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[[File:sky-captain-world-of-tomorrow.jpg|frame]]
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''Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow'' is a 2004 movie [[George Lucas Throwback|homage]] to the [[Two-Fisted Tales]] of the 1930's. The film follows the adventures of [[Ace Pilot]] 'Joe' Sullivan, known as [[The Red Baron|Sky Captain]] (Jude Law) and newspaper reporter Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow).
They begin investigating the affairs of the [[Mad Scientist|mysterious German scientist]], Dr Totenkopf, after his machines attack [[New York City]]. Further implicating Totenkopf is a string of kidnapped scientists all leading back to his involvment.
The plot shamelessly uses the [[Awesome but Impractical|outrageous gadgets]] and cliches of the [[Pulp Magazine]] and [[Comic Book]] genres, plus numerous [[Shout-Out|shout outs]] to other media of the period. Filmed with live actors against computer-generated surroundings, the movie did not make enough money to offset its production costs, so a sequel is unlikely.
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{{tropelist}}
=== The movie has the following [[Awesome but Impractical]] machines: ===
* [[Airborne Aircraft Carrier]]: Franky's heliocarrier, which serves as mobile recon outpost for the Royal Navy. The Royal Navy has a lot more of them, as seen in the end of the movie.
* [[Attack Drone]]: Radio-controlled ornithopters armed with [[More Dakka|multiple autocannons]].
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* [[The Swarm]]: The [[Cyber Cyclops|one-eyed]] Squid Robots that search the Flying Legion airbase, the radio-controlled UCAVs that engage Sky Captain shortly thereafter, and the horde of flying [[Killer Robot|Killer Robots]] in the [[Elaborate Underground Base]].
* [[Transforming Mecha]]: Franky's Manta Squadron, [[Cool Plane|Cool Planes]] that can transform in mid-dive into submersibles armed with [[Macross Missile Massacre|cluster-torpedoes]]. They also have an [[Ejection Seat]] with built-in [[Jet Pack]], leading to a [[Film/Awesome|Crowning Moment Of Awesome]] for Angelina Jolie.
* [[Zeppelins
=== Other tropes include: ===
* [[Action Dress Rip]]: Polly tears her skirt to run better during the NYC robot attack. But leaves on the heels....
* [[Action Girl]]: Commander Francesca "Franky" Cook of the Royal Navy, who sports an [[Eyepatch of Power]]. There's also [[The Nameless|The Mysterious Woman]], a [[He Who Must Not Be Heard|silent]] but deadly woman who controls Totenkopf's machines {{spoiler|and turns out to be a [[Robot Girl]].}}
* [[Aerial Canyon Chase]]: The title character flies his fighter plane along the streets of New York just above ground level while trying to escape Dr. Totenkopf's robot ornithopters.
* [[Alternate History]]: Set in a 1939 (with ''[[The Wizard of Oz (
** There is also a ''Hindenburg III'' in the opening scene (which implies either that the first ''Hindenburg'' did not explode, or else its explosion was not an impediment to further airship construction).
** A First World War is mentioned, so WWII definitely has happened. Or they figured [[Viewers are Morons|audiences wouldn't understand]] a reference to "The World War" or "The Great War", which was how [[WW 1]] was referred to in those days.
* [[Anachronism Stew]]
* [[Anguished Declaration of Love]]: Spoofed. Joe Sullivan believes Polly Perkins deliberately sabotaged his plane in China while [[Going for
* [[Apologetic Attacker]] - [[Played With]]: {{spoiler|Totenkopf's note at his deathchair reads "Forgive me", and there's indications he tried to shut down his robot servant that was hunting scientists.}}
* [[Belligerent Sexual Tension]]: Polly and Joe bicker throughout the movie.▼
{{quote| '''Joe:''' Could we just for once die without all this bickering? }}▼
* [[Bedmate Reveal]]: After an [[Outrun the Fireball]] moment, Polly wakes up naked in a bed next to an equally naked Joe. An embarrassed Polly tells him to turn around, which a grinning Joe does only to find he's also in bed with their guide, Kaji, who [[Fan Disservice|is also naked.]]
▲* [[Belligerent Sexual Tension]]: Polly and Joe bicker throughout the movie.
