Trouble in the Pits
Okay, so I obviously sat down and watched 3: The Dale Earnhardt Story last night, and must say I was rather disappointed. Truthfully, my hopes weren't all that high to begin with--it's pretty hard to tell anyone's life story in a 2 hour TV movie, let alone someone as famous and accomplished as Dale Earnhardt. But even still, this could have been so much better.
Lobby of DEI
Too many of the scenes were simply little snippets . . . disjointed clips of events in his life without any kind of leadup and limitted explanation. Granted, I'm betting that most viewers were people already very familiar with Dale's accomplishments and life. But for anyone who was thinking this movie would give them an insight into the man's life, who wasn't already knowledgeable of the events in his life, it would have been rather confusing.
There were a couple of annoyances throughout the film as well. For about the first half of the movie (which took us to just after Dale's first Winston Cup in 1980), apparently the only people who called him "Dale" were his parents. Everyone else, including his first 2 wives, Teresa (his future 3rd wife) and Neil Bonnet (his best friend) always called him "Earnhardt". I have to believe this was an attempt by the writers and director to perpetuate the "legend" status. Afterall, hearing people call him "Dale" makes him sound too human.
The other major annoyance was the overplaying of Earnardt & Waltrip's rivalry. Yes, there was a definite rivalry there . . . even some hostility. But the movie made it out to be an absolute obsession on Earnhardt's part. It seemed that every time he was out on the track, all he wanted to know was "where's Waltrip" so he could wreck him. That's not how it was in reality. The movie even went to far as to take at least 2 of Dale's most famous quotes, pull them out of context and apply them to his animosity towards Waltrip, even though in reality he was talking about an incident with Terry Labonte and restrictor plate racing in the two quotes.
Of interesting note as well was the fact that footage used to represent the start of the 2001 Daytona 500 (where Dale lost his life) was obviously not from that race. The reason this was apparent was because that particular race was one of the few times that NASCAR mandated roof & spoiler wickers on the cars in an attempt to add excitement (via increasing the "hole" the cars punched in the air). Now, it could have been a simple oversight on the producers' part. But the reason I found this interesting is because of the controversy surrounding these wickers and Dale's crash. Many people felt they were a contributing factor. It was even reported that Earnhardt himself came on the radio at one point during the race and said (roughly) "NASCAR needs to do something about these wickers or they're going to kill someone."
All in all, it was an interesting movie, but fell far short of being "good".
Lobby of DEI
Too many of the scenes were simply little snippets . . . disjointed clips of events in his life without any kind of leadup and limitted explanation. Granted, I'm betting that most viewers were people already very familiar with Dale's accomplishments and life. But for anyone who was thinking this movie would give them an insight into the man's life, who wasn't already knowledgeable of the events in his life, it would have been rather confusing.
There were a couple of annoyances throughout the film as well. For about the first half of the movie (which took us to just after Dale's first Winston Cup in 1980), apparently the only people who called him "Dale" were his parents. Everyone else, including his first 2 wives, Teresa (his future 3rd wife) and Neil Bonnet (his best friend) always called him "Earnhardt". I have to believe this was an attempt by the writers and director to perpetuate the "legend" status. Afterall, hearing people call him "Dale" makes him sound too human.
The other major annoyance was the overplaying of Earnardt & Waltrip's rivalry. Yes, there was a definite rivalry there . . . even some hostility. But the movie made it out to be an absolute obsession on Earnhardt's part. It seemed that every time he was out on the track, all he wanted to know was "where's Waltrip" so he could wreck him. That's not how it was in reality. The movie even went to far as to take at least 2 of Dale's most famous quotes, pull them out of context and apply them to his animosity towards Waltrip, even though in reality he was talking about an incident with Terry Labonte and restrictor plate racing in the two quotes.
Of interesting note as well was the fact that footage used to represent the start of the 2001 Daytona 500 (where Dale lost his life) was obviously not from that race. The reason this was apparent was because that particular race was one of the few times that NASCAR mandated roof & spoiler wickers on the cars in an attempt to add excitement (via increasing the "hole" the cars punched in the air). Now, it could have been a simple oversight on the producers' part. But the reason I found this interesting is because of the controversy surrounding these wickers and Dale's crash. Many people felt they were a contributing factor. It was even reported that Earnhardt himself came on the radio at one point during the race and said (roughly) "NASCAR needs to do something about these wickers or they're going to kill someone."
All in all, it was an interesting movie, but fell far short of being "good".
posted by Phil @ 12/12/2004 09:16:00 AM
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