''The Airship Destroyer'' (originally titled Der Luftkrieg Der Zukunft, also titled "The Aerial Torpedo", "The Battle of the Clouds" and "The Battle in the Clouds" ) is a
1909
Events
January–February
* January 4 – Explorer Aeneas Mackintosh of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition escaped death by fleeing across ice floes.
* January 7 – Colombia recognizes the independence of Panama.
* Januar ...
British silent
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
film
A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...
directed by
Walter R. Booth
Walter Robert Booth (12 July 1869 – 1938) was a British magician and early pioneer of British film. Collaborating with Robert W. Paul and then Charles Urban mostly on "trick" films, he pioneered techniques that led to what has been descri ...
.
Plot
A fleet of airships begin an attack on
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
, bombing an armoured vehicle, a
signal box
In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The ''IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing'' ...
and a town. An inventor and his assistant are preparing to launch a
missile
In military terminology, a missile is a guided airborne ranged weapon capable of self-propelled flight usually by a jet engine or rocket motor. Missiles are thus also called guided missiles or guided rockets (when a previously unguided rocket i ...
in defence. A
biplane
A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While ...
attempts to shoot down one of the airships, but is destroyed itself. One of the airship's bombs lands on the home of the inventor's lover, whose hand in marriage he had unsuccessfully asked her father for earlier in the day. The inventor rushes to the house and rescues his lover, although her father is dead. Returning to the
missile launch site, the inventor successfully launches a
surface-to-air missile
A surface-to-air missile (SAM), also known as a ground-to-air missile (GTAM) or surface-to-air guided weapon (SAGW), is a missile designed to be launched from the ground to destroy aircraft or other missiles. It is one type of anti-aircraft syst ...
and destroys the airship. The film ends as the couple embrace.
Production
Walter R. Booth
Walter Robert Booth (12 July 1869 – 1938) was a British magician and early pioneer of British film. Collaborating with Robert W. Paul and then Charles Urban mostly on "trick" films, he pioneered techniques that led to what has been descri ...
, who had a background as a magician, was an early pioneer of special effects in film and also of animation. The airships were created using a mixture of
cutout animation
Cutout animation is a form of stop-motion animation using flat characters, props and backgrounds cut from materials such as paper, card, stiff fabric or photographs. The props would be cut out and used as puppets for stop motion. The world's ea ...
and models.
[
]
Release
''The Airship Destroyer'' was originally released in 1909. It was re-released in January 1915, during World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, at a time when Britain was suffering aerial bombings from Zeppelins.[ The film is an example of ]invasion literature
Invasion literature (also the invasion novel) is a literary genre that was popular in the period between 1871 and the First World War (1914–1918). The invasion novel first was recognized as a literary genre in the UK, with the novella '' The B ...
. The Internet Archive has a full length version of the film available, as does, as of 2020, YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
. Also released on Region 2 DVD.
Reception
Moria Reviews found the movie of interest as a historical curiosity, but found little more to recommend the movie. The effects are primitive and derivative of those by Georges Melies Georges may refer to:
Places
*Georges River, New South Wales, Australia
*Georges Quay (Dublin)
* Georges Township, Fayette County, Pennsylvania
Other uses
* Georges (name)
* ''Georges'' (novel), a novel by Alexandre Dumas
* "Georges" (song), a 19 ...
and that the plot and backstory were weak to non-existent. Further, the movie fails to account for how airplanes would advance. The review does note the Booth was often more interested in the special effects than in any other aspect of film making Included as one of the best examples of science fiction the silent film era.
See also
* The Aerial Anarchists
*The War in the Air
''The War in the Air: And Particularly How Mr. Bert Smallways Fared While It Lasted'' is a military science fiction novel written by H. G. Wells.
The novel was written in four months in 1907, and was serialized and published in 1908 in ''The ...
*Invasion literature
Invasion literature (also the invasion novel) is a literary genre that was popular in the period between 1871 and the First World War (1914–1918). The invasion novel first was recognized as a literary genre in the UK, with the novella '' The B ...
References
External links
Full film
at The Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Airship Destroyer
1909 films
1900s science fiction films
1900s British films
Articles containing video clips
British aviation films
British black-and-white films
British science fiction films
British silent short films
Films set in England
Films directed by Walter R. Booth
Silent science fiction films