Sully

[Guy Profumo]

I can see why the NTSB were annoyed about this.

From the off it makes them out as determined to pin blame and accusing the captain of having made the wrong decision, rather than investigating the incident.

Very poor scripting.

[Hot Pepsi]

Sully

I agree. If I didn't know any better, I'd think the director, Clint Eastwood, were trying to tell America that the government just wants to strangle the life out of everyday white American heroes. Like he's some kind of right-wing kook.

Oh wait...

I still liked it though. Thought it depicted the events well.

I don't get why, in 2016, we can't goose-proof airplanes.

[San Bernardhinault]

Sully

Watched it on demand a few days ago and was desperately underwhelmed.

Basically, not a lot happens, and most of the foreshadowing is of things that aren't problems ("Have you been drinking?", "problems at home?", etc). And, of course, the whole NTSB thing - which makes up the bulk of the film - seems to have been invented to try and create a story when there wasn't one.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Sully

Guy Profumo wrote: Very poor scripting.

Sorry, but how so?

There's a case to be made that the story is too thin to merit a feature film, which is not unreasonable. And that the writers had to ramp up the dramatic tension to get ninety minutes out of it.

But you're not saying that, you're saying it's 'poorly scripted'. How would you have written the screenplay?

It's actually not clear whether you've watched the film at all. I thought it was a solid piece of work, if nothing else.

[Guy Profumo]

Sully

Stumpy Pepys wrote:

Very poor scripting.

Sorry, but how so?

There's a case to be made that the story is too thin to merit a feature film, which is not unreasonable. And that the writers had to ramp up the dramatic tension to get ninety minutes out of it.

But you're not saying that, you're saying it's 'poorly scripted'. How would you have written the screenplay?

It's actually not clear whether you've watched the film at all. I thought it was a solid piece of work, if nothing else.

An agenda which sets out to demonise the board of enquiry.

And the writers of this screenplay should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for it.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Sully

Guy Profumo wrote:
An agenda which sets out to demonise the board of enquiry.

And the writers of this screenplay should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for it.

The main source for the screenplay was Sully's autobiography, was it not?

You haven't seen this film have you?

[WOM]

Sully

Well, I haven't seen it either, but there's been enough written [elsewhere] about the liberties taken with the board of inquiry stuff. It was, apparently, made out to be far more adversarial in the film than it was in real life. Obviously this was done to give a relatively thin story some dramatic tension. That's fine if it's, you know, Ice Road Truckers or something (oooh....will they fall through the ice....). But in the case of JFK or Sully or whatever, misrepresenting an historical account to enhance the drama is a bit troubling.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Sully

WOM wrote: But in the case of JFK or Sully or whatever, misrepresenting an historical account to enhance the drama is a bit troubling.

But the same case can be made against any biography and any film based on a biography, if you believe they're fundamentally unreliable.

[WOM]

Sully

I dunno. You can tell a good story of (to be au courant) the Manson murders without any creative embellishment because there's a reasonable timeline for dramatic tension. But drawing out a six or seven minute 'incident' into a compelling feature film is more difficult. Telling a good tale and telling it honestly shouldn't be mutually exclusive, but it sounds like it was with Sully.

[San Bernardhinault]

Sully

There wasn't a good tale, really. I don't think using the NTSB hearing as a way into the elements of the flight is a particularly bad storytelling device. It's just that they tried to create a post-crash drama when there wasn't one. They'd have been far better off using it to create more of the Sully (and co-pilot) back-story which would explain why he was capable of making that landing, rather than into a non-existent Feds on a Witchhunt tale.