15/06/2020
Going over old emails I found this - a piece that I submitted for the consideration of some publication following the debut of Ready Player One (the movie). It wasn't accepted for publication, but I still like it.
Sky Captain and the World of Ready Player One
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Steven Spielberg’s latest film Ready Player One, an adaptation of Ernest Cline’s love letter for the geek culture novel, gave me many flashbacks even before I got to see it. These flashbacks had nothing to do with the film’s endless parade of references to the blockbuster cinema of the past 40 years; in fact, they had very little to do with the film itself and more with the critical reaction. Critical consensus around Ready Player One, at the time of this writing, seems to be that it is directed with great skill and that the director clearly had lots of fun doing his job this time around, but also that the abovementioned endless references to past blockbusters feel too blatant and self-indulgent.
Now, why does it all sound so familiar? Oh yes, it was 14 years ago, when Kerry Conran’s Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow came out. Like Ready Player One, Conran’s film was a super-slick visual adventure which took its audience on a long journey of references – this time to the ancestors of the blockbuster cinema that Spielberg’s film salutes, notably the film serials and cliffhangers of the 1930s and 1940s, but also timeless classics like Metropolis (1927) and The Wizard of Oz (1939). And as in the case of Spielberg’s later film, critics have praised (although somewhat reluctantly) Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow for its directorial confidence and vision, but also dismissed the film’s homages to past cinematic works as empty exercises in artistic indulgence.
Why do critics seem to have an allergic reaction for this kind of cinematic nostalgia? Any form of art that clings to the past, and does so without a hint of cynicism, is bound to arouse suspicion among critics who tend to view it as devoid of innovativeness and sophistication. Yet, even back in 2004, one can’t help but wonder just what it was that made critics so bitter. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow can hardly be blamed for introducing nostalgia to the modern blockbuster era, and Ready Player One is certainly not guilty of it either. The modern blockbuster era has pretty much built itself on the foundations of nostalgia, from the stylistic arsenal of George Lucas’ Star Wars (1977) and Spielberg’s own Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) to the very plot of Back to the Future (1985) – a film which, not incidentally, gets a major reference in Ready Player One.
The difference, perhaps, is that in both Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and Ready Player One, nostalgia becomes the end rather than the means. These films proudly announce their love for past genre works rather than conceal it: instead of carefully weaving together pieces from individual past films, they emphasize the individuality of each piece, and do so in the loudest manner possible. Conran’s and Spielberg’s films even do it using a very similar narrative – the quest for the heirloom of a missing or dead scientific genius, who created an entire world composed of references to the films of the past. The two films also share thematic similarities: Ready Player One takes place within a virtual world while Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow celebrated virtual filmmaking – one of the most-hyped elements in the film’s promotion was its then-innovative use of digital sets, with the actors never interacting with a physical prop or landscape.
Does the unapologetic love to the geek culture of the past and present really make both films as shallow as claimed by their critics? An examination of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow reveals that, underneath the film’s many references to serials and comic books, there is something of a cautionary tale about geek culture getting out of control. The film’s antagonist, after all, is perhaps the biggest geek there is – one who makes fantasies of giant robots, unmanned aircraft and genetically-engineered beasts come true, only in the most monstrous manner imaginable. In a similar, and far less metaphorical manner, Ready Player One warns against the stage in which geek culture moves out of the fandom territory and becomes the domain of greedy businessmen. Yes, critics can raise a skeptic eyebrow at this message coming from the director who made millions directing blockbusters throughout most of his career – but can anyone still seriously argue that Spielberg’s blockbuster films are all about business and nothing else? Ready Player One can be seen as a statement by him about his own struggle to keep the geek culture innocent, even when working for big corporations.
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow was a commercial failure upon its initial theatrical release; Ready Player One appears to fare better at the box-office at the time of this writing. Yet beyond its technical innovation of virtual sets (which was adopted almost immediately by subsequent productions), the influence of Conran’s film found its way to several key genre films – with most of them, interestingly enough, referring to it with a dark twist. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is the most obvious example: The Avengers (2012) borrowed one of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow’s major visual props – the flying carrier (a reverse reference, as Conran’s film also alluded to the original Nick Fury comics, but compare Angelina Jolie’s role in the film as the no-nonsense carrier commander to Cobie Smulders’ role in Whedon’s film – the similarities are striking). The Russo brothers’ Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) went further in adopting Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow’s theme of evil as a machine that can’t be stopped – now spiced with a healthy dose of political paranoia. Almost a decade before the MCU went into production, Whedon has borrowed the same theme for his own film Serenity (2005), along with other elements from Conran’s film as the direction and setting of the climactic battle with the greater evil’s henchman and the character of the “good geek” who supports the protagonist with dire consequences. A dark take on the same character can also be found in James Cameron’s Avatar (2009), even played Giovanni Ribisi who played the role in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.
With the release of Ready Player One, Conran’s film deserves to be re-examined. Much like Spielberg’s recent film, it demonstrated how great love for the geek culture does not necessarily mean ignoring the darker sides of this culture. I’m guessing that future analysis of Spielberg’s film will reveal a similar theme.
