Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
Encyclopedia
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is a 2004 American pulp adventure science-fiction film written and directed by Kerry Conran
in his directorial debut. The film is set in an alternative
1939 and follows the adventures of Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow
), a newspaper reporter, and Harry Joseph "Joe" Sullivan (Jude Law
), alias "Sky Captain," as they track down the mysterious Dr. Totenkopf (Laurence Olivier
), who is seeking to build the "World of Tomorrow".
Conran spent four years making a black and white teaser trailer with a bluescreen set up in his living room and using a Macintosh IIci
personal computer. He was able to show it to producer Jon Avnet, who was so impressed that he spent two years working with the aspiring filmmaker on his screenplay. No major studio was interested in financing such an unusual film with a first-time director. Avnet convinced Aurelio De Laurentiis
to finance Sky Captain without a distribution deal.
Almost 100 digital artists, modelers, animators and compositors created the multi-layered 2D and 3D backgrounds for the live-action footage while the entire movie was sketched out via hand-drawn storyboards and then re-created as computer-generated 3D animatics. Ten months before Conran made the movie with his cast, he shot it entirely with stand-ins in Los Angeles
and then created it in animatics so the actors had an idea of what the film would look like. Sky Captain is notable as one of the first major films (along with Sin City
(2005), Casshern (2004), and Immortal (2004) to be shot entirely on a "digital backlot
", blending live actors with computer generated surroundings.
Sky Captain grossed $37.7 million in North America and $20.1 million in the rest of the world, totalling $57.9 million, below its estimated $70 million budget. Since the overhead of theater, marketing, and other costs raises the break-even point of a film to roughly double its production cost, it likely lost about $80,000,000 prior to TV and DVD revenues.
Hindenburg III arrives in New York City
, mooring at the Empire State Building
. A frightened scientist named Dr. Jorge Vargas (Julian Curry
) makes arrangements for a package containing two vials to be delivered to a Dr. Walter Jennings (Trevor Baxter
), then vanishes.
Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow
), a newspaper reporter for The Chronicle, looks into the disappearances of Vargas and five other renowned scientists. She receives a cryptic message telling her to go to Radio City Music Hall
. Ignoring the warning of editor Paley (Michael Gambon
) not to go, she meets Dr. Jennings during a showing of The Wizard of Oz
. He tells her that Dr. Totenkopf is coming for him. Suddenly, air raid
sirens go off as giant indestructible robot
s attack the city. In desperation, the police
call for "Sky Captain" Joe Sullivan (Jude Law
), who commands a private air force based in New York, the Flying Legion.
Polly photographs the action from the street as Sullivan knocks out one robot and the rest leave. News reports show similar attacks around the globe. The robot's wreckage is taken back to the Legion's air base so that its expert, Dex Dearborn (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 in China where Joe was serving with the Flying Tigers
. Since it appears Polly has useful information, Joe agrees to let her in on the investigation. Her lead takes them to the ransacked laboratory of Dr. Jennings, with the scientist himself near death. The killer, a mysterious woman (Bai Ling
), escapes. 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. Dex manages to track the origin of the robot control signal, but he's 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 discover an abandoned mining outpost. Two guides turn out to be working for Totenkopf, forcing Polly to turn over the vials and then locking her and Joe in a room full of explosives, which they light. Joe and Polly are knocked unconscious by the explosion. They wake up together in the mythical Shangri-La
. The monks there tell of Totenkopf's enslavement of their people, forcing them to work in the uranium
mines. Most were killed by the radiation, but the final survivor (who was suffering from radiation poisoning
) provides a clue to where Totenkopf is hiding. This leads them to another of Joe's ex-flames, Commander Franky Cook (Angelina Jolie
), who commands a Royal Navy
flying aircraft carrier
with submarine aircraft.
Franky leads the attack while Joe and Polly enter through an underwater inlet. After surfacing, Polly notices that the identification number on Joe's aircraft reads "Polly" when viewed upside-down. Joe and Polly find themselves on an island with dinosaur-like creatures. They head to a mountain and find a secret underground facility, where robots are loading animals, as well as the mysterious vials, onto a large "Noah's Ark
" rocket. Joe and Polly are detected and nearly killed. Dex, piloting a barge, arrives in the nick of time with three of the missing scientists. Dex explains that Totenkopf has given up on humanity and seeks to start the world over again: the "World of Tomorrow". The vials are genetic material for a male and female human: a new Adam and Eve
.
In Totenkopf's lair, one scientist is incinerated by the defense system. A holograph of Totenkopf (Laurence Olivier
) appears and speaks. Dex disables the defenses and the group discovers Totenkopf's mummified corpse. He had died 20 years before, but his machines have carried on his work. In his hand is a scrap of paper reading "forgive me". The only way to sabotage the rocket is from the inside. Polly tries to tag along, but Joe kisses her and knocks her out. He prepares to sacrifice himself while the others escape. Polly recovers and follows Joe, arriving in time to save him from the mysterious woman, who turns out to be a robot. The two board the rocket. Before it reaches 100 km, when its second stage fires and incinerates the earth, Polly pushes an emergency button that ejects all the animals in escape pods. Joe tries to disable the rocket only to be interrupted by the same robot. He jolts her with her electric weapon and then uses it on the controls, disabling the rocket. They use the last pod to save themselves as the rocket safely explodes.
Joe and Polly watch the animal pods splash down around their escape pod. Polly then uses the last shot on her camera to take a picture of Joe. He tells her that the lens cap was still on the camera. Polly's look of joy turns to shock as she realizes she has no proof any of their adventure happened.
Peter Law, who plays Dr. Aler Kessler, is the father of Jude Law. The full names for Dex and Editor Paley were revealed in the novelization written by Kevin J. Anderson.
. 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 make the movie himself.
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
. Geddes also designed an Airliner#4 that was to fly from Chicago to London.
Another key influence was Hugh Ferriss
, one of the designers for the 1939 World’s Fair who designed bridges and huge housing complexes. 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 1916 Zoning Resolution
. These four drawings would later be used in his 1929 book The Metropolis of Tomorrow (Dover Publications
, 2005, ISBN 0-486-43727-2).
