The final part of Steven Spielberg's tribute to the liberators of Europe and Asia feels impressive and grand. So is Masters of the Air also a full-fledged successor to the other two parts? When viewing the last part of the trio you cannot avoid a comparison. Can Masters of the Air compete with Band of Brothers and Pacific? In all honesty, BoB remains head and shoulders above his two brothers.
The magic word is aloofness. From the very first part, BoB gives you the feeling that you have known this small group of men for a long time. The atmosphere that the story and the actors manage to evoke in the viewer is of a rare high level. You feel personally involved. The storyline is logical and realistic and is historically sound. Not only do you know intellectually that this really happened, it also feels like that.
You share, as it were, the misery and the struggle with the guys who liberated Europe on the ground. I had difficulty conjuring up that feeling with Pacific and Masters of the Air. In the Pacific the battlefield consisted of distant seas and unknown islands. The Japanese fought completely differently from the Germans and that is apparently more difficult to film in a fascinating way. The boredom that the soldiers suffered from, and the heat and other discomforts, also felt different from the misery on the muddy European battlefields. The bond with the characters in the tropical heat just doesn't come out as well.
The same thing happened at Masters of the Air, but for a different reason. The characters are unrecognizable half the time because of their masks. That makes it more difficult to commit to the people. In addition, it has been unclear for quite some time whose story exactly is being told. The enormous scale on which the air battles take place also creates a certain distance. It may feel epic and majestic, but rarely personal.
MotA relies on the moments when the characters have their feet on the ground. Or the moments when they have to make terrible decisions in the plane. Then it feels personal, human. In the rest of the scenes, the planes are the stars. The opponent is barely in the picture and that also gives it a somewhat clinical feeling.
Does that make MotA a bad series? Absolutely not. This is certainly an incredibly well-crafted series that is well worth watching. This certainly applies to those interested in this aspect of the fight against Hitler's Germany. The acting is also well done. But it's not quite a new Band of Brothers.
About the writer, Karzal
Mike (1995) has been a member of MySeries since 2016 and is mainly active on the English version of the site. Since 2018, he has been actively translating news articles, columns, reviews and basically everything that ends up on the Dutch site. The original articles, columns and reviews were actually written by others. During the week Mike can be found at IKEA, where he is a national systems specialist and occasionally also in the classroom to teach an English lesson. In addition, Mike logically enjoys watching series and has actually been spoon-fed this from an early age. The genre doesn't matter, there is a place for everything in the otherwise busy life.
