, and the other two teams that competed GT40s. The Duce and Bebe come off as the bad guys, which I'm not that sure about.
And to be so angry at the end of the race for staging the photo- auto racing is 100% marketing, so deal with it. It sucked, sure. But it was the money.
And the crashes were a little over done. Or a lot.
Still enjoyed it quite a bit. Ines cried at the end when Ken crashed and died, and was REALLY mad that he didn't win the race. So it worked (and you all know she's a racer).
alfadriver said:And to be so angry at the end of the race for staging the photo- auto racing is 100% marketing, so deal with it. It sucked, sure. But it was the money.
I don’t think anyone knew how the ACO would score that finish. I wonder, if they’d known, if it would have been done? Probably. It was a great photo. But I’d like to think that it would have given a little bit of pause.
Keith Tanner said:alfadriver said:And to be so angry at the end of the race for staging the photo- auto racing is 100% marketing, so deal with it. It sucked, sure. But it was the money.
I don’t think anyone knew how the ACO would score that finish. I wonder, if they’d known, if it would have been done? Probably. It was a great photo. But I’d like to think that it would have given a little bit of pause.
Which is why I was so confused by the anger in the movie by Shelby and Miles. I honestly wonder if they were that mad when it happened or not- I've not seen any reference of that.
alfadriver said:Dramatically, it was a good movie- mostly a character study of Ken Miles than anything else. Which is ok, and in the context of the story- where they had to keep out a LOT of it, what they left out was ok. But it still missed a lot of the story, and really sided against the Duce and how he screwed over Miles. While he did have an iron fist, there was a lot of inspiration within Ford, Shelby, and the other two teams that competed GT40s. The Duce and Bebe come off as the bad guys, which I'm not that sure about.
Especially Beebe. He was portrayed as a venal, petty pencil-pusher with a personal vendetta against Miles. I don't think that was the case, and I don't think it was fair to his legacy to portray him that way.
Thoroughly enjoyed it. Caught my son wiping tears away at the end even though he denied it lol. Good show.
alfadriver said:Keith Tanner said:alfadriver said:And to be so angry at the end of the race for staging the photo- auto racing is 100% marketing, so deal with it. It sucked, sure. But it was the money.
I don’t think anyone knew how the ACO would score that finish. I wonder, if they’d known, if it would have been done? Probably. It was a great photo. But I’d like to think that it would have given a little bit of pause.
Which is why I was so confused by the anger in the movie by Shelby and Miles. I honestly wonder if they were that mad when it happened or not- I've not seen any reference of that.
I can see why they’d be angry. It’s almost like the ACO was making up new rules on the spot. I suspect the rule was pre-existing but obscure.
My wife and I thought it was great. She said "it moved well". I have to agree with the folks that say if you like movies made the way they used to make them, then go see this. I appreciate that they used the Right Engine Noises. Go see it at a theater with great sound. Oh and did anyone else catch who played Dan Gurney?
I saw in the credits he had the last name Gurney. A grandson?
There were several notable drivers brought in....
alex played his dad, dan gurney. And derek hill played his dad phil.
Kelly Collins won lemans on the corvette team
jeff Bucknum I believe raced at lemans.
John Capps is a very successful drag racer
tony Hunt doubled matt and has been a successful sprint car racer.
Everyone knows who tanner Foust is and Stefan Verdier and San Hubinette are also former formula D competitors/champions.
The second unit director [reluctantly] played bob Bondurant
I might be missing a few....
there were some really nice fords in shelby’s Shop. A few k-code mustangs and an aluminum-bodied Daytona.
Of course there were several modern cobra replicas and the large wheels were pointed out during filming.
The crashes were all practical with little to no special effects help. The only exception was the Ferrari that blasted apart under the Dunlop bridge. The second unit director had done a viper cup race as one of the celebrity drivers and witnessed another driver lose control at high speed and start cartwheeling down the grass next to him.
This inspired him to try and recreate the same scene in the movie. I haven’t seen it yet so I don’t know how well it replicated it. I suspect it was more of a big crash seeing as I witnessed the gag. I was driving the yellow Ferrari that was supposed to be next to it but we shot it in pieces so that I wasn’t right next to it when it landed at 70mph.