Regarding the 1939 New York World's Fair
itself and its futuristic theme of the World of Tomorrow, Conran noted: "...obviously the title refers to the World Expo and the spirit of that was looking at the future with a sense of optimism and a sense of the whimsical, you know, something that we've lost a lot in our fantasies. We're more cynical, more practical... I think what this film attempts to do is to take that enthusiasm and innocence and celebrate it-to not get mired in the practicality that we're fixated upon today."
Conran acknowledged his debt to German Expressionism
, which was particularly evident in the opening scenes in New York City: "Early German cinema was born of just a completely different aesthetic than what we see nowadays. One of the last things I watched before starting this project was the Dr. Mabuse series that Lang
had done - terribly inspirational, the use of art and propaganda even."
Conran summed up what influenced him in making Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow: "We tried to approach it almost as though we lived in that era and were just another group of artists trying to make a work out of those pieces and inspirations. We wanted the film to feel like a lost film of that era. If we're a footnote in the history of pulp art
and Golden Age comics
, that'd be enough, that'd be great. If we even just inspire some people to go back and investigate some of that stuff, we'd have done enough."
Sky Captain has a number of commonalities with the famous Hayao Miyazaki
animation Castle in the Sky
(1986). The sky pirates, focus on primitive mechanics, large airships, and military cultures are similar. Both stories center on an evil madman with control over an island of high technology and the search for that island. Laputa has the evil madman searching for the island while Sky Captain has the island as the base of the madman from the beginning. Sky Captain is also different in its message which is largely about the film genre while Laputa has strong anti-war and anti-technology themes found in most of Miyazaki's work. Additionally, both the Hayao Miyazaki
film and Sky Captain pay homage to the 1941 Superman Cartoon The Mechanical Monsters
.
. 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." Conran spent four years making a black and white teaser trailer in the style of an old-fashioned movie serial 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.
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.
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. 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.
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 in which 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. 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." After each day of shooting, footage was edited and sent overnight to editors in L.A. who added CGI and sent it back.
After filming ended, they put together a 24-minute presentation and took it to every studio in June 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!" 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.
Laurence Olivier
, who died in 1989, posthumously appears as the villain and mad scientist
Dr. Totenkopf
. His likeness was produced using 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 Superman Returns
(2006) 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
(2004)) 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 advance buzz.
" sung by American jazz singer Jane Monheit
, which were all featured on Sony Classical's
original motion picture soundtrack recording.
expectations, opening in first place on its September 17, 2004 release date and grossing USD
$15.5 million on its opening weekend. However the film only grossed $37.7 million in North America, below its estimated $70 million budget. It managed to gross $20.1 million in the rest of the world, making its final worldwide tally $57.9 million.
Critical reviews were largely positive. The film currently has a 72% rating (with a 70% for their "Cream of the Crop" designation) on Rotten Tomatoes
. The Canadian network Space awarded it the 2005 Spacey Award for Best Science Fiction/Fantasy Film.
Roger Ebert
was among those who strongly supported the film, giving it a 4 out of a possible 4 stars 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".
The film is also one of few to be awarded five out of five stars by IGN
FilmForce.
In his review for the Chicago Reader, J.R. Jones wrote, "This debut feature by Kerry Conran is a triumph not only for its technical mastery but for its good taste". Entertainment Weekly
gave the film an "A-" rating, saying, "The investment is optimistic and wise; Sky Captain is a gorgeous, funny, and welcome novelty".
Other critics' enthusiasm was somewhat tempered. For instance, Stephen Holden of The New York Times
lauded its visuals and its evocation of 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".
USA Today
said that the film was "all style over substance, a clever parlor trick but a dull movie". Stephen Hunter, of the Washington Post, called it "a $70 million novelty item".
like Airboy
] was really the template for us. To some extent we stole from it, to some extent we expanded on it -- hopefully we added enough of our own sensibility. We tried to approach it almost as though we lived in that era and were just another group of artists trying to make a work those pieces and inspirations. We wanted the film to feel like a lost film of that era."
When early in the film newspaper clippings from around the globe are shown, in the Japanese newspaper the iconic silhouette of Godzilla
is clearly visible. Similarly, during the New York sequence when Sky Captain deploys a bomb to stop a giant robot, the shape of King Kong
can be seen on the Empire State Building in the background.
During the underwater dogfight sequence a light momentarily displays the wreckage of a ship with the name "Venture"—the tramp steamer
that sailed to Skull island in the 1933 version of King Kong
. In the same scene, what appears to be the wreckage of the RMS Titanic can be seen, as well an ancient underwater city which seems to be a nod to the legend of Atlantis
.
The villain's main logo bears striking similarities to the logo for Crimson Skies
, a game universe that some critics noted bore stylistic and plot similarities to the film.
, Captain Midnight
, and Blackhawk
. Also, production designer
Kevin Conran, the brother of director Kerry Conran
, based the design of the flying humanoid robots, in part, on the helmet worn by the DC Comics
superhero Adam Strange
and controls on Commando Cody
's rocket-pack (see image, right).
Kerry Conran
Kerry Scott Conran is an American filmmaker, educated at the California Institute of Arts. He created and directed the 2004 pulp science fiction film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow....
in his directorial debut. The film is set in an alternative
Alternate history (fiction)
Alternate history or alternative history is a genre of fiction consisting of stories that are set in worlds in which history has diverged from the actual history of the world. It can be variously seen as a sub-genre of literary fiction, science fiction, and historical fiction; different alternate...
1939 and follows the adventures of Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow
Gwyneth Paltrow
Gwyneth Kate Paltrow is an American actress and singer. She made her acting debut on stage in 1990 and started appearing in films in 1991. After appearing in several films throughout the decade, Paltrow gained early notice for her work in films such as Se7en and Emma...
), a newspaper reporter, and Harry Joseph "Joe" Sullivan (Jude Law
Jude Law
David Jude Heyworth Law , known professionally as Jude Law, is an English actor, film producer and director.He began acting with the National Youth Music Theatre in 1987, and had his first television role in 1989...
