How did you all react to 'The scene'
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WyldeGoose — 13 years ago(August 10, 2012 09:01 PM)
That's a reasonable question. I always assumed that he was an engineer for Arabco Oil, and his model business was just a sideline. Didn't he mention that he built planes with his brother? I'd guess the toy plane business wasn't all that busy and/or profitable. So to make a living he had to take the job in the desert, leaving his brother to run things at home.
I know why, though, the writers went with Dorfmann being a model-maker. It spells things out for the audience in just the precise way they wanted.
If they had gone with one of my suggestions, being an aircraft mechanic or electrical guy or something, most people in the audience probably wouldn't understand the gravity of the situation. But being a model-maker spells things out: He designs toys, not the real thing. Saying if he were a mechanic would still put some belief in his ability in the minds of the audience. Both Towns and Moran would've fully understood the ramifications of him being a technical guy, but their concerns might not have had the same impact on the audience. To most non-technical people, being a car mechanic gives someone credibility for being able to build a car from scratch, and that is not an unreasonable assumption. -
Fingaroo — 13 years ago(August 24, 2012 06:14 AM)
I think the fact that Dorfmann is a designer rather than an actual airplane builder or mechanic also sets up the inevitable conflict with Townes. Townesrather bitterlysays something like: "Lou, the little men with the slide rules are going to inherit the earth." Townes is an old-school, seat-of-the-pants pilot and Dorfmann is the new wave of lab-coated pencil pushers. It's a theme that gets explored in-depth a few years later in
The Right Stuff
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boll-weavil — 13 years ago(February 16, 2013 01:04 PM)
This scene is the edge of madness because by this time in the film we will agree with everything just for them to have one shot at escape.I can feel the claustrophobia of them all cooped up with each other, each gradually going mad in their own way. By this time we don't really know where reality ends and that madness begins. So if Hardy Kruger tells us he can make a real plane in just the same way as a model one, does it matter if he's wrong ? Does it matter if his version of staying sane and trying to develop social graces looks the same as everyone elses lunacy ? The thing is to go on and make the plane and by the time you find out whether it won't fly, you'll be too dehydrated to care anyway.
As for the remakeits always the same Get Carter, The Time Machine, Planet of the Apes. Why remake something if you don't know what the ingredient was that made it popular in the first place. It's just an exercise in futility -
pgwodehouse11 — 13 years ago(January 10, 2013 10:40 PM)
always assumed that the models he designed were RC type model airplanes, not scale plastic models. If he designed RC type model airplanes he certainly wouldn't be out of his element building the real thing. They are basically just small versions of their big brothers.
Yes, they are. Dorfmann explains in this scene that the biggest model plane his company sells was not designed by him, because it's a glider. Then he goes on to brag that he designed the radio control in one of the models he personally designed. -
ebright99 — 13 years ago(March 08, 2013 11:54 AM)
Townes is an old-school, seat-of-the-pants pilot and Dorfmann is the new wave of lab-coated pencil pushers.
I like what you've said here. My reaction to "the scene" was pretty different than Stewart and Attenborough and most of you. I'm a modeler. I'm really in to model railroads but I have some experience with RC planes, gliders, cars and helicopters. I was surprised by Dorfmann's revelation that he was a builder of RC models and not full sized aircraft, but I immediately understood that the aeronautic principles of model aircraft and full sized aircraft are the same and that only the scale is different. Stewart and Attenborough immediately lose all faith in the guy, but I know model experience is just as good as full sized aircraft experience. I knew they were in good hands.
I don't have any prejudices against models. All aircraft designs start off as models. RC helicopters take just as much skill to fly as a real helicopter. -
sargon19552003 — 12 years ago(October 13, 2013 09:41 PM)
It was unfair and somewhat irrational for Stewart and Attenborough to dismiss what Dorfmann designed as "toys". Anyone who's ever watched model airplanes at air shows knows that they're hardly "toys" (ie a child's plaything). The aerodynamic principles are the same. Since Stewart's character was a seat-of-the-pants pilot who obviously knew nothing about aircraft design, he didn't understand that.
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hockeyhrs — 11 years ago(February 21, 2015 06:47 PM)
Dorfmann is quite right when he says that the principles-of-flight used in model airplanes are more or less identical to those used in full-scale airplanes.
Where they differ is in (a) the design and complexity of the avionics used to control them, and (b) the tools & methods of manufacture and test . . . . and these it would be ludicrous to assume that a model airplane designer would know.
Engineers are even more specialized than doctors, and not even the best of my peers (I'm an electrical engineer in military radar & electronic warfare) is as conversant in as many different technologies as Herr Dorfmann.
But the average cinema-goer doesn't know any of this, so the movie works beautifully for everyone, except the few engineers who can not muster the requisite amount of "suspension of disbelief".