44 replies to this topic

[Loosenut]

So Netflix are going to do a series about Ayrton Senna.
https://about.netfli...about-the-world

 

This actor looks nothing like him, could possibly play Juan Pablo Montoya. Ironically, Netflix made a series (albeit Spanish) with an actor who looks amazingly like Ayrton.

https://forums.autos...rged/?p=8863626

 

Anyway, I guess it's how good he portrays the charachter that's more important. We're all gonna watch it aren't we?

For some reason, I thought his family were always against the idea of a movie/series?

Edited by Loosenut, 23 March 2023 - 01:11.

[CoolBreeze]

Probably gonna be another overdramatized BS. 

 

The Schumacher documentary, was really badly done, and lazily done, IMO. 

[messy]

Sounds absolutely horrible.

[jcbc3]

yeah, count me out.

[CSF]

No doubt more attempts to create saint Ayrton. 

[B Squared]

Is this the "Mr. Senna" chosen to star? He's a bit bound up on the choice.

[Loosenut]

I saw the Senna docu movie. Whilst most of it was very good, the way it portrayed Alain Prost was unforgivable.

They explained it like "we're looking at it from Ayrton's perspective", but to anyone watching that movie and not seeing that review, Prost was a bad guy. I would imagine Ayrton would not like that either.

 

I'm not sure you can over exaggerate the Senna/Prost story, but I expect Netflix to give it a damn good try.

 

Rush II, I'd like to see it told like that.

[Claudius]

Probably gonna be another overdramatized BS. 

 

The Schumacher documentary, was really badly done, and lazily done, IMO. 

 

IMO the Schumacher documentary was just that, a documentary. 

Better than DTS and other similair shows. 

[LolaB0860]

Pass

 

Again

[Brod]

I'm not the biggest Senna fan. On the one hand I adore him, because he is one of the greatest drivers of all time and very special, on the other hand, I hate the hype....I tend to love the undercooked all time greats like Clark and Alonso....

 

...but...if you are doing a movie about Senna...just do a documentary. It's the only way to catch his spark. 

 

And also...fu** Netflix when it comes to F1. 

Edited by Brod, 23 March 2023 - 23:49.

[Collombin]

I hate the hype....I tend to love the undercooked all time greats like Clark and Alonso....

This has to be sarcasm, and yet I don't think it was meant to be.

Clark seems to be the only pre-1980s driver some people here have ever even heard of, and Alonso gets way more hype for lack of success than if he had been hoovering up titles in a Merc or RB rocketship.

[AustinF1]

Probably gonna be another overdramatized BS. 

 

The Schumacher documentary, was really badly done, and lazily done, IMO. 

The Senna doc was pretty over the top and one-sided, too.

[LolaB0860]

I don't think I've ever seen a truly great motorsport documentary

Even Truth in 24 ignored everything that wasn't Audi vs Peugeot which was bit annoying

[southernstars]

Probably gonna be another overdramatized BS. 

 

The Schumacher documentary, was really badly done, and lazily done, IMO. 

 

I thought the Schumacher documentary was a nice job at trying to take a closer look at the man, rather than the driver, which is fine; they also addressed (to some degree) his faults, which immediately puts it well ahead of the Senna documentary.

 

The Senna documentary was terrible in its demonisation of Prost, and if the family have given the permissions for this to be made I fear it will be more of the same.

[Collombin]

I don't think I've ever seen a truly great motorsport documentary

Dreadfully misleading title aside, Ferrari: Race to Immortality is wonderful, but it really only covers the late 1950s. Some jaw dropping period footage that looks as good as new.

[Masterfail]

 Great. I can't wait to see how many episodes they'll spend making Prost the scheming villain while portraying Senna as the naive, politically uninvolved driver who's all about racing.

[as65p]

Can't see this becoming anything than a most cringeworthy thing... maybe they'll cancel it before it airs, Netflix and the other streamers re big on that recently. Fingers crossed...

 

As for the Senna docu, too me it's not so much how dark they portrayed Prost but how they avoided showing Sennas similar sides. As JB would express it "where is the balance?"

[jonpollak]

As with most all racing documentaries..I will give it a chance.

 

Jackie Stewart was excellent.

Lucky was fantastic.

Villeneuve and Pironi are on deck for next week's viewing.

 

Interesting that poeple here are so swift to diminish or deride before making the effort to sit on their asses and watch.