), alias "Sky Captain," as they track down the mysterious Dr. Totenkopf (Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
), who is seeking to build the "World of Tomorrow".
Conran spent four years making a black and white teaser trailer with a bluescreen set up in his living room and using a Macintosh IIci
Macintosh IIci
The Apple Macintosh IIci was an improvement on the Macintosh IIcx. Sharing the same compact case design with three expansion slots, the IIci improved upon the IIcx's 16 MHz Motorola 68030 CPU and 68882 FPU, replacing them with 25 MHz versions of these chips. The IIci came with either a 40 or...
personal computer. He was able to show it to producer Jon Avnet, who was so impressed that he spent two years working with the aspiring filmmaker on his screenplay. No major studio was interested in financing such an unusual film with a first-time director. Avnet convinced Aurelio De Laurentiis
Aurelio De Laurentiis
Aurelio De Laurentiis is a prominent Italian film producer, through his company, Filmauro. He is also the current chairman of his native Italian football club Napoli....
to finance Sky Captain without a distribution deal.
Almost 100 digital artists, modelers, animators and compositors created the multi-layered 2D and 3D backgrounds for the live-action footage while the entire movie was sketched out via hand-drawn storyboards and then re-created as computer-generated 3D animatics. Ten months before Conran made the movie with his cast, he shot it entirely with stand-ins in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
and then created it in animatics so the actors had an idea of what the film would look like. Sky Captain is notable as one of the first major films (along with Sin City
Sin City (film)
Sin City, also known as Frank Miller's Sin City, is a 2005 crime thriller film written, produced and directed by Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez...
(2005), Casshern (2004), and Immortal (2004) to be shot entirely on a "digital backlot
Digital backlot
Digital backlot is a term used to describe motion picture sets that have neither genuine location shoots nor practical sets on the soundstages; the shooting takes place entirely on a stage with a blank background that will have an artificial environment put in during post-production...
", blending live actors with computer generated surroundings.
Sky Captain grossed $37.7 million in North America and $20.1 million in the rest of the world, totalling $57.9 million, below its estimated $70 million budget. Since the overhead of theater, marketing, and other costs raises the break-even point of a film to roughly double its production cost, it likely lost about $80,000,000 prior to TV and DVD revenues.
Plot
In 1939, the zeppelinZeppelin
A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship pioneered by the German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin in the early 20th century. It was based on designs he had outlined in 1874 and detailed in 1893. His plans were reviewed by committee in 1894 and patented in the United States on 14 March 1899...
Hindenburg III arrives in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, mooring at the Empire State Building
Empire State Building
The Empire State Building is a 102-story landmark skyscraper and American cultural icon in New York City at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and West 34th Street. It has a roof height of 1,250 feet , and with its antenna spire included, it stands a total of 1,454 ft high. Its name is derived...
. A frightened scientist named Dr. Jorge Vargas (Julian Curry
Julian Curry
Julian Curry is a British actor best known for playing Claude Erskine-Browne in ITV's comedy-drama Rumpole of the Bailey....
) makes arrangements for a package containing two vials to be delivered to a Dr. Walter Jennings (Trevor Baxter
Trevor Baxter
Trevor Baxter is a British actor and playwright.He is perhaps best remembered for his appearance in the 1977 Doctor Who serial The Talons of Weng-Chiang as Professor George Litefoot. He reprised his role of Professor Litefoot in an episode of audio series, Doctor Who: The Companion Chronicles:...
), then vanishes.
Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow
Gwyneth Paltrow
Gwyneth Kate Paltrow is an American actress and singer. She made her acting debut on stage in 1990 and started appearing in films in 1991. After appearing in several films throughout the decade, Paltrow gained early notice for her work in films such as Se7en and Emma...
), a newspaper reporter for The Chronicle, looks into the disappearances of Vargas and five other renowned scientists. She receives a cryptic message telling her to go to Radio City Music Hall
Radio City Music Hall
Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue located in New York City's Rockefeller Center. Its nickname is the Showplace of the Nation, and it was for a time the leading tourist destination in the city...
. Ignoring the warning of editor Paley (Michael Gambon
Michael Gambon
Sir Michael John Gambon, CBE is an Irish actor who has worked in theatre, television and film. A highly respected theatre actor, Gambon is recognised for his roles as Philip Marlowe in the BBC television serial The Singing Detective, as Jules Maigret in the 1990s ITV serial Maigret, and as...
) not to go, she meets Dr. Jennings during a showing of The Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)
The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed primarily by Victor Fleming. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but there were uncredited contributions by others. The lyrics for the songs...
. He tells her that Dr. Totenkopf is coming for him. Suddenly, air raid
Airstrike
An air strike is an attack on a specific objective by military aircraft during an offensive mission. Air strikes are commonly delivered from aircraft such as fighters, bombers, ground attack aircraft, attack helicopters, and others...
sirens go off as giant indestructible robot
Robot
A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent that can perform tasks automatically or with guidance, typically by remote control. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or...
s attack the city. In desperation, the police
Police
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
call for "Sky Captain" Joe Sullivan (Jude Law
Jude Law
David Jude Heyworth Law , known professionally as Jude Law, is an English actor, film producer and director.He began acting with the National Youth Music Theatre in 1987, and had his first television role in 1989...
), who commands a private air force based in New York, the Flying Legion.
Polly photographs the action from the street as Sullivan knocks out one robot and the rest leave. News reports show similar attacks around the globe. The robot's wreckage is taken back to the Legion's air base so that its expert, Dex Dearborn (Giovanni Ribisi
Giovanni Ribisi
Giovanni Ribisi is an American actor. His film credits include Gone in 60 Seconds, Boiler Room, Saving Private Ryan, The Mod Squad, The Gift, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Lost in Translation and more recently, Public Enemies and Avatar...
), can examine it. Polly follows, hoping to get information for her story. She and Joe are ex-lovers, who broke up three years earlier in China where Joe was serving with the Flying Tigers
Flying Tigers
The 1st American Volunteer Group of the Chinese Air Force in 1941–1942, famously nicknamed the Flying Tigers, was composed of pilots from the United States Army , Navy , and Marine Corps , recruited under presidential sanction and commanded by Claire Lee Chennault. The ground crew and headquarters...