* [[Bilingual Dialogue]]: Polly can understand both written and spoken German.
* [[Bring It]]: Dr. Totenkopf's female [[The Dragon]] makes a gesture to Sky Captain before fighting him outside the rocket ship.
▲* [[Bring It]]: Dr. Totenkopf's female [[The Dragon]] makes a gesture to Sky Captain before fighting him outside the rocket ship.
* [[Brits With Battleships]]: ''Flying'' battleships.
* [[Camera Obscurer]]: Polly Perkins spends much of the movie with only one frame left on her only roll of film, and wants to save it for a truly awesome photo. In the film's denouement, {{spoiler|she decides to take a photo of Joe Sullivan, only for Joe to look at her and say "Lenscap
* [[Catch Phrase]]: Joe (Sky Captain) says "Good boy, Dex" whenever his [[Sidekick]] Dex does something good.
* [[Chair Reveal]]: Dr. Totenkopf. {{spoiler|Only it turns out he's been [[Dead All Along]].}}
* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: The two metal tubes that Polly Perkins received from Dr. Jennings. Also, Dex's gun.
* [[Chroma Key]]: The actors used only the most basic sets and props, with CGI backgrounds used in every shot.
* [[Cut and Paste Environments]]
* [[Cutting the Gordian Knot]]
* [[Deliberately Monochrome]]: Filmed in
▲* [[Deliberately Monochrome]]: Filmed in colour and desaturated, then resaturated again to make it more like a painting than a photorealistic movie.
▲* [[Diesel Punk]]: With a healthy helping of [[Nikola Tesla|Tesla Punk]] to boot.
* [[Disintegrator Ray]]: [[Gadgeteer Genius]] Dex is shown testing a [[Buck Rogers]] raygun that can burn a hole through solid metal with luminous <s>Lifesavers</s> rings of energy.
* [[Disproportionate Retribution]]: Apparently the proper response for ''suspecting'' your boyfriend is cheating on you is to sabotage his plane so that he might die (but actually just gets stuck in a brutal prison for months). [[Double Standard|But then she's a woman, he hurt her feelings, he clearly had it coming.]]
* [[Dogfighting Furballs]]: Multiple furballs, including air ''and'' submarine battles.
* [[The Dragon]]: Dr. Totenkopf's [[Action Girl]] agent. {{spoiler|A rather extreme case of [[Dragon Their Feet]].}}
* [[The End of the World
* [[Eureka Moment]]: "Rana is a star!"
* [[Fake Shemp]]: [[Laurence Olivier]], via the magic of stock footage and CGI, [[Virtual Ghost|comes back to life]] as Dr. Totenkopf.
* [[The Fantastic Trope of Wonderous Titles]]
▲* [[George Lucas Throwback]]: to 30's sci-fi and 40's-50's war fiction.
* [[Giant Flyer]]: The protagonists encounter giant prehistoric birds on Totenkopf's island.
* [[A God Am I]]: Totenkopf, in the video that plays while his rocket is rising through the atmosphere. It plays a twisted version of the first few verses of Genesis, replacing him as God and him seeing that "Man was evil."
* [[Gratuitous German]]: The German in this movie is often mangled.
** A particularly noticeable example is a button labeled with "Dringlichkeitsfreigabe", which then gets translated as "Emergency Release", while it actually means "Urgency Release". It should be "Notfallfreigabe/-abkopplung/-entriegelung/-freisetzung".
** The German newspaper headline about the robot invasion translates to ''"Very Big Metallc [sic!] Machines Steal Steal Reserves"''
* [[The Grotesque]]: The sole survivor of Dr. Totenkopf's uranium mining and experiments.
* [[Gunship Rescue]]. {{spoiler|An entire fleet of heliocarriers turns up to rescue the protagonists at the end, though they don't really need saving by that stage.}} And Dex has a [[Big Damn Heroes]] moment {{spoiler|when he arrives in a hoversled just in time to save Joe and Polly from the swarm of flying killer robots}}.
* [[Herr Doctor]]: All the scientists are German and Austrian.
