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American Fighter Pilot
Box Set
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Shipping & Fee Details
| Price | $24.97 | |
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| Total | $39.93 | |
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Product Description
Product Description
Complete Season One Set -- contains 7 hours of programming, plus bonus materials including "the making of" documentary, interviews with Tony Scott, Jesse Negron and Leon Malas, additional footage, effects and animation and much more!
Amazon.com
Top Gun gets the reality-TV treatment in American Fighter Pilot, a riveting seven-hour TV series that grants an all-access pass to the Air Force's most elite pilot training program. Produced immediately following the terrorist attacks on New York's World Trade Center on 9/11/01, this is a serious examination of Air Force culture and the profound responsibility of warriors-in-training. The glory and glamour of being an F-15 "Eagle Driver" is presented as a noble privilege, in addition to the sheer adrenaline rush of piloting the Air Force's most versatile jet-fighter killing machine. Coproduced by Top Gun director Tony Scott and his director brother Ridley, and created with intelligent focus by Jesse Negron, AFP follows every stage of a pilot's rigorous 110-day training course at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida, where "Top Gun" hopefuls endure an intense regimen of academics, flight simulation, two-man flights with intensely critical trainers, solo flight tests, basic fighter maneuvers, weapons deployment, dogfight combat scenarios and, ultimately, the selection of a "Top Gun" pilot in each graduating class.
There's plenty of high drama and male bonding to accompany AFP's wall-to-wall soundtrack. Most of the series' appeal comes from its focus on three well-chosen pilots-in-training: A promising Top-Gun candidate with prior experience as a B1 Bomber pilot; a devout Christian and expectant first-time father; and a hot-shot maverick who learns there's more to being a fighter-ace than living the Tom Cruise lifestyle. Their different personalities give the series a perfect blend of style and substance, and the constant threat of failure gives each of them added depth and conviction that anyone can relate to. These are proud, respectable young men who are living their dream, but AFP never forgets the higher purpose to which they've been called. A basic "making-of" featurette shows how the series' amazing in-flight footage was achieved. --Jeff Shannon
Product details
- Is Discontinued By Manufacturer : No
- MPAA rating : PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
- Product Dimensions : 0.7 x 7.5 x 5.4 inches; 1.45 Pounds
- Director : Jesse Negron
- Media Format : NTSC, Closed-captioned, Multiple Formats, Full Screen, HiFi Sound, Color, Box set
- Run time : 7 hours and 15 minutes
- Release date : September 15, 2005
- Actors : Tony Scott, Ridley Scott, Leon Melas
- Studio : American Fighter Pilot
- ASIN : B0007XG4D2
- Number of discs : 3
- Best Sellers Rank: #180,705 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
- #8,959 in Special Interests (Movies & TV)
- #12,335 in Kids & Family DVDs
- Customer Reviews:
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Three USAF officers are profiled and we follow their trials and tribulations under the intense pressure of fighter pilot training. We are treated to some excellent ground-to-air and air-to-air footage of the world's premier fighter aircraft, the F-15 Eagle. We see some behind the scenes action in the classroom, briefing rooms and squadron bar room. Commentary on the student's performance and progress is given by the intense type-A flight instructors who seeks to train but are not shy in pointing even the smallest mistakes. We also go into the students personal lives with profiles on their families and the challenges that they face.
If you are a die-hard aviation fan, this title is worth seeing. Unfortunately, it is long and drawn out with all the time spent on the pilot's personal lives. How many times do we have to see one student sitting in church? Too many to count. Does the prospect of seeing home videos in another student's kitchen sound appealing? More filler. Then there is the production - put simply, it is overproduced and overblown with gee-whiz quick scene edits that attempt to create excitement. At many points, the viewer will feel like they are being talked down to with over simplified text and voice overs. Example "Mission Objective: Kill" is supposed to describe a 1 v 1 air-to-air guns-only engagement where a student performs basic fighter maneuvers against his instructor.
They could have made this whole series in three episodes if the producers just concentrated on the pilot training and flying. If Top Gun had the AFP production treatment, it would have been 12 hours long with no additional flying sequences. Bottom line, buy it for the flying sequences and keep the remote handy with your finger on the fast forward button.