. Since it appears Polly has useful information, Joe agrees to let her in on the investigation. Her lead takes them to the ransacked laboratory of Dr. Jennings, with the scientist himself near death. The killer, a mysterious woman (Bai Ling
Bai Ling
Bai Ling is a Chinese actress known for her work in films such as The Crow, Red Corner and Wild Wild West, and in TV series such as Entourage and Lost. In 2011 she appeared in the fifth season of the VH1 reality television series Celebrity Rehab with Dr...
), escapes. 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
Ornithopter
An ornithopter is an aircraft that flies by flapping its wings. Designers seek to imitate the flapping-wing flight of birds, bats, and insects. Though machines may differ in form, they are usually built on the same scale as these flying creatures. Manned ornithopters have also been built, and some...
drones. Dex manages to track the origin of the robot control signal, but he's 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
Nepal
Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
. Venturing into the Himalayas, they discover an abandoned mining outpost. Two guides turn out to be working for Totenkopf, forcing Polly to turn over the vials and then locking her and Joe in a room full of explosives, which they light. Joe and Polly are knocked unconscious by the explosion. They wake up together in the mythical Shangri-La
Shangri-La
Shangri-La is a fictional place described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton. Hilton describes Shangri-La as a mystical, harmonious valley, gently guided from a lamasery, enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains...
. The monks there tell of Totenkopf's enslavement of their people, forcing them to work in the uranium
Uranium
Uranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table, with atomic number 92. It is assigned the chemical symbol U. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons...
mines. Most were killed by the radiation, but the final survivor (who was suffering from radiation poisoning
Radiation poisoning
Acute radiation syndrome also known as radiation poisoning, radiation sickness or radiation toxicity, is a constellation of health effects which occur within several months of exposure to high amounts of ionizing radiation...
) provides a clue to where Totenkopf is hiding. This leads them to another of Joe's ex-flames, Commander Franky Cook (Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie is an American actress. She has received an Academy Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards, and was named Hollywood's highest-paid actress by Forbes in 2009 and 2011. Jolie is noted for promoting humanitarian causes as a Goodwill Ambassador for the...
), who commands a Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
flying aircraft carrier
Helicarrier
The Helicarrier is a fictional flying aircraft carrier specifically designed to be capable of independent powered flight in addition to the conventional functions of aircraft carriers...
with submarine aircraft.
Franky leads the attack while Joe and Polly enter through an underwater inlet. After surfacing, Polly notices that the identification number on Joe's aircraft reads "Polly" when viewed upside-down. Joe and Polly find themselves on an island with dinosaur-like creatures. They head to a mountain and find a secret underground facility, where robots are loading animals, as well as the mysterious vials, onto a large "Noah's Ark
Noah's Ark
Noah's Ark is a vessel appearing in the Book of Genesis and the Quran . These narratives describe the construction of the ark by Noah at God's command to save himself, his family, and the world's animals from the worldwide deluge of the Great Flood.In the narrative of the ark, God sees the...
" rocket. Joe and Polly are detected and nearly killed. Dex, piloting a barge, arrives in the nick of time with three of the missing scientists. Dex explains that Totenkopf has given up on humanity and seeks to start the world over again: the "World of Tomorrow". The vials are genetic material for a male and female human: a new Adam and Eve
Adam and Eve
Adam and Eve were, according to the Genesis creation narratives, the first human couple to inhabit Earth, created by YHWH, the God of the ancient Hebrews...
.
In Totenkopf's lair, one scientist is incinerated by the defense system. A holograph of Totenkopf (Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
) appears and speaks. Dex disables the defenses and the group discovers Totenkopf's mummified corpse. He had died 20 years before, but his machines have carried on his work. In his hand is a scrap of paper reading "forgive me". The only way to sabotage the rocket is from the inside. Polly tries to tag along, but Joe kisses her and knocks her out. He prepares to sacrifice himself while the others escape. Polly recovers and follows Joe, arriving in time to save him from the mysterious woman, who turns out to be a robot. The two board the rocket. Before it reaches 100 km, when its second stage fires and incinerates the earth, Polly pushes an emergency button that ejects all the animals in escape pods. Joe tries to disable the rocket only to be interrupted by the same robot. He jolts her with her electric weapon and then uses it on the controls, disabling the rocket. They use the last pod to save themselves as the rocket safely explodes.
Joe and Polly watch the animal pods splash down around their escape pod. Polly then uses the last shot on her camera to take a picture of Joe. He tells her that the lens cap was still on the camera. Polly's look of joy turns to shock as she realizes she has no proof any of their adventure happened.
Cast
- Jude LawJude LawDavid Jude Heyworth Law , known professionally as Jude Law, is an English actor, film producer and director.He began acting with the National Youth Music Theatre in 1987, and had his first television role in 1989...
stars as Harry Joseph "Joe" Sullivan, a.k.a Sky Captain: He commands a private air force known as the Flying Legion. His personal aircraft is a modified Curtiss P-40Curtiss P-40The Curtiss P-40 Warhawk was an American single-engine, single-seat, all-metal fighter and ground attack aircraft that first flew in 1938. The P-40 design was a modification of the previous Curtiss P-36 Hawk which reduced development time and enabled a rapid entry into production and operational...
. In 2002, producer Jon Avnet showed 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." 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 RogersBuck RogersAnthony Rogers is a fictional character that first appeared in Armageddon 2419 A.D. by Philip Francis Nowlan in the August 1928 issue of the pulp magazine Amazing Stories. A sequel, The Airlords of Han, was published in the March 1929 issue....
." 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." The actor had just finished filming Cold MountainCold Mountain (film)Cold Mountain is a 2003 war drama film written and directed by Anthony Minghella. The film is based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Charles Frazier...
(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 remake of AlfieAlfie (2004 film)Alfie is a 2004 British/American comedy-drama film based on the 1966 British film of the same name, starring Jude Law as the title character, originally played by Michael Caine. The film was written, directed and produced by Charles Shyer.-Plot:...