 

Jp

[B Squared]

Interesting that poeple here are so swift to diminish or deride before making the effort to sit on their asses and watch.
Jp

It seems as if a lot of people on racing forums really don't enjoy the racing that much.

[potmotr]

No doubt more attempts to create saint Ayrton. 

 

Yes, this would be my fear too.

 

I remember the Senna years when they happened, particularly 89 to 94, and he was very much the bad guy, in the British press at least! 

[AustinF1]

I'll give it a chance. Who knows, maybe they'll approach it more realistically and with less bias than the Senna doc. I've seen one episode so far of Lucky, and it's amazing. And there are some other good motorsport docs out there, too. At least I liked 'em. Off the top of my head ...

 

Dust to Glory (Baja)

On Any Sunday (70s motocross)

TT: Closer to the Edge

The 24 Hour War

1: Life on the Limit

Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans (about the making of 'LeMans', and more.

[jonpollak]

On Any Sunday (70s motocross)

Oh I can’t believe you’ve mentioned this !!!!

In the early 70’s many of us kids in LA would search out dirt lots and fashion motocross tracks out of them for our customized Schwinn Stingrays. One of these empty dirt lots was next door to Petersen Publishing building on Ventura Blvd in Sherman Oaks. We had all these jumps and berms and banked corners built within a weekend.

Monday afternoon was a school holiday so we all rode to the lot after a hamburger at Orange Julius near St. Cyril Catholic school.

After about half an hour a photographer came down from the high rise building and started taking pictures of us. A week later on the back page of DirtBike magazine there we were !!!
A full page of photos and a short article about the industrious kids of So Cal and their bikes made to act like Motocross cycles.

I showed my Dad, as I was beaming pride, he said. Wow.. looks like fun, don’t get hurt.

2 weeks later a 3 camera shoot appeared at another of our dirt lot venues in a place called Tarzana and the next thing we knew was…

We were the opening titles for On Any Sunday.

The kid with the White Tee Shirt, about to land off the big jump awkwardly, is me.

https://youtu.be/4H9xfKW0zJE?t=152

So YES, me and my pals invented BMX.

Jp

Edited by jonpollak, 25 March 2023 - 18:28.

[AustinF1]

Oh I can’t believe you’ve mentioned this !!!!

In the early 70’s many of us kids in LA would search out dirt lots and fashion motocross tracks out of them for our customized Schwinn Stingrays. One of these empty dirt lots was next door to Petersen Publishing on Ventura Blvd in Sherman Oaks. We had all these jumps and berms and banked corners built within a weekend.

Monday afternoon was a school holiday so we all rode to the lot after a hamburger at Orange Julius near St Cyrils Catholic school.

After about half an hour a photographer came down from the high rise building and started taking pictures of us. A week later on the back page of DirtBike magazine there we were !!!
A full page of photos and a short article about the industrious kids of So Cal and their bikes made to act like Motocross cycles.

I showed my Dad, as I was beaming pride, he said. Wow.. looks like fun, don’t get hurt.

2 weeks later a 3 camera shoot appeared at another of our dirt lot venues in a place called Tarzana and the next thing we knew was…

We were the opening titles for On Any Sunday.

The kid with the White Tee Shirt, about to land off the big jump awkwardly, is me.

Start at 2:34
https://youtu.be/4H9xfKW0zJE

So YES, me and my pals invented BMX.

Jp

Nice. LOL, yeah. I always joke that my Dad invented the mountain bike back then. He saw how I rode my Stingray off in the dirt trails with jumps etc (along the east Texas petroleum pipelines where the dirt bike guys would ride), He took my bike, removed the banana seat, added a saddle seat, put on some fat knobby tires, and added low-rise handlebars.

 

Voila. A hardtail single-speed fixie MTB. Suck it, Gary Fisher. Pretty soon all my buddies were doing the same. My Dad was a f'ing genius mechanically.

Edited by AustinF1, 25 March 2023 - 03:27.

[Ferrim]

I saw the Senna docu movie. Whilst most of it was very good, the way it portrayed Alain Prost was unforgivable.
They explained it like "we're looking at it from Ayrton's perspective", but to anyone watching that movie and not seeing that review, Prost was a bad guy. I would imagine Ayrton would not like that either.

It was quite better if you watched the "talking heads" version. Where Prost got plenty of space to put across his view. It didn't work so well as a movie, but it was more balanced.

[jonpollak]

Here's a doc for the ages...
At the same time as BMX was born....
Jackie was tearing up the charts !!!

