Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
| Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow | |
|---|---|
| File:Sky Captain movie poster.jpg promotional poster | |
| Directed by | Kerry Conran |
| Written by | Kerry Conran (Final Draft) |
| Produced by | Jon Avnet Sadie Frost Jude Law Marsha Oglesby |
| Starring | Gwyneth Paltrow Jude Law Giovanni Ribisi Michael Gambon Omid Djalili Angelina Jolie Sir Laurence Olivier (Archive Footage) |
| Cinematography | Eric Adkins(Sony F900s Cinealtras) |
| Edited by | Sabrina Plisco (Final Cut Pro, Adobe After Effects for CGI and digital compositing, Maya for 3D modeling.) |
| Music by | Edward Shearmur |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release dates | September 17, 2004 |
Running time | 106 min. |
| Countries |  United States United KingdomItaly |
| Languages | English, German, Tibetan |
| Budget | $40,000,000 (est.) |
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is a film released on September 17, 2004 in the United States. It was written and directed by Kerry Conran, in his directorial debut. The film stars Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Michael Gambon, Giovanni Ribisi, and Angelina Jolie. It is set in New York City in an alternative 1939 and is a steampunk style science fiction adventure film. Along with Able Edwards, Casshern, Immortel (Ad Vitam), and Sin City, it is one of the first movies to be shot entirely on a digital backlot with actors in front of a greenscreen, with all the sets and nearly all of the props computer-generated.
Synopsis
Template:Spoilers The film takes place in an alternative 1930s where there is no sign of Germany preparing for war or that America is in the grip of an economic depression. The fantastic technology, a mixture of super-advanced science and early 20th century (developed in science fiction works and comics of that age), points to an alternate history.
The film opens with the arrival of the zeppelin Hindenburg III in New York City, mooring at the Empire State Building (the building was originally designed to do just that). Before he vanishes, a frightened scientist named Dr. Jorge Vargas makes arrangements for a package to be delivered to a Dr. Walter Jennings.
Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow), a newspaper reporter for The Chronicle, is looking into the mysterious disappearances of Vargas and five other renowned scientists. She receives a cryptic message, telling her to go to the Radio City Music Hall movie theater that night. She ignores the warning of her editor, Mr. Paley (Michael Gambon, enacting a variation on the 1940s character he played in the BBC's The Singing Detective) not to go and meets a terrified Dr. Walter Jennings. He tells her that Dr. Totenkopf (German: literally "death's head", meaning "skull") is coming for him.
Just then, air raid sirens go off, heralding the arrival of numerous massive robots that prove all but unstoppable. (The robots are based upon those in the Fleischer Studios Superman animated short "The Mechanical Monsters".) In desperation, the police call for H. Joseph 'Joe' Sullivan (Jude Law), who is known as "Sky Captain" and commands a private air force, the Flying Legion. The name may be a reference to the British Legion of Frontiersmen, a similar historical 'private army', but more likely was inspired by the Flying Tigers, as the P-40 he flies is painted in the same style and Polly refers to Joe serving with the "American volunteers." Sullivan knocks out one of the robots and the rest leave. He helps save Polly, who was photographing the robots.
The wreckage of the robot is taken back to the Legion's airstrip, so that an expert, Dex (Giovanni Ribisi), can examine it. Polly follows, hoping to get information for her story. She and Joe are ex-lovers, who broke up three years earlier. Joe constantly accuses Polly of sabotaging his airplane, which led to him spend six months in a Manchurian labour camp; Polly accuses Joe of fooling around with another woman. Since Polly has some useful information, Joe agrees to let her in on the investigation.
This takes them to the ransacked laboratory of Dr. Jennings, with Jennings himself near death. The killer, a mysterious woman (Bai Ling), escapes, but the mortally wounded Jennings gives Polly two vials, which he says are crucial to Dr. Totenkopf's plans. Polly withholds this information from Joe.
They return to the Legion's base, which comes under attack from squadrons of ornithopter drones. In the ensuing battle, Dex manages to track the origin of the robot control signal, but is captured. However, he leaves behind a part of a map marking the location of Totenkopf's base.
