SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW: A SERIAL LOVER’S DREAM COME TRUE

A while back I received an e-mail from a friend who said that “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” was the film that serial lovers have been waiting for. I thought this was stretching as I felt that “Star Wars” (I refuse to call it Episode IV: A New Hope) and “Raiders of the Lost Ark” had already won that distinction. But not having much to actually make a real comparison as the only thing I had seen about the forthcoming movie was a poster at my local AMC theater, I decided to pop onto the web and do some investigating.

After seeing the online trailer and getting a bare bones plot synopsis all I can say is “Whoa!” and agree that this indeed looks to be the movie that serial fans have been waiting for. The trailer on the official web site, www.skycaptain.com, is an eye popping collection of scenes from the now (for me anyway) much anticipated film due out on Sept. 17.

Set during 1939, the plot concerns a spunky and intrepid reporter named Polly Perkins (love that name) who is working on a story about a series of mysterious disappearances of the country’s leading scientists. After Gotham City is attacked by an army of giant robots, Polly teams up with her old boyfriend, the leader of the American Flying Legion, Sky Captain, to hunt for a master villain known as Dr. Totenkopf who is operating out of Nepal and bent on destroying the world. Along the way Sky Captain is joined by another ex-girlfriend Frankie Cook, who commands an all girl amphibian squad, and super science whiz Dex. Popping in and out of the story is a mystery woman who apparently has super powers and her actions make it difficult to tell just which side she is on.

Just reading that puts me more in mind of those great classic serials than either “Star Wars” or “Raiders” ever were. Not to say they weren’t great updatings of the serials, because they were. But they also retained a modern sensibility about themselves, such as Indy drowning his sorrows in alcohol when he thinks Marion is dead or the close up of an alien arm severed by Ben Kenobi. Just looking at the one trailer for “Sky Captain” I got the feeling that this film was going to be a perfect throwback to that era where you are either good or bad, with little to no shadings of gray in the characters. Simplistic perhaps but that was the way serials were back then, a true time of innocence.

Also the action, which combines actual technology of the time with what perceived death rays and robots probably would have looked like had they been invented then (this is especially true of the robots who bear a startling resemblance to the giant robots in the old Max Fleischer “Superman” cartoons of the early forties), has that frenzied, "no time to think about what is actually going on because we have to get to the next fight or chase as quickly as possible" feel to it that made many of the serials so much fun.

Which brings us to the special effects for the film. The ones in the trailer are incredible CGIs that have been made with a new software package developed by the writer-director Kerry Conran. He apparently invented this technique over several years in his basement. The software basically allows Conran to blue screen actors and add them to already existing backgrounds he created on the computer. To put it another way, the program has created a three-dimensional storyboard for the scenes. The story goes that he had put together about ten minutes of special effects footage which was shown to a studio exec and they were so impressed that they bankrolled the whole project.

From what I’ve seen in the trailer, I’m not surprised. All of the scenes are painted a cross between color and monochrome, giving the whole picture a very distinctive and old-time feel. The robots and dive bombing planes all have an animated look to them. Not cartoony though, think more of an illustrated picture. While this would seem to be a horrible idea without seeing it, the result is incredible. And it reinforces that 1930’s ambience that permeates the story.

I’m so pumped for this film that I have started watching some serials in anticipation for it. Going by the plot and the action I have been viewing what I think is close to being in the same spirit as the film. My choices have been “Flash Gordon” (1936) for the flying ships and the whole "destroying the world" plot; “Spy Smasher” (1942) for the implication of Nazi’s as villains; “Captain Midnight” (1942) for the "aviation hero battles master villain with help of friends"; and “King of the Rocketmen” (1949) for the whole targeting scientists, super duper gadgets that demolish a major city, and a mystery villain to unmask. Once I’ve actually seen the film I’ll be better able to suggest what serials most resemble what I hope will be the first in a series of Sky Captain adventures.