LogFAQs > #910362513

Rocketeer (1991)
Nominated by: birb

I absolutely love the concept of the Rocketeer, a character with such a great design that really hearkens back to the era of pulp characters. I always enjoy movies that open a window to a bygone age, and there's a certain innocence to older World War II movies like the Rocketeer and Indiana Jones. Combine that with interesting historical figures who are shrouded in mystery like Howard Hughes, and I think a script look-over could turn this into a classic movie.

I'd start with bringing a completely different tone to the movie. I'd look to reshoot this film with the style and coloring of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Really, this film deserves to embrace its source era in all of the minimally-colored art deco glory. I would definitely push a color palette that highlights black, white, bronze, and red. Joe Johnston is a decent directorial choice already (and he eventually remakes the Rocketeer in 2011 as Captain America: The First Avenger), but I'd put the script in the hands of Steve Zaillian (notably of Awakenings, Schindler's List and Moneyball fame). He has a good sense for getting the flavor of an era, and that matters a lot.

This go-round, I would make a weird change to the casting. Timothy Dalton was playing the villain of the film, and I would kind of do the same thing... only I would remove Terry O'Quinn from the Howard Hughes role. Instead, I want to turn Hughes into a man who is playing the puppetmaster here. He arranged for the theft of his own product in order to eventually hand it off to the Nazis. In an era where we don't have a lot of twists in filmmaking, this type of twist would really play well with the audience.

I want to play up the science and technology of 1938 more. In fact, this is going to be less historically accurate than the movie was originally. Nazi agents will have unique weaponry that allow them to scale buildings faster or fire 30s-style ray guns, all property of Howard Hughes.

Aside from that, there are a lot of things I'm keeping exactly the same. The ending would feature a classic "It's not about morality, it's just business" defense from Hughes, and the Rocketeer (who, by the way, I would recast with Christian Slater, just on personal preference) would be the patriot the country needs.

It's a little more Indiana Jones, a little more Sky Captain, and a little less Disney than the movie was in 1991, but overall, I think the soul of the comic is more prevalent here.
---

"It is too easy being monsters. Let us try to be human." ~Victor Frankenstein, Penny Dreadful