TOP STEAMPUNK MOTION PICTURES

[Abraxas]

I like the ruffian's vest on the left.
It would take quite  woman to don those brass shoulder pads, but then Angelica Houston is quite a woman..

[Glass]

The Prestige was good.

Patrick

[Cheery Rayne]

I grew up on movies like Ice Pirates, it was great. It was the eighties and almost every woman was subjected to shoulder pads, but hers actually look fairly good on her.

[Zastrozzi]

I was filling up at a gas station in Stratford-upon-Avon a few years back, and Chitty Chitty Bang bang pulled up next to me.  I am not making this up.

Damn thing's the size of a boxcar.

Anyway, movies...:  I always got a kind of steamy vibe from Company Of Wolves, I don't know why...

[Jack Elliot]

Oh...My...God...


I just found this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHeRlBDwY2k&feature=related

The Assassination Bureau!


I hope Netflicks has this...they had Monte Carlo or bust...

[Prof_Auerbach]

Great Scott! I haven't seen the Assassination Bureau in decades!

Best portrayal of a morbid Russian ever!


Has anyone mentioned "Gangs of New York"? Not steampunk, but a good period picture, with great costume ideas, especially for the riff-raff of society.

[Hester]

I grew up on movies like Ice Pirates, it was great. It was the eighties and almost every woman was subjected to shoulder pads, but hers actually look fairly good on her.

I spent the 80s cutting the shoulder pads out of every top I bought.  (It was difficult to find even a t-shirt in those days that didn't have them.)  Instead of throwing them out, I stuffed them in a drawer in case they came in handy later.  Of course, they didn't.  They really started to pile up.


Oooo... The Assassination Bureau looks like fun.  Oliver Reed and Diana Rigg!

[wasuremono]

Island at the Top of the World is decent.. it has a Zepplin



and Pirates of Penzance is decently period... minus the well coreographed singing and dancing (I just can't get Model of a Modern Major-General out of my head)

[Hester]

and Pirates of Penzance is decently period... minus the well coreographed singing and dancing (I just can't get Model of a Modern Major-General out of my head)

Kevin Kline was a brilliant Pirate King.

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm646878976/tt0086112
I really enjoyed the 1983 movie when I saw it in the theatre.  Unfortunately, the only DVD version I could find is simply a recording of a performance of the stage play, with vastly inferior production values.  Muddy lighting & sound and limited camera angles.  Very disappointing!

On a similar note: I have yet to see Topsy-Turvy which dramatises the personal feud between Gilbert & Sullivan.

[Orlando]

On a similar note: I have yet to see Topsy-Turvy which dramatises the personal feud between Gilbert & Sullivan.

I started a thread about Topsy-Turvy, but no one posted in it. 

Wonderful film.

Orlando.

[Prof_Auerbach]

Mike Mignola's "The Amazing Screw-on Head", the epitome of steampunk



If you haven't seen it yet, definitely put this one at the top of your Netflix queue! Albeit short, it's a  laugh and a half...I only wish they'd created more episodes.

[Ichabod Strange]

Journey to the center of the earth was always my favorite. Very smashing film if I do say so

[Sir Vrilhelm Dreadnaught]

Didn't the mighty Vincent Price make a couple of excellent Verne adaptations: "City under the sea" & "Master of the World" or am I back in my nice place again?

[Cassandra]

Speaking of Vincent Price, what about Edward Scissorhands? Most of it's set in the creepy suburbs, but the scenes with Vincent Price were beautifully Steamgoth.

There are some great films on this board! I practically grew up on things like The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Labyrinth (with little Steampunk moments like the Cleaners, as someone said, and the steam/goblin-powered robot) so I'm thrilled that you guys watch those.

[Fraulein Flieger]

Has anyone mentioned "Gangs of New York"? Not steampunk, but a good period picture, with great costume ideas, especially for the riff-raff of society.

Great picture for clothing ideas! I think they got their inspiration from Jacob Riis' "How the Other Half Lives" (1902) which, though terribly depressing, has great photojournalism of the time:
http://store.doverpublications.com/0486220125.html
He followed that up with The Battle with the Slum, with more period photographs:
http://store.doverpublications.com/0486401960.html
Not movies, I know, but worth looking up.

Back to your regularly scheduled thread...

[eggberta echegaray]

I Couldn't agree more about Gangs of New York, excellent costumes in that film. Thank you Ms.Fraulein Flieger for posting those links to the books, you have most definitely perked my interest.

I know the film I'm about to mention and provide a link to, isn't Steampunk, but I believe would be classified as being "Diesel Punk" is, "The Hudsucker Proxy." "You know, for kids!" heh! I just adore this film. All the good Steampunk films have been mentioned and I can't think of any more!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLOAXDb6fps

Oh! One Steampunk Film that hasn't been mentioned is "The First Great Train Robbery" from 1979, starring Sean Connery, Donald Sutherland and Lesley-Ann Down.  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079240/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_Great_Train_Robbery

This film, should not be confused with "The Great Train Robbery" from 1903. Now that is an authentic Steampunk film!  http://www.filmsite.org/grea.html

[James Harrison]

Not quite steampunk, as it is set between 1940 and 2036, but Things to Come (1936), based on the HG Wells Novel The Shape of Things to Come (1933), is wonderfully retro-futuristic. 

[Sir Vrilhelm Dreadnaught]

Didn't the mighty Vincent Price make a couple of excellent Verne adaptations: "City under the sea" & "Master of the World" or am I back in my nice place again?

No! I'm not back in my nice place, Vincent did make those films. One critc scoffed at the paper mache & canvass looking sets of the airship in "Master of the world" BUT they were on an airship after all! Expensive CGI does not automatically mean a good Steampunk visual experience. All those Flash Gordon episodes with Buster Crabbe were true steampunk. I'd still prefer to fly one of those rocketships powered by sparklers than an F19. The Dune movie had strong Steampunk images, especially the mittle-europan uniforms & blimp like Barons. Prisoner of Zenda on Spice.

[antigonejones]

*gasp of horror*

Has no one thought to mention "20,000 Leagues under the Sea" -- or is that just because it's so totally assumed to be THE calibration steampunk movie that no one thinks it needs to be mentioned?

I mean ... Captain Nemo.  Brass fittings.  Red velvet couches.  Jules Verne.  The Nautilus.

*sniffles a bit*

[Shalako-Lin]

Ah yes, 'The Time Machine' 1960 Rod Taylor one and only version. A joy to watch over and over. Or is that just me. A few mentioned above I have not yet seen but will definately look for.
I am new to this forum and am enjoying it immensely. Quite lovely really.

Cheers, Linda.

[Nikola Tesla]

OK... this definitely isn't one to add to the steampunk canon, but while we're mentioning things that have SP elements or that have "little moments", who else noticed that there were some definite SP influences on Mad-Eye Moody's office in the fifth Harry Potter film?  I remember noticing that aesthetic - though I didn't have the word for it at the time -  and thinking, sheesh, if it appears in that then my mad scientist-y tastes must be coming into someone's idea of fashion.  Little did I know...

[chironex]

I saw a Japanese film loaded with steampunk and diesel style, on SBS last night. Too late to catch the name, but there is an Asian Federation, at war with someone-or-other, and a legendary race of Original Humans, which are supposed to be extinct but their descendants are with us today, there is a theory put forward by a scientist that he can use "neo-cells" to save lives by forming them into any body part necessary, and gets funding from the military. Our hero tires of medicine and goes to war, and when the aforementioned scientist succeeds in bringing back the ancient humans from all the people being slain in the war zone, he brings back our freshly killed hero, who has the same traits too.
The other people he brings back are instantly declared an abomination, and attacked; some get away and happen upon a fortress in the snow, abandoned for reasons unknown, with an automated war factory in the basement, and they decide to declare war on the humans, calling themselves neo-humans. Meanwhile our hero is smuggled to the home of an armour specialist, who seals him in a protoype suit as his muscles are growing too fast and he needs the pressure contained within the armour.
The huge battle scenes are more over-the-top than Warhammer 40000.

This might seem predictable in this day and age, particularly to fans of Saikano/She, the Ultimate Weapon; but noone learns to let go of their hate until they are all stuffed.

It's, like, a statement on mans inhumanity to man, man.....

[Prof. Jericho Wahl]

Ah, that would be CASSHERN, old boy...

[chironex]

The name did come up during the movie, though no idea it was the title...
yes, that's it.

[DK Gibson]

I'm suprised I don't see the series Legend listed anywhere.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXTUgsFkuNs

Also I can't remember the name of it but maybe someone here will. It is a movie from the mid 1980's about two cowboys that were on the run from the law in the West. They enlisted to fight in WWI and ended up in Europe having to lasso an airship. It was a B movie and only in the theaters for a week but I've always had that scene stuck in my head.

Then there is the Young Indiana Jones series which also has some elements to it. And I would say the TV series Beauty and the Beast from 1980's had some elements as well when looking at Vincent's world in the tunnels.