Joe and Polly find it and head to Nepal. Venturing into the Himalayas, they find a long abandoned mining outpost. They are nearly killed by two of Totenkopf's goons, but instead Polly gives up the two vials. Joe and Polly escape but are knocked unconscious by the explosion in the mine that was meant to kill them. They wake up together in the mythical Shangri-La. The monks who live there tell of Totenkopf's enslavement of their people, forcing them to work in the uranium mines. Most of them were killed by the radiation; Totenkopf experimented on the survivors. The final survivor is horribly disfigured, but provides another clue to where Totenkopf is hiding.
This new clue leads them to rendezvous with Joe's other ex-flame, Captain Francesca "Franky" Cook (Angelina Jolie), who commands a flying aircraft carrier (which resembles a cross between Captain Scarlet's Cloudbase, the sky-craft in The Adventures of Luther Arkwright, and a S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier) in the Royal Navy. Frankie helps them get to Totenkopf's hidden island. Getting in requires an extended trip underwater, making use of amphibious aircraft. (The wreck of the Venture (from the 1933 film King Kong) can be clearly seen with a large animal cage still on the deck...)
Joe and Polly find themselves inside the mountainous island, which contains numerous strange creatures, many of which appear to be variations of dinosaurs. They travel to the very center of the island, where robots are loading animals, as well as the contents of the mysterious vials, Totenkopf's genetically engineered humans, onto a massive "Noah's Ark" rocket. Joe and Polly are detected and nearly killed, but Dex arrives in the nick of time with three missing scientists who have escaped, and spirits them away. Dex explains that Totenkopf has given up on humanity, and seeks to end the world to begin a new one: the "World of Tomorrow". When the rocket gets 100 km up, it will incinerate the Earth.
The group goes to Totenkopf's lair, only to discover that he has in fact been dead for two decades; his machines have carried on his work. (File footage of Sir Laurence Olivier reading the Bible was manipulated to create a video recording of Totenkopf.) The only way to sabotage the rocket is from the inside, but there is no time to escape from it before it explodes. Polly tries to tag along, but Joe knocks her out with a punch. He then goes to sacrifice himself, while the others escape. Polly recovers and goes after Joe, arriving just in time to save him from the mysterious woman (who turns out to be a robot). The two then board the rocket just before it launches, release the animals in escape pods, and then use another pod to save themselves after causing the rocket to explode. Template:Endspoiler
Development
Kerry Conran grew up on films and comic books of the '30s and '40s. He and his brother, Kevin, were encouraged by their parents to develop their creative side at a young age. Kerry studied at a feeder program for Disney animators at CalArts, and became interested in 2-D computer animation. While there, he realized that it was possible to apply some of the techniques associated with animation to live-action. Conran had been out of film school for two years and was trying to figure out how to make a movie. He figured that Hollywood would never take a chance on an inexperienced, first-time filmmaker. So, he decided to go the independent route and make the movie himself.[1]
Influences
Conran was influenced by the designs of Norman Bel Geddes, an industrial designer who did work for the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair and designed exhibits for the 1939 New York World’s Fair.[2] Geddes also designed an airship that was to fly from Chicago to London.
Another key influence was Hugh Ferriss, one of the designers for the 1939 World’s Fair and who designed bridges and huge housing complexes.[2] He was an American delineator (one who creates perspective drawings of buildings) and architect. In 1922, skyscraper architect Harvey Wiley Corbett commissioned Ferriss to draw a series of four step-by-step perspectives demonstrating the architectural consequences of the zoning law. These four drawings would later be used in his 1929 book The Metropolis of Tomorrow (Dover Publications, 2005, ISBN 0-486-43727-2).
Teaser trailer
In 1994, Conran set up a bluescreen in his living room and began assembling the tools he would need to create his movie. He was not interested in working his way through the system and instead wanted to follow the route of independent filmmakers like Steven Soderbergh.
