Finalist: Best Test Movie, Best Actor
Semifinalist: Best Test Movie, Best Actor
Sky Pirates, Gary's Animatic (hi res)
(Movie 5) 12/31/2011In 1940, a US airship is sent on a top secret mission into the uncharted African interior in order to intercept a Nazi Zeppelin involved in an archeological expedition that could make Hitler’s armies invincible.
Synopsis
Set in 1940, before the Americans entered WWII. A hotshot circus pilot is recruited by the US government to accompany a top secret mission via airship, into deepest darkest Africa, to intercept a Nazi Zeppelin involved in an archeological expedition. What the Nazis are in the process of unearthing would make them completely invincible. But the small team of air commandos is no match for the heavily armed forces that Hitler has sent to secure his prize.
Reviews
Overall Recommendation:
3.6 stars
(197)
Most helpful reviews
7
out of
7
people found the following review helpful:
Enjoyed the movie - can't wait for the finished product
2
out of
2
people found the following review helpful:
Not bad at all
Overall would make a very good movie, but leave out the profanity, it degrades and cheapens the dialog.
2
out of
2
people found the following review helpful:
I would pay to see this movie. Twice.
I am a devout fan of Steampunk and I have been waiting for a movie to come along that can capture the ideas of that genre. This idea has promise. Airships, Nazis, lost treasure. I would pay full price to see it more than once and then get the blu-ray. Best of luck!
Most recent reviews
0
out of
0
people found the following review helpful:
Oh my. What a disappointment.
I really thought I'd like this movie based on the premise. Unfortunately, I came away fairly disappointed. I did watch the whole thing through, but lost interest about halfway in. I think it has a lot of potential, but will really need a whole lot of work to bring it up to snuff.
Premise:
It seemed like a promising start. Nazis, zeppelins, Africa. Adventure and mystery potential. Unfortunately, it's all been done before in some form or another. This story rips off both the original Indiana Jones as well as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, particularly the zeppelin sequence. I also saw the Rocketeer in this one, probably as the single most plagiarized source. Atlantis? Come on. WWII? Really? How about some more originality.This territory has been covered exhaustively by so many B-movies from the 80s (King Solomon's Mines, for one) as well as countless video games. After seeing the whole thing, I felt that this wouldn't even make a good video game premise, much less a big budget Hollywood style movie.
Story Structure:
Boy howdy. This thing bogged way down once it hit Africa. The first half of the movie felt like we were skipping along way too fast. No chance to figure out who the people were or why I should give a flip about them. Then we hit Africa and I'm completely lost and confused. None of the story makes sense and it seems like we're just jumping around randomly in some bizarre story. Who are the pigmies and why do I care? They're less interesting than the Ewoks upon whom they're clearly based. I know there's supposed to be some sort of connection to the tribe in the beginning of the movie, but I can't really tell that there is. The whole storyline was herky-jerky and inconsistent. Some parts seem to drag on forever and the rest seems to blow past way too fast. There were times when I was checking the progress bar to see if there was any way they had enough time to complete some sort of story arc because I was sure the end was coming any second. At other times, I was checking to make sure this hadn't gone past the 5 hour mark.
Characters:
I really hated Jack. he was too simplistic, stereotyped, and just plain stupid. I've seen him in so many other, better story lines from other big movies (The Rocketeer, for one) that I'm tired of this. He has neither the intelligence of Indiana Jones, nor the humor and cleverness of a Nathan Drake (of the Uncharted video game series). There was nothing to really like about this guy at all. There really needs to be something done about this lead character to make him likable and interesting. There is no hook at all.
Sara was prissy and whiny and really off-putting. She served mostly to confuse me rather than being something I would be attracted to in reality. She was neither feminine-attractive nor strong female attractive. She was sort of in limbo. Not as bad as Jack, but similarly uninteresting to me. Being the second lead character, she needs as much work as Jack's character does. Give her some semblance of passion or emotion, motives, etc.
Addie was really a completely lost opportunity. Instead of making a likable/interesting character, he ends up being some sort of sidekick/bad stereotype of what white people think black people were like in the 1940s. This combined with the stupid assumptions about what racism and prejudice was at that time just made me nauseated. He ends up being the Jar Jar Binks of this movie when he was apparently intended to be more of a Chewbacca character model, which would also not work well here.
Rheingold, I had to look his name up. I forgot it. He's not interesting, evil, or imposing at all. He comes across as a spoiled rich kid rather than a cerebral arch enemy or even someone capable of rising to his rank and authority. Again we face the stereotype rather than anything even remotely realistic, even within the scope of an action-adventure script. Clearly copied from Indiana Jones' 3's evil Nazi dude, but a pale reflection.
Dialogue:
Bland, predictable, boring. There were no interesting interactions between characters. No one liners to joke about with friends. No insightful commentary. No anything memorable whatsoever. I will have forgotten most of this movie by this weekend.
Emotion:
If the team was going for frustration, confusion, and irritability, I think they succeeded beautifully.