(2004) and Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate EventsLemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate EventsLemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events is a 2004 black comedy film directed by Brad Silberling. It is an adaptation of the The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room, and The Wide Window, being the first three books in A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket...
(2004). It also was one of six overall Jude Law films released that year. - Gwyneth PaltrowGwyneth PaltrowGwyneth Kate Paltrow is an American actress and singer. She made her acting debut on stage in 1990 and started appearing in films in 1991. After appearing in several films throughout the decade, Paltrow gained early notice for her work in films such as Se7en and Emma...
as Polly Perkins, reporter for the New York Chronicle. Law believed so much in Conran's movie that he became one of the producers and used his clout to get 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." 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." - Angelina JolieAngelina JolieAngelina Jolie is an American actress. She has received an Academy Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards, and was named Hollywood's highest-paid actress by Forbes in 2009 and 2011. Jolie is noted for promoting humanitarian causes as a Goodwill Ambassador for the...
as Commander Francesca "Franky" Cook: She commands a Royal Navy flying aircraft carrier. Jolie had just arrived from the set of Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of LifeLara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of LifeLara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life is a 2003 action film directed by Jan de Bont, and starring Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft. It is a sequel to the 2001 film Lara Croft: Tomb Raider...
(2003) and agreed to work on the movie for three days. Despite her small role, she reportedly had conducted hours of interviews with fighter pilots in order to absorb their jargon and get a feel for the role. - Giovanni RibisiGiovanni RibisiGiovanni Ribisi is an American actor. His film credits include Gone in 60 Seconds, Boiler Room, Saving Private Ryan, The Mod Squad, The Gift, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Lost in Translation and more recently, Public Enemies and Avatar...
as Dexter “Dex” Dearborn, ace mechanic of the Flying Legion. 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. - Michael GambonMichael GambonSir Michael John Gambon, CBE is an Irish actor who has worked in theatre, television and film. A highly respected theatre actor, Gambon is recognised for his roles as Philip Marlowe in the BBC television serial The Singing Detective, as Jules Maigret in the 1990s ITV serial Maigret, and as...
as Morris Paley, editor of the New York Chronicle - Omid DjaliliOmid DjaliliOmid Djalili is a British Iranian stand-up comedian, actor, television producer and writer.-Personal life:Djalili was born in Chelsea, London to Iranian Bahá'í parents and is a Bahá'í himself...
as Kaji, former comrade-in-arm from the Flying Legion - Bai LingBai LingBai Ling is a Chinese actress known for her work in films such as The Crow, Red Corner and Wild Wild West, and in TV series such as Entourage and Lost. In 2011 she appeared in the fifth season of the VH1 reality television series Celebrity Rehab with Dr...
as The Mysterious Woman, Totenkopf's henchwomen - Julian CurryJulian CurryJulian Curry is a British actor best known for playing Claude Erskine-Browne in ITV's comedy-drama Rumpole of the Bailey....
as Dr. Jorge Vargas, a missing scientist - Trevor BaxterTrevor BaxterTrevor Baxter is a British actor and playwright.He is perhaps best remembered for his appearance in the 1977 Doctor Who serial The Talons of Weng-Chiang as Professor George Litefoot. He reprised his role of Professor Litefoot in an episode of audio series, Doctor Who: The Companion Chronicles:...
as Dr. Walter Jennings, a missing scientist - Peter LawPeter Law (actor)Peter R. Law is a British actor and is the father of actor Jude Law and artist Natasha Law.He had the leading part in the MTV show Fist of Zen, where he played a Zen Master. In 2002 he had a brief appearance in the movie Ali G Indahouse as the Mongolian Ambassador...
as Dr. Aler Kessler, a missing scientist - Laurence OlivierLaurence OlivierLaurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
as Dr. Totenkopf, the mysterious mad scientistMad scientistA mad scientist is a stock character of popular fiction, specifically science fiction. The mad scientist may be villainous or antagonistic, benign or neutral, and whether insane, eccentric, or simply bumbling, mad scientists often work with fictional technology in order to forward their schemes, if...
and supervillainSupervillainA supervillain or supervillainess is a variant of the villain character type, commonly found in comic books, action movies and science fiction in various media.They are sometimes used as foils to superheroes and other fictional heroes...
; Olivier had been deceased for nearly 13 years at the time of filming, and was depicted in the film via computer manipulation of video and audio from when he was a young actor. - Khan BonfilsKhan BonfilsKan Bonfils is an actor, who is best known for his role as Jedi Master Saesee Tiin in the prequel trilogy for Star Wars.- Filmography :His film credits include:*Shadow Run as Baz*Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace as Saesee Tiin...
as Creepy
Development
Kerry Conran grew up on films and comic books of the 1930s and 1940s. 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 animationComputer animation
Computer animation is the process used for generating animated images by using computer graphics. The more general term computer generated imagery encompasses both static scenes and dynamic images, while computer animation only refers to moving images....
. 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 make the movie himself.
Influences
Norman Bel Geddes
Norman Melancton Bel Geddes was an American theatrical and industrial designer who focused on aerodynamics....
, an industrial designer who did work for the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair and designed exhibits for the 1939 New York World's Fair
1939 New York World's Fair
The 1939–40 New York World's Fair, which covered the of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park , was the second largest American world's fair of all time, exceeded only by St. Louis's Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904. Many countries around the world participated in it, and over 44 million people...
. Geddes also designed an Airliner#4 that was to fly from Chicago to London.
Another key influence was Hugh Ferriss
Hugh Ferriss
Hugh Ferriss was an American delineator and architect. According to Daniel Okrent, Ferriss never designed a single noteworthy building, but after his death a colleague said he 'influenced my generation of architects' more than any other man...
, one of the designers for the 1939 World’s Fair who designed bridges and huge housing complexes. He was an American delineator (one who creates perspective drawings of buildings) and architect. In 1922, skyscraper architect Harvey Wiley Corbett
Harvey Wiley Corbett
Harvey Wiley Corbett was an American architect primarily known for skyscraper and office building designs in New York and London, and his advocacy of tall buildings and modernism in architecture.-Early life and career:...
commissioned Ferriss to draw a series of four step-by-step perspectives demonstrating the architectural consequences of the 1916 Zoning Resolution
1916 Zoning Resolution
The New York City 1916 Zoning Resolution was a measure adopted primarily to stop massive buildings such as the Equitable Building from preventing light and air from reaching the streets below...
