Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

[TB4000]

Remember those movies and radio shows from the 1930’s and 1940’s that always featured the civilized world being in danger from an unknown scourge, keeping you on the edge of your seat while you sipped that Ovaltine and held that decoder ring? Unless you’re 80, it’s pretty unlikely. Those types of stories were the norm back during that era, and while they were pretty much thin on plot, they still captivated the audiences back then because it was the most unlikely scenario they could probably come up with. Hollywood has tried it umpteen times before with classics like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, The Mummy, etc., and though they attempted to capture that whole feel, it was still a movie with present day characters acting like they were in an old time setting. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, however, is a whole different creature altogether though. It may have been made with today’s effects work, but if you’ve seen any of those old 1940’s movies, you’d think that’s exactly what it was.
Sky Captain was created by Kerry Conran, a graduate student that created a six minute short about robots terrorizing a city during the late 1930’s. Either the dean was housing his secret identity as a movie producer or someone else caught a glimpse, because Conran was allowed to make a full length flick with not only a larger budget, but with names like Law, Paltrow, and Jolie in front of the camera as well.
The story is extremely straightforward. In 1930’s New York, the intrepid reporter Lois Lane, I mean, Polly Perkins, is searching for her next big scoop, which she abruptly gets due to an unexpected attack on the city by giant robots armed with lasers, death rays, and whatever else is in their vicinity. She gets saved by Sky Captain, adventurer extraordinaire, who reluctantly teams up with her in order to get to the bottom of this mystery, and to locate the supposed mastermind behind the schemes, known only as Dr. Totenkopf. Right about now is where you either walk out of the theatre or stay to see what happens next. After seeing Sky Captain, I can tell you right now that it’s a really acquired taste. It’s not self referential like The Mummy and Indiana Jones, it’s basically a 1940’s movie made with today’s special effects. If you’re not into smarmy dialogue between a fighter pilot and a news reporter that always must have her way, you’re not going to be too engaged with it. But if you’re into that whole Buck Rogers “will they defeat the robot menace? Stay tuned next week!” vibe, it’s right up your alley.
The entire movie was shot on blue screen, and everything except the actors is computer generated. The first time you see it, it looks kind of jarring, but after a while, it’s easy to get into. It’s shot in a mixture of black and white and faded color to give the impression that it’s an older movie, and sometimes it doesn’t look exactly right, but for the most part it’s done very artistically. The designs for the characters are straight out of old Superman comics, particularly the robots. You know they’re CGI, but when one of them stomps down right next to Polly, the sound and the look let’s you know they’re not screwing around.
Jude Law and Gywenth Paltrow play the two leads, and while Law does a good job being the cocky lead hero, Paltrow sometimes goes a little overboard with her character, not playing her as subtle as she could be. Yeah, she’s a brash reporter dame with moxie and grit, but when it actually gets annoying, it’s time to take it down a notch. Angelina Jolie comes in about an hour into the movie as Franky Cook, captain of the British sky patrol, and while her character is pretty deep, she’s just playing a version of Lara Croft with an eye patch. Also in the cast is Bai Ling as the second in command of Totenkopf, known only as “the mysterious woman.” That’s what she’s credited as…the mysterious woman. I’m assuming that’s to pay homage to those types of characters in the older movies when they did that, but I couldn’t really tell you. Giovanni Ribisi is Dex, Sky Captain’s faithful sidekick, enamored with everything scientific and a bona fide comic book geek. If you ever wanted to know who invented the portable death ray, you’ll find out in this movie.
Not everyone is going to like this movie. That’s just how it is. It’s corny to an extent, but the look of the movie makes up for it in my opinion. If you have a thing for everything retro, however, it can’t hurt to give The World of Tomorrow a look.

[yoMAMA]

She's really blond in skycaptain.