Initially, Kerry and his brother had nothing more than "just a vague idea of this guy who flew a plane. We would talk about all the obvious things like Indiana Jones and all the stuff we liked."[3] Conran spent four years making a black and white teaser trailer in the style of an old-fashion newsreel on his Macintosh IIci personal computer. Once he was finished, Conran showed it to producer Marsha Oglesby, who was a friend of his brother's wife and she recommended that he let producer Jon Avnet see it. Conran met Avnet and showed him the trailer. Conran told him that he wanted to make it into a movie. They spent two or three days just talking about the tone of the movie.[4]
Pre-production
Avnet and Conran spent two years working on the screenplay and developing a working relationship. Then, the producer took the script and the trailer and began approaching actors. In order to protect Conran's vision, Avnet decided to shoot the movie independently with a lot of his own money. The producer realized that "the very thing that made this film potentially so exciting for me, and I think for an audience, which was the personal nature of it and the singularity of the vision, would never succeed and never survive the development process within a studio."[5]
When it came to casting actors in the movie, Avnet used his connections and reputation and started looking for actors. In 2002, he showed Jude Law the teaser trailer and the actor was very impressed by what he saw. He remembers, "All I got at that early stage was that he'd used pretty advanced and unused technology to create a very retrospective look."[6] Avnet gave him the script to read and some preliminary artwork to look at.
Law: "What was clear was also that at the center was a really great cinematic relationship, which you could put into any genre and it would work. You know, the kind of bickering [relationship]. I always like to call it The African Queen meets Buck Rogers."[6]
Avnet wanted to work with Law because he knew that the actor had "worked both period, who worked both having theatrical experience, who worked on blue screen, who hadn't hit yet as a major action star."[5] The actor had just finished filming Cold Mountain (2003) and was intrigued at going from filming on real locations to working on a movie done completely on a soundstage (Sky Captain would be one of three Jude Law films released by Paramount Pictures in 2004, along with the 2004 remake of Alfie and Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. It also was one of six overall Jude Law films released that year.). The actor believed so much in Conran's movie that he also became one of the producers and used his clout to get Gwyneth Paltrow involved. Once her name came up, Law did not remember "any other name coming up. It just seems that she was perfect. She was as enthusiastic about the script and about the visual references that were sort of put to her, and jumped on board."[5] Paltrow said in an interview, "I thought that this is the time to do a movie like this where it's kind of breaking into new territory and it's not your basic formulaic action-adventure movie."[7]
Giovanni Ribisi met with Avnet and, initially, was not sure that he wanted to do the movie but after seeing the teaser trailer, he signed on without hesitation. Angelina Jolie had literally come from the set of Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003) and agreed to work on the movie for three days. Despite her small role, she had conducted hours of interviews with fighter pilots in order to absorb their jargon and get a feel for the role.[1] Her British accent was criticized by some reviewers as "improbable", but it is actually a completely authentic 1940s English upper-class accent.[citation needed]
Avnet went to Aurelio De Laurentiis and convinced him to finance the film without a distribution deal. Nine months before filming, Avnet had Conran meet the actors and begin rehearsals in an attempt to get the shy filmmaker out of his shell. Avnet set up a custom digital effects studio with a blue screen soundstage in an abandoned building in Van Nuys, California. A group of almost 100 digital artists, modelers, animators and compositors created multi-layered 2D and 3D backgrounds for the live action footage yet to be filmed.
The entire movie was sketched out via hand-drawn storyboards and then re-created as computer-generated 3D animatics with all of the 2D background photographs digitally painted to resemble the 1939 setting. With the animatics as a guide, grids were created to map camera and actor movements with digital characters standing in for the real actors. The grids were made into actual maps on the blue screen stage floor to help the actors move around invisible scenery.[8]
Ten months before Conran made the movie with his actors, he shot it entirely with stand-ins in Los Angeles and then created the whole movie in animatics so that the actors had an idea of what the film would look like and where to move on the soundstage. To prepare for the film, Conran had his cast watch old movies, like Lauren Bacall in To Have and Have Not (1944) for Paltrow's performance and The Thin Man (1934) for the relationship between Nick and Nora that was to be echoed in the one between Joe and Polly.[1] Avnet constantly pushed for room in this meticulously designed movie for the kind of freedom the actors needed, like being able to move around on the soundstage.
