The new Dambusters

Golrush007

I read several weeks ago that Peter Jackson was to produce a remake of the classic film The Dambusters.
There have been rumours of Dambusters remakesfor years. And whenever I have heard these rumours I have been fairly negative about the idea of remaking this classic. After all, I am a big fan of the original and love it just as it is. But now that the news has sunk in I have become quite excited at the prospect of a remake of the Dambusters. The idea of a new slant on this historic episode sounds quite appealing. This is an opportunity to corrrect some of the little innacuracies in the original, as well as a chance to inform modern film audiences (who might not want to watch an old black and white film) about this daring raid.

And of course the old debate about Guy Gibson's famous dog, '******'(****** was also the code name for succesful breach of the Moehne dam). I personally think they could keep these names intact, after all it is historical fact. They are telling a true story, and should keep everything as close to real as possible.

Anyway, I would be interested to hear the opinions of others about the remake. I'm sure there are people here who are fans of the original film.

Napoleon Plural

There are new angles for the movie, but I'm not sure what to make of them. Guy Gibson was only 24 when the mission took place, whereas Richard Todd, who played him in the original, was maybe 10 years older (Todd had taken part in the glider operation in D-Day). So that's one part of it...

There's been some revisionism regards whether the raids were really that valuable and provided that knock-out blow. The original film skirts around that a bit, tastefully.

There were other raids that night too, that don't get mentioned much. The raid on the Sorpe, for instance, was unsuccessful despite a direct hit, the dam was not breached. Shame, as that would have been very important.

Mark Hazard

My fear of this remake is the squadron of "Lancasters" - cgi - remember the multitude of Japanese aeroplanes in Pearl Harbour. There are only two Lancs left flying in the world and something tells me that the RAF would be VERY wary of loaning theirs (and crews - no way would they allow civilians to fly it). The Canadians would probably be a little more forthcoming, but one (or two) Lancs do not make a squadron.

Some years ago, I recall reading that it was to be made in the US, with B-17 Flying Fortresses taking the place of the Lancs - thankfuly that idea fell through - although they could have made a squadron of B-17s, David Putnam (in the UK) did a good job in Memphis Belle, with the possible exception of some bad model work.

David Frost (who I understand currently owns the film rights) intends keeping the original film score, a great idea. I understand that certain information was still covered by the Official Secrets Act at the time of filming the original, and is now openly available, which would help with some items of the story.

Good luck to them, just get some better modellers and/or cgi. And keep the original Dambusters March, if not the rest of the score.

Golrush007

Mark Hazard wrote:

My fear of this remake is the squadron of "Lancasters" - cgi - remember the multitude of Japanese aeroplanes in Pearl Harbour. There are only two Lancs left flying in the world and something tells me that the RAF would be VERY wary of loaning theirs (and crews - no way would they allow civilians to fly it). The Canadians would probably be a little more forthcoming, but one (or two) Lancs do not make a squadron.

I suspect that the lancaster's will be either CGI or models. After all, if they did use one or both of the surviving lancs they would have to remove the top turret and cut away quite a large portion of the belly of the aircraft. The success of the film might hang on the quality of the CGI / model work.

We'll see. . .