ROCKETMEN

A bunch of your slightly more talented friends get together, have a few drinks, and decide to start a Seattle web series Rocketmen – using Kickstarter money. That is the “feel” – and probably what really happened – to get this seven, 11-minute episode web series going (2014-2016), then a movie of the seven episodes premiering at 2017 SIFF (Seattle International Film Festival), and finally the movie being bought by Amazon Prime Video in 2018.  Amazon is selling it as Steampunk – “science fiction inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery” – think H.G. Wells and Jules Verne.

Whatever you call it, Rocketmen is a purposely cornball satire on government, terrorism and the cold war using the Department of Municipal Rocketry, the long forgotten FDR work program used to fight giant robots (a forgotten problem at the Seattle World’s Fair in ‘62) and the USSR cold war. If you think of it as a bunch of friends having fun making a YouTube video every couple of months then it is “enjoyable,” or at least amusing – a 65 minute movie gets tedious – with some amusing scenes.

The only woman involved with this whole web series thing is the Producer, Alycia Delmore (played Mary), who probably made a killing selling it to Amazon. Rocketmen was filmed in downtown Seattle by a bunch of Seattleites, a “notable” person involved is Russell Hodgkinson, Dr. Mycroff currently still alive (as of October 2018) in the zombie world of Z Nation a purposely amateurish Sy-Fi Original series filmed in Spokane, Washington.  Rocketmen is cheaply made, is amusing, and they make their satirical point at the end, but when the tech budget got slim, hey, I know this guy who can do almost good Claymation to fill in the gaps.

Movie Details

Director

Webster Crowell

Writer

Webster Crowell

Actors

—

Runtime

—

Release Date

28 May 2017

Genres

Adventure, Comedy, STEAMPUNK

Overview

A live action serial adventure with animated effects, seven episodes written and directed by Webster Crowell. At the height of the WPA jobs programs, able men were employed building bridges, painting murals, performing Shakespeare; so many programs it’s easy to forget the Department of Municipal Rocketry. Men with rocket packs on rooftops in every city, alert and waiting to save their neighborhood from menaces guaranteed in the coming century.