* [[Homage|Homages]]: The attack by giant bipedal robots is copied from the 1941 Superman cartoon "The Mechanical Monsters". Their laser sound-effects are the same as the Martian [[Disintegrator Ray]] in the 1953 ''[[The War of the Worlds]]'' film; similarly Polly's phoned-in report on the attack uses lines lifted from the famous [[Orson Welles]] radio broadcast. On seeing one of the robots, Dex mutters "[[Shazam]]!" The silhouette of [[Godzilla]] can be seen in a newspaper from Japan. During an underwater sequence we see both the wreck of the [[Titanic]] and the ship from ''[[King Kong]]'', complete with ape-holding cage. King Kong himself can be seen at the top of the Empire State Building during one shot with the robots in the streets. The flying robots on Totenkopf's island have the same chest controls as Commando Cody's [[Jet Pack]]. Et cetera.▼
* [[Hostage for Macguffin]]: When Dr. Totenkopf's thugs capture Polly Perkins in the uranium mine.▼
* [[Hologram Projection Imperfection]]: As the protagonists approach Dr. Totenkopf's office a Tesla-type generator creates a [[Huge Holographic Head]] of Totenkopf that explains his motives and warns them to get out or die. Both the image and voice are distorted when powering up, highlighting the more primitive 1930's zeerust technology of the film. {{spoiler|The imperfections also hint this is a case of [[The Tape Knew You Would Say That]].}}
▲* [[Homage|Homages]]: The attack by giant bipedal robots is copied from the 1941 Superman cartoon "The Mechanical Monsters". Their laser sound-effects are the same as the Martian [[Disintegrator Ray]] in the 1953 ''[[The War of the Worlds (novel)|The War of the Worlds]]'' film; similarly Polly's phoned-in report on the attack uses lines lifted from the famous [[Orson Welles]] radio broadcast. On seeing one of the robots, Dex mutters "[[Shazam]]!" The silhouette of [[Godzilla]] can be seen in a newspaper from Japan. During an underwater sequence we see both the wreck of the [[Titanic]] and the ship from ''[[King Kong]]'', complete with ape-holding cage. King Kong himself can be seen at the top of the Empire State Building during one shot with the robots in the streets. The flying robots on Totenkopf's island have the same chest controls as Commando Cody's [[Jet Pack]].
* [[Info Dump]]: Dex and the [[Reluctant Mad Scientist|scientists]] explain Totenkopf's entire plan (as well as mentioning an [[Offscreen Moment of Awesome|offscreen escape where several of them got killed]]) in a single moment of exposition. Although not unusual in the [[Comic Books]] on which the movie is based, the scene appears clumsy on screen.▼
▲* [[Hostage for Macguffin]]: When Dr. Totenkopf's thugs capture Polly Perkins in the uranium mine.
* [[It Is Beyond Saving]]: Totenkopf's [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|motive]] in creating his World of Tomorrow (and destroying the old one in the process). ▼
* [[
▲* [[Info Dump]]: Dex and the [[
▲* [[It Is Beyond Saving]]: Totenkopf's [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|motive]] in creating his World of Tomorrow (and destroying the old one in the process).
'''Dex:''' "Well, there's only one way to find out."<br />▼
* [[It's the Only Way]]: Spoofed.
''(Sky Captain and Polly step across the [[Door of Doom|booby-trapped threshold]], holding hands, in lock-step and are relieved to be unharmed)''<br />▼
{{quote|'''
* [[Justified Title]]: The [[Character Name and The Noun Phrase]] title is obviously a reference to the retro-futuristic nature of the movie, but "Sky Captain" is the nickname of the main character, and the villain calls his scheme {{spoiler|to seed life on another planet}} the "World of Tomorrow".▼
▲''(Sky Captain and Polly step across the [[Door of Doom|booby-trapped threshold]], holding hands, in lock-step and are relieved to be unharmed)''
'''Dex:''' "...I meant throw something."}}
▲* [[Justified Title]]: The [[Character Name and
* [[Let's Split Up, Gang!]]: Sky Captain, while in Dr. Totenkopf's abandoned uranium mine.
* [[Mad Scientist Laboratory]]: The laboratory of Dr. Walter Jennings (with mutated fetus and tiny elephant), and the room in [[
* [[Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot]]: Kidnapping scientists -> {{spoiler|Plot to build a spaceship that will destroy the Earth's atmosphere.}}
* [[Misguided Missile]]: Twice, both by Frankie and Sky Captain.
