Iron Sky - An indie SF/comedy coming soon in April

[Gee Whillickers]

Well, this should be interesting.

Made using the new-ish Participatory Cinema method of funding and effects, an indie film that looks like it'll either be a whole lot of amazing fun, or really, really bad.

It turns out that after WWII ended in 1945, the nazis didn't disappear. They holed up in a secret base on the far side of the moon. Now, it's 2018, and they're ready to come back. In a big way.

I give you:

Iron Sky

And another... (Language Warning)

Here's the President of the USA in the film:

[blue]

One perceives a degree of parody and comedy going on there.

Yeah, that's either going to be quite good or really, really bad.

I've seen how websites and podcasts and fanfilms get done collaboratively, and they can be very well done.

The effects and acting look good. We'll see what happens.

I didn't see any space chimpanzees in the movie clips, but my money's on the chimps!

[The Pecman]

Jesus. One asks, if the Nazis had the technology to get in a rocket and settle on the moon in 1945, why didn't they just nuke the crap out of us? If you can get a rocket of people and supplies to the moon, why not a rocket from Berlin to Washington? It's about 230,000 miles closer. I'm all for a stupid, funny movie -- Airplane is one of my all-time favorites (and I even worked on it a little bit) -- but sometimes, stupid is just stupid.

The effects look like total crap to me, but if it was really, really cheap (like a TV budget), I get that you can't exactly expect Avatar.

[Merkin]

I'm very interested in seeing how the occupant of the Oval Office plays this. Does she even know where the Moon is?

[Gee Whillickers]

Camp parody is difficult to get right. So often, if not done exactly right, it comes across as stupid and crass instead of clever and funny. When someone hits the balance right, they usually have a cult classic on their hands. When they don't, which is far more often, the book or film or whatever gets tossed on the rubbish heap and is quickly forgotten about, except perhaps as an example of horrible work.

The effects on this film I believe are mostly done by volunteers collaborating mostly over the internet and using home gear. In that context, I'm amazed they managed to do what is shown in the trailers. Of course, I don't know the details of the rest of it, just what I've read since finding this yesterday, but apparently that's the idea behind participatory cinema.

[Gee Whillickers]

Okay, I have to retract some of what I wrote above. After some more reading, the participatory part of it is more about ideas, feedback, and money during the creation process. The effects themselves are mostly done by one guy, but yeah, low budget indeed for this kind of work.

[JamesSavik]

President Palin, space nazis are coming!

Lock & load! I can see them from my house!