Overall, there are some basic pieces that are salvageable, but there are a lot more details that need to be hashed out. I'd start by changing the setting completely. Kill the Atlantis theme. Possibly consider some other ancient legend, but please find one I've not seen in movies before AND that has some interest to it. Locale is purely a function of subject matter, and Africa is no worse than South America, the Himalayas, or Antarctica. Something original would be nice.
The characters need to be totally revamped. I personally would like to see a lead male character along the lines of Nathan Drake of the Uncharted video game series mixed with Captain Malcolm Reynolds of Firefly fame. The likable scoundrel sort of pioneered by Harrison Ford's Han Solo but with funnier/more clever banter and dialogue and a different past, one that we get a glimpse of. The lead female character needs to be both feminine and yet in some ways a match in strength of character to the lead male role. She need not be too witty in banter, but needs some counterbalance that makes her just as intriguing as the male so that the audience
Addie could be turned into something much more. While I think it's a fine idea to touch on prejudice and racism of the age, please do take a little time and read about the era or talk to people who lived it to get a realistic idea of what a black man in the military might actually experience. Give the man a little sense of pride and inner fortitude that he sorely lacked in this caricature. Make him human and interesting on his own, not because of the circumstances he finds himself in. He should not be the center of attention, and the story should not revolve around the color of his skin or that of the indigenous people, but an interesting side story arc of him succeeding against the artificial odds against him can definitely be created, as opposed to the side show act he plays in this script.
Pacing needs to be smoothed out, and the story arcs need to be handled more effectively. The jumping from parallel arcs to single-mindedness left me feeling schizophrenic.
Oh, and either the name needs to be changed or the script needs to be completely rewritten. Sky Pirates implies a lot of sky and a lot of pirating. Neither happened in this story.
If this were to come to the big screen, it would be a huge flop. Even if a cartoon was made of it and it was released direct to video it wouldn't hold up under the most cursory scrutiny of an 8 year old. You've chosen some good movies to plagiarize, but instead of creating a great adventure, you've created a Frankenstein's Monster of a screenplay that just cannot possibly be brought to life.
Premise:
It seemed like a promising start. Nazis, zeppelins, Africa. Adventure and mystery potential. Unfortunately, it's all been done before in some form or another. This story rips off both the original Indiana Jones as well as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, particularly the zeppelin sequence. I also saw the Rocketeer in this one, probably as the single most plagiarized source. Atlantis? Come on. WWII? Really? How about some more originality.This territory has been covered exhaustively by so many B-movies from the 80s (King Solomon's Mines, for one) as well as countless video games. After seeing the whole thing, I felt that this wouldn't even make a good video game premise, much less a big budget Hollywood style movie.
Story Structure:
Boy howdy. This thing bogged way down once it hit Africa. The first half of the movie felt like we were skipping along way too fast. No chance to figure out who the people were or why I should give a flip about them. Then we hit Africa and I'm completely lost and confused. None of the story makes sense and it seems like we're just jumping around randomly in some bizarre story. Who are the pigmies and why do I care? They're less interesting than the Ewoks upon whom they're clearly based. I know there's supposed to be some sort of connection to the tribe in the beginning of the movie, but I can't really tell that there is. The whole storyline was herky-jerky and inconsistent. Some parts seem to drag on forever and the rest seems to blow past way too fast. There were times when I was checking the progress bar to see if there was any way they had enough time to complete some sort of story arc because I was sure the end was coming any second. At other times, I was checking to make sure this hadn't gone past the 5 hour mark.
Characters:
I really hated Jack. he was too simplistic, stereotyped, and just plain stupid. I've seen him in so many other, better story lines from other big movies (The Rocketeer, for one) that I'm tired of this. He has neither the intelligence of Indiana Jones, nor the humor and cleverness of a Nathan Drake (of the Uncharted video game series). There was nothing to really like about this guy at all. There really needs to be something done about this lead character to make him likable and interesting. There is no hook at all.
Sara was prissy and whiny and really off-putting. She served mostly to confuse me rather than being something I would be attracted to in reality. She was neither feminine-attractive nor strong female attractive. She was sort of in limbo. Not as bad as Jack, but similarly uninteresting to me. Being the second lead character, she needs as much work as Jack's character does. Give her some semblance of passion or emotion, motives, etc.
Addie was really a completely lost opportunity. Instead of making a likable/interesting character, he ends up being some sort of sidekick/bad stereotype of what white people think black people were like in the 1940s. This combined with the stupid assumptions about what racism and prejudice was at that time just made me nauseated. He ends up being the Jar Jar Binks of this movie when he was apparently intended to be more of a Chewbacca character model, which would also not work well here.
Rheingold, I had to look his name up. I forgot it. He's not interesting, evil, or imposing at all. He comes across as a spoiled rich kid rather than a cerebral arch enemy or even someone capable of rising to his rank and authority. Again we face the stereotype rather than anything even remotely realistic, even within the scope of an action-adventure script. Clearly copied from Indiana Jones' 3's evil Nazi dude, but a pale reflection.