I did a little bit of searching and discovered that the project had turned into a reality TV style show which was unfortunately cancelled after a few episodes had aired. I wasn't able to find any more footage online than just the trailer, and I was very intrigued to check out the show. I found it here and was a little put-off by some of the reviews, but I decided to take the plunge.
It is a 3 DVD set and spans 7 one-hour episodes, as well as an hour-long interview. The show follows 3 USAF Lieutenants who are beginning training at Tyndall AFB in Panama City, FL to fly the F-15C. A big part of what drew me to the program is that the F-15 has always been one of my favorite aircaft. 2 of the pilots, Todd Giggy and Marcus Gregory, are straight out of Undergraduate Pilot Training and only have a small amount of flying experience from the airframes there (the T-37 and T-38). The other pilot, Mike Love, has former experience as a B-1 pilot.
They are filmed during various briefings and debriefings, simulator and centrifuge training, at the squadron bar, at home with their families, and there are a lot of shots with comments and personal insights from the pilots themselves. There are also numerous commentary shots from instructors and family members of the pilots, and it's a great way to get an up close and personal look at what life is like for military aviators and those close to them.
There was a lot of great aerial footage in the trailer I watched, and I saw that great aerial footage again. The only problem was that this exact same footage was all I saw in pretty much every flying scene. It becomes increasingly obvious with each episode that they had a small amount of aerial and cockpit footage and they had to reuse it in as many different ways possible, such as reversing the frames, using high-contrast filters, tight zooms, etc.
There are also some staged cockpit shots (probably in simulator mockups) in which the pilot jerks the stick and throttle around, with laughable overdubbed "clanging" sound effects. It's a bit cheesy, but it's understandable that the camera crew probably wasn't able to get a ton of flying footage. However, there are a lot of great shots of the flightline at Tyndall, and it's a pretty awe-inspiring sight to see the groups of incredible planes all taxiing together at Tyndall on a sunny day.
All this talk about the footage gets me to the complaint that I'm sure you've already read about numerous times: the editing. The show is edited in a way that suggests the target demographic was probably zombified channel-flippers with no attention span (which are unfortunately the largest demographic). Camera angles change rapidly like news package B-roll footage and random pieces of dialog are emphasized with partial captions in large, bold typeset and goofy reverb effects. The editing tries too hard to be "hip" and keep the show's pacing up, but it accomplishes nothing more than annoying the viewer and maybe even insulting their intelligence a little bit at times.
Although all of the episodes are littered with at least some of this disappointing editing, it seems to cool down a bit after the first few episodes. The most disappointing thing to me about the editing is that the shots and scenes are all consistently short. I know that an average viewer without a passionate interest in aviation may find the show to drag if it focuses on a particular scene for too long, but I think the subject matter doesn't appeal much to the average kind of viewer in the first place, so the editing really just disappoints the kind of people who do actually want to watch the show. Of course, the goal of the producers was undoubtedly to maximize ratings and catch the interest of larger demographics, so I am not baffled by the editing decisions, but I still think it's a letdown for the kind of people who are likely to be the most interested in the show.
A lot of people claim the show was cancelled because of its editing style, but I disagree. Most major network reality TV shows have very similar editing, and it seems pretty clear the producers of American Fighter Pilot wanted to make it able to compete by giving it the reality TV style treatment. But I think the show was cancelled because, once again, the average viewer just isn't that interested in military aviation to begin with. There also isn't really much superficial drama to be found, which seems to be the major selling point of popular reality TV. It's a real shame that it was cancelled, but at least those of us who do care about what happened can now purchase this DVD set.
Anyway, if you can look past the editing, there is a definitely an entertaining program to be found. Although it is not the most in-depth look at military aviation training you could ever get, it does offer an interesting and informative perspective. I'd highly recommend this program to anyone who is at least moderately interested in military aviation.
I also felt the personal touch was very effective. American Fighter Pilot, examines the personal lives of three very distinct pilots in training and the impact it had upon them and their families. That personal touch added a depth to the story line which makes the viewer realize that behind all the bravado these are real people. Past the facade of a hotshot pilot is one who fears, loves deeply, and feels the intense pressures that come to those who put their lives on the line. American Fighter Pilot reflects proudly upon the distinguished heritage of all American Fighter Pilots. In the finest tradition, I proudly salute every pilot in our Armed Forces and say thank you for keeping America free.