Did anyone catch the preview for the new Pixar movie,
The Incredibles, before Sky Captain? I'm DEFINITELY going to see that one...
But anyway...
I saw the movie. OMG. Dude. I will not lie. I cried. From sheer joy and happiness. For once, I was a kid again...
What I liked...
MAJOR SPOILERS!!!!!
1. The opening sequence. Straight out of the 30's seriels. It reminded me of the opening of the Superman show from the 30's (?) starring George Reeves (?). The black-and-white show that had the picture of him, with his cape flapping, superimposed over the planet Earth as 'SUPERMAN' scrolls behind him... As a matter of fact, a lot of this movie reminded me of that show, or what I remembered of it watching it on Nick at Nite as a kid... But back to the point. The words "SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW" projected against the clouds, in b&w while the orchestral intro blares...... FANTASTIC. On par with Tarantino's "Shaw Bro's" opening to Kill Bill Vol. 1.
2. The Hindenburg
III. I didn't notice it was the "third" Hindenburg until a radio announcer named it later on in the movie. The whole opening sequence, I kept waiting for the damned dirigible to burst into flames... But the docking with the Empire State Building? Motherfucking DAMN.
3. The Robots invade the city. First thing I loved: the finger pointing into the sky: "Look! Up in the sky!" followed by two other fingers pointing upwards in unison..... And the machine guns... same thing... Cop rears up a Tommy gun and lets loose... two other tommy guns pop up a fraction of a second later to join in... If you've seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about... The second thing I loved: the fucking ROBOTS!!!! GOT-DAMN!!! HOW FUCKING COOL?!?!?!?!?!?!? And they shoot ray-beams out of their heads!! With a retro-sound effect straight out of
Forbidden Planet. The hard-to-write-phonetically "reer-reer-reer-reer-reer-reer" intermixed with a "wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa." Imagine the sound fx of Godzilla's energy-breath. Dude, I'm so drunk...
4. The call for help. A radio man taps morse-code and talks into a radio microphone... "Calling Sky Captain... May-day... Repeat, calling Sky Captain... We need you..." and then we zoom out into Earth orbit to see a HUGE FUCKING RADIO TOWER EXTENDING ALL THE WAY INTO SPACE, it's four legs occupying the four corners of the continent!! All done retro-style!!! And every time someone sends a radio transmission, "circles" of EM waves radiate away from the antennas, just like in the old cartoons. I FUCKING LOVE IT.
5. Our first glimpse of our hero. His face totally obscured...
6. The P-4? Is that what that was? The fighter plane? It's a character unto itself, rivaling the Batmobile and Bond-car as far as gadgets and special abilities are concerned. I especially loved the targeting reticle.
7. The Island. If you're familiar with the works of E. E. "Doc" Smith or the old Thunderbirds show, you might recognize the "Headquarters" of the Sky Legion as a variation on the popular "Hill" or "mountain" base. A remote area that is both easily defended and accessible to aircraft. I loved the docked dirigibles.
8. Dex. I actually liked him. I could see how some people would find him annoying, though. I especially liked the ray-gun scene. The concentric "rings" of energy were great, as were the sound effects. And the way he stared at the molten slab of metal after testing the gun's effects... You could see the excitement of a kid fawning over a really awesome toy in his eyes. I loved it. He's an archetype of pulp sci-fi... the pre-MacGuyver gadgetcentric-scientist who could build a beam-transmission hydro-electric power plant out of lifeboat scrap metal and a bunch of logs.
9. The robots.
STRAIGHT out of the pulps. I have a HUGE collection of 30's and 40's sci-fi art if you want to reference them. Some are nearly identical to magazine covers painted over 70 years ago. Brian Singer should take note and include Sentinels in X-3. I mean... huge fucking robots that smash up downtown cities... Can you beat that in coolness?
10. The bat-planes. Of course they defied the laws of physics... but they were obviously using some form of anti-gravity for propulsion, just like the robots that appeared towards the end of the movie, on Totenkopf's island. Flappping wings just may have added to their manueverability. Besides, they looked really fucking cool.
11.... I just realized..... I liked EVERYTHING about this movie. EVERYTHING. Even the last line of the movie, which delivered the punch-line to a long-running gag.
What I didn't like:
1. The ONLY thing I didn't like... the ONLY thing that jarred me out of the movie... (SPOILERS)... The scene where Capt. Franky Cook (Angelina Jolie) "ejects" from her submersible-plane while underwater and rockets to the surface, where she switches to "rocket-pack" mode... I kept thinking over and over again... "She's going to get the bends!!!!" That, my friends, was the ONLY thing that bumped my movie-going pleasure.
I fucking LOVED this movie. I don't care what ANYONE else says about it.
Non
Quote:
Nonoxynol9 said:
I'm telling you, guys... Mark my words... The next big craze to sweep Hollywood will be Golden Age pulp sci-fi and space opera. Retro-futurism's about to come back in style, what with Sky Captain and a possible Buck Rogers movie on the way.
This frustrates me to no end, b/c for the past five years I've been working on a space opera screenplay that kind of channels the spirits of E. E. "Doc" Smith, Philip Nowlan, A. E. van Vogt, Jack Williamson, and James L. Schmitz... Lots of rocket-ships, space pirates, bug-eyed aliens, astro-cities and ray-guns. I know, I know, it's been done a thousand times before, but it's just such a fun genre to play in... Of course, I have no illusions about ever actually SELLING the screenplay to Hollywood. I'm 100% positive it sucks. But by the time I'm finished and actually ready to show it to people, the Retro-Futurism fad will have already come and gone, making me look like I just jumped onto the band-wagon to cash in on the latest trend. Oh, well.
Maybe someday God will grant my most fervent wish and let me produce/direct the Lensman saga for the silver screen. Aaaaaaah, dreams...
Non
