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fandomhigh_ooc2007-03-04 05:14 pm
proudsidekick.livejournal.com) wrote in fandomhigh_ooc2007-03-04 05:14 pm
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Spotlight on Fandoms: Sky High
Sky High is a deceptively good live-action Disney movie from 2005. By deceptively good, I mean that it's one of those movies that you get suckered into taking a small child to see, and by the time you walk out of the theater, you realize that not only was the movie not the typical piece of crap that's become associated with the Disney name, but you might have even enjoyed it more than the kid did. *g*
So, what is Sky High?
The movie takes place in a present-day world very much like our own, except for the whole "superheroes and normal people living in peaceful coexistence" part. Like in most comic-esque universes, the heroically-inclined live normal day-to-day lives, complete with secret identities. They have jobs, they pay taxes - and they get married and have kids. And when those kids become teenagers, they go to Sky High.
Sky High gets its name from the school's primary security system - the fact that the school is literally located in the sky, hovering in orbit and in constant motion hundreds of miles above the Earth. The children of the world's most powerful superheroes go here, so precautions against anyone with nefarious plans must be made. Every student in the school is the child of either one or two parents with powers, so it's an unspoken given that genetics will ensure these kids have powers too. So, instead of getting an average education, classes are geared towards teaching the students everything they'll need to know to grow up and save the world someday...or possibly help someone else save the world, as it were.
You see, no high school would be complete without a separation between the cool kids and the losers. On the first day of school, every freshman at Sky High is put into one of two groups, based on the usefulