The Film: Iron Sky (2012)
The Principles: Timo Vuorensola (Director). Julia Dietze, Peta Sergeant, Udo Kier, Chrisotpher Kirby and Gotz Otto
The Premise: A Palin-esque US President sends a black man to the moon to help her re-election campaign in 2018, but the black man gets dyed white when he discovers Nazis on the dark side of the moon who are planning on world domination.
Is It Good: I enjoyed it, but it depends on how serious you take your science fiction and your possible US allegiance. I had no idea what to expect, other than space invading nazis and it turns out there was a lot more. The movie never takes itself seriously, never too far away from a Zucker Zucker Abrams film of days past. While nowhere close to the number of jokes per second, this appeared to me to be a love child of Top Secret and Galaxy Quest. The jokes range from having an Albert Einstein clone as a mad scientist to dying a black man and bleaching his hair, to make him turn nazi.
There is no doubt about the US based jokes though. If you are a die hard Patriot that cannot laugh at jokes about America, stay away. A phallic like space ship named the George W. Bush followed by a play on the careless bombing of women and children, nothing is above the reach of parody when the topic is the land of the free. The president looks like Sarah Palin and mimics the most outrageous satirical look at her most insane moments. The dealings with the UN, and nearly brain-dead president and her seductive campaign manager from MTV pushed my limits, but in the end it was all in good fun.
Their are no physics in this film. In fact, don’t try to have it make sense. It doesn’t. How did the Nazis get there? How have they survived? How do Zeppelins make it through Earth’s atmosphere? How do they breath on the moon if they don’t have oxygen masks on? How is Udo Kier not the star of this film? These questions and many more are never answered. If you think all science fiction needs to have some reality, stay away. If you just want a movie you don’t have to analyze because you can tell right off it takes pride in not being believable, then this is for you.
The effects are well done for the most part (what was with the poorly rendered astronaut at the beginning?), and the movie is beautifully shot. It does suffer from a lack of colors though, which give the film much more a lengthy and serious tone than may have benefited it. I found myself often comparing the aesthetics to Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, but much more grey and dreary. The cast was great and the jokes kept the movie flowing to overcome the dismal palette.
Is It Worth A Look: Yes. Not the greatest film, but definitely entertaining. I felt it wasn’t a waste of money (my sister-in-law brought it from France for me) and would definitely recommend it to someone looking for a fun but thoughtless film.
Random Anecdotes:
The movie has no Domestic distribution, and it is believed this is due to the US directed jokes.
10% of the film was funded by fans. The director allowed people to request screening in the home towns, and then would use the time after for additional collaboration.
The writer came up with the idea while in the sauna.
Nazi spaceships are name after Wagner operas. “Rheingold”, “Walkure”, “Siegfried” and “Götterdämmerung”.
The filmmakers of Inglourious Basterds helped inform the crew how to smuggle nazi memorabilia into Germany to use in the film.
One of the Zeppelins uses a code Q-N4751, which means moon nazi in Finnish.
There are 3 world trade center buildings shown at once in the film.
Cinematic Soulmates: Top Secret, Spaceballs, Saturday Night Live, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
11 comments
I’ve been tracking this one for a long time. But will we ever get to see it?
I actually watched this last night and thoroughly enjoyed it. The satire directed towards America is pretty strong, but I actually found it quite humorous. I have no doubt it would offend some, especially in light of the fact people are upset that a W head was used over a year ago in Game of Thrones.
It’s a fun, silly movie that is worth checking out. If I could buy it on DVD, I would do so and put it next to Santa’s Slay on my shelf.
I’m not holding my breath. That’s why I resorted to other distribution channels for this one.
I got mine they way I have been getting the last few Movie of the Days I have done, it was handed to me. I hate that it probably won’t get released here, as it deserves it. And yeah, the George W reaction for Game of Thrones probably sealed the deal. It’s a shame.
Seriously.
…and it might be cool to close your italics markup.
Also, “dyeing”. Sorry, we Nazis take our grammar, spelling, and punctuation serious-like.
Sorry, my proofreading wasn’t what it normally is, I have a newborn at home, so I do apologize. The “Dyeing” was on purpose though, if you catch the film you will see it was planned. The rest is fixed. Thank you for reading.
The rest is fixed
‘breath’ is what you see when you exhale in the cold.
‘breathe’ is what you do to get that.
I came off like an ass. Sorry. I appreciate your feedback. I should probably not come here straight from the WoW forum.
Billed in Australia as “The Greatest Finnish/German/Australian Co-Production in History”, I saw this in Sydney at the cinema about a month ago.
We didn’t expect much more than a giggle and some cheesy FX so what we got totally exceeded expectations.
It starts badly but once the space zeppelins and meteorblitzkrieg line up against the mighty USS George W. Bush there’s a good 45 minutes of pure-hearted satire that had our audience laughing their asses off.
The most hilarious bits are the impact of the Nazis on the UN and its space fleet. Unfortunately these are all too brief – they could have formed the satirical backbone of the film. Wherever American extremism echoes Nazism the film hits home.
I had to explain some of these jokes to the kids afterward. When the nazis ghost-write President Palin’s speech by translating Hitler’s “Ein Volk” propaganda, the youth of today can’t be expected to pick up on it. The kids also didn’t get references to Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator”, Hirschbiegel’s “Downfall” or Spinrad’s “The Iron Dream”.
But that’s what the Internet is for – and researching the cinematic and real-world history behind Iron Sky would make a kick-ass school project … well, o
kay, I admit this film is not actually educational. But it’s in the grand satirical tradition of Starship Troopers. Troopers was maybe funnier because most of the audience weren’t actually in on the joke – the looks of outrage from fellow paying patrons were as hilarious as what happened on screen.
Sky isn’t like that – it’s more Rocky Horror than Robert Heinlein. Except
the “Aryanization” arc for African-American astronaut James Washington (Christopher Kirby) falls into an uncanny valley – a reference to “Mini Mengele” for example hits a particularly sour note and this arc just takes up too much screen time.
Nevertheless the beautifully realized space battles make it all worthwhile. The Nazi saucers, zeppelins, and especially the awesome Gotterdamerung mothership are so lovingly animated – full of gigantic planetary gears grinding bicycle chains the size of freeways. Enormous love and skill clearly went into the FX – jaw-dropping for a film that cost just $7.5M.
The standout performance is Nazi heroine Julia Dietze. She’s hot, cute, toned, stacked, sweet and really can act. Stephanie Paul’s president Palin works too.
The other players aren’t worth much but I think Sky will stand repeat viewing when it hits video.
That’s more than you can say for the most recent Ridley Scott outing with 20 times the budget …
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