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[major_clanger]

A few years ago, autopope coined (or at least popularised) the term 'Dieselpunk' for a particular genre of slightly warped history. If Steampunk is a mixture of Victorian/Edwardian society, style and geopolitics with the technology of Golden Age sf, then Dieselpunk is a corresponding blend of the 1930s and the Fabulous Fifties/Cold War.

Why am I mentioning this? Because I've just watched the latest trailer (via here) for Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and I think we're about to be presented with the first honest-to-Gernsback Dieselpunk movie. I can't wait.

(Actually, one might argue that Things to Come had what we would now see as a strongly Dieselpunk style. However, the point of Steampunk/Dieselpunk is the knowingly anachronistic depiction of a past era; TtC was sf, but sf that predicted a future we now think of as a distinctive alternate past.)

MC

Comments

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

I'd suggest that Miyazaki's "Castle In The Sky" is a definite cadidate for dieselpunk...

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

Why would anyone snatch Herr Deisel off a Channel ferry?

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

It must be a plot against the League of Nations!

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

At last a word for this! And such a nice one too. This year if I can there will be a Steampunk/Deiselpunk party at the convention. World's Fair 1900, perhaps?

[the-gardener.livejournal.com]

P40 Kittyhawks versus Gernsbackian flying wings! Totally cool, dude!

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

I think one could argue for a strong Dieselpunk element to Tim Burton's Batman movies, and it's certainly there in the animated series.

[pmcray.livejournal.com]

The Coen Brothers' "The Hudsucker Proxy" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hudsucker_Proxy) has a definite dieselpunk aesthetic. Lots of pneumatic telegraphs (steampunk, I know, but the film is set in the 1950s and Paris had a pneumatic telegraph system until 1983). "Brazil" or even the film of "1984" could also be examined in the light of dieselpunk.

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

Brazil is a good example. Of course, Batman, Brazil and 1984 are different to Sky Captain, in that they are knowingly anachronistic depictions of the present or near future, whilst SK is a knowingly anachronistic depiction of the past.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

Woo. Looks a bit good, that.

I've lost your email address ...

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Can you remind me of it?