Sky Captain and the Films of Tomorrow

professorfalcon writes "Foxnews.com has an interview with the stars of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. They talk about their experience hugging a green screen for the entire film, and how the movie is 'unlike anything most audiences have seen before. It uses no sets, only computer generated imagery.' So most audiences didn't see Star Wars?"

Comments

So most audiences didn't see Star Wars?

[echeslack]

So most audiences didn't see Star Wars?

Star wars is very different. Sure, a lot of the stuff is CG or green-screened, but a lot of the stuff is done on sets with more than just a few props.

Re:So most audiences didn't see Star Wars?

[mabhatter654]

There's a huge difference in how the movies were made even though the technology is similar. For starts, Skycaptain had a whole short movie already made...it was no secret what the movie was about and the director encouraged the actors to "go with it" [note that's how SW ended up such a hit as well] The director of skycaptain put his actors in a "black box" and let them work the drama out.

Lucas on the other hand wants "cartoons" with people. In many ways Skycaptain hit Lucas' goals for SW better than Lucas did! Lucas real problem is that he's trying to cut actor's personalities entirely out of the movie process...that makes for flat, sucky films because there's no "ensamble" energy that happens when the cast "gets" what their supposed to do. Also, sometimes the cast sees things that don't work..or personalities make the end result better...again, lucas cuts all that out with his "secret" scripts and digital "horseplay" in the editing room.

It is NOT the future.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actors hate it because they have no set to act in.

Audiences hate it because they're made so conscious of the forgery they're watching.

This sort of thing is a nice little novelty, but in time it'll be no more than a niche product.

Re:It is NOT the future.

[WindBourne]

Considering that we have been accepting of CG for so long, I think that Consumers will be happy to accept it.

Also, Movie making is horribly expensive of which Movie sets account for a good chunk of that. I suspect though that we will see a CG actor in about 3 years, where the public will not know it is CG. And I say Thank God. I am tired of the idiots that run around inisiting on huge checks, yet act like total babies.

Star Wars?

[Tim C]

You're telling me that Star Wars used only computer-generated sets? That there were no physical sets involved at all?

Offtopic I know, but I'm really starting to wish that article submitters could save the commentary for comments...

I want the two hours of my life back.

[rjelks]

I saw this last night. I was interested in the visuals, after reading about the filming method. After ten minutes, the novelty of the effects wore off. I could get past the 30'-style campiness, but the actors didn't seem to be interacting with each other. As the movie progressed, you could tell that the actors were acting by themselves in many of the scenes. It was a neat idea, but it got really distracting for me after a bit. I think for a short film, it would have been pretty cool, but a full-length feature? I was bored out of my mind by the end of the movie...just my $0.02.

Re:I want the two hours of my life back.

[Scrameustache]

I could get past the 30'-style campiness

Get "past" it?
Do you have to "get past" the zombies in Dawn of the Dead? Or the spaceships in Star Wars?
Did you have to "get past" all that fantasy nonsense in LOTR?
You had to get past the film itself...sad.

I was interested in the visuals, after reading about the filming method.

Oh, that's why you went to see it. Not to see a movie, but to see the result of a technological process. Well, then...

you could tell that the actors were acting by themselves in many of the scenes.

Really? Are you sure?
You're not just, you know, looking for flaws, even if you have to make them up are you?

It was a neat idea, but it got really distracting for me after a bit. I think for a short film, it would have been pretty cool, but a full-length feature? I was bored out of my mind by the end of the movie.

You went to see a special effects demonstration, and you got annoyed that they were showing you a movie. I just saw it. Its not perfect, but I wasn't looking for a demonstration of technological achievements, I was looking for a movie, so I got what I wanted.

I guess its a question of expectations and of the frame of mind you're in when you go see it.

Enjoyed it thoroughly.

[mbourgon]

Think Indiana Jones, but on an even bigger scale. Globetrotting around the world, giant robots, flying aircraft carriers, underwater planes, etc. Yes, you need to turn off your sense of disbelief, but it was an absolute blast. Ebert said it best, it went from Conrad's mind to film without reality intervening. A glorious film about an alternate reality we should've had.

Cliffhangers revisited

[MalachiConstant]

You know, I'm rather surprised that so many people seem to think the retro feel is some kind of handicap to this movie. It's the whole point of the movie.

You might as well say "Yeah, I like 2001 but why'd they have to put it in space?".

I've always liked the 30's vision of the future: dirigibles, flying fortresses, giant steel robots. And the old serials had a certain charm, you know that crawl at the beginning of star wars? Lucas got that idea from serials, which would use it to catch everyone up on the last episodes. Longtime fans of MST3K will remember "The Phantom Creeps" serials and especially "Radar Men From The Moon".

Sky Captain is a direct homage to these serials. I imagine that this movie would be the dream of any kid who watched those.