The first unit stunt coordinator is a passionate ford guy and gear head and was invited to help advise before during and after filming. He desperately tried to steer the decisions with sound and insert shots to keep the realism high.
But, as pointed out, short of putting a NAWZ button as the big decision that would show taking high risk for high reward, they capitalized on pushing the motors to try and beat the other drivers.
Which, I was told, was pretty true to life.
There were some cool guys around at different times including one Shelby club member who was 16 or 17 when he started at the shop. He was very interesting to talk to about his time there and the realism of the movie set shop.
BlueInGreen - Jon said:I too was annoyed by the “press on the gas to go faster as both cars are running down the Mulsanne,” phenomenon but after thinking about it, it’s more acceptable as they were maybe trying to show how drivers had to walk the line between speed and breaking the car by pushing it too hard.
Yeah, that's the way that I looked at that. I seem to recall reading in Hot Rod Magazine that they were actually restricting the GT40s to around 4500rpm for the majority of the race, with only blasts past that allowed for passing.
Jay_W said:My wife and I thought it was great. She said "it moved well". I have to agree with the folks that say if you like movies made the way they used to make them, then go see this.
That is enough for me to want to go see it. (Just like the most compelling review I read of Midway was "It's not full of BS like Pearl Harbor was")
BlueInGreen - Jon said:I too was annoyed by the “press on the gas to go faster as both cars are running down the Mulsanne,” phenomenon
To be fair, I've read a quote from Bruce McLaren that the brakes were babied to help them last longer, including coasting down the lower half of Mulsanne into the braking zone for the hairpin.
JesseWolfe said:BlueInGreen - Jon said:I too was annoyed by the “press on the gas to go faster as both cars are running down the Mulsanne,” phenomenon
To be fair, I've read a quote from Bruce McLaren that the brakes were babied to help them last longer, including coasting down the lower half of Mulsanne into the braking zone for the hairpin.
Brakes in that timeframe sucked in general. Reading about contemporary racing in other disciplines (might have been A/Sedan), they only expected the brakes to do anything useful for the first lap or two, after that they mainly slowed the cars by cornering.
jfryjfry said:The crashes were all practical with little to no special effects help. The only exception was the Ferrari that blasted apart under the Dunlop bridge. The second unit director had done a viper cup race as one of the celebrity drivers and witnessed another driver lose control at high speed and start cartwheeling down the grass next to him.
This inspired him to try and recreate the same scene in the movie. I haven’t seen it yet so I don’t know how well it replicated it. I suspect it was more of a big crash seeing as I witnessed the gag. I was driving the yellow Ferrari that was supposed to be next to it but we shot it in pieces so that I wasn’t right next to it when it landed at 70mph.
That was the crash that bugged me. The crash that was shown on screen would have killed the driver pretty quickly- that Ferrari was not build like a racing Viper. And that was kind of a weird way to be immediately after the start of the 24 hour race.
The rest of the driving was really good- you guys did a great job.
gumby said:I thoroughly enjoyed the focus on Miles until I realized that Hollywood would not choose to end the movie without killing him again.
I would have been perfectly happy to watch Ken testing the new car with the Shelby voice-over talking about 7000rpm, and fade to post script/credits. Everything between the last voice-over and the end was unnecessary fluff which added nothing to the movie.
I would have liked your ending. They easily could have added more text at the end...after talking about the years of winning, they could have said that Miles was not there for the other races because he died in testing. That would have been less depressing.
OTOH, my wife had an interesting idea. She thinks that the last few minutes of the film may have been an attempt to build in more of a character arc for Shelby. Those scenes show him mourning the loss of a friend, caring more about his time with Miles than the car sales that were generated by his fame, and being concerned about the family that was left behind by the tragedy.
TL;DR - The film makers may have been trying to emphasize the idea that Shelby was a human being with real emotions, not just a legendary name in car circles.
My wife liked it . She isn't a car person. She asked me a bunch of questions on the way home. I was so pleased I could answer most of them...
I so enjoyed seeing all the old cars, the development of the relationship between Miles and Shelby. Miles' wife must have been very special to put up with him. The sounds were extraordinary. I just wish they had the smell of burning rubber, raw fuel, and exhaust odors to take me further into the scenes.
