Talk:The Aviator (2004 film)

The way of the future

In my opinion, this article about "The Aviator", the movie, has too much other details about Hughes' life (e.g. "inheritance", "Rice University"...) which are simply not covered in the movie itself. I think it would be much better if this article stuck about the facts of the movie itself, a review of it, and provide links to other excellent Hughes biography articles at Wikipedia and elsewhere. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.30.142.205 (talk) 18:23, 30 January 2005 (UTC)

But it isn't a review, its just a short summary of Howard Hughes. Considering that the film is a biopic, it's relevant. Xezbeth 18:25, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)

When I read the article, I had exactly the same reaction as the anon. The "short summary of Howard Hughes" is at Howard Hughes. The only reason for this article to include Hughes-related information that wasn't in the movie would be to comment on the omission, e.g., if it were thought useful to say, "The film ends before the period in Hughes's life when he moved to Las Vegas and had a major impact on the development of that city." (I wouldn't bother noting that particular omission, because the statement about the time period actually covered is adequate; I offer it only as an example.) JamesMLane 08:00, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I concur. Most of the subject matter of the article should be forklifted into Hughes' bio. —Joseph/N328KF (Talk) 15:46, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Reviews

Hello, I agree with the unsigned post, and think that external links to reviews should be added. I would like to add a review by MIM, but it seems that others do not want it because they don't agree with the politics. This is not a valid reason for removal. I don't always agree with what MIM writes, but I find their reviews of movies to be very unique and insightful. People can choose to read it or not, and they should be able to make up their own minds about MIM's review and not have opinions made for them by others. Only allowing "movie lore" reviews makes things plain vanilla, and I don't think this is a rule of WikiPedia. (Anonymous post by User:Mista-X) (I appologize for not signing that --Mista-X 03:49, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC) )

It's not the politics, it's the fact that it's completely unnecessary. There are many more significant reviews to list, but we don't list them because a list of every link related to every article would be incredibly long. --TheGrza 03:24, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

Who are you to say it is "unnecessary"? Let other people decide what reviews are worthwhile by adding them and reading them. There is no "incredibly long" list to speak of at this point, so your rational is simply speculation. If things start to get out of hand, which I doubt it will, then we should - IMO - come to a consensus on talk pages or something in order to decide what is notable and should be allowed. --Mista-X 03:48, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

A consensus has been reached, and you have breached it. --TheGrza 04:16, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

Care to point out this consensus? --Mista-X 04:21, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Blue Grass?

For anyone who has seen the film, throughout we see odd manipulation of colour, i.e. blue grass and orange flora. Although this is mentioned in the article is there a mre in-depth explanation?

Good eye! On the commentary track, Scorsese said because film was such a huge part of Hughes' life, he wanted the film stock he used to match the eras of his life. A good summary is here, and a detailed article is here. Specifically, in the early days of color film, they only shot in two colors instead of three (more details at Technicolor#Two-color_Technicolor), and those unusual colors you saw was characteristic of the limitations of that film stock. --Arcadian 21:24, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Famous names mentioned

I would like to question as to whether this section adds anything to the article. —Joseph/N328KF (Talk) 15:44, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Nixed. It amounts to nothing more than useless trivia. Wikipedia is not IMDb. —Joseph/N328KF (Talk) 03:48, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Bio

Much of this article covers biographical information which should be forklifted to Howard Hughes, restricting article content to movie-specific information. —Joseph/N328KF (Talk) 05:32, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Why the ref to historical liberties

Why does this article say "The film takes many historical liberties"? That's what fictional yarns do. Or does someone think this film is supposed to be a factual bio of Hughes? Moriori 08:01, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Umm...

I just saw this movie, and I thought it was great. But I have a couple questions about this article.

• Are these years accurate? Again, it seems like the article contributors are playing mix-n-match with facts from Hughes' life in order to make more sense of the movie. I dunno, that's probably a good thing, but only if these years and movie facts, etc are accurate.
• When Ava Gardner cleaned Howard up for the Senate hearing, at first I heard "Do it for me," but quickly decided that it was probably "You'd do it for me." That makes more sense to me, since Howard just finished thanking her for helping him. But maybe I'm wrong. Any responses?

--(Crnk Mnky) 65.13.21.153 04:14, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Most of it is fact, but it was all around stylized, otherwize it woldnt be half as interesting, or all around, would prove harder to film — Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.83.56.73 (talk) 15:16, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

A section on critical response?

It seems to me a section on the critical and popular response would be in order.Loodog 18:39, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Glenn Odekirk ('Ode')

Somebody should do a Wiki page on Glenn Odekirk, as he was an important figure in the movie and, he really did exist. I might try and do something myself if I find the time. However I know little about the man apart from the movie. --RobNS 22:48, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Problem With This Line

"Hepburn takes Hughes to meet her family in Connecticut, which turns into a disaster. When, over lunch, her mother tells him that "we don't care about money," he shoots back, "That's because you've always had it," in effect exposing the socialist-minded Hepburns as snobs and hypocrites."

It seems as though the editor who wrote this is attempting to imply that not only are the socialist minded Hepburns snobs and hypocrites that anyone who is a socialist is a snob and hypocrite. Leave the agenda at the door please. Le Gibbon (talk) 00:52, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

No, your logic's wrong. You would have a point if the sentence read "...exposing the socialists as snobs and hypocrites", but "socialist-minded" is just used as an adjective. He's implying that ALL THESE HEPBURNS are snobs and hypocrities, nothing more (not even ALL HEPBURNS, but only these ones who happen to be socialist-minded). What if a hypothetical sentence read as follows: "He proved that all the blue Martians were sneaky". This does not imply that all BLUE creatures are sneaky--not even that ALL Martians are sneaky--only that all blue Martians are sneaky. Wow it takes a lot of boring grammatic work to disprove this stuff. Why were you so paranoid about this? It's like you have to actively be looking for it or something...

But the line's been changed anyway. I think the original author included the "socialist-minded" in order to reference the fact that they're arguing over "money". I think this change is for the better anyway, because I'm not sure the "socialist" moniker isn't exactly correct. (Maybe adding an adjective like "old-money" would make more sense.) But looking at things objectively, there's absolutely nothing there in the original sentence that insinuates that ALL socialists are snobs. That's just a misreading by someone who seems to have something at stake. 78.86.140.151 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 02:39, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Although the dinner scene shows the family to be liberal the scene clearly shows the socialism, and communist comments to be tongue in cheek. It would be hypocritical to the point of delusional for a family of that wealth to consider themselves genuinely socialist. Hughes' (and or the movie maker"s)comment was more a criticism of their (the) disingenuous snobbery of pseudo intellectual, and pseudo liberal lifestyle. 98.164.66.166 (talk) 23:07, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

It appears that you responded to a concern from over ten years ago regarding a line which is no longer in the article. DonIago (talk) 14:02, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Evaluation of the present edit

The plot is considered a main section of a film article and does not require a lengthy plot synopsis which is more of a "spoiler" and is far too detailed. There is no production section and there are few citations or references other than movie sites. I am proposing a major re-write but will not do anything for the time being until other editors have a chance to comment. I have recently rewritten the following aviation film articles: Battle of Britain (film), Captains of the Clouds, The High and Mighty and The Right Stuff (film) which will give other editors a guide to the format I will employ. FWIW Bzuk (talk) 18:25, 18 February 2008 (UTC).

It's begun. Bzuk (talk) 01:35, 1 March 2008 (UTC).

Photos

The photos of Blanchett and Beckinsale do not render properly in Firefox, as they overlap the table of cast members. Chocolatechaos9508 (talk) 20:53, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

"Spruce Goose" models

Was the photo of the radio-controlled "Spruce Goose" nicked from the Aero Telemetry website ( http://www.aerotelemetry.com/ )? It looks like the same picture, slightly edited to remove the fuzzy border...or did Aero Telemetry steal it here to use on their site? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.238.167.215 (talk) 05:39, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

You know, you're right, I had originally used the photo with permission from the company in writing an article for a modelling magazine (actually an online newsletter). I had it grouped with a number of screenshots on my computer files and it is mislabeled as a screenshot. I will replace it with a true screenshot or use a different image description but I will have to find the original release. Thanks for the "heads-up." FWiW Bzuk (talk) 20:37, 21 April 2008 (UTC).

Commercial for New Deal Studios?

Way too many external links to New Deal Studios, need to cut down on those. Ulflarsen (talk) 21:46, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Fact vs Fiction

With all the comments about Hughes info in the article that wasn't in the movie and questions about the authenticity of some of the scenes, I think it might be appropriate to create a "Historical Accuracy" section where select topics of Hughes' life which were omitted from the film could be mentioned as well as where the film's "historical liberties" could be expounded upon. I've seen similar sections in other movie articles, I'd like to see it here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Puf the majic dragon (talk • contribs) 08:37, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. One obviously implausible scene is Katherine Hepburn behind the door with Hughes watching films barely clothed. Hepburn and Hughes split in 1938, and according to the article the earliest mention of Hughes' unusual film-watching habits times this to 1958, 20 years later. The film is meant to be biographical, talking about actual people and actual events, but taking lots of liberties in the name of film-making. This should be made far more clear in this article, which gives the impression that the film depicts actual reality and not an imaginary parallel universe. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.253.248.32 (talk) 14:31, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

“begins hallucinating men in germ-resistant suits”?

Where do we gather that in the final scene Hughes “begins hallucinating men in germ-resistant suits”? We only see he looking worried at some waiters coming towards his general direction. I'm incline to correct that. Goochelaar (talk) 23:07, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Based on a book?

The article says that the film was based on Howard Hughes: The Secret Life by Charles Higham. However, the film was made under Writers Guild of America jurisdiction, and Higham did not have a "based on" credit for the film; the only writing credit was "Written by John Logan". (See [1].) Higham was alive at the time the film was made, and if he had been entitled to a "based on" credit, I assume he would have sought one. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 00:28, 16 March 2021 (UTC)