Principal photography and post-production
Director of Photography, Eric Adkins, was ahead of his time with his work on this ambitious movie. Conran and Avnet were able to cut costs considerably by shooting the entire movie in 26 days (not the usual three to four months that this kind of movie normally takes) on high-definition video using a Sony HDW-F900 and working entirely on three different blue screen soundstages in London, England with one notable exception. Conran wrote a scene that was added later on where Polly talks to her editor in his office that was shot on a physical set because there was no time to shoot it on a blue screen soundstage.[1] The footage from the HD camera was run through a switcher and then through a Macintosh computer running Final Cut Pro that allowed the filmmakers to line up the animatics with the live onstage footage. Conran said, "I don't know how we would have made this movie. It's really what allowed us to line up everything, given there was nothing there."[8] After each day of shooting, footage was edited and sent overnight to editors in L.A. who digitized it and sent it back.
After filming ended, they put together a 24-minute presentation and took it to every studio in June of 2002. There was a lot of interest and Avnet selected the studio that gave Conran the most creative control. They needed studio backing to finish the film's ambitious visuals. At one point, the producer remembers that Conran was "working 18 to 20 hours a day for a long period of time. It's 2,000 some odd CGI shots done in one year, and we literally had to write code to figure out how to do this stuff!"[9] Most of the post-production work was done on Mac workstations using After Effects for compositing and Final Cut Pro for editing (seven workstations were dedicated to visual effects and production editing). The distinctive look of the film was achieved by running footage through a diffusion filter and then tinting it in black and white before color was blended, balanced and added back in.
Sir Laurence Olivier also posthumously appears as the villain Dr. Totenkopf. His likeness was digitally manipulated archival BBC footage of the actor and thus adding one more film to his repertoire. A similar move was made two years later in the 2006 Superman Returns film with Marlon Brando.
Avnet cultivated a calculated release for the movie by first moving its release date from the summer (it was supposed to open a week before Spider-Man 2) to September, then courting the Internet press and finally making an appearance at the San Diego Comic Con with key cast members in an attempt to generate some advanced buzz.[9]
Reception
Although the movie had high box office expectations, opening at #1 on its September release date, the movie was a flop at the box office grossing only about $37 million in the United States from a reported $40+ million budget.[10] Critical reviews, while largely positive, still did not drive audiences to the theatre. The film garnered positive reviews with 73% of national film critics praising the film as aggregated by RottenTomatoes.com.[11] Noted film critic Roger Ebert was among those who strongly supported the film, giving it a 4-star review and praising it for "its heedless energy and joy, it reminded me of how I felt the first time I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark. It's like a film that escaped from the imagination directly onto the screen, without having to pass through reality along the way."[12] Stephen Holden of The New York Times lauded its visuals and its evocation a bygone era but felt that "the monochromatic variations on sepia keep the actors and their adventures at a refined aesthetic distance...At times the film is hard to see. And as the action accelerates, the wonder of its visual concept starts giving way to sci-fi clichés."[13] The Canadian network Space: The Imagination Station awarded it the 2005 Spacey Award for Best Science Fiction/Fantasy Film.[14] The film is also one of few to be awarded five stars by IGN filmforce.[15]
Homages
 | This article possibly contains original research. |
Conran incorporated many elements of classic genre films into his. Some of them are not simply homages/easter eggs, but also hint that the world of Sky Captain is actually a crossover world where several fictional events and elements like Shangri-La and King Kong, coexist as actual facts (a universe similar to League of Extraordinary Gentlemen). Here is a partial list.
- Metropolis (1927) — There are many skyline shots of New York which recall Metropolis
- King Kong (1933) — The scope and feel of the picture (along with its similarly groundbreaking special effects) are like King Kong; the Venture (the ship from the film) is seen at the bottom of the sea in one scene — with a giant cage on top; and, on the DVD extras, it is pointed out that King Kong is on the Empire State Building in the far background. The proximity of the Venture to Totenkopf's island also suggests that King Kong is one of Totenkopf's experiments, prematurely removed from the island.
- Flash Gordon (1936)
- Things to Come (1936)
- Lost Horizon (1937)
- The War of the Worlds (1938) — The dialog used to describe the approach of the Martian war machines is used word-for-word for Polly's dialog describing the approach of the giant robots. Additionally, the sound effect of those robots' beam weapons is the same as that of the Martian heat ray in War of the Worlds.
- Buck Rogers (1939)
- Wuthering Heights (1939)
- The Wizard of Oz (1939) — Part of the movie is seen at the Metro; the rest of the film (which moves from gray New York to the colorful World of Tomorrow) echoes the journey over the rainbow
- Q Planes (1939) - Jude Law's character H. Joseph 'Joe' Sullivan, bears some resemblance to Sir Laurence Olivier's pilot hero Tony MacVane in the film Q Planes.
- His Girl Friday (1940)
- Superman (1941) — the metal monsters' design comes from one of the 1940s Superman cartoons and actually, many shots in the movie are exact copies of shots from the 1940 Max Fleischer serials.
- Citizen Kane (1941)
- Godzilla (1954) During the telegram reel early on in the movie after the robots attack, Godzilla is visible in the background of the photo showing Tokyo under attack.
- The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
- The War of the Worlds (1953) — The sound of the beam weapon used by the giant robots is the same as that of the Martian heat ray.
- Dr. Strangelove (1964) Polly recites part of the introduction of the film.
- Zeppelin (1971)
- THX 1138 (1971)
- Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope (1977)
- Moonraker (1979)
- Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back (1980) - Landing Pad 327
- Jurassic Park (1993)
- Forbidden Planet (1956) — Some of the interiors of Dr. Totenkopf's island resemble those of the innards of Altair IV
- Castle in the Sky (1986)
- Star Trek: The Original Series (1966)
- Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
- Battlestar Galactica (1978)
- The Iron Giant (1999)
There are also significant visual elements from the pulp fiction series Biggles and Doc Savage. The graphic novel Luther Arkwright probably provides the origin of the movie's British craft, but there are other possible sources. Frankie Cook, Angelina Jolie's character, seems to have some elements of characters like Nick Fury and Honor Harrington. The Microsoft air-adventure game Crimson Skies (2000) is also set in an alternative 1940s with huge zeppelins and advanced planes.
Although this was not confirmed or acknowledged by Conran, the character of Sky Captain (Joe Sullivan) seems to have been inspired by none other than Red Albright, aka Captain Midnight.
The name of the lead heroine is Conran's reference to the famous British song Pretty Polly Perkins of Paddington Green.
The line of poetry "... all I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by ...", quoted by the hero, is from the famous poem "Sea-Fever" by John Masefield.
- Sky Captain also seems to be partially based on the Fawcett (later DC) character Spy Smasher.
See also
References
- ^ a b c d Axmaker, Sean (September 16, 2004). ""At the cusp of a renaissance": Kerry Conran". GreenCine Daily. Retrieved 2007-03-29.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ a b Knowles, Harry (February 2, 2004). "More on Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow". Ain't It Cool News. Retrieved 2007-03-29.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Ruby, Smilin' Jack (January 31, 2004). "Fending Off Alien Robots, but Still Time to Flirt". CHUD.com.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Douglas, Edward (September 7, 2004). "The Making of Sky Captain - Part 1!". ComingSoon.net. Retrieved 2007-03-29.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ a b c Murray, Rebecca. "Jude Law, Giovanni Ribisi, Kerry Conran, and Jon Avnet Interview". About Entertainment. Retrieved 2007-04-02.
{{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ a b Murray, Rebecca. "Sky Captain Himself Discusses 'Sky Captain'". About Entertainment. Retrieved 2007-04-02.
{{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Douglas, Edward (September 14, 2004). "The Making of Sky Captain - Part 3!". ComingSoon.net. Retrieved 2007-03-29.
{{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ a b Cellini, Joe (September 2004). "Sky Captain Flies to Big Screen". Apple Pro/Video. Retrieved 2007-04-02.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ a b Douglas, Edward (September 10, 2004). "The Making of Sky Captain - Part 2!". ComingSoon.net. Retrieved 2007-03-29.
{{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ "www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=skycaptain.htm". Retrieved 2007-02-08.
- ^ "RottenTomatoes.com". Retrieved 2007-02-08.
- ^ Ebert, Roger (September 17, 2004). "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2007-04-02.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Holden, Stephen (September 17, 2004). "Fending Off Alien Robots, but Still Time to Flirt". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-03-30.
{{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ "SPACE Announces the Winners of The 2005 SPACEY Awards". CNW group. 2005-05-29. Retrieved 2007-04-02.
- ^ Oliver, Glen (September 16, 2004). "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow". IGN. Retrieved 2007-03-30.
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