Ferrari and Bebe weren't "bad guys" they were highly competitive people with big egos just like all the others. Any of us who have survived and thrived in the corporate world knows how this works.
One technical issue that I caught that surprised me was the mention of switching from the "vacuum secondary Holley carburetor". I would have thought they would be using double pumpers with all 4 barrels linked on race cars even back then.
In reply to JoeyM :
I think Ken Miles had to die in the film. Racing was extraordinarily dangerous back then. Some very talented drivers were killed back then, many not even in racing accidents, just testing. . Several of those drivers were depicted in the move. Younger people today have no idea of this.
I read that the roll cage in the GT-40's was added after Miles died and because of his death. Tough to learn that way.
I would love to see a Mark Donohue movie about the CAN-AM era. Another great one with a tragic ending.
Knurled. said:JesseWolfe said:BlueInGreen - Jon said:I too was annoyed by the “press on the gas to go faster as both cars are running down the Mulsanne,” phenomenon
To be fair, I've read a quote from Bruce McLaren that the brakes were babied to help them last longer, including coasting down the lower half of Mulsanne into the braking zone for the hairpin.
Brakes in that timeframe sucked in general. Reading about contemporary racing in other disciplines (might have been A/Sedan), they only expected the brakes to do anything useful for the first lap or two, after that they mainly slowed the cars by cornering.
Not racing related, but my dad grew up driving MG's, Opels, etc. By the time that I came around, he'd been in automatics for probably 10 years; the exception being his 1959 Austin Healey - which he sold in 1996. Flash forward about 10 years and he buys an E30. I think he'd driven a few stickshifts when he traded cars with coworkers for a weekend, or with his nephew when they needed to tow something, but he was basically still thinking that he was driving a 1960's vehicle when he started using his left foot again. He's teaching me how to drive stick, and teaching me about engine braking "because it saves the brakes". Seemed so bizarre to me, I'd have thought the clutch is the wear item we're worrying about. Nope, to him it was the brakes (he quickly realized that brakes are no longer the wear item they once were).
mtn said:
Not racing related, but my dad grew up driving MG's, Opels, etc. By the time that I came around, he'd been in automatics for probably 10 years; the exception being his 1959 Austin Healey - which he sold in 1996. Flash forward about 10 years and he buys an E30. I think he'd driven a few stickshifts when he traded cars with coworkers for a weekend, or with his nephew when they needed to tow something, but he was basically still thinking that he was driving a 1960's vehicle when he started using his left foot again. He's teaching me how to drive stick, and teaching me about engine braking "because it saves the brakes". Seemed so bizarre to me, I'd have thought the clutch is the wear item we're worrying about. Nope, to him it was the brakes (he quickly realized that brakes are no longer the wear item they once were).
When given a choice, I'd much rather wear the brakes than the cutch; they're easier to replace. Of course, if downshifting is done properly, it really doesn't harm the clutch, either.
Something fun I recently learned was that I autocross with a guy named DC Cantwell, who is a big Ford guy, races a Ford Focus RS. His dad: Chuck Cantwell, the guy responsible for a lot of the 1965 GT350 R&D and worked closely with Ken Miles on that program.
In reply to mtn :
Aggressive driving in something with marginal brakes means you want to keep them cool and working as much as possible in case of needing all of them at once in a panic stop.
JoeyM said:......my wife had an interesting idea. She thinks that the last few minutes of the film may have been an attempt to build in more of a character arc for Shelby. Those scenes show him mourning the loss of a friend, caring more about his time with Miles than the car sales that were generated by his fame, and being concerned about the family that was left behind by the tragedy.
This is a valid counterpoint, and I appreciate her perspective.
I spend a not insignificant amount of time dealing with thoughts surrounding the very real possibility that someone could die in one of my cars. It is a rudely sobering situation.
I also spent some minutes during the second half of the movie considering how they might handle the tragedy of Ken's death and how I would answer the questions of my 12yo son sitting next to me afterwards. Entertaining story vs stark realities and all that. The end scenes did not take away from my overall liking of the movie, and I understand that for those who don't know the story ahead of time it is an important caveat to be told.
In a Days of Thunder manner of not handling it, aware of the outcome ahead of time, and also already knowing Shelby as more than simply a name; words in a post script tribute would have been easier to read vs watching it play out emotionally in front of me.
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