The world of tomorrow has no black people in it. - Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) Discussion

[–] funkyfry 15 years ago

In all seriousness, the subject's been brought up before but I'll go ahead and maybe be redundant. The film is a throwback to a particular style of serial action film, and particular styles of comic book and animation. There weren't a lot of black people in those comic books and in the Flash Gordon movies and stuff like that. So as the producer of a film like this you have a choice: you can stick a black sidekick in there and maybe please half the people who would complain (the other half will feel condescended to), or you can stick with something old fashioned that might offend a few people here and there. That's what they did with this film, and they avoided at least the kind of negative stereotypes that would show up in a lot of those types of things. Like Ming the Merciless, if you have characters like that in the movie then you will offend people a lot more than you will by just the absence of positive portrayals.

Did I not love him, Cooch? MY OWN FLESH I DIDN'T LOVE BETTER!!! But he had to say 'Nooooooooo'

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[–] rubycalaberXX 15 years ago

god forbid you have a properly written black character or, shock horror, the hero is not a straight white man

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[–] funkyfry 15 years ago

Well that would be fine if this was "I, Robot." I enjoyed "I, Robot" and I thought it was a lot of fun, but it was very different from the style of vintage sci-fi. If you want to make a movie that uses the style of 30s/40s serial sci-fi and B movie sci-fi, then you can't have the modern type of black character in them without screwing up the homage. I don't think it's all that complicated to understand. But if people go looking for problems, chances are that they're going to find them.

You want to hedge your bets, you want to modernize the movie's style and look, that's one thing. But the people who made this movie didn't want to do that. What they did actually took a lot of bravery in a sense. For people to just sort of generically demand that a black actor be put in the movie is pretty weird and in itself racially motivated. It's much more interesting to just let the film be what it is, to go all the way.

Did I not love him, Cooch? MY OWN FLESH I DIDN'T LOVE BETTER!!! But he had to say 'Nooooooooo'

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[–] osopestoso 13 years ago

Make your OWN movie. Put in all the blacks you want. Quit snivelling. Blacks do NOT have to be everywhere.

"They sucked his brains out!"

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[–] wonderwall25 15 years ago

Honestly, I thought it was quite refreshing not to have the all too common "token black guy" in a movie.

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[–] m0nde 15 years ago

this may be, but i find a future with only white people, racist.

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[–] funkyfry 15 years ago

To include a ridiculous stereotype character would be racist. To simply leave black people out of the film is not racist. It's a non-statement. You can read whatever you want into it, but due to the fact that the film actually makes zero comment about race I think it's an extreme stretch to define the film as "racist." Insensitive, maybe. But there's altogether too much sensitivity out there right now at this point. I think people will look back at our era and all the "token blacks" (as well as token whites) in movies and really shake their heads in embarassment. Just like we might look back on the 30s/40s sci-fi movies and be sort of embarassed that there aren't any black people in the future. But if you want to be true to a certain period and you're trying to pay homage to that period and to create the type of film that could actually have been made in the 30s/40s, then you can't just go around modernizing whichever aspects of the film seem politically correct to modernize.

Basically if they had done what you want, 40 years from now we'd look back at "Sky Captain" and see a dated 2000s film. But what we have instead is a film from the 2000s that looks back with a bit of nostalgia at what was popular in the 1930s. In a sense, that prevents the film from ever becoming dated. It simply is what it is. A more honest movie than we tend to see these days, with the emphasis on style instead of political correctness.

Did I not love him, Cooch? MY OWN FLESH I DIDN'T LOVE BETTER!!! But he had to say 'Nooooooooo'

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[–] osopestoso 13 years ago

There were some chinks and at least one muzz... Isn't that enough?

"They sucked his brains out!"

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[–] Mudvayne6182 15 years ago

I find your blatant stupidity quite overwhelming. There's been 4 posts to answer your question. Read them, and stop being so ignorant.

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[–] AccessCardRequired 14 years ago

Gee, what a lucky fellow Spielberg is, by putting a black actor in Raider of the lost Arc. (remember the small tiny part of the ships captain, that takes Indi and Marion on board.)

Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes!

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[–] AccessCardRequired 14 years ago

Gee, what a lucky fellow Spielberg is, by putting a black actor in Raider of the lost Arc. (remember the small tiny part of the ships captain, that takes Indi and Marion on board.)

Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes!