. These four drawings would later be used in his 1929 book The Metropolis of Tomorrow (Dover Publications
Dover Publications
Dover Publications is an American book publisher founded in 1941 by Hayward Cirker and his wife, Blanche. It publishes primarily reissues, books no longer published by their original publishers. These are often, but not always, books in the public domain. The original published editions may be...
, 2005, ISBN 0-486-43727-2).
Regarding the 1939 New York World's Fair
1939 New York World's Fair
The 1939–40 New York World's Fair, which covered the of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park , was the second largest American world's fair of all time, exceeded only by St. Louis's Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904. Many countries around the world participated in it, and over 44 million people...
itself and its futuristic theme of the World of Tomorrow, Conran noted: "...obviously the title refers to the World Expo and the spirit of that was looking at the future with a sense of optimism and a sense of the whimsical, you know, something that we've lost a lot in our fantasies. We're more cynical, more practical... I think what this film attempts to do is to take that enthusiasm and innocence and celebrate it-to not get mired in the practicality that we're fixated upon today."
Conran acknowledged his debt to German Expressionism
German Expressionism
German Expressionism refers to a number of related creative movements beginning in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin, during the 1920s...
, which was particularly evident in the opening scenes in New York City: "Early German cinema was born of just a completely different aesthetic than what we see nowadays. One of the last things I watched before starting this project was the Dr. Mabuse series that Lang
Fritz Lang
Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute...
had done - terribly inspirational, the use of art and propaganda even."
Conran summed up what influenced him in making Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow: "We tried to approach it almost as though we lived in that era and were just another group of artists trying to make a work out of those pieces and inspirations. We wanted the film to feel like a lost film of that era. If we're a footnote in the history of pulp art
Pulp magazine
Pulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...
and Golden Age comics
Golden Age of Comic Books
The Golden Age of Comic Books was a period in the history of American comic books, generally thought of as lasting from the late 1930s until the late 1940s or early 1950s...
, that'd be enough, that'd be great. If we even just inspire some people to go back and investigate some of that stuff, we'd have done enough."
Sky Captain has a number of commonalities with the famous Hayao Miyazaki
Hayao Miyazaki
is a Japanese manga artist and prominent film director and animator of many popular anime feature films. Through a career that has spanned nearly fifty years, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a maker of animated feature films and, along with Isao Takahata, co-founded Studio Ghibli,...
animation Castle in the Sky
Castle in the Sky
All compositions by Joe Hisaishi.#"The Girl Who Fell from the Sky" – 2:27#"Morning in Slag Ravine" – 3:04#"A Fun Brawl " – 4:27#"Memories of Gondoa" – 2:46#"Discouraged Pazu" – 1:46#"Robot Soldier " – 2:34...
(1986). The sky pirates, focus on primitive mechanics, large airships, and military cultures are similar. Both stories center on an evil madman with control over an island of high technology and the search for that island. Laputa has the evil madman searching for the island while Sky Captain has the island as the base of the madman from the beginning. Sky Captain is also different in its message which is largely about the film genre while Laputa has strong anti-war and anti-technology themes found in most of Miyazaki's work. Additionally, both the Hayao Miyazaki
Hayao Miyazaki
is a Japanese manga artist and prominent film director and animator of many popular anime feature films. Through a career that has spanned nearly fifty years, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a maker of animated feature films and, along with Isao Takahata, co-founded Studio Ghibli,...
film and Sky Captain pay homage to the 1941 Superman Cartoon The Mechanical Monsters
The Mechanical Monsters
The Mechanical Monsters is the second of the seventeen animated Technicolor short films based upon the DC Comics character Superman. Produced by Fleischer Studios, the story features Superman battling a mad scientist with a small army of robots at his command...
.
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 SoderberghSteven Soderbergh
Steven Andrew Soderbergh is an American film producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor, and an Academy Award-winning film director. He is best known for directing commercial Hollywood films like Erin Brockovich, Traffic, and the remake of Ocean's Eleven, but he has also directed smaller less...
. 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
Indiana Jones
Colonel Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones, Jr., Ph.D. is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Indiana Jones franchise. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg created the character in homage to the action heroes of 1930s film serials...
and all the stuff we liked." Conran spent four years making a black and white teaser trailer in the style of an old-fashioned movie serial on his Macintosh IIci
Macintosh IIci
The Apple Macintosh IIci was an improvement on the Macintosh IIcx. Sharing the same compact case design with three expansion slots, the IIci improved upon the IIcx's 16 MHz Motorola 68030 CPU and 68882 FPU, replacing them with 25 MHz versions of these chips. The IIci came with either a 40 or...
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.
Pre-production
Avnet and Conran spent two years working on the screenplay, which included numerous genre-related references and homages, 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."Avnet went to Aurelio De Laurentiis
Aurelio De Laurentiis
Aurelio De Laurentiis is a prominent Italian film producer, through his company, Filmauro. He is also the current chairman of his native Italian football club Napoli....
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.
Ten months before Conran made the movie with his actors, he shot it entirely with stand-ins in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
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
Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall is an American film and stage actress and model, known for her distinctive husky voice and sultry looks.She first emerged as leading lady in the Humphrey Bogart film To Have And Have Not and continued on in the film noir genre, with appearances in The Big Sleep and Dark Passage ,...
in To Have and Have Not
To Have and Have Not (film)
To Have and Have Not is a 1944 romance-war-adventure film. The movie was directed by Howard Hawks and stars Humphrey Bogart, Walter Brennan, and Lauren Bacall in her first film...
(1944) for Paltrow's performance and The Thin Man
The Thin Man (film)
The Thin Man is a 1934 American comic detective film starring William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles, a flirtatious married couple who banter wittily as they solve crimes with ease. Nick is a hard drinking retired detective and Nora a wealthy heiress...
