Highergifted: July 2013

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Decrypting Krypton and Superman

Movies to watch "Iron Sky"

The film opens in 2018 with an American manned landing mission to the Moon. The lander carries two astronauts, one of them an Afro-American male model, James Washington, specifically chosen to aid the President of the United States in her re-election (various "Black to the Moon" word-play posters are seen in the film, extolling the new Moon landing).
Upon landing on the far side of the Moon they encounter Nazis hidden there since 1945 (self-styled the 'Fourth Reich' in dialogue), by whom Washington is taken captive and the other astronaut killed. Nazi scientist Doktor Richter investigates Washington and obtains his mobile telephone, of which he later recognizes that its computing power outstrips all that possessed by the 'Fourth Reich', enabling its use as a control unit of space battleship Götterdämmerung. When he strives to demonstrate the completion of his Wunderwaffe to the current Führer, Wolfgang Kortzfleisch, the telephone's battery is exhausted. Unable to reënergize it, Nazi commander Klaus Adler, chosen for genetic reasons to mate with Earth specialist Renate Richter (Doktor Richter's daughter), embarks in a flying saucer spacecraft to collect more such computers on Earth, taking with him Washington, earlier given a Caucasoid complexion by Richter. Upon landing they find that Renate has traveled with them in secret. They are introduced to the President of the United States by her assistant Vivian Wagner (played by Peta Sergeant); whereafter they direct her re-election campaign. At the time, Richter is unaware of Adler's ambition to become the next Führer and rule the world. After three months, Kortzfleisch lands on Earth and confronts Adler, but is killed by Adler and Vivian. Adler declares himself the new Führer before returning to orbit in Kortzfleisch's flying saucer. Concurrently, Renate Richter is persuaded by the now homeless Washington that Adler intends genocide.
The United Nations assembles to discuss the extraterrestrial Nazi threat, and the American President appoints Vivian Wagner (deserted by Adler) as commander of the spacecraft U.S.S. George W. Bush, which carries nuclear and directed-energy weapons; only to discover that most of the other nations have similarly equipped their spacecraft, which they despatch against the Nazi fleet. Adler, commanding the Götterdämmerung, destroys parts of the Moon to expose Earth. Richter and Washington travel in Adler's flying saucer to the Götterdämmerung, where Washington attempts to disable the engines while Richter seeks Adler. Meanwhile, the international space fleet damage the Nazis' base and approach the Götterdämmerung itself. During the battle, Washington disconnects the tablet-computer installed to control the Götterdämmerung while Richter overcomes Adler.
The U.S. President congratulates Wagner from the U.N. session; whereupon Wagner discloses that presence of large tanks of helium-3 on the Moon, of which the U.S. president immediately assumes sole claim on grounds that its possession ensures a millennium-long supply of energy. This enrages another U.N. member (cameo appearance by Claus Wilcke), who incites all U.N. members to a fistfight. This in turn provokes the spacecraft of various nations to destroy each other.
Richter re-unites with Washington (who has regained his natural skin, previously made "Aryan-like" by Doktor Richter by using an "albinism serum") in the damaged base, before a group of refugees whom Richter assures "[they] have a lotta work cut out for [them]". The final moments of the film show the Earth, apparently during an international nuclear war. At the very end of the credits, the planet Mars is revealed with an artificial satellite of undetermined origin in orbit.