Ford v Ferrari (Le Mans '66)

[The359]

(I don't think we had a thread for this...)

Saw an early premiere of this last night, thought it was good, had a few nitpicky thoughts as well though. Curious about other people's thoughts as I digest it more.

[dodint]

Obnoxious Old White Guy Descends On Local Movie Theater To Ruin ‘Ford v Ferrari’ For Everyone Just Wanting Some Cheap Entertainment


Date: November 11, 2019

GREEN BAY, Wisconsin- Sitting in a theater at the Bay Park Cinema waiting for the trailers before Ford v Ferrari to end, obnoxious old white guy Dale Norris was happy to let everyone around him know there will be plenty of technical errors and historical inaccuracies throughout the movie’s two and a half hour run time that he will likely point out. “Everyone in this theater has probably never even heard of Carroll Shelby, and a couple kids two aisles up said they are just here because Jason Bourne and Batman made a movie together. Just wait until I point out the engine in the test mule should be the 289 and not the 302 the movie used. That will shut them up and take any joy out of this,” said Norris, who planned on shaking his head and mumbling out loud every single time the movie did not get every meaningless detail correct. “In the trailer Christian Bale is wearing a black pair of shoes, but in real life Ken Miles only ever wore shoes that could best be described as a shade of hickory. If they can’t get stuff like that right, then imagine how many other mistakes I will have to critique out loud for two and a half hours.”

One man three seats over from Norris had already warned his wife they might have to move after spotting a glimpse of the Gulf branded shirt Norris was wearing.

https://theluggnutt.com/2019/11/11/obnoxious-old-white-guy-descends-on-local-movie-theater-to-ruin-ford-v-ferrari-for-everyone-just-wanting-some-cheap-entertainment/

[The359]

Those sorts of details I knew were wrong (California Speedway looks nothing like Daytona), but more some of the added drama and alterations to the story.

[dodint]

;)

Like in Rush, where every racetrack looked an awful lot like Brands Hatch.

[Rare White Ape]

And like in Days of Thunder.

How many people were actually able to go four-wide around Talledega?

[The359]

I actually went with some friends from the Philly car club who know only the basics of the story, so I could only say so much because I didn't really want to "spoil" it for them. So to them, they all said the racing scenes were intense. Personally, I thought the racing scenes in Rush were far better and more realistic than the ones in this film.

[dodint]

Ash, my Dad, and I are going on Saturday afternoon. He's pretty stoked, knows the history and is a big Ford fan.

[Phil_SS]

I do want to see it but if they get shit wrong I will be annoyed. Cause it isn't hard to get it right.

[The359]

I think the director doesn't quite know how a gearbox works.

[JoeW]

I don't think any director knows how a gearbox works. Apparently every car has at least 30 gears. And every shift needs to be followed by flooring the accelerator.

[The359]

That really isn't as much of a problem, it's more of "I'm redlining in top gear, let me shift down a gear, raise the RPMs by a few hundred, and suddenly start accelerating"

[Crazed_Insanity]

:lol:

Well, that's indeed how regular folks do it to accelerate... so director probably has *some* knowledge about that..., just that he doesn't know it's no longer applicable when you've already reached top speed!

Considering that we are now selling more EVs than cars with manual tranny, we can't expect too much. Give the movie makers some creative freedom for dramatic effects I guess. ;)

[JoeW]

Of course most millennials and younger will be wondering why they keep moving the lever from Drive to Reverse to Park to Drive while going 150mph. And what the hell is that extra pedal for?

[IMOA]

We’re going on Monday :) I’m looking forward to a few hours of car oriented entertainment and a continuation of the conversion of the girlfriend into a car person.

[dodint]

It was good, imo.

[Godson]

I enjoyed it. My biggest beef with it was the car motions were a bit ...off, but it is made by people who don't understand racing. The braking points were KILLING me though.

[Yobbo NZ]

Any mention on Bruce McLarens' involvement on helping develop the car? Or was that written out of history to be more Team America!

[Godson]

McLaren wasn't mentioned much. He was there, but more about Ken Miles and Shelby.

[dodint]

They acknowledged the British development by unloading the car from the plane and announcing it as trash before Ken could fix it. ;)

[The359]

McLaren was just a driver at Le Mans, and Holman & Moody became antagonists for the Daytona sequence. I wish they had mentioned that Ferrari was also at Daytona, but I think they wanted to set it up for the big finale.

Agreed on the motion of the cars, too often you'd see people stepping on the brakes as they start turning, or accelerating through a corner.

The the movie actually became more Miles & Shelby v Ford than it was Ford v Ferrari.

[dodint]

I wrote on another forum that it should've been called "Ford v. Shelby" because once Enzo kicked them out of Italy Ferrari was an afterthought for the rest of the movie. I don't think they did a good enough job of building them up as a villain since they were not in the second act at all.

[The359]

Agreed, and having Miles suddenly have a hatred for one of the Italians once they got to Le Mans seemed cheesy.

[Kchrpm]

I'm glad that Ferrari wasn't the villain, that it was the corporate asked at Ford. Just like now!

[Godson]

Yeah, it was more about the struggles of Shelby and Miles v Ford than anything. But truth be told. We all know the main story anyways.