Dialogue:
Bland, predictable, boring. There were no interesting interactions between characters. No one liners to joke about with friends. No insightful commentary. No anything memorable whatsoever. I will have forgotten most of this movie by this weekend.
Emotion:
If the team was going for frustration, confusion, and irritability, I think they succeeded beautifully.
Overall, there are some basic pieces that are salvageable, but there are a lot more details that need to be hashed out. I'd start by changing the setting completely. Kill the Atlantis theme. Possibly consider some other ancient legend, but please find one I've not seen in movies before AND that has some interest to it. Locale is purely a function of subject matter, and Africa is no worse than South America, the Himalayas, or Antarctica. Something original would be nice.
The characters need to be totally revamped. I personally would like to see a lead male character along the lines of Nathan Drake of the Uncharted video game series mixed with Captain Malcolm Reynolds of Firefly fame. The likable scoundrel sort of pioneered by Harrison Ford's Han Solo but with funnier/more clever banter and dialogue and a different past, one that we get a glimpse of. The lead female character needs to be both feminine and yet in some ways a match in strength of character to the lead male role. She need not be too witty in banter, but needs some counterbalance that makes her just as intriguing as the male so that the audience
Addie could be turned into something much more. While I think it's a fine idea to touch on prejudice and racism of the age, please do take a little time and read about the era or talk to people who lived it to get a realistic idea of what a black man in the military might actually experience. Give the man a little sense of pride and inner fortitude that he sorely lacked in this caricature. Make him human and interesting on his own, not because of the circumstances he finds himself in. He should not be the center of attention, and the story should not revolve around the color of his skin or that of the indigenous people, but an interesting side story arc of him succeeding against the artificial odds against him can definitely be created, as opposed to the side show act he plays in this script.
Pacing needs to be smoothed out, and the story arcs need to be handled more effectively. The jumping from parallel arcs to single-mindedness left me feeling schizophrenic.
Oh, and either the name needs to be changed or the script needs to be completely rewritten. Sky Pirates implies a lot of sky and a lot of pirating. Neither happened in this story.
If this were to come to the big screen, it would be a huge flop. Even if a cartoon was made of it and it was released direct to video it wouldn't hold up under the most cursory scrutiny of an 8 year old. You've chosen some good movies to plagiarize, but instead of creating a great adventure, you've created a Frankenstein's Monster of a screenplay that just cannot possibly be brought to life.
0
out of
0
people found the following review helpful:
Good movie
0
out of
0
people found the following review helpful:
Pretty nice concept
At first this looked like a cross between Crimson Skies ( xbox video game) and Uncharted ( a Playstation game) but the dialogue and interesting take on the 1940's during WWII make it interesting enough to go see in theaters when it comes out.
Who doesn't like a good WWII movie, now add pirates, treasure, and blimps!! With Hollywood producing remake after remake these days, at least this would be something interesting that didnt come from the 80's or a book.
Who doesn't like a good WWII movie, now add pirates, treasure, and blimps!! With Hollywood producing remake after remake these days, at least this would be something interesting that didnt come from the 80's or a book.
Crew
Agnes Salek
Sound editor
Page:1 of 2
Cast
Michael Eben
as KOMMANDANT RHEINGOLD, PLUS VARIOUS
Finalist: Best Actor
Semifinalist: Best Actor
as ADDIE MILLS, CHIEF O'DELL, BARON BOB, RECRUITER
Page:1 of 3
Sources
Uploaded by: Gary Dragan Milin
Project Information
Winner: Best Test Movie, Best Dialogue Track, Best Trailer, Best Script
Finalist: Best Test Movie, Best Dialogue Track, Best Trailer, Best Actor, Best Script
Semifinalist: Best Test Movie, Best Dialogue Track, Best Trailer, Best Actor, Best Script
Sky Pirates
Sky Pirates, Gary's Project
(Action and Adventure) "In 1940, a US airship is sent on a top secret mission into the uncharted African interior in order to intercept a Nazi Zeppelin involved in an archeological expedition that could make Hitler’s armies invincible."
There is an opening scene that initially has no clear connection to the remainder of the story. The story also has a side theme which focused on the role (or the lack thereof) of Blacks in WWII. This has been well documented in the stories of the Tuskegee Airmen - but it had ramifications in other arenas as well. This film at least acknowledges the difficulties Black Americans had while serving their country.
My only concern with the story was a small anachronism - the city of Kinshasa was given its name in 1966, 20 years after WWII. During the 1940's the city was known as Leopoldville. I am not an expert in African history, so this detail should be double checked.
As I looked for a free movie using Amazon Prime, I was pleased with my choice. Though others seem to think it a waste of time, I found it of interest and worthy of the 90 minutes I spent watching it. I expect others will as well. I will look forward to seeing the finished film, if it is ever produced.