P-51's in movie "Empire of the Sun"

yes i did, and what about young jim, managing to get in so close to the
planes?? he's a prisoner right, whats going on there??
I liked frank and basie!! well played parts; jim gets into the mens dorm,
and says to frank ina yankee accent, "Hey, how ya doin' frank", i found that
quite funny!!
yep a good film.
In pearl harbor, how come suddenly the whole USA war effert revolves around
the two good friends??
I got the feeling that if we'd lost either of them too soon in the film, the
war was lost and the japs would have won!! ridiculous i know but you what i
mean!
"Cub Driver" wrote in message
...

I was watching "Empire of the Sun" the other night and near the end some
P-51's attack the Japanese base. What struck me was that the P-51's were
flying in just a few feet above the ground and dropping their bombs.
Would
this really have been done? How did the planes keep from blowing
themselves
up?

This seems pretty routine in contemporary movies. It was ture I think
in Saving Private Ryan, in Windtalkers, and of course in Pearl Harbor,
where a P-40 chases a Zero down a street, about the level of the
second-story windows.

Of course at one time or another, planes flew at every altitude right
down to impact. The artistic failure is to take the exceptional and
make it routine.

Great movie, by the way--Empire of the Sun, I mean. But did you notice
that the entire tail section of the "Zero" turned? Probably it was an
AT-6 with a pointy tail cone pasted on.

all the best -- Dan Ford
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