[IMOA]

We enjoyed the movie, there's certainly things you could nitpic but its great story and a movie that you can take non car people to and they'll enjoy it. Definitely worth seeing at the theatre.

[Alan P]

I enjoyed it, my 18 year old who has no knowledge of the events in the slightest also enjoyed it too. Can't say fairer than that!

[SportWagon]

http://gtxforums.net/showthread.php?97-What-are-you-watching&p=135896&viewfull=1#post135896
http://gtxforums.net/showthread.php?97-What-are-you-watching&p=135911&viewfull=1#post135911
http://gtxforums.net/showthread.php?97-What-are-you-watching&p=137065&viewfull=1#post137065

[Phil_SS]

i thought it was very well done. As others have said, there are things to nitpick as a car guy and someone who knows the story intimately but as far as stories converted by Hollywood I thought it was great.

And I think that was really from the very first scene. Which just grabbed a hold of me and sucked me in. As others have said, it was great to see in a theater. :up: :up: Two huge thumbs up.

[SkylineObsession]

Me and wifey watched it this morning, and really enjoyed it. :)

Only things to nitpick are the same EVERY bloody car movie does;
- cars with 50,000 gears (and the accelerator pedal pushing further downing thing).
- car sounds (including gear changing sounds) around corners were off, they used sounds from flooring it down straights not taking off from corners sometimes
- speed differences. Maybe it did actually fly past some cars, but some scenes the car in focus catches up to the car ahead quickly even when not in its draft, but then in the close up shot of it passing its going slower, then faster again as it passes
- car was/cars were sped up sometimes (like in one of the testing sequences with the white GT40)

Other than the normal complaints above, it was great. Loved the back and forth duelling between the Ford suits, Shelby and Enzo - rooting for the good guy type of thing.

[Rare White Ape]

Don’t spoil it for me, I don’t want to find out if Ford wins before seeing the movie.

[Cam]

Saw it tonight. I quite enjoyed it. Great screen presence from the actors. The nitpicky things you guys are mentioning did not really bother me. Let it go, guys. It's entertainment! ;)

[neanderthal]

I thought the extra thousand rpm being 1960s vtec/ nawsss yo was kinda lame.

[Alan P]

I thought the extra thousand rpm being 1960s vtec/ nawsss yo was kinda lame.

And then being flat out balls to the wall along Mulsanne. And somehow managing to increase speed. Or accelerating into a corner.

[2ndMoparMan]

or braking THAT late into Arnage in those cars. Also, apperantly Road Atlanta is also Le Mans. REALLY damn hard to hide Georgia red clay.

[JoeW]

Well at least they went to a real race track.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Should've CGIed the real authentic track!!! :hard:

[JoeW]

Just shot all the footage from using Gran Turismo, PCars etc...

[Cam]

:lol:

[IMOA]

I thought the extra thousand rpm being 1960s vtec/ nawsss yo was kinda lame.

It was however basically historically correct. The factory cars were held to 6000rpm and they used more revs in the shelby car (ok, there was no running out with a sign and Miles won comfortably but the 6000rpm thing was in fact a thing)

[Freude am Fahren]

Yeah, I don't have a problem with the imposed 6k limit and then having a driver exceed that and be faster.

But like most racing movies, the idea that along a straight, you can either a) press harder on the accelerator or b) shift down to gain on a foe is just stupid. You'd already be at full throttle, and probably past the rev-limit of a lower gear unless you were REALLY babying it.

I also had a bit of an issue with the odd forced but oddly unexplained conflict between miles and the Ferrari driver. This really feels like a case of a cutting room floor scene that would have given weight to the seemingly random antagonist. We'll see when deleted scenes are released.

Overall though, great movie. The scene of Shelby visiting the family of Miles after the crash was pretty heart wrenching (no pun intended. Seriously, I typed it out and then realized).

At the end though, it became clear that the true antagonist of this story was Ford itself, not Ferrari.

[The359]

The one that really made me cringe was when Miles decides to back off while driving down Mulsanne, and instead of slowing down he just down shifted. Like, how does that one make sense.

[neanderthal]

It was however basically historically correct. The factory cars were held to 6000rpm and they used more revs in the shelby car (ok, there was no running out with a sign and Miles won comfortably but the 6000rpm thing was in fact a thing)

I don't disbelieve that. I just wish they'd developed that part of the story more so we could see why the factory was limited to 6k rpm and why the Shelbys could do 7k rpm. I don't remember seeing them do any engine development in the movie.

[Kchrpm]

The factory cars were limited to 6k presumably just to be more reliable. Not because the cars couldn't do 7k repeatedly, but that Ford didn't trust the cars/drivers with it for the whole race, and Shelby did.

[Godson]

Shelby also rebuilt all the engines to what he wanted IIRC

[speedpimp]

Saw the movie this afternoon and enjoyed it, although Leo Beebe comes off as a complete twat.

[JoeW]

I watched The 24hr War on Netflix. Excellent documentary with lots of great interviews etc.

Now I just finished Shelby American on Netflix as well. Done by the same people as the aforementioned documentary. Both docs are fantastic.