Weekend of a Champion
Monaco 1971

Edited by jonpollak, 25 March 2023 - 01:10.

[as65p]

Yes, this would be my fear too.

 

I remember the Senna years when they happened, particularly 89 to 94, and he was very much the bad guy, in the British press at least! 

Exactly. And in certain circles that still echos back... back then it was the crazy irreponsible latin vs. our cultivated, anglophile "thinking-mans-driver" dear Alain, and nowadays it's poor innocent Alain being portrayed in such a bad light in a wannabe docu...

 

But hey, it could still be worse. Prost is not Pironi, after all.

[potmotr]

Exactly. And in certain circles that still echos back... back then it was the crazy irreponsible latin vs. our cultivated, anglophile "thinking-mans-driver" dear Alain, and nowadays it's poor innocent Alain being portrayed in such a bad light in a wannabe docu...

 

But hey, it could still be worse. Prost is not Pironi, after all.

 

Yes, from memory Senna was portrayed back then as a fanatical religious nutter with a messiah complex who took himself extremely seriously and had no sense of humour... 

[jcbc3]

Funny how memories differ. Maybe we were reading different magazines back then.

[krea]

Yes, from memory Senna was portrayed back then as a fanatical religious nutter with a messiah complex who took himself extremely seriously and had no sense of humour... 

 

I mean Senna had that hypocritical mindset of an overly religious person - instead of not doing all those things his religious beliefs should not let him do - they actually gave him justification or an easy way out of redemption. 

Edited by krea, 25 March 2023 - 18:38.

[Brod]

This has to be sarcasm, and yet I don't think it was meant to be.

Clark seems to be the only pre-1980s driver some people here have ever even heard of, and Alonso gets way more hype for lack of success than if he had been hoovering up titles in a Merc or RB rocketship.

 

No it's not sarcasm. You might be able to remember some random dude called Fangio. And if we go pre-80 most modern F1-Fans might be able to name Stewart and Lauda, but not Clark because of their presence after their retirement. 

 

But I was not even talking about a popularity contest alone. I easily rate Clark above Stewart and Lauda or even Fangio (well I consider him the Greatest of ll time, maybe). The same with Alonso. Most would rank Alonso below Hamilton (and soon also below Ves) but there is really nothing but Stats speaking against Alonso. 

 

But was not here to discuss Rankings of things that are impossible to rank..and I for sure wasn't being sarcastic. Just because there are some Jim Clark fans on this board (a board full of F1 nerds) doesn't mean je can't be undercooked as an all time great. He clearly is...he should be praised constantly on the level of Fangio, Senna and Schumacher....and he clearly isn't even though of course most pundits would call him a legend, because he is. So is Alonso. 

[Dunc]

Dreadfully misleading title aside, Ferrari: Race to Immortality is wonderful, but it really only covers the late 1950s. Some jaw dropping period footage that looks as good as new.

I love this one. It really gives you a feel for the era and tells the story very fairly.

 

The McLaren doc is pretty good - as much about NZ as it is Bruce himself. The trilogy on Clark, Hill and Stewart which ran on BBC Four in the early 2010s were also well done. If you don't mind the slightly weird filming, there's a good one on Fangio in Spanish and English available on Netflix too.

 

The Senna doc was enjoyable but I agree with the point about Prost, suited the need to have an antagonist I guess. I would love to see a proper doc on Prost himself actually and his complicated relationships with Arnoux, Renault, Senna, Mansell, Ferrari, etc. He did seem to get involved in a lot of disputes.

[MLC]

So Netflix are going to do a series about Ayrton Senna.
https://about.netfli...about-the-world

 

This actor looks nothing like him, could possibly play Juan Pablo Montoya. Ironically, Netflix made a series (albeit Spanish) with an actor who looks amazingly like Ayrton.

https://forums.autos...rged/?p=8863626

 

Anyway, I guess it's how good he portrays the charachter that's more important. We're all gonna watch it aren't we?

For some reason, I thought his family were always against the idea of a movie/series?

Has anyone seen the movie The Pale Blue Eye with Christian Bale. The actor who portrays Edgar Allen Poe (Harry Melling) would make a great Prost. I kept getting distracted during the movie thinking he could easily play an early 80s Prost.

[potmotr]

I would love to see a proper doc on Prost himself actually and his complicated relationships with Arnoux, Renault, Senna, Mansell, Ferrari, etc. He did seem to get involved in a lot of disputes.

