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The R-101
The next blockbuster starts here ... | |
Strangely, it appears that no feature length movie has eve been made telling the story of the R101, a large rigid airship built by the British government in the 1920's and which was totally destroyed in a crash on her maiden voyage.
There have been several documentaries, but never a movie.
So,
the idea is, "Make A Movie Telling The Story Of The R-101".
It's got everything; arrogant aristocrats, political scheming, ambitious politicians, drama, tragedy, pathos ... and it's another Great British Failure, in the finest traditions of Isandlwhana, Robert Falcon Scott, and the Titanic.
With CGI, the vast, looming bulk of the airship would be easy to portray in crisp detail. Some of the original venues, like the giant airship hangar at Cardington, are still extant and would be available as sets.
The story of the R-101 needs no embroidery to make it a fascinating and compelling movie script.
R101
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R101
It's all true ... [8th of 7, Apr 07 2012]
http://www.youtube....watch?v=PdUTJqGdqV4
Looks like someone else has a script. [jutta, Apr 07 2012]
List of airship accidents
http://en.wikipedia...f_airship_accidents
Sombre reading [8th of 7, Apr 07 2012]
Low budget version
http://www.youtube....watch?v=FEVAGVaEaVo
Fast forward to 2:00 [doctorremulac3, Apr 07 2012]
Hindenburg, but in space...
The_20Hindenburg_2c_20but_20in_20space
[not_morrison_rm, Apr 09 2012]
Slide rule..
http://en.wikipedia...aphy_of_an_Engineer
..not much detail [not_morrison_rm, Apr 10 2012]
More alphanumeric-based artistic works.
http://www.youtube....watch?v=CDlj0jBtYmQ
Not available in shops [AbsintheWithoutLeave, Apr 13 2012]
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Annotation:
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So many stories, so little time... But this is a good one. |
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You lot simply wish to revel in our blimp misfortunes, don't you. |
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That's not fair - the US has had its fair share of LTA mishaps. |
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Yes, but none of ours would make for very good movies. |
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8th June 1942. Last transcribed radio
message: Sorry mate, didn't see you there. |
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OK, Mr Clever, you do better if you can ... |
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'U-571' had a fairly boring and unoriginal name (not to
mention being a shitty movie) but it did pretty well in the
box office. |
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I suggest 'Flying Heavy'. It's not a great title, but it would
correspond to a line of dialogue spoken during the climax
of the movie, and it's much better than "We're down, boys!" |
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"Lighter Than Air - Until it Wasn't" |
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I'm worried they'd tack on a love story to "get the women in the theater". That's not me talking, that's how Hollywood "thinks". |
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Granted, saying Hollywood thinks is a bit like saying a bear "engages in sanitation engineering" in the forest, but "thinks" is the only word that came to mind. |
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Bun 'cause I'm big into airships. I have a collection of airship memorabilia that I glance at about every 5 years or so. |
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As long as James Cameron can be conveniently relocated to a deserted island during its production and there is an absence of a love triangle subplot... |
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Make it a comedy like Airplane and call it "Gas Bags". Use bad science to make the ship full of laughing gas... hilarity ensues. |
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Film rights for "The Hindenburg, but in space" inexplicably still available.. |
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Wasn't "Slide Rule" ever dramatised, even for radio? |
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//Make it a comedy like Airplane and call it "Gas
Bags"// There is grist for comedy in at least one
airship
crash. When the Macon crashed here off the coast
of California, the helium that was released as the
ship ripped apart caused the crew to speak in high
squeaky voices as they abandoned ship. |
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The upside is, when you yell "Oh my God! We're all
going to die!" sounding like MIckey Mouse it gives
a necessary light moment to an otherwise tragic
situation. |
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I think most of the crew survived to laugh about
it. |
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I for a long time imagined a comic book chronicling
the race between the R-100 and the R-101. Ayn
Rand would have been proud... but then I got high. |
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Bun, so long as you don't get some French Canadian warbler to do the theme tune. |
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//... but then I got high.// |
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How many stories of great human endeavors have
ended with that sentence? |
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// Ayn Rand would have been proud... // |
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Only if you framed it as a thinly-veiled 1000+ page
manifesto against the evils of Bolschevism. |
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Nevil Shute wrote a book called "Slide Rule",
covering the development of the R100 and R101. It's
very good. |
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Another deficiency in the story of the R-101 is that it simply flew into the ground at low speed. It failed to burst into flames in the spectacular fashion of the Hindenburg in spite of the addition of a smoking room big enough to hold half the people on board. |
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//Wasn't "Slide Rule" ever dramatised, even for radio?
nmrm Apr 09// |
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//Nevil Shute wrote a book called "Slide Rule", covering the development of the R100 and R101. mb Apr 10// |
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The main deficiency of the R101 was that they never bothered to actually calculate the likely stresses on the airframe, nor did they calculate the strength of the airframe itself. Shute, on the R100 team, wrote that they spent an almost interminable amount of time doing this with slide rules, which how the book got the title..and why their one actually worked. |
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R-101 went down because it had a very fast following
wind (70 knots or so) that made it almost impossible
to control, didn't it? |
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(Dredging up memories from almost 30 years ago, so I
may be thinking of a different disaster). |
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// I may be thinking of a different disaster // |
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Yes, that was the time Oz lost the Ashes ... |
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The consensus now seems to be that it was a multimode failure. Factors include: |
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- The extra bay that was inserted for more lift without a full recalculation of stresses.
- The cover becoming waterlogged.
- The over-heavy, underpowered diesel engines.
- Prevailing weather.
- Lack of testing.
- Political interference.
- Chafing gasbags.
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Notably, the C of A was handwritten and given to the Commander just at the point of departure ... |
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There's plenty of stuff for a scriptwriter to get their teeth into. |
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We suggest that the music should either be by Sir Edward Elgar, or John Williams. |
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Perhaps the Germans could be persuaded to play the
Americans, for the ashes of the Hindenburg? |
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//- Political interference.
- Chafing gasbags.//
Aren't those the same things? |
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That depends upon whether you derive more
pleasure from scratching the left, or the right. |
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Pretty much ... substitute "hot air" for "gas" and they're indistinguishable. |
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Ahem. "Hot air" is merely a mixture of gases and a
few pollutants and vapours. |
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Fair point; there's useful oxygen even in hot air, whereas the vaporous effusions of politicians are uniformly toxic ... |
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Much as it pains me to admit, we agree entirely on
something, [8th]. |
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If we're talking alphanumeric-based film ideas, can we also do a spinoff based on the ED-209? |
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Right it's time to get that RS-232 film on the road! I suggest all the actors speak in machine code (subtitled in binary). |
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