06-05-2011, 11:30 AM
I wonder how many of us have noticed the constant presence of steam in sci-fi films. It's a popular constant in starships, for some strange reason, always drifting past or bursting forth from unseen vents to lend sinister drama to a scene - Star Gate series, including spin-offs, on board the Starship Enterprise, on board the Space Tug Nostradamus in Alien and a host of other places where you have to stop and wonder who's using steam...and for what, exactly..on starships of the future?
I recently watched the early part of another sci-fi variant - the mutant genre - called appropriately enough "The Mutant Chronicles". Maybe Ron Perlman and John Malkovich just needed the money - who knows? I'm not a fan of than genre, but what caught my eye was....you guessed it...the use of steam far in the future.
The film is a cross between a couple of computer games and the usual contents of the Holloywood film vaults - a PC game called Ironstorm - excellent concept, BTW, and one called Doom, plus ho knows how many more. War continues in the future, now fought by the five great corporations that fight to control the vanishing resources of Earth, but wait...the only remaining fuel appears to be coal, and everything runs on steam, and I do mean everything.
In the opening battle scenes, starkly framed in the stark realism of trench warfare still practiced in the future, the armored fighting vehicles and artillery are steam powered, and even the large aerial transports are powered by coal-fired steam. It was humorously ironic to watch stokers stripped to the waist sweating as they shoveled coal into glowing boilers to build up enough pressure for the clanking steam-driving aircraft to limber aloft, trailing a plume of black smoke. - an apocalyptic vision of the future if ever one exists.
If your mind runs to odd notions and things that make you think waaay outside of any box, I recommend the first part of the film.
I recently watched the early part of another sci-fi variant - the mutant genre - called appropriately enough "The Mutant Chronicles". Maybe Ron Perlman and John Malkovich just needed the money - who knows? I'm not a fan of than genre, but what caught my eye was....you guessed it...the use of steam far in the future.
The film is a cross between a couple of computer games and the usual contents of the Holloywood film vaults - a PC game called Ironstorm - excellent concept, BTW, and one called Doom, plus ho knows how many more. War continues in the future, now fought by the five great corporations that fight to control the vanishing resources of Earth, but wait...the only remaining fuel appears to be coal, and everything runs on steam, and I do mean everything.
In the opening battle scenes, starkly framed in the stark realism of trench warfare still practiced in the future, the armored fighting vehicles and artillery are steam powered, and even the large aerial transports are powered by coal-fired steam. It was humorously ironic to watch stokers stripped to the waist sweating as they shoveled coal into glowing boilers to build up enough pressure for the clanking steam-driving aircraft to limber aloft, trailing a plume of black smoke. - an apocalyptic vision of the future if ever one exists.
If your mind runs to odd notions and things that make you think waaay outside of any box, I recommend the first part of the film.