I guess it's a very different genre of movie from anything that's been produced in the last 70 years. Sky Captain isn't the best movie ever, but it's a lot of fun to watch the "we-make-it-up-as-we-go-along" style of storytelling. He crashes his plane into the ocean? No problem, Dax fitted it with submersible gear. Who cares if that's ridiculous. It's supposed to be, but it's still exciting.

I mean, how can you hate a beautiful movie like this, a british commander on a hovering air field saying things like "Alert the amphibious squadron!".

Real stuff

[DragonHawk]

"You're telling me that Star Wars used only computer-generated sets?"

Yah, I thought that statement was bogus.

The interesting part is I've always maintained that the signature look of the original three Star Wars films (Episodes 4, 5, and 6) comes about because they didn't have all the special effects tech they have these days. Computer generated imagery didn't really exist; chromakey didn't exist. Everything was done with models (and paintings for large stuff) and then manually compositited. Even today's best computer models still don't manage to get all the details of a "real" scene completely right. If you look closely, you can still almost always spot the CG models. But in the original Star Wars, every time they blew something up, they actually built something and blew it up.

(Of course, the artifacts resulting from inaccurate hand compositing detracts from the overall quality, but hey, you can't have everything.)

I imagine CG models will eventually catch up, but right now, you still can't beat the "real thing".

Sequence

[DragonHawk]

"Man are you confused. World War One was 1914-1918."

Right. And until they had another one, it was called "The Great War" or "The World War". They didn't know to call it "World War One" until there was a second one.

This reminds me of the gag with the guy who finds a coin dated "50 BC".

Re:But it LOOKS good

[mabhatter654]

that was the point!!!

It's a spoof as much as anything. It was intended to be a "cheesy" type movie...like they used to make in the 30's. It was intended to have stereotypical, bubble-gum-pop acting and gee-wiz special effects...It wasn't trying to be "realistic".

It was a really cool movie....I took my two kids[frankly the target audience!], way past their bedtime and they didn't make a peep for the whole show!! Therefore, it's a great movie!!

The Slashdot Defect

[ajs]

You just have to love the Slashdot crowd. Anything new comes along and all you get is "oh, it's been done before... it wasn't quite as fully developed, and was only part of a larger whole, but it was done."

When are we going to stop and think about the fact that all innovation in human history involved taking things that already existed, and combining them in ways that no one else had?

No one had ever fillmed a feature-length movie with live-action actors as the primary stars in which there was only one set and 90% of the film was CG. If hollywood had nixed the idea of doing this, Slashdot junkies would be the first to rant that Hollywood never does anything innovative like this, but when they do, it's all just, "been there, done that."

Tron was an innovative and well-made film. So was Sky Capt. Why can we not celebrate the innovation of both (while lamenting that Hollywood DOES limit such innovation such that it took us 30 years to get from the one to the other)?

Saw it & loved it

[Tumbleweed]

Okay, I saw it, and loved just about everything about it, except the opening title sequence was so jarringly out of place - it's like a standard opening title sequence for a regular movie, not for a 30s/40s sci-fi homage. Weird.

I thought the storyline was great, the characters were very well realized, and the special effects were fantastic, most especially the designs. The more 30s & 40s sci-fi/action serials you've read/seen, the more you'll realize how effin' brilliant this homage is. If you've never read or seen anything from that era, you're really gonna hate this movie, though you may have enough artistic appreciation in your soul to see the beauty in the designs (though I doubt it, from most of the comments in here thus far).

The effects aren't _intended_ to be realistic. Another movie that did this to great effect was last year's fantastic version of "Peter Pan," which I very highly recommend. Kerry Conran (writer & director) came up with the idea to make, essentially, a comic book come to life, IN THE STYLE OF THE COMICS. _That_ is something noone has done before. The 'set' design evokes a time that never really existed (well, much like most movies do). I love the revisionist history, Hindenburg III, indeed, and docking with the Empire State Building like the original - nice touch! I found out that some New Yorkers don't even know about that.

I think a travelling museum piece about all of the things that influenced the making of "Sky Captain" would be a pretty marvellous thing.

re: the acting

Okay, it wasn't bad, first off. They did what they intended to do, so guess what? You missed the whole point. This is a comic book. Use your brain and think about the things that implies, okay?

The character I was most impressed with was Dex - a character that could have easily have been a helpless little geek character. Instead, he's the one responsible for most of the technical innovation the good guys use. His inspiration? Comic books! Brilliant. And I want that ray gun of his in the worst kind of way! Every time Cap said, "Good boy," I wanted to beat the shit out of him. And I cheered when Cap socked Polly. :)

I'd say anyone bitching about this would bitch about the original Star Wars (A New Hope) if they were seeing it for the first time now. You've got no soul.

And people are _bored_ by this movie? Geez. I feel really sad for you.