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[–] cshep 14 years ago

Well, there is one guy who is the color of charcoal....Does that count....Only in America would you find a comment about a non-white person not being in a movie, especially a not very good one....

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[–] chimera-21 14 years ago

Wahhh. People like you find racism everywhere. It's why the term no longer has meaning and why nobody really gives a damn. Go cry to the Rev Jesse and shaddup.

Transformers 2: Revenge of the RoboBalls!

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[–] machineteam 14 years ago

you're trolling, right?

if not, well, it's because the future was racist in the early 30s... even in low budget sci-fi serials.

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[–] osopestoso 13 years ago

Well, that makes YOU racist. Ironic, huh. How do you know there aren't any blacks in that future? Maybe they were in the shoeshine booths you couldn't see.

"They sucked his brains out!"

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[–] DrZaat 10 years ago

However, it's NOT the future, as anyone who paid any attention knows. It is 1939, or thereabouts.

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[–] Taravilyaion 9 years ago

Cry a river, build yourself a bridge and get over it..

"Gar nicht so übel, du kleine Schlampe. Man sieht sich immer zweimal, Kleine."

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[–] scruppyandthecoolcats 15 years ago

Why?

because the casting director didn't put any in the movie.

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[–] m0nde 15 years ago

And why didn't he put any black people in the movie? I think that this blatant racism is out of place in a modern movie.

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[–] avnrulz 15 years ago

this may be, but i find a future with only white people, racist.

This is not a movie about the future, as is obvious by the technology used.

Many points have been raised about why there were no black characters, major or minor, and they have been honest answers, but they have apparently been glossed over in your reading of these posts.

'Wild, Wild West' was remade with Will Smith in the Title role of Jim West. Now, honestly, do you think a black man in America, at that time, would have been hired as a secret agent, who could be counted on to blend in and not draw attention to himself, in the situations from that movie? It may have been a hit because Will Smith is a likable guy and great actor, but it didn't work for me in that situation. Did he work in 'I, Robot'? Sure, because 'anything is possible in the future'.

Again, this was an homage to the sci-fi movies of the 1940's, sorry it doesn't suit your taste.

Fight the FOCA

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[–] pimpcheeze 14 years ago

GOOD! Is there anything worse than a token black in a movie that doesnt need one? No.

Case in point - U571. A black steward that can drive a submarine? yeah right. What a blatant token racist ploy.

Ever notice when they have a white person in a black movie, the white person is made out to be an idiot? How do you think it would go over if an all-white movie had 1 black person they made fun of constantly, or made fried chicken / watermelon jokes throughout the movie?

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[–] straker-1 14 years ago

Having seen Avatar, I am now of the opinion that Sly Captain is racist because there were no blue people in it. Screw you guyz, I'm off to watch The Smurfs.

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[–] liscarkat (16476) 2 years ago

"Case in point - U571. A black steward that can drive a submarine? yeah right."

In WWII many U.S. submarines had black stewards, and, like everyone else in submarine crews, they all had technical jobs outside their everyday occupations. There actually were black stewards who also functioned as helmsmen, during battle stations. However, whether a German submarine would have followed the same practice, or even had a black crew member, is doubtful.

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[–] trylon_perisphere 15 years ago

In the future, black people have evolved into beings of pure energy.

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[–] osopestoso 13 years ago

No, they turned into dark matter.... That doesn't.

"They sucked his brains out!"

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[–] Judger 15 years ago

In the future, Black people will discover a portal to a world in another galaxy and flee the earth.

Unfortunately, they all die off because the star in its solar system emits a unique radiation that promotes a virulent form of sickle cell anemia.

Very sad. :(

I was born in the house my father built

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[–] Cloverfield_33 14 years ago

The world of tomorrow has no black people in it.

So? Film wouldn't have been any better with one in anyway.

Fantastic 'Futurama' Forum!!
www.FuturamaFF.com

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[–] 14 years ago

[deleted]

[–] buffsbeard-lane 14 years ago

Hey,not such a bad film afterall

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[–] mr-quick-1 14 years ago

Why do black singers only have black people in their videos?

Let's not play the race card.

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[–] jcjohnston1-1 14 years ago

Unless I'm mistaken, there were also no gays, lesbians, Iranians, Muslims, Buddhists, blind/deaf/mute people, quadriplegics, transgendered, Scientologists, Mongolians, Alaskans, plumbers, bus drivers, poets, aboriginals, francophones, or dislexics.

Get over it.

