And it wasn't as bad as I was expecting.
Admittedly, it looks like a semi-full of shredded cheese... the basic plot is that at the close of WW2 the Germans developed flying saucers and made it to the Moon, building a colony there. Fast forward 70 years, and you've got a Sarah Palinesque president looking to get men to the moon to boost her re-election chances. Said astronauts park their lander just over the horizon from Earth view (which wouldn't make any sense anyhow, since you need line of sight for communications...) and promptly find a crater where the Moon Nazis have been mining helium 3. (We're not told why - apparently for power but it's not explained.)
One astronaut's killed, the other captured - and various silliness ensues. There was quite a bit of hilarity in the audience, most at the political machinations of the President.
Iron Sky's been on a very limited release - only reason I caught it was a mention of it on IO9.com, and I thought I'd see if it were going to be shown locally. And it was - once.
The crowd ranged from, oh, early 20s to (mostly) late 30s, with a smattering of gray-hairs. Considering the area, they were pretty liberal. I found their reactions in places to be kind of the opposite of mine, but I got over it and enjoyed the movie anyway.
Until the closing credits.
(Spoiler - but I think it's fairly safe to say that anyone reading this blog at this point will likely never see Iron Sky, unless you search it out and buy it on Amazon.)
The end result is a nuclear war on Earth. The Americans see the Helium 3 reserves the Nazis have been mining, and so does the rest of the world. They want to share, Sarah Palin (of course, considering how she's been played to that point) doesn't - and though we don't know who threw the first nuke, the end result is a world in darkness - war breaks out.
The final sequences show the moon with a big chunk out of it, with the sun shining through. (Don't even want to think how much energy it would take to vaporize that large a chunk of the moon's surface...) The we scan down to a hazy, evening/nighttime Earth. Then... you have a flash and a small bright mushroom cloud forms with lights going out in the grid around it for miles.
This got a bark of laughter from the crowd.Then, the second one went off, and I think they realized what they were seeing wasn't meant for amusement. Then a third went off... and silence descended.
The crowd was subdued leaving the theater, for some strange reason.
I've gotten into the habit of giving out DVDs as gifts at Christmas. Don't think I'd put this one in a bag... I might get a copy for myself - the special effects were pretty decent, all in all and especially considering the limited budget they had.
Iron Sky - It might be worth a look, if you like cheesy SF B-movies.
But what I'd like to see next... is Man Conquers Space.
I hope THAT one comes about...
J.
Comments (4)
Do you remember one of Heinlein's juveniles named "Rocket Ship, Galileo"? It too featured Nazi's on the moon.
This Piece Of Stink bears about the same level of connectivity to Rocket Ship Galileo that the official movie version of Starship Troopers did to Heinlein's novel only without, as far as I can tell, paying any royalties to the Heinlein estate.
otpu
Posted by Otpu | August 9, 2012 3:55 PM
Posted on August 9, 2012 15:55
Nah - this wasn't anywhere close to "Rocket Ship Galileo". About the only things it has in common (lacking the teenagers and the nuclear powered Galileo) are the Moon, and Nazis.
Don't think you could do copyright infringement on such scanty evidence, as the Moon's been in the public domain for quite a while, as are the Nazis.
J.
Posted by JLawson | August 9, 2012 9:45 PM
Posted on August 9, 2012 21:45
Jaime Bateman showed me the trailer for MCS a while ago; I have been waiting breathlessly for its release ever since (in case you were wondering why I look so blue...). I think they are missing a bet by not selling National Council of Astronautics patches to raise funds; I'D buy a few...
I read an article a few weeks ago that maintained that NASA had adhered too closely to the vision set forth by Von Braun in the Collier's Magazine articles and the books made from them, to the detriment of the manned space program. I can not really comment on that; I do know that some of the things in the Von Braun vision were changed for good reason (such as blunt-nosed reentry vehicles instead of needle-nosed a la the V-2, and no space station in a 2-hour orbit, as that would be smack in the middle of the lower Van Allen Belt [which wasn't know of until the late '50s]). I know that much of what did happen after the Apollo Program was severely constrained by politics; the Shuttle was supposed to be only one part of a 3-part program, with the Shuttles used to establish a space station which would be used as a base for a Mars mission. NASA cut everything but the Shuttle program to save SOMEthing, and the final Shuttle design didn't bear much resemblance to the original one, once more due to politics (the Air Force wanted a larger choice of landing spots, which led to the double delta wing; NASA wanted low aspect ratio wings like an F-104's for a lower landing speed, and the completely reusable manned booster had to be cut when their budget was cut).
A lot of people these days find Rocket Ship Galileo to be a bit quaint, with Nazis as the villains, but they fail to realize that when the book was written (1947), WWII had only been over for 2 years, there were still Nazis about in the world (mostly in South America), and they HAD had the most advanced aerospace technology in the world during the War, so it made sense at the time. And there are STILL Nazis about in the world, sad to say; they just don't control any countries. Not for lack of trying.
Posted by John C. | August 10, 2012 9:26 AM
Posted on August 10, 2012 09:26
I'm sadly starting to think that the only way MCS will get made is if an angel investor fronts him a few million.
Maybe it's time to buy a lottery ticket again...
J.
Posted by JLawson | August 11, 2012 11:50 PM
Posted on August 11, 2012 23:50