MovieChat Forums > The Rocketeer (1991) Discussion > In light of news of the reboot, here's w...

In light of news of the reboot, here's why I LOVE the original movie


The Rocketeer is what you’d call a rip-roaring adventure movie with a terrific mix of action, romance, drama and intrigue, it’s the ultimate escapist entertainment that you can enjoy time and time again.

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Ditto. Those are all good reasons why this movie has a cult following.


You want something corny? You got it!

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I like the innocence of the era as depicted in movies like this. I know reality isn't really like that, but it is fun to romanticize the past for stories like this. It is escapism at its best!

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I am not a fan. I just happen to enjoy movies. Fans are embarrassing.

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Is it a reboot or a sequel that's coming?

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OK. I'll stick my neck out and say that the so-called sequel is (tongue-in-cheek) the Elton John bio-pic, Rocketman.
Rocketman, geddit? :)

Cheers

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LOL. No seriously there's supposed to be one coming. Cold War era I believe.

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OK. IMDb lists the following.....
1. Rocket (2020) , no info
2. The Rocketeers, no info, the genres are Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
3. The Rocketeer, a TV series, no info

My money's on the TV series, but I'm no gambler.

Cheers

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I loved this movie and I am surprised at its low ratings on various sites. The cast was great and the budget was big enough to afford great visuals. It was rated PG so it didn't have any offensive scenes.

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THE REASON IT IS GREAT IS THE SAME REASON IT WASNT UNDERSTOOD UPON RELEASE,AND CONITUNUES TO BE MISUNDERSTOOD....ITS A MOVIE OUT OF TIME...A CLASSIC ADVENTURE,THAT SURELY DIDNT FIT WITH 90S AUDIENCES,BUT IT IS AMAZING.

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No doubt it at least inspired lots of people to take up a passion in the aviation industry. The soundtrack is stunning.

~~/o/

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You consider The Rocketeer "GREAT", "MISUNDERSTOOD", "CLASSIC", and "AMAZING"...

...but you don't like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow???

These two movies were cut from similar cloth. I'm stunned!

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SKY CAPTAIN IS CGI GARBAGE...THE ROCKETEER IS A SOLID OLD FASHIONED ADVENTURE.

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I think the biggest problem with this movie was the time period it was made. People in the 90s were not interested in movies taking place in the 1940s unless there was a battle going on. There was an attempt at a tv show called "Homefront," but that didn't do so well either. People just plain weren't interested. We were all too busy watching action flicks where stuff blew up, family films, and romantic comedies that truly made us laugh. WWII stuff had gotten stale at that point in Hollywood history.

It wasn't until recently people took more of an interest in our history between 1940 and 1970. However, I'm not sure how well this film would have done, even in the early 2000s, or today, to be honest. Perhaps it would have truly been the franchise-beginner Disney had wanted it to be. Sadly, it never came to that.

To be fair, the film had a lot of flaws in it. The core part of the story was great, involving the Rocketeer's discovery of the engine, and his slowly becoming a hero. But a lot of things made the story weak. Like him always fumbling when trying to let his on and off again girlfriend know how much he cared for her; or the mafia guys claiming they were the "FBI;" leatherface, and the villain somehow being able to masquerade as a big-time Hollywood producer, and nobody in the US govt. suspects he's a Nazi plant? That, and one thing that bothered my parents a lot was, this was supposed to be a kid's movie, and yet they kept making a big deal about Jenny's humongous knockers, which she did nothing to hide, despite trying to be an honorable woman.

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Yes, the horrors of World War II, The Holocaust in particular, was not really talked about until the early 1970s when the first wave of the generations which participated in the global conflict began to die off. One of my relatives, who visited West Germany in 1974, remarked in amazement how huge their museums were; the size of 4 American football fields put together! By this time, collections of wartime exhibitions were fully on display. Beforehand, this would not have been the case.

I don't know if there's any truth to this, but supposedly, famous actor, Eryl Flynn (did I spell his first name correctly?) was suspected of being a Nazi spy. Moore's character in the film is a tie in connection to this suspicion. The Nazi Party was very popular around the world during the 1930s, sad but true. The idea that someone in high esteem could occupy such a position is within the realm of possibility here, all things in mind.

You know, considering what you said about The Rocketeer himself, it's as if the creators of this film were trying to appeal to teenage boys. Maybe the makers of this film were trying too hard to please everyone.

~~/o/

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I have this movie in my collection, and consider it better than average, with quite a few moments of true greatness. Yet even if we overlook Lothar, the typical unstoppable henchman, this movie is let down by Disney not being sure who their intended audience was. Is this for kids, for adults, for comic readers, for pulp fans, or for the average movie-goer just looking for light entertainment? In trying to please everyone, they ended up pleasing very few. Releasing it the same summer as Terminator 2 didn't help, either.

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Yeah, tell me about it. It can be reasoned that the film was surprisingly optimistic even for early 1990s Western audiences. You bring up a really good point: the pulp genre. 'The Rocketeer' is 'Superman' and 'Indiana Jones' rolled into one. It should be noted that the Indiana Jones franchise was already petering out as early as the 1990s.

The 'Young Indiana Jones Chronicles' did not last long on TV and 'The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones' novels were only moderately successful. The underwhelming results meant the would-be new generations of younger fans did not pan out as expected. The same problem may have happened with 'The Rocketeer', where differences in the taste of brand new movie-goers were hard to determine at the time outside of the baby boomer nostalgia craze (The Sandlot, etc.), I'm assuming. All of these I've mentioned (Superman and Sandlot not counting) I thoroughly enjoy, so learning about their lack of commercial appeal was disappointing to say the least.

~~/o/

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