(1934) for the relationship between Nick and Nora that was to be echoed in the one between Joe and Polly. 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
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 videoHigh-definition video
High-definition video or HD video refers to any video system of higher resolution than standard-definition video, and most commonly involves display resolutions of 1,280×720 pixels or 1,920×1,080 pixels...
using a Sony HDW-F900 and working entirely on three different blue screen soundstages in London, England
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
with one notable exception. Conran wrote a scene that was added later in which 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. The footage from the HD camera was run through a switcher and then through a Macintosh computer running Final Cut Pro
Final Cut Pro
Final Cut Pro is a non-linear video editing software developed by Macromedia Inc. and then Apple Inc. The most recent version, Final Cut Pro X, runs on Mac personal computers powered by Mac OS X version 10.6.7 or later and using Intel processors...
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." After each day of shooting, footage was edited and sent overnight to editors in L.A. who added CGI and sent it back.
After filming ended, they put together a 24-minute presentation and took it to every studio in June 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!" 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.
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
, who died in 1989, posthumously appears as the villain and mad scientist
Mad scientist
A mad scientist is a stock character of popular fiction, specifically science fiction. The mad scientist may be villainous or antagonistic, benign or neutral, and whether insane, eccentric, or simply bumbling, mad scientists often work with fictional technology in order to forward their schemes, if...
Dr. Totenkopf
Totenkopf
The Totenkopf is the German word for the death's head and an old symbol for death or the dead. It consists usually of the skull and the mandible of the human skeleton...
. His likeness was produced using digitally manipulated archival BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
footage of the actor and thus adding one more film to his repertoire. A similar move was made two years later in Superman Returns
Superman Returns
Superman Returns is a 2006 superhero film directed by Bryan Singer. It is the fifth and final installment in the original Superman film series and serves as a alternate sequel to Superman and Superman II by ignoring the events of Superman III and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace .The film stars...
(2006) with Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando, Jr. was an American movie star and political activist. "Unchallenged as the most important actor in modern American Cinema" according to the St...
. 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
Spider-Man 2
Spider-Man 2 is a 2004 American superhero film directed by Sam Raimi, written by Alvin Sargent and developed by Alfred Gough, Miles Millar, and Michael Chabon. It is the second film in the Spider-Man film franchise based on the fictional Marvel Comics character Spider-Man...
(2004)) 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 advance buzz.
Soundtrack
Composer Edward Shearmur wrote the film's lavish orchestral score in the style of Hollywood's golden-age composers, and the film's end-title sequence featured a new recording of the Oscar-winning standard "Over the RainbowOver the Rainbow
"Over the Rainbow" is a classic Academy Award-winning ballad song with music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by E.Y. Harburg. It was written for the movie The Wizard of Oz, and was sung by Judy Garland in the movie...
" sung by American jazz singer Jane Monheit
Jane Monheit
Jane Monheit is a jazz and adult contemporary vocalist for Concord Records. She has collaborated with artists such as Michael Bublé, Ivan Lins, Terence Blanchard and Tom Harrell, and has received Grammy nominations for two of her recordings.-Early life:Jane Monheit was raised in Oakdale, New York...
, which were all featured on Sony Classical's
Sony Classical Records
Sony Classical Records was started in 1927 as Columbia Masterworks Records, a subsidiary of the American Columbia Records. In 1948, it issued the first commercially successful long-playing 12" record...
original motion picture soundtrack recording.
Track listing
- "The World of Tomorrow" – 1:07
- "The Zeppelin Arrives" – 1:53
- "The Robot Army" – 3:01
- "Calling Sky Captain" – 3:26
- "Back at the Base" – 2:49
- "The Flying Wings Attack" – 6:31
- "An Aquatic Escape" – 2:29
- "Flight to Nepal" – 4:38
- "Treacherous Journey" – 2:22
- "Dynamite" – 2:26
- "Three in a Bed" – 0:57
- "Finding Frankie" – 5:02
- "Manta Squadron" – 6:33
- "H-770-D" – 1:14
- "Flying Lizard" – 1:06
- "Totenkopf's Ark" – 5:01
- "Back to Earth" – 3:14
- "Over the RainbowOver the Rainbow"Over the Rainbow" is a classic Academy Award-winning ballad song with music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by E.Y. Harburg. It was written for the movie The Wizard of Oz, and was sung by Judy Garland in the movie...
" – 3:54
Reception
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow had high box officeBox office
A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....
expectations, opening in first place on its September 17, 2004 release date and grossing USD
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
$15.5 million on its opening weekend. However the film only grossed $37.7 million in North America, below its estimated $70 million budget. It managed to gross $20.1 million in the rest of the world, making its final worldwide tally $57.9 million.
Critical reviews were largely positive. The film currently has a 72% rating (with a 70% for their "Cream of the Crop" designation) on Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
. The Canadian network Space awarded it the 2005 Spacey Award for Best Science Fiction/Fantasy Film.
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
was among those who strongly supported the film, giving it a 4 out of a possible 4 stars 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
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Raiders of the Lost Ark is a 1981 American action-adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg, produced by George Lucas, and starring Harrison Ford. It is the first film in the Indiana Jones franchise...
. It's like a film that escaped from the imagination directly onto the screen, without having to pass through reality along the way".
The film is also one of few to be awarded five out of five stars by IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
FilmForce.
In his review for the Chicago Reader, J.R. Jones wrote, "This debut feature by Kerry Conran is a triumph not only for its technical mastery but for its good taste". Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
gave the film an "A-" rating, saying, "The investment is optimistic and wise; Sky Captain is a gorgeous, funny, and welcome novelty".
Other critics' enthusiasm was somewhat tempered. For instance, Stephen Holden of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
lauded its visuals and its evocation of 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".
USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
said that the film was "all style over substance, a clever parlor trick but a dull movie". Stephen Hunter, of the Washington Post, called it "a $70 million novelty item".
