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Post 504) from Xanga
Sep. 20th, 2004 09:20 pm504) Saw "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" over the weekend with friends... was rather disappointed. They did some things very right for the pulp genre, but in the end, the total package didn't quite gel together for me.
It really bothered me that I couldn't place what year we were in (I realize that it's an alternate Earth... the opening shot of the "Hindenburg III" established that!). But someone mentioned "World War I," which implies that there had been a World War II. (Before World War II, no one called the first one "World War I." They called it "The Great War.")
In the story, they mentioned a group of scientists who had been active "before World War I," and now it was 30 years later... which would put us right in the middle of the 1940s, when the world should have been at war. The world was obviously not at war in this movie. So I have to conclude that in this alternate Earth, there was no World War II, and they just put the name "World War I" into the script because they realized no one would know what they were talking about if they referred to it as "The Great War."
It may seem to you that I'm going on and on about a relatively minor detail... and I am. My problem is that a movie or book has to offer a *compelling* and accurate alternate reality, even if the audience doesn't understand everything about it, in order to get the audience to suspend disbelief. By saying "World War I" the scriptwriters shattered my willingness to believe in their alternate reality. If the scriptwriters lost my willingness to believe, they've lost me as a contented viewer.
It really bothered me that I couldn't place what year we were in (I realize that it's an alternate Earth... the opening shot of the "Hindenburg III" established that!). But someone mentioned "World War I," which implies that there had been a World War II. (Before World War II, no one called the first one "World War I." They called it "The Great War.")
In the story, they mentioned a group of scientists who had been active "before World War I," and now it was 30 years later... which would put us right in the middle of the 1940s, when the world should have been at war. The world was obviously not at war in this movie. So I have to conclude that in this alternate Earth, there was no World War II, and they just put the name "World War I" into the script because they realized no one would know what they were talking about if they referred to it as "The Great War."
It may seem to you that I'm going on and on about a relatively minor detail... and I am. My problem is that a movie or book has to offer a *compelling* and accurate alternate reality, even if the audience doesn't understand everything about it, in order to get the audience to suspend disbelief. By saying "World War I" the scriptwriters shattered my willingness to believe in their alternate reality. If the scriptwriters lost my willingness to believe, they've lost me as a contented viewer.