[ism]

I think the film achieved exactly what it was aiming to do. It's basically an alternate universe that split off from ours sometime after World War I, and the nuclear age hasn't been ushered in yet. In that context, technology such as dirigibles are commonplace and flying aircraft carriers are perfectly feasible. Giant Max Fleischeresque robots are invading and stealing resources and no one knows who's sending them; there is an alien menace, but in a much different way from post-WWII movies (which makes the concept of a barren earth kinda funny in the film).*

Sure, there are gaffes, like referencing "World War One" when there was no second one yet, and completely unrealistic things like an "amphibious squadron," but that's what those old 1930's serials were all about -- suspension of disbelief after all the countries went to war, but without the threat of nuclear power.

With that said, it will appeal on this level to a limited audience. If you're not familiar with what it draws from, it will be a simplistic, unrealistic, predictable story, although very pretty for the first 10 minutes. The CG work is pretty good for the most part, except a few scenes (one involving an obviously fake skeleton) and the fact that Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow are the only two people on earth (there's a distinct lack of other people), which makes the blue screen work more apparent.

I think it's a fantastic film, as a homage to Metropolis, Fleischer, and 30's serials. If you're not too familiar with these things, the film will probably be a little boring (I think it clocks in around 1:40) and it does drag in some places, although the pacing is fairly good for the most part. I think kids would like it, too.

* Aliens are not sending the robots, as the characters learn, but a man. The lesson from World War I was that man has the capability to destroy itself, although the nuclear technology did not exist yet. The constant references to Nazis and Manchuria, and the year this is occuring, 1939, generally regarded as the beginning of WWII, places the film on the cusp of the real World of Tomorrow; as the characters prevent the rocket boosters from razing the earth, they are introduced to the concept of complete and utter annihilation. The film positions itself as a throwback to a more fantastic age where we would not find a flying aircraft carrier ridiculous, because we are not constricted to post-WWII reality. The film's World of Tomorrow is our World of Today.

Compare this to Metropolis, where dystopia is envisioned as a lack of mediation between head and hands, man and machine (the heart machine, the False Maria).

[kitty]

my review:

Sky Captain's Pushes Our Limits

(WARNING! This review is spoiler heavy)

As far as movies go, Sky Captain is a gimmick flick -- newcomer writer/director Kerry Conran uses cutting-edge blue screen technology, in which (quite literally) everything but the actors are manufactured via computer software, and combines it with a script that pays homage to the (by modern standards) hyper-cheesy sci-fi films of the 1930's. In a perhaps tongue-in-cheek jab at just how far Tinseltown's technicians have progressed since seventy years ago, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow tries to capture the stylized, fantastical elements of films like Metropolis, from certain deliberately fake-looking special effects to the archetypal, cardboard-cutout protagonists and transparent, simplistic premises and plot devices.

In Sky Captain, Jude Law is mercenary fighter-pilot and all-American hero, Joe 'Sky Captain' Sullivan, who shares a romantic history and amusingly sexualized rapport with sassy, Lois Lane-esque Polly Perkins, played by Gwyneth Paltrow. Our heroes join forces to try and stop the mysterious Dr. Totenkopf (Laurence Olivier) and his over-sized army of mechanized robots that threaten to destroy Manhattan and, eventually, the world.

Unfortunately, in Conran's quest for authenticity, he forgets that the America of the 1930's fostered much more openly intolerant attitudes towards it's people of colour than the audiences of today would be used to. What might, in the present-day, be relegated to the inanity of Steve Oederkirk and Dodgeball was, in the early twentieth century, considered to be serious and even 'realistic' portrayals of Asian men and women. White America's fascination with 'the Orient' leant itself to the kind of exoticist imaginings of Asia that Conran resurrects in Sky Captain. What seems to be ignored, however, is how his presentation of 1930's Asia (in America's eyes) might be interpreted in the racial climate of 2004.

Needless to say, breathtaking special effects aside, as far as this reviewer is concerned, it isn't pretty.

