Starfighter - you wanted to take the skies
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Starfighter - you wanted to take the skies |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 2015 |
| length | 124 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Miguel Alexandre |
| script |
Kit Hopkins , Thilo Röscheisen |
| production |
Michael Souvignier , Dominik Frankowski |
| music | Dirk Leupolz |
| camera | Jörg Widmer |
| cut | Ingo Recker |
| occupation | |
| |
Starfighter - They wanted to conquer the sky is a German television drama from 2015. Directed by Miguel Alexandre , the screenplay was written by Kit Hopkins and Thilo Röscheisen . The film deals with the Starfighter affair that took place in the mid-1960s. The use of technically inadequate combat aircraft led to numerous crashes and deaths.
action
Germany in the mid-1960s: the Bundeswehr equips itself with state-of-the-art F-104 “Starfighter” jets . The daring Harry Schäfer and his buddy Richie Weichert are the stars among the pilots. Both are fascinated by the fastest jets in the world. But after a short time, more and more pilots crash with the Starfighter. Most of the time, the accidents are officially attributed to human error.
Harry is also initially enthusiastic about the "Starfighter". Although he is the best pilot of the squadron, he is denied the post of squadron captain because he is denied the ability to lead a squadron. Nevertheless, he does not sit idly by as more and more of his comrades fall. He advocates improvements in the Starfighter's maintenance process. He neglects his wife more and more, even though she has just found out that she is pregnant. When Betti hears of another crash, she believes it hit Harry and collapses. She is hospitalized and loses the unborn child. Harry slowly has to choose between family and job. When he was already thinking of giving up his pilot job, he crashed in a starfighter and had a fatal accident.
Harry's widow Betti wants the crash cleared up. However, your efforts are in vain. On the contrary - everything is done to cover up the crashes. Then Betti and her best friend Helga Waldeck take up the fight against an alliance made up of politics, the military and business. They also receive support from Richie, who has since left the Air Force and now flies passenger jets as a civilian pilot. Betti is seeking a class action lawsuit in the United States against the aircraft manufacturer Lockheed . The Bundeswehr and the Ministry of Defense are doing everything in their power to prevent this, initially successfully. However, when the defense minister's son also dies in a “starfighter”, his widow and other women join the class action lawsuit. It comes to the comparison, in which Lockheed pays a million sum to the widows.
background
- The film is based on real events that occurred in the mid-1960s and went down in the history of the German Armed Forces as the Starfighter affair .
- At the end of June 2014, RTL announced that it would film the events together with “Zeitsprung Pictures”.
- The film was produced under the working title Witwenmacher between June 23 and August 17, 2014 in Berlin , Hopsten , Rheindahlen , Cologne , Stuttgart , Nürtingen and Neunburg vorm Wald . The film was shot on 38 days.
publication
Originally announced for March 29, 2015, the film was to be broadcast on April 2, 2015 in prime time on RTL. The documentary My husband was number 57 - Peter Kloeppel about the fate of the Starfighter widows was planned after the film .
After the crash of the Germanwings flight 9525 on March 24, 2015 in the French Alps , RTL initially postponed the film indefinitely. Frank Hoffmann , Managing Director of the RTL Television program, justified the decision by saying that "out of respect for the feelings of all those affected by the Germanwings accident (...) the broadcast of the film and the subsequent documentation will be postponed" because the film is "highly emotional" and "Through the pain of the bereaved and the questions that are still open today".
In September 2015, RTL announced that the film would be broadcast on November 12, 2015 at 8:15 p.m. and that Peter Kloeppel's Starfighter documentary would be broadcast afterwards.
The film was released on March 27, 2015 on DVD and Blu-ray .
reception
Audience rating
The first broadcast of Starfighter - You Wanted to Conquer the Sky on November 12, 2015 was seen by 3.28 million viewers in Germany and achieved a market share of 11.1% for RTL.
Reviews
“Director Miguel Alexandre has succeeded in preparing one of the biggest scandals in the armed Federal Republic for a wide audience. In doing so, he makes use of 'American' cinema virtues that appeal to all senses, and yet for two hours never loses sight of the plot or even the narrative balance. He neither sacrifices the dramaturgy for accuracy, nor do the facts stand in the way of the escalation. [...] In the package, the feature film and documentary result in a proud theme evening, which RTL can happily afford more often. "
“But RTL wouldn't be RTL if it weren't for artificial chewing gum entertainment full of clichés and bang effects in the bombardment of permanent sound cascades. [...] Nevertheless, this event movie differs from the usual RTL productions. There is credible empathy and passionate outrage about the criminal system of the Bavarian godfather Franz Josef Strauss . At that time, Strauss had not only sacrificed billions in taxpayers' money to the profit interests of the military-political complex, but also the lives of 116 pilots. "
Web links
- Starfighter - They wanted to conquer the sky in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Certificate of Release for Starfighter - You wanted to take the skies . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , February 2015 (PDF; test number: 150 106 V).
- ↑ Timo Nöthling: RTL event deals with the “Starfighter scandal”. Quotemeter.de , June 26, 2014, accessed on March 12, 2015 .
- ^ Karl-Heinz Probst: Starfighter over the Eixendorfer reservoir. In: Mittelbayerische Zeitung. November 11, 2015, accessed February 5, 2018 .
- ↑ Crew-united: Starfighter - They wanted to conquer the sky (2014-2015). Crew-united .com, accessed March 12, 2015 .
- ↑ Sidney Schering: The “Starfighter” fly over RTL standards. Quotemeter.de, February 19, 2015, accessed on November 12, 2015 .
- ↑ Manuel Weis: RTL postpones "Starfighter" film. Quotemeter.de, March 26, 2015, accessed on March 29, 2015 .
- ↑ http://www.dwdl.de/nachrichten/52651/rtl_holt_starfighterdrama_im_november_nach/
- ↑ Kevin Kyburz: Primetime check: Thursday, November 12th, 2015.quotemeter.de , November 13th, 2015, accessed on November 13th, 2015 .
- ↑ Arno Frank: The nightmare of flying. Spiegel Online, November 12, 2015, accessed on November 12, 2015 : “With“ Starfighter - You Wanted to Conquer the Sky ”, RTL is reopening the scandal surrounding the Luftwaffe's“ widow maker ”. And actually puts the widows at the center. "
- ↑ Jan Friday: The aircraft of the FJS. Die Zeit, November 12, 2015, accessed on November 12, 2015 .