Homages
First-time director Conran incorporated many references to classic genre films into his own movie: "The work of those artists and writers [from the pulps and Golden Age of Comic BooksGolden Age of Comic Books
The Golden Age of Comic Books was a period in the history of American comic books, generally thought of as lasting from the late 1930s until the late 1940s or early 1950s...
like Airboy
Airboy
Airboy is a fictional aviator hero of an American comic book series initially published by Hillman Periodicals during the World War II-era time period fans and historians call the Golden Age of comic books. He was created by writers Charles Biro and Dick Wood and artist Al Camy.-Golden Age:Airboy...
] was really the template for us. To some extent we stole from it, to some extent we expanded on it -- hopefully we added enough of our own sensibility. We tried to approach it almost as though we lived in that era and were just another group of artists trying to make a work those pieces and inspirations. We wanted the film to feel like a lost film of that era."
When early in the film newspaper clippings from around the globe are shown, in the Japanese newspaper the iconic silhouette of Godzilla
Godzilla
is a daikaijū, a Japanese movie monster, first appearing in Ishirō Honda's 1954 film Godzilla. Since then, Godzilla has gone on to become a worldwide pop culture icon starring in 28 films produced by Toho Co., Ltd. The monster has appeared in numerous other media incarnations including video games,...
is clearly visible. Similarly, during the New York sequence when Sky Captain deploys a bomb to stop a giant robot, the shape of King Kong
King Kong
King Kong is a fictional character, a giant movie monster resembling a gorilla, that has appeared in several movies since 1933. These include the groundbreaking 1933 movie, the film remakes of 1976 and 2005, as well as various sequels of the first two films...
can be seen on the Empire State Building in the background.
During the underwater dogfight sequence a light momentarily displays the wreckage of a ship with the name "Venture"—the tramp steamer
Tramp steamer
A ship engaged in the tramp trade is one which does not have a fixed schedule or published ports of call. As opposed to freight liners, tramp ships trade on the spot market with no fixed schedule or itinerary/ports-of-call...
that sailed to Skull island in the 1933 version of King Kong
King Kong (1933 film)
King Kong is a Pre-Code 1933 fantasy monster adventure film co-directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, and written by Ruth Rose and James Ashmore Creelman after a story by Cooper and Edgar Wallace. The film tells of a gigantic island-dwelling apeman creature called Kong who dies in...
. In the same scene, what appears to be the wreckage of the RMS Titanic can be seen, as well an ancient underwater city which seems to be a nod to the legend of Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
.
The villain's main logo bears striking similarities to the logo for Crimson Skies
Crimson Skies
Crimson Skies is a media franchise and fictional universe created by Jordan Weisman and Dave McCoy. The series' intellectual property is currently owned by Microsoft Game Studios , although Weisman's new company, Smith & Tinker Inc., has announced that it has licensed the electronic entertainment...
, a game universe that some critics noted bore stylistic and plot similarities to the film.
Pulp magazines and comic books
The Flying Legion is a homage to pulp-comic book heroes such as G-8G-8 (character)
G-8 was a heroic aviator and spy during World War I in pulp fiction. He starred in his own title G-8 and His Battle Aces, published by Popular Publications. All stories were written by Robert J. Hogan, under his own name. The title lasted 110 issues, from October 1933 to June 1944...
, Captain Midnight
Captain Midnight
Captain Midnight is a U.S. adventure franchise first broadcast as a radio serial from 1938 to 1949. Sponsored by the Skelly Oil Company, the radio program was the creation of radio scripters Wilfred G. Moore and Robert M...
, and Blackhawk
Blackhawk (comics)
Blackhawk, a long-running comic book series, was also a film serial, a radio series and a novel. The comic book was published first by Quality Comics and later by DC Comics. The series was created by Will Eisner, Chuck Cuidera, and Bob Powell, but the artist most associated with the feature is Reed...
. Also, production designer
Production designer
In film and television, a production designer is the person responsible for the overall look of a filmed event such as films, TV programs, music videos or adverts. Production designers have one of the key creative roles in the creation of motion pictures and television. Working directly with the...
Kevin Conran, the brother of director Kerry Conran
Kerry Conran
Kerry Scott Conran is an American filmmaker, educated at the California Institute of Arts. He created and directed the 2004 pulp science fiction film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow....
, based the design of the flying humanoid robots, in part, on the helmet worn by the DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
superhero Adam Strange
Adam Strange
Adam Strange is a fictional superhero published by DC Comics. Created by writer Gardner Fox and artist Mike Sekowsky, he first appeared in Showcase #17 .In May 2011, Adam Strange placed 97th on IGN's Top 100 Comic Book Heroes of All Time....
and controls on Commando Cody
Commando Cody
Commando Cody was the hero in a 12-episode science-fiction serial made in 1952 by Republic Pictures entitled Radar Men from the Moon, which was followed up 1953 with the 12 episode Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe....
's rocket-pack (see image, right).
See also
- Retro-futurismRetro-futurismRetro-futurism is a trend in the creative arts showing the influence of depictions of the future produced prior to about 1960...
- Pulp magazinePulp magazinePulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...
- Timeline of CGI in film and televisionTimeline of CGI in film and televisionThis is a chronological list of films and television programs that have been recognised as being pioneering in their use of computer animation.- 1960s :- 1970s :- 1980s :-1990s:- 2000s :-References:...
- DecopunkDecopunkDecopunk is a recent subset of the Steampunk genre, centered around the Art Deco and Streamline Moderne art styles, and based around the period between the 20s and 50s. In an interview at CoyoteCon, steampunk author Sara M. Harvey made the distinctions "...shiner than DieselPunk, more like...
Further reading
- "Brave New World" Part 1 and 2 - Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow Special Collector's Edition DVD (Paramount PicturesParamount PicturesParamount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
, 2005) - "The Art of World of Tomorrow" - Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow Special Collector's Edition DVD (Paramount PicturesParamount PicturesParamount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
, 2005) - "Macs help Sky Captain save the day, win converts" by Brad Cook Mac World (September 30, 2004)
- "A Retro Future" - by Christopher Probst. American Cinematographer. (October 2004)
- "Rhapsody in Bluescreen" - by Jeff Jensen. Entertainment WeeklyEntertainment WeeklyEntertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
. (September 17, 2004) - "Mr. Invisible and the Secret Mission to Hollywood" by John Hodgman. The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
. (March 14, 2004)