One of the film's earliest presentations of Asians occurs when our heroes journey to a remote location in Nepal(?), where Sky Captain meets with friend and translator, Kaji, played by Iranian British comic Omid Djalili (thus rendering Kaji, though Asian in name, not particularly associated with Asia, visually). While Kaji himself plays the role of gregarious comic relief to Sky Captain's straight man, his unnamed aides are the very epitome of Orientalized threat. These two brutish thugs are not only physically racialized caricatures, decked out with long, whispy whiskers, but represent the danger that white America perceived in Asians and their foreign origins. Though Kaji's aides are initially assumed to be trustworthy, the audience is immediately shown that they are not. Speaking to each other in their gutteral native tongue, they communicate their true loyalties, not to Kaji but to Dr. Totenkopf. Though Sky Captain and his friends don't hear and cannot perceive this threat, the audience is able to understand their intentions through the subtitled dialogue, and thus we are made privvy to the typical Yellow Peril fears of the 1930's and earlier -- that these men, and the country they represent, are not loyal to Americans and will hide true loyalties to an undefined foreign evil. More importantly, this loyalty need not be truly rational: it is never explained why the thugs turn against Kaji and Sky Captain to help Dr. Totenkopf -- they are given neither motive nor reward for their treachery, as if the act of turning traitor were itself the reward for these men.

As if this Yellow Peril symbolism were not enough, Conran delivers a second precursor to modern-day Asian American stereotyping by presenting another minor participant in Sky Captain's adventure in the form of an unnamed monk who rules over the secret paradise of Shangri-La.The monk himself is introduced as, at once, both masculine (because of his gender) and yet at the same time, he conveys through his delicate, soft-spoken mannerisms and intricate robes, a feminine air, such that his gender and sexuality is more ambiguous than strongly male or female. It is also during the Shangri-La scene that Sky Captain, Polly, and Kaji find themselves naked and in the same bed, having just recovered from wounds sustained in the previous scene, and Conran stages an amusing, sexualized joke based upon this predicament -- one of a few moments in the movie when Sky Captain and Polly's flirting manifests into something more than the usual verbal sparring. Yet, as the monk walks into this highly suggestive scene, he hardly bats an eyelash, as if the sexuality of his environment does not affect him. Instead, the ambiguity of the monk's gender, and his foreigness, make him inaccessible as an object of desire both for the audience and our protagonists, thus emasculating him and rendering him asexual. Instead of sex object, the monk is forced into the role of nonsexual caregiver, idle bystander in the face of Sky Captain and Polly's raging hormones.

However, in the face of these appetizers in this feast of discriminatory stereotypes, it is Bai Ling's character, identified only as the Mysterious Woman, who is the main course. Presented as more an object of exoticism and desire, Bai Ling is progressively stripped of any pretenses at humanity. Her character remains unnamed, and also is given no voice, evidenced in the fact that she has no speaking lines, and therefore symbolically opinionless and mute. Furthermore, it is revealed at the end of the film, that she is in fact an android, created by Dr. Totenkopf to be his 'companion' and second-in-command. Conran seems to intentionally deny the audience the most obvious visual signifier of her ethnicity and humanity by obscuring her eyes with thick black goggles, which are removed only when her true identity and nature is discovered. Asian femininity and implied sexuality is thus not a function of Bai Ling's humanity but is entirely a construct of white masculinity. In the World of Tomorrow, the Asian woman is an object, both of sexuality and of Dr. Totenkopf's ambitious rise to power; she has no motivation of her own, and is more of a toaster or power tool, than a person. One sees a similar metaphor for the construction of Asian women in Hollywood throughout the twentieth century -- the stereotype of the Asian woman as exotically sexual, hyperfeminine sex objects is not one that was introduced by Asian women, but constructed by white Hollywood in an effort to cultivate a role for Asian women in a climate of black-white racial paradigms. In modern conceptions, the submissive Asian woman in film is the prostitute in Full Metal Jacket, the dominatrix of Ransom, and the 'geisha girls' of Rising Sun, and yet all of these roles were conceived and created not by the Asian community, but by Hollywood -- dominated by white male filmmakers -- and subsequently transferred to mainstream perceptions. Entirely physical embodiments of sensuality, rarely is the Asian woman on film given a voice or personality, and is in many senses not a far cry from Bai Ling's fembot persona in this movie.