 

I'd love to see this too, but you've missed a few from the complicated relationship list. I'd add: Ron Dennis, Jean Alesi (when employed by Prost GP), Ferrari (as an engine supplier to Prost), Alpine...  

Edited by potmotr, 27 March 2023 - 16:30.

[Collombin]

I don't imagine he and Laffite are best friends any more either.......

[potmotr]

I don't imagine he and Laffite are best friends any more either.......

 

The private lives of French F1 drivers in the 1980s seem... very complicated!  

[KWSN - DSM]

The private lives of French F1 drivers in the 1980s seem... very complicated!  

 

In general one should not generalize, but... The French have a very un-american, and relatively un-everything but French in regard relationships, having a lover is possibly no longer as normal as it used to be, but it used to be much more normal than most other countries.

 

[Paraphrase]

President Mitterrand when as asked by a US Journalist "do you have a daughter with a your mistress?" "Yes so what?"

[/Paraphrase]

 

This may be urban myth.

[Anuity]

I find it very difficult to judge something without having seen it.

 

Although it seems to be normal nowadays.

 

Senna's movie was entertaining actually. Schumacher's documentary was quite flat and uninspiring to me as a fan of him.

[Flyhigh]

I prefer documentaries when it comes to sports, racing than acting. Having said that I believe Senna story has been told enough out there, even though I am Brazilian and love his figure as a sportsman. The documentary about him was pretty good as was the recent Bernie Ecclestone lucky documentary I just watched recently and highly recommend. 

Schumacher´s documentary was ok, it started well as if it was going to go into lots of details, etc. But it basically just marched over the 5-8 most interesting years of his racing life.

[jonpollak]

I find it very difficult to judge something without having seen it.
.

Here’s someone I relate to.
More YOU.. less them please.
Jp

[Flyhigh]

Prost was pretty easy to antagonize in his day, regardless of being from Senna point of view or not, from the Jean Maries Ballestre connection to obvious deliberate crash in 1989 Japan, heck even, the teddy bear Mansell had plenty of antagonizing words to say about Prost over the years as not a very straight competitor and sneaky guy. Of course, a documentary which will exploit even more drama antagonism against the "main guy" will use that. 

Prost never been a "bad guy" perse, but a sneaky kind of guy/competitor and not the usual hero or alpha sportsman personality.    

 

[jonpollak]

A cheap and cheerfull You Tube documentary on Peter Revson.

Some really cool footage...

 

Hope you can enjoy it.

 

SPOILER !!!

 

 

Jp

Edited by jonpollak, 27 March 2023 - 22:54.

[F1 Mike]

Prost was pretty easy to antagonize in his day, regardless of being from Senna point of view or not, from the Jean Maries Ballestre connection to obvious deliberate crash in 1989 Japan, heck even, the teddy bear Mansell had plenty of antagonizing words to say about Prost over the years as not a very straight competitor and sneaky guy. Of course, a documentary which will exploit even more drama antagonism against the "main guy" will use that.

Prost never been a "bad guy" perse, but a sneaky kind of guy/competitor and not the usual hero or alpha sportsman personality.

I listened to the recent Prost episode of Beyond The Grid podcast and he seems to be irritated very easily by situations you'd expect a racing driver to brush off in their stride. I'm pretty decided now that he just likes to complain and get annoyed about everything.

[aportinga]

I prefer documentaries when it comes to sports, racing than acting. Having said that I believe Senna story has been told enough out there, even though I am Brazilian and love his figure as a sportsman. 

 

 

Agreed...

 

I think a great documentary would be in the Indycar split going back to the 1960's when innovation from F1 changed the Indy500 and eventual series. 

 

There are some really great stories in there - drivers, races and events such as the USAC airplance crash, They 1978 CRL years, The eventual split of 1995 and tracking the ultimate failures of both OWRS/ChampCar and the IRL.

 

ESPN 30 for 30 should do that actually as they develop excellent sports documentaries.

[aportinga]

A cheap and cheerfull You Tube documentary on Peter Revson.

Some really cool footage...

 

Hope you can enjoy it.

 

SPOILER !!!

 

 

Jp

 

One of very few that really portray Revson accurately IMO.

[jonpollak]

I agree Andy.
The Split would make a great documentary if done right.

Who would be have Write it, Produce it and Direct it?

Answers on a postcard to 16th &Georgetown.


Or here.

Jp