* [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast]]: Dr. Totenkopf ([[Gratuitous German|Death Head in German]])
* [[Never Trust a Trailer]]: Angelina Jolie is in the movie for all of 15 minutes, but you'd think she was a main character.
* [[No OSHA Compliance]]: The walkways inside the rocket ship. They're barely wide enough to walk on, and have no railings.▼
* [[Noodle Incident]]: Polly is visibly annoyed when fellow fliers (and [[Love Triangle|implied ex-lovers]]) Franky and Joe share an incomprehensible nostalgia moment.
{{quote|
▲* [[No OSHA Compliance]]: The walkways inside the rocket ship. They're barely wide enough to walk on, and have no railings.
* [[One Bullet Left]]: Polly is down to one shot left in her camera, so she's forced to forgo the chance to photograph {{spoiler|the lost kingdom of Shangri-La, a top-secret flying aircraft carrier, a giant prehistoric bird, and every creature on Earth being loaded two-by-two into a giant rocketship. In the end Polly passes up the Scoop of the Century for a photograph of Joe... who [[Crowning Moment of Funny|promptly informs her she left the lens cap on]].}}<ref>Except the point of view during the shot is facing Polly and the front of her camera, and the audience can clearly see the lens cap is ''not'' on. Though you could [[Hand Wave]] this as Joe messing with her again.</ref>
* [[Percussive Prevention]]: Joe knocks out Polly {{spoiler|to stop her accompanying him on a one-way trip to destroy Totenkopf's rocketship. It doesn't work.}}
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* [[Reconstruction]]
* [[Redshirt Army]]: The [[Private Military Contractors|Flying Legion]] gets wiped out by an air raid, but Joe is only concerned about his missing buddy Dex. Additionally, Franky's troops.
* [[
* [[Running Gag]]: Polly and Joe's discussions about whether she cut his fuel line. As it turns out, {{spoiler|she did cut it.}}
* [[
* [[Shoot Out the Lock]]: The title character throws an object and hits the control box for a door, causing the door to close.
* [[Shoulder Cannon]]: The missile launcher of the [[Giant Robot]] guarding the underwater entrance to Dr. Totenkopf's island.
* [[Shout-Out]]: '''By the dozen'''. Everything from ''The Land That Time Forgot'', ''[[The Neverending Story (
** Some people view the movie as a [[Spiritual Licensee]] of ''[[Crimson Skies]]
** Godzilla appears on one of the newspaper headlines in a "blink and you'll miss it" cameo.
** "[[War of the Worlds|They've reached Sixth Avenue. They've reached Fifth Avenue. They're a hundred yards away. Oh, my God.]]"
* [[Sidekick]]: Dex, to Joe (Sky Captain). But there's a lot more to Dex then this, he may ''look'' like a skinny little nerd but he's [[Took a Level
* [[Sitting Duck]]: The Flying Legion is caught on the ground by an air raid launched by what can only be described as pulp sci-fi [[UCA Vs]].
* [[Stripped to
* [[Stylistic Suck]]:
* [[Surprise Vehicle]]
* [[That Was the Last Entry]]: When the group finally gets to Totenkopf's office, they find his papers and discover that "the last entry in his journal was made on October 11, 1918", 20 years before the setting of the film. Shortly thereafter, they find his mummified body.
* [[There Was a Door]]: Inverted.
* [[Too Awesome to Use]]: See [[One Bullet Left]].
* [[Traitor Shot]]: Two of the guides look at each other while standing under Joe's plane as sinister music plays.
* [[What Happened to
▲* [[What Happened to The Mouse?]]: A [[Mutants|survivor of Totenkopf's experiments]] asks for one last favor. {{spoiler|To be killed. We never find out if Joe obliges, although his rather sad look after they've left Shangri-La implies that he did it.}}
* [[Why Won't You Die?]]: Invoked word-for-word {{spoiler|when [[The Dragon]], beaten, revealed as a [[Robot Girl]], and left for dead at the villain's island, sneaks into the rocketship to attack Joe one last time.}}
* [[Zeerust]]: Basically the [[Doing It for
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Films of the 2000s]]
[[Category:Hugo Award]]
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Film]]
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