Skip to main content

story identification - 1980s live-action movie where individually-coloured nations on clouds fight


I saw this movie in July or August 1986. It wasn't a commercial movie - I didn't see it in a normal movie theatre.



The story takes place somewhere there are 3 nations, each on its own cloud. The yellow nation, where the story's hero is from is modern and everything is yellow. There are overtones of a police state here. The hero is some kind of tinkerer/inventor and creates a large hoop that enables him to fly. (Picture Vitruvian Man where the circle is a yellow hoop, except he's wearing a yellow jumpsuit.)


The hero flies to the red nation, which is more overtly militaristic. Here the hero encounters a young woman dressed entirely in red. Guards (in red) chase him off, but she gives him a red rose. She is taken to her father, who seems to be the generalissimo in charge. The architecture of the red nation is brutalist; large blank slabs. I remember large square plinths, but I may be conflating memories of Golgorath.


Meanwhile, people have been watching our hero fly through a telescope in the blue nation. The blue nation is very Louis XIV, aristocrats and courtiers with lots of blue lace.


The hero returns to the yellow nation where he is immediately arrested and dragged before the ruler (queen?). He presents her with the rose and she glares at it until someone douses it with yellow paint, at which point she picks it up and smiles. Nastily.


The hero is put to work building more flying hoops. Some time later, troops of yellow painters (yellow coveralls, yellow power-rollers, yellow backpacks full of paint...) are sent flying to the red nation. At the same time a huge (blue) hot-air balloon takes flight from the blue nation, and they converge on the red nation.


The yellow and blue contingents start painting the red nation, which fights back with a huge machine that I recall looking like a gigantic (red) fireplug. Of course blue paint meets red paint, red paint meets yellow paint, yellow paint meets blue paint, and everyone marvels at the new colours.


I seem to remember a title like "Color Wars" but that's not helping me find it.



Answer




Overview



Rainbow War was featured in the Canadian Pacific Pavilion as part of Expo 86 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. It is available on DVD and Blu-ray from Pyramid Media.


Trailer:





A fan site has more information about the film, its cast, and its production history.


Plot


Three nations with strong ideological differences go to war when new technology brings them into contact with each other. Blue King, Red King, and Yellow Queen:


Blue King Red King Yellow Queen


Not everyone finds their differences repulsive. Yellow Boy and Red Princess:



Yellow Boy and Red Princess meet Yellow Boy and Red Princess flying


The three sides in the battle discover that their differences can combine in beneficial ways and that they have much to gain by working together, which leads to peace:


Rainbow War battle Orange Pink Rescue Blue King sets a rainbow fashion trend. Three Kingdoms


Various scenes



The hero is some kind of tinkerer/inventor and creates a large hoop that enables him to fly. (Picture Vitruvian Man where the circle is a yellow hoop, except he's wearing a yellow jumpsuit.)



Flying hoop blue- er, yellowprints. Yellow Boy flying



The hero returns to the yellow nation where he is immediately arrested and dragged before the ruler (queen?). He presents her with the rose and she glares at it until someone douses it with yellow paint, at which point she picks it up and smiles. Nastily.




The blades of the Yellow Queen's mask ordinarily lie flat against her hair, but they move to new positions when she feels strong emotion. In this scene, the outermost blades swivel forward, accentuating her menacing smirk.


Red rose painted yellow Yellow Queen smiling



The hero is put to work building more flying hoops. Some time later, troops of yellow painters (yellow coveralls, yellow power-rollers, yellow backpacks full of paint...) are sent flying to the red nation. At the same time a huge (blue) hot-air balloon takes flight from the blue nation, and they converge on the red nation.



Flying hoop factory Blue fleet Red telescope Yellow fleet



The yellow and blue contingents start painting the red nation, which fights back with a huge machine that I recall looking like a gigantic (red) fireplug.




Fireplug Fireplug and dog


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Did the gatekeeper and the keymaster get intimate in Ghostbusters?

According to TVTropes ( usual warning, don't follow the link or you'll waste half your life in a twisty maze of content ): In Ghostbusters, it's strongly implied that Dana Barret, while possessed by Zuul the Gatekeeper, had sex with Louis Tully, who was possessed by Vinz Clortho the Keymaster (key, gate, get it?), in order to free Big Bad Gozer. In fact, a deleted scene from the movie has Venkman explicitly asking Dana if she and Louis "did it". I turned the quote into a spoiler since it contains really poor-taste joke, but the gist of it is that it's implied that as part of freeing Gozer , the two characters possessed by the Keymaster and the Gatekeeper had sex. Is there any canon confirmation or denial of this theory (canon meaning something from creators' interviews, DVD commentary, script, delete scenes etc...)? Answer The Richard Mueller novelisation and both versions of the script strongly suggest that they didn't have sex (or at the very l...

Why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize Missy right away?

So after it was established that Missy is actually both the Master, and the "woman in the shop" who gave Clara the TARDIS number... ...why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize her right away? I remember the Tenth Doctor in The Sound of Drums stating that Timelords had a way of recognizing other Timelords no matter if they had regenerated. And Clara should have recognized her as well... I'm hoping for a better explanation than "Moffat screwed up", and that I actually missed something after two watchthroughs of the episode. Answer There seems to be a lot of in-canon uncertainty as to the extent to which Time Lords can recognise one another which far pre-dates Moffat's tenure. From the Time Lords page on Wikipedia : Whether or not Time Lords can recognise each other across regenerations is not made entirely clear: In The War Games, the War Chief recognises the Second Doctor despite his regeneration and it is implied that the Doctor knows him when they fir...

story identification - Animation: floating island, flying pests

At least 20 years ago I watched a short animated film which stuck in my mind. The whole thing was wordless, possibly European, and I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine it... It featured a flying island which was inhabited by some creatures who (in my memory) reminded me of the Moomins. The island was frequently bothered by large winged animals who swooped around, although I don't think they did any actual damage. At the end one of the moomin creatures suddenly gets a weird feeling, feels forced to climb to the top of the island and then plunges down a shaft right through the centre - only to emerge at the bottom as one of the flyers. Answer Skywhales from 1983. The story begins with a man warning the tribe of approaching skywhales. The drummers then warn everybody of the hunt as everyone get prepared to set "sail". Except one man is found in his home sleeping as the noise wake him up. He then gets ready and is about to take his weapon as he hesitates then decides ...

warhammer40k - What evidence supposedly supports Tau as related to the Necrontyr?

I've heard of rumours saying that the Tau from Warhammer 40K are in fact the Necrontyr. Is there anything that supports this statement, in WH40K canon? I just found this, on 1d4 chan 1 : Helping Necrons? Or are they Necrontyr descendants? An often overlooked issue is that Tau have no warp signatures, just like Necrons, hate Warpspawns and Warp in general, just like Necrons, have the exact same skull shape,stature and short lives, and the overwhelming need for Technology and beam weapons, JUST LIKE NECRONS. GW may have planned a race that simply prepares a pacified, multiracial galaxy for Necrons to feast upon, supported by Ethereals that have a C'tan phase blade. Then there is a reference of "dark seed in east" by the Deceiver, so the tricky C'tan might give Tzeentch the finger in the JUST AS PLANNED competition. Or maybe GW just has so little creativity that they simply made a new civ conforming to an Old One's standards without knowing it. Is this the connec...