It is fitting therefore that in the sci-fi fantasy world of Sky Captain, the protagonists would offer a fantastical course of action for the "robotisized" Asian woman. It is hardly coincidental that the Mysterious Woman is physically and mentally defeated by both the white male and white female protagonist, in a symbolic destruction of the very constructed Asian female sexual objectification that was created for the entertainment of white America in the first place. As seemingly harmful to white sexuality, both male and female, the Mysterious Woman must be destroyed before Polly Perkins and Sky Captain's romance can be rekindled, though even in the World of Tomorrow, Bai Ling's character poses no real romantic threat, being a mechanized being and the complete antithesis to Polly's vibrant personality.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is a veritable potpourri of the disenfranchisement of Asian/Asian Americans in Hollywood. More importantly, it raises the question of whether Hollywood is capable of offering a more three-dimensional representation of Asians in its films. After all, it is not surprising that the roles played by Asian actors in this revival of the 1930's sci-fi fantasy genre reminds the audience of the same kinds of caricatures that would've been traditionally played by white actors during the time period to which this movie harkens. The race of the actors have changed, but the roles remain largely the same, down to the usual typecasting of Asian men and Asian women to downplay the influence of both in the racial environment of white America. Many have argued that as the number of Asians shown in mainstream Hollywood films increases, the stereotypes that plague Asian Americans will lessen -- but I would argue that Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is evidence of the fact that sheer numbers will not alter the negative portrayals that Tinseltown has placed upon the Asian American community. Instead, it is not until Asian American actors are given better roles that shy away from the types seen in Sky Captain, that there will truly be a movement away from the 1930's style stereotyping that has seen a resurrection in this post-millennium film. Whether it be through breakthrough movies made within the APA community, such as with last year's Better Luck Tomorrow, or greater grassroots canvassing of Hollywood filmmakers to improve their Asian American portrayals, it is crucial that Asian Americans look to Sky Captain as American media's world of tomorrow, should portrayals of APAs continue along its present course.

Instead of accepting this future, it is time that we, as a community, worked towards changing our own tomorrow, and ensuring a world in which APAs on the big screen may finally have a voice, a name, and are more than mere machines.

[TB4000]

Very nice abstract of Sky Captain, Jenn. You may not be too thrilled about their decision to make a live action version of some 1930's comic strip called Terry and the Pirates then.

http://www.toonopedia.com/terry.htm

[Kennyb]

So i'm the only one that didn't like the movie then huh?

As much as the fact I loved Metropolis - original and anime version, this film really didn't do it's deed in my opinion. The script was too cheesy that it made me really hate Gwenyth Paltrow's character. Of course it had the typical 1930s story script written to it but the casts for the film couldn't seem to deliver it at all, making it look asthought anyone could do it.

Only applause they get from me is the use of special effects and the cinematography skills put to it....

*rant over - go ahead and grill me for this opinion.....*

[yoMAMA]

I liked the popcorn.....and kitty's review....

that was good!

[Faithless]

So i'm the only one that didn't like the movie then huh?
It was too long for me. Saw it on DVD.

I do like how well Paltrow's character can run in heels. Now, that's a good trick. :rolleyes:
.
Instead of sex object, the monk is forced into the role of nonsexual caregiver, idle bystander in the face of Sky Captain and Polly's raging hormones.
Since when are monks ever thought of as sex objects? :confused:

[kitty]

Since when are monks ever thought of as sex objects? :confused:

BD Wong's character on Oz :)

well, that sentence is poorly structured. i meant, in a scene so hypersexualized, the monk stands out, because he's... well... a monk and thus not sexualized.

