The latest Lucasfilm Defining Moment looks back 11 years to 2012 and Red Tails, the long-gestating Lucasfilm Production that charted the story of the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II, and how their historic story made it to the screen.
Lucasfilm’s production Red Tails (2012) was inspired by the true-life story of the heroic Tuskegee Airmen during World War II, America’s first Black military pilots who faced both an enemy in the skies and racial discrimination at home. Early on in the movie’s development, one key decision was whether to tell a story based explicitly on the real Airmen or to create a fictionalized account of the pilots’ experiences. Having conducted years of research, including interviews with many surviving veterans, executive producer George Lucas and the Lucasfilm team opted for the latter. A fictional account would allow the story to pull on many different true-life moments that made up the Tuskegee Airmen story.
One such moment comes early in Red Tails when Colonel A. J. Bullard (Terrence Howard), a Tuskegee Airmen commander, endures a confrontational meeting with skeptical military leadership at the Pentagon. The prejudiced officers are convinced that the Black pilots are underperforming during their combat missions overseas. At a time when the military was racially segregated, they could simply do away with the Black fighter squadron altogether. “I’m afraid you’re just going to have to suffer its failure,” says Colonel William Mortamus (Bryan Cranston).
Bullard does not back down. He calmly and passionately defends the integrity of his pilots and their ability to perform. He also calls out the less-than-equal support they’ve received. “We’re given hand-me-down planes, ordered to attack targets that have already been bypassed, fly patrols where the enemy hasn’t been seen for months,” he explains. “Now we’ve done every lowdown dirty job you’ve handed us, hoping that we would just limp along and go away. We will not go away. We have a right to fight for our country the same as every other American. So you shut us down, or you let us fly.”