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[–] senua 14 years ago

The was too an Iranian in it; the mightly Omid Djalili is Iranian :P

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[–] jcjohnston1-1 14 years ago

But was his character?

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[–] senua 14 years ago

I don't think the film ever said where he was from (I've seen this film once ages ago so if I'm wrong I apologise) so you'd have to ask Omid himself, he might have been playing the character as Iranian even if it was never said one way or the other :P

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[–] pimpcheeze 14 years ago

this will get deleted, but it needs to be said.

In the era SC is set in, black people were NOT on the level of white people socially, professionally or any other way. They were porters, waiters, floor sweepers etc.... not heroes, pilots, reporters etc.

The USA (which is where WOT is mostly set) was the best nation on earth till the Kennedy administration and the civil rights movement. A direct and distinct line can be drawn between the demise of the US and this. Had there been equal rights, affirmative action and other black centric policies in place in 1939, there is no way we would've won the war, made it to the moon, or invented the transistor.

However, we would've won the olympics year after year. Basketball would be the national sport, and the Beatles would've stayed in England.

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[–] 14 years ago

[deleted]

[–] jcjohnston1-1 14 years ago

Thank God you had George Dubya, huh?

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[–] Crevan1986 14 years ago

Thank God you had George Dubya, huh?

Funnily enough, we finally got our Token Black President. Worst thing to happen to this country, ever.

I am a leaf on the wind - watch how I soar.

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[–] osopestoso 13 years ago

Are you referring to Bubba Clinton, the "First Black President" or Barry Zerobama, they first GRAY foreign president?

"They sucked his brains out!"

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[–] Jose_Accent_On_E 8 years ago

Barry Zerobama

This is about as funny as the carbuncle on Rush Limbaugh's arse - well known method to avoid military service. (Do some research, dummy, if you don't get the reference.)

Seriously, only someone as lame as a dittohead could have come up with this crap, and thought it worth repeating.

And for those of you who think there's no racial problem these days (especially on IMDb), read the last few posts made the troglodyte whom I've quoted above.

No Black people in The World Of Tomorrow? Must be a boring, unfunny and totally lame place.

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[–] machineteam 14 years ago

did you watch this film when it was originally shot?

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[–] stazza 14 years ago

is there like one idiot that posts all a "racist" topic in every movie forum? Only the posters are true racists. I never think about race until someone from another race brings it up. sad.

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[–] activista 8 years ago

@pimpcheeze

Your post makes no damn sense whatsoever. Black people existed in 1939, and this being an alternative history film, they could have been in it. Black people were not allowed to be on the same level as white people because white people didn't want to competition, and wanted to keep black people at the bottom of society because that's how white people wanted things. And do your research---there WERE black pilots in both World War I and II--check out the story of Eugene Bullard, one of the very first black combat pilots of World War I, and considered to be one of the best of his time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Bullard

There were black reporters too---they were only allowed to work for black-owned newspapers. Point being, since this was an alternative history movies, there was no reason not to have any people of color, since it's only fiction. Why the hell do "white people" always have to be the default in every damn movie, anyway,as if nobody else in the world exists but them? And why do white folks have an issue when the white hegemony of everything is pointed out or questioned in general? Get over yourselves about that.

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[–] Luis (187) 2 years ago

Sorry to post this so long after your post. From the Wikipedia quote you posted: "although Bullard flew for France not the United States." And the Black pilots that flew in WW II, they were regarded and "experiment" and did not enter combat until later in 1943 in a segregated Group. SCWOT was White, and early 1940.

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[–] knightwind88 13 years ago

A better question to ask is why are there no Turkish Whirling Dervishes in this film?

;-p

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[–] thetheeyecreature 14 years ago

Note that the film is set in 1939 (in an alternate history).

What was *really* missing was the 1939 World's Fair.

"The truth 24 times a second."

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[–] senua 14 years ago

Finally somone that paid attention during the film, how anyone could watch it and think it was supposed to be the future I'll never know (especially as the DATE is mentioned). Better keep them away from steampunk, that would really confuse them.

For anyone that still doesn't understand, the title 'world of tomorrow' isn't saying the film is set in the future, the world of tomorrow was where the rocket full of animal was headed off to start after it destroy the world of today (you know, earth). The electrified answer machine of DOOM's monologue made all that clear, I guess some people didn't have the mental wearwithal to take it all in.

Those crazy villians and their wacky, confusingly named evil plots to destroy the world.

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