*sigh* an editor. my kingdom for an editor.

[kimpossible]

Since when are monks ever thought of as sex objects? :confused:

*clears throat*

The fantasy, mind you. I think it's about corrupting the holy man enough for him to break his vow of celibacy.

[TB4000]

*clears throat*

The fantasy, mind you. I think it's about corrupting the holy man enough for him to break his vow of celibacy.
*raises an eyebrow* I....see.

[Faithless]

Well, I think that the whole three-in-a-bed scene just plain stupid.

They must have been pretty knocked-out to have been undressed and cleaned-up and all without them knowing it.

The clothes were taken off because they were supposedly contaminated. And then they get their clothes back in a later scene, I think. That's some pretty good dry cleaning.

I don't think the sexuality in that scene was hypersexualized. I think it was actually kind of reserved -- in a manner that's supposed to reflect the attitude at that time -- hence Paltrow's character's embarrassment.

Shit, if they were gonna get-down, then what the hell is Kaji supposed to do? Especially, when he's on the Sky Captain's back-side.

[VV o n g B a]

anyone feel this was like a live action version of talespin(disney cartoon) or crimson skies(microsoft game)? i don't know about this metropolis movie u guys are referring to, but i suppose the things i mentioned are also derived from that movie too huh? it's interesting how some of these memes are kept alive. same w/ tolkien's work.

[kitty]

Well, I think that the whole three-in-a-bed scene just plain stupid.

They must have been pretty knocked-out to have been undressed and cleaned-up and all without them knowing it.

The clothes were taken off because they were supposedly contaminated. And then they get their clothes back in a later scene, I think. That's some pretty good dry cleaning.

I don't think the sexuality in that scene was hypersexualized. I think it was actually kind of reserved -- in a manner that's supposed to reflect the attitude at that time -- hence Paltrow's character's embarrassment.

Shit, if they were gonna get-down, then what the hell is Kaji supposed to do? Especially, when he's on the Sky Captain's back-side.

it was alluding to the idea of an orgy between the three of them. tame by our standards, risque by the standards of the genre we're talking about.

[A.R.A.M.]

*clears throat*

The fantasy, mind you. I think it's about corrupting the holy man enough for him to break his vow of celibacy.

Reminds me of a grad student who taught a religious studies course I took back in my undergrad days. In explaining some long forgotten point, she says to about a hundred students that "it's kinda like every woman's fantasy to have sex with a priest." The class, especially the women, let out a collective "huh?" Then the graduate instructor backpedalled and said it was her grandma's fantasy. Uh, yeah, sure. How embarrassing.

I suspect the fantasy is ultimately about validating the woman's sexual appeal. Kind of like how some women--or so I'm told by other former graduate student instructors--fantasize about seducing gay men. It would be the ultimate testament to their sex appeal to turn a gay man straight.

[Emperor_Mike]

Incidentally, I think Sky Captain's plot took place somewhere between 1940-41 (i.e. smack dab in the middle of World War II.) Polly Perkins supposedly sabotaged Sullivan's plane during the evacuation of Nanjing, presumably during the evacuation when the Japanese were about to enter the city in 1937. This apparently happened three years ago in the film, making the time period about right.

[Grasshopper]

Since when are monks ever thought of as sex objects? :confused:

That was my first question about the review which read like a bad college "post-this and that" sociology paper.

I haven't seen the movie so I can't say if the review was on the mark.

But I will say if you are going to write a typical, cliche containing "post colonialist, anti-Orientalist, post modernist, anti-White normative gaze" essay be sure to include more references to "the Other". "The other" must show up in at least every "other" paragraph.

Also include references to "capitalist comodification", "fabrication", "hegemonic discourse", and "phallocentric perspectives".

One more thing. Since the movie was supposed to be about a particular artistic style of the time and NOT the real world of that time, it's to be expected that it would purposefully contain stereotypes and images you might find to be unrealistic and "Orientalized".