The Arrow

This movie is quite a surprise. It tells a story I had no idea existed. It seems quite amazing it is a true story. It is as dramatic as a fictional story written to be dramatic. I missed the beginning of the movie but based on the description of the DVD I will buy a copy when I get the chance.

I saw this film one sat. afternoon on a Orlando TV station Its too bad that more films are made that show people building something that others say its impossable! Good job CBC!

This is a laudable attempt to portray the destruction of the Canadian aerospace industry by a scheming President Eisenhower and a clueless Prime Minister Diefenbaker. Unfortunately, that part isn't at all true. The Arrow was killed by cost overruns and the near-impossibility of developing a new plane, a new engine and a new radar system all at the same time. The geeky engineer character kind of annoyed me, too. The writers had him inventing about three things that were utterly crucial engineering and aerodynamics breakthroughs all by himself. Sorry, nobody's that good, not even the people who did that work in the first place. A lot of the people in the film are historical characters, some are composites. All in all, I really enjoyed this film, but the aviation geek in me gets irritated by factual errors.

The Arrow is a very dramatized version of the happenings around the Avro project.

The Arrow is a real feel good movie for us Canadians. Though Dan Aykroyd has had better days, it's important that he was included in the Canadian cast, bringing a familiar face to a long forgotten subject.

Just recently an original Avro Arrow model airplane was found in Lake Ontario.

Having seen the mini-series when it initially aired and seen again since, I think that what "The Arrow" tries to do (and accomplishes pretty well, I'd say) is to do what few Canadian films do: that is, it tries to introduce a little bit of mythology into a Canadian story. Certainly, as far as Canadian events go, the story of the Arrow is one that still resonates in the Canadian psyche as an opportunity thrown away by the politicians of the day. Having the Arrow fly off to parts unknown at the end plays into that wish to be able to correct the mistakes of the past.

That said, it was an enjoyable mini-series and didn't play any faster or more loosely with the facts than most of what passes for "historical" narrative. The casting was well-done and it did a good job showing the social impact of the Arrow project