by A lot has been said about steampunk, a genre and sometimes subculture for fans as devoted as those that dress up as Darth Vader and Boba Fett to dive into imaginary worlds, becoming the next trend, the next big thing in entertainment. But apart from very few exceptions that made the mainstream, most notably the videogame BioShock Infinite in 2013, steampunk and its derivatives have mostly stayed under the radar. For writers, producers, developers, creative people as a whole, imaginary styles must be tempting, since the only limiting factor is the extent of their imagination. Few remember the okay adaptation of Alan Moore’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, failing to perform in 2003 despite being Sean Connery’s last film. Maybe it was too flashy. Maybe it offended people’s often-cited “suspension of disbelief” and stabbed it to death (Victorian era submarines are certainly tough). But in 2004, the world seemed ready to be taken by storm.
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is the brainchild of Kerry Conran, who wrote the screenplay and directed, and his brother Kevin, responsible for storyboards, design and a lot more. It took Kerry four years to make a teaser all by himself on an old Macintosh and pitch his idea to a producer. The results are stunning. Much of the short, that is available on YouTube, has been used for the first sequences of the film but it speaks for itself too. When you watch it, you understand what this is: a visual masterpiece.
Set in a fictional 1939 this is not steampunk but dieselpunk, a genre set roughly in an alternate history between 1919 and the 1950’s. This era has been exciting by its own account. Technology was developed at tremendous speed, innovations such as cars found a mass-market and revolutionary design and architecture in particular was fueled by new ideas, both economically and sociologically. Aesthetics was crucial, sometimes even more than practicability.
Sky Captain incorporates this spirit. It is not an adventure film like Raiders of the Lost Ark, though it is as much fun to watch and draws inspiration from it. It is an adventure taking place in a stunningly beautiful world. Just to show what the imagination can do. And here is the problem already: plot. Or, potentially, the absence of plot in the straightforward sense of the word. We have a hero, Sky Captain, a heroine and love interest, Polly Perkins, and a brilliant but mad scientist threatening the world in a mysterious way that gradually unfolds and unveils not only his scientific achievements but also his ruthlessness and disrespect for human life: German Dr. Totenkopf. In short, this has a familiar ring to it.
Joseph “Sky Captain” Sullivan is a classic hero in the tradition of Humphrey Bogart, both in Casablanca and The Big Sleep. He is stylish but rough, masculine but not physically overdeveloped. Sullivan is in command of the famous Flying Legion, a group of mercenaries operating all over the world and, ostensibly, defending democracy and the free world. Not much can be said about the Flying Legion, headquartered some miles out of New York City on an island that can be turned into a fortress if need be, other than that they’re probably the most technologically advanced air force in the world. And they’re mercenaries, too. A fitting synonym would be sky pirates. Sky Captain is the only pirate we actually get to know and in being a mercenary that is called to the defense of New York City when it is attacked by mechanical men he epitomizes personal freedom and what this film is actually about: not being answerable to anyone. Sky Captain roams the skies, Kerry Conran unleashes his imagination and creates a world that never was but could have been the way he constructs it.
Even though the world we see is at times a reproduction of the actual year of 1939, sometimes a heavily fictionalized account of almost boyish fantasies, the film pays homage to the works that have inspired it. It is almost impossible to list all the comics, films and even cartoons that were incorporated either directly or indirectly in the film. We see a screening of The Wizard of Oz when Polly Perkins, journalist and love interest of Sky Captain, meets Dr. Jorge Vargas, one of the scientists that have been abducted by Totenkopf and managed to escape. The mechanical men that attack New York City and their characteristics are taken from the Superman short The Mechanical Monsters that was produced by Fleischer Studios in 1941. And the lost island that later turns out to be Dr. Totenkopf’s headquarters looks like a close reproduction of Skull Island out of “King Kong” (and in fact King Kong can be seen climbing the Empire State Building in the background while Sky Captain is busy fighting the Mechanical Monsters). There are countless further examples, most notably the general aesthetics of Japanese Studio Ghibli productions such as Castle in the Skies or Porco Rosso, but this is secondary. Even non-geeks will be enchanted by what they see, simply because they instantly feel reminded of what it felt like to watch cartoons as a kid or how excited they were after their first taste of Star Wars. Sky Captain evokes those feeling and simply makes you forget all those little flaws in dialogue or plot. Being the first major film to have been shot entirely in front of blue screens it would be almost dogmatic anyway to assume the actors or story were supposed to steal the show.
This is Sky Captain, I’m on my way.
Joseph “Sky Captain” Sullivan answering New York City’s distress call.
And the show consists of all those beautiful details. The bridge that leads to the base of the Flying Legion. The complex design of Totenkopf’s mechanical men and the flying wings that resemble the German Horten 229 prototype that flew for the first time in the last days of WWII. Sky Captain’s Curtiss P-40, that was heavily modified by his skilled mechanic Dex, who in turn finds ideas in the comic books he is constantly reading and proves to be invaluable as “brain” for the rather straight-forward Sky Captain. Like dieselpunk in general, it is war machines that seem to be the most fascinating. It can only be assumed why that is, but then Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow isn’t the kind of film that is concerned with moral questions. Despite all the beautiful effects and designs and focus on the aesthetic surface there certainly is an undercurrent at best on an almost subconscious level that is critical of the World of Tomorrow. Next to a militaristic world it is hubris that comes to mind, a mindset preoccupied with the idea that technology is the best cure for all problems – an idea that mirrors the zeitgeist of Generation Y, or better known as Millennials. Sky Captain believes he and his men are called to save the world because they’re the best soldiers using the most advanced technology. Dr. Totenkopf, by contrast, is frustrated with an amoral world and believes he can decide its fate. There is more but, admittedly, it is crushed by the aesthetic beauty of this film.
Almost every shot could be turned into an artwork, and maybe this should be done with Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, since it failed to become a successful film. It is difficult to determine why it became a box office bomb but the setting certainly played a part in it. People love stories and setting they can relate to but Sky Captain just pushed the limits a little bit too far. An airplane that turns into a submarine within seconds might be cool to look at but aesthetics alone can’t save a film if people aren’t interested in the plot. Plot and expression can go hand in hand but they don’t necessarily have to. Expression doesn’t need plot and vice versa. In the tradition of German expressionist films such as Metropolis, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow expresses itself without needing plot. Whatever you see can either be considered in context or speak for itself. It is this complexity that might’ve put people off but we’ll never know for certain.
What remains is a visual masterpiece that you either enjoy or hate, a novelization by K.J. Anderson that is fun to read and even adds some background information to the film, and a director who made a perfect film and failed anyway. Unimaginable what a man like Kerry Conran might’ve accomplished, had Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow at least managed to break even. When Disney started work on John Carter of Mars Conran produced a demo reel that is available on YouTube and promised to become an interesting film but Conran never had the chance to make it. This is sad to see, since he could’ve given us a lot more, a stunning prequel or sequel to Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow at best.
