Iron Sky -- well, that was too bad...

[SBMiniaturesGuy]

Fun tongue in cheek premise turned into heavy-handed anti-American scifi flick (replete with insane Sara Palin look-alike) with a production value worthy of the SyFy channel...what a danged shame...

[Cherno]

There's another rather large thread about Iron Sky on this forum in case you would like to read other people's opinions

[SBMiniaturesGuy]

The special effects were good, spaceship designs were good, fun air/space combat scenes (yes, poor 'ol New York, ends up getting nuked with an asteroid, eh? What's it ever done to the world? Godzilla, asteroids, meteors, giant stompy Cloverfield monsters -- its the American Tokyo!), but when they went totally overboard on their political stuff it started to get harder for me to watch, especially as it was totally unnecessary to the bare plot they had. How can you screw up fighting Moon Nazis?? I guess for me you screw it up when the US president is Sara Palin clone that's stupid, nasty, evil and uses Nazi propaganda for her re-election, and then nukes the world at the end while they play a strained US national anthem. Oh, and the Americans in general in the movie are stupid and conniving, as bad as the Space Nazis... Yeah...lovely.

[SBMiniaturesGuy]

...so...not buying the DVD...but the spaceships were cool. Did I mention that??

[Bubbles]

It was pretty bad, although that bit when they were doing a famous scene from "Downfall" was pretty funny. But yea the politics got a little out of hand. It started to get kind of annoying.

[white knight]

It was pretty bad, although that bit when they were doing a famous scene from "Downfall" was pretty funny.

I don't know, aside from the fact that it seemed stilted and not very convincingly acted that scene made me think of those stupid movies that are parodies on actual hits (scary movie, epic movie, etc...).

[SBMiniaturesGuy]

The "parody" just wasn't done well enough. For example, they tried to do an homage (if you call it that) to Dr. Strange Love when everyone starts fighting in the situation room (after crazy Palin-clone seized the moon and order the US spaceship to open fire on close allies...) -- but the Strangelove moment was so classic, when Kissov and Turgidson start fighting, and Pete Sellers says "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the War Room!"



Because it was subtle, and razor sharp in focus, the parody in Dr. Strangelove works -- especially as everybody's oxen get gored. Iron Sky in comparison was so clumsy and heavy-handed that parody degenerated into commentary when they involved the "political" characters in the film.

I contributed to Iron Sky when it was in production, and the teaser trailers were great -- much better than the film. For example, they completely cut the "history" of the Nazi escape to the Moon which (in the trailers) established the character of the old guard leadership and followers. The teasers were done such that they pulled you into the narrative, they were very effective. But the movie itself had none of that same quality. 

Oh...and come to think of it, why would they US send a poky Apollo lander to the Moon (with a token black man, as they film's Palin Clone supporters point out several times) when they had their cool megaship that could fly to the Moon in minutes???

...but the spaceships were cool! Did I mention that??

[Sangennaru]

Honestly, i quite enjoyed the satirical point of view of the movie. Of course, there was satirical emphasis there, and i can understand why many people could not appreciate it.
Personally, i had quite a nice couple of hours (and half a dozen of good laughs) watching it.


Beside of that, I like this forum because people with different point of view can talk together, staying apart from politics and/or religion.
And i would like to quote:

There's another rather large thread about Iron Sky on this forum in case you would like to read other people's opinions

Thanks

Jack

[SBMiniaturesGuy]

I like satire, but this was a bludgeon rather than a scalpel, and so it stepped on itself. Ironically, the movie used a great satire, the Great Dictator, as subject material -- they should have paid attention to how Chaplin did it. There's a reason why its such a classic. There were enjoyable bits to the movie, and the cool spaceships were cool. As source material for a weirdness campaign, I'd keep some bits and toss the rest out. But as you say, I enjoy this board for its range of game and life opinions that do not descend into acrimony. I did search for that other thread on Iron Sky, didn't see anything recent or that extensive. Do you have the link??

[Sangennaru]

I'm having troubles to find it as well, hoping in some deus ex machina linking here...

[Westfalia Chris]

The most active one I had my eyes on (for moderatorial reasons, obviously) was this one:

http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=36638.0

Last post was in June 2012.

Incidentally, I share many of the OP's reservations. Great potential, squandered many and realised too little punchlines, pulled too many punches and generally followed through with the poorer jokes IMHO. Excellent graphics, though, maybe a bit too steampunk for my dieselpunk sensibilities.

[freewargamesrules]

I rather enjoyed the tongue in cheek homage to B-Movie films, 

[Cherno]

I'd like to add that this movie had a budget of 7 million euros, a mere fraction of typical Hollywood Blockbusters. For this money, the effects were impressive. However, things like good script and gag creators cost money too, so I can see how not everyone appreciated the kind of humor present. In the end, it comes down to what you expect of a movie of this kind and wether you think you got a fair amount of entertainment for the price of your cinema ticket (I did! )

[white knight]

Well, regarding the humour, things like the Downfall Hitler outburst scene could have been amusing except that the character they had do this couldn't pull it off in the least.

[Daeothar]

I saw it at home last week and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I suppose it all depends on your expectations and going by the theme and the trailers, I was merely expecting a fun, over the top spectacle with bad effects and worse acting. And the effects turned out to be quite impressive! The rest fell well within what I thought it would be.

So fun was had.

Also, concerning the humour and heavy handed parody; consider many Hollywood films that portay other nations in much the same way - the eighties Hollywood depictions of cold war Russians come to mind - and then imagine the feelings of actual Russians when they see such movies.

This film was not made in Hollywood and as such, is not geared towards the same America-minded audience that loves, and laughs at, Hollywood movies depicting random foreign nations. One could even be cheeky and say; what goes around...  

For instance; I had to laugh out loud during the early scene in the classroom, when the female lead tells her class they will be studying English today, and the blackboard is full of German and English words. One of the German words was Tulpenzwiebel, which can be either quite painful or hilarious to people from the Netherlands...

And besides; it is already common knowledge that the Finnish have a weird sense of humour, vai ei?