Titreenp SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Micitype Pretty Good

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Isbel A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

SnoopyStyle Dieter Dengler was a child in Germany during WWII. His father died in the military. During an Allied air attack, he is in awe of the planes and determines that "Little Dieter Needs to Fly". Post-war Germany suffered severe shortages. He immigrates to America as an 18 year old. He joins the Air Force but ends up in the kitchen and the motorpool. He leaves for college and then the Navy. He finally gets the chance to fly. In 1966, Dieter flies his single-engine, propeller attack plane Skyraider into Laos and gets shot down. He is captured. Eventually, the prisoners break out of their jungle prison.Documentary filmmaker Werner Herzog uses his unconventional style to bring Dieter's story to life. Herzog's voice is ever present. He even brings Dieter back to the jungle and recreates his journey. It's a fascinating story but I'm not sure Herzog's style works to bring out the intensity. It has an awkward surrealism but fascinating nevertheless.

wandereramor Little Dieter Needs to Fly tells the story of Dieter Dengler, an Air Force pilot who was shot down in Vietnam and miraculously survived in the jungle for quite some time. In other hands this narrative could become maudlin, melodramatic, and jingoistic, but fortunately we have Werner Herzog and his trademark thickly-accented narration to remind us that all in life is futile. We have the perverse, hopeless landscape of a film like Lessons of Darkness, but Dieter's story gives us at least a mild hope of escaping that world. At times the power of the story and Dengler's matter-of-fact recounting of it overpowers Herzog's heavy stylizing, and a times they work together. It's a quite interesting dynamic.Some of the filming choices don't quite work -- take, for instance, the decision to have Dengler re-enact some aspects of his captivity with confused-looking Vietnamese villagers -- whereas others are downright moving -- the Mongolian throat-music, or the final shot of the field full of airplanes, suggesting how the government weaponizes and exploits the childish desire to fly. There are also times where one could accuse the film of being a simple "inspiring" survival story, but I think for the most part it rises above that genre while simultaneously serving as the best example of it.

bob the moo Dieter Dengler always wanted to fly planes – it was his childhood dream and an adult reality. This film spends time with him and traces his history from birth in Germany shortly before the war, his journey to America and specifically his time in Vietnam. Dengler returns to the jungle where his plane came down in 1966 and recalls his time as a prisoner of the Vietcong before his eventual escape.Although I have not always enjoyed every Herzog film I have seen but I have always found them interesting for one reason or another and thus I found myself watching this knowing nothing more than the fact that it was a Herzog film. Opening with the background to Dengler, the film soon moves into the recreation of his experiences in Vietnam and it is here that the background pays off. On one hand , the story is undeniably gripping and horrifying but of greater interest was the man himself and specifically how does he manage to deal with the things he has lived through? Herzog sits closely with Dengler and lets him talk, exposing his character as much as possible.Other reviewers have said that Herzog is hardly in the film but I agree with Terry Nienhius when he points out that Herzog is actually all over the film. He sits back and lets us focus on the subject but his work is all over the music and use of footage – it is really well done and produces a reflective mood that compliments the story and character. A good film but not one that can easily watched while doing something else as it requires attention. It is powerful and harrowing but yet confusing it its character complexity. It doesn't have all the answers of course but it is fascinating as a study of "Little Dieter".

42ndStreetMemories I had the opportunity to see this last evening at a local film festival. Herzog introduced the film and did an hour long Q&A afterward.This is a brilliantly done "documentary"; Herzog explained afterward that he does not consider his films to be true documentary since facts sometimes camouflage the truth. Instead he scripts some scenes and ad-libs some to introduce a new element that may have been missed if he followed the original story outline.Little Dieter, unlike Timothy Treadwell, is a real person that you fall in love with; you cheer for him, you feel the anguish that he feels. You admire the sense of humor and joy for life that he exhibited here 30 years after he was taken into captivity by the Viet Cong. You are disappointed to hear afterward that Dieter passed on not too long ago.As in most Herzog films, the imagery is breathtakingly beautiful with a wonderful choice of background music. Especially a scene of battle taken from archives of the Viet Nam war but fitting the story line of Dieter.The core of the film has Dieter return to the hellish jungle where he was a POW and he re-enacts his journey with some locals. Harrowing for us to watch, I can't imagine what he felt as he was bound again.One of the better films to depict and discuss the nightmare of the Viet Nam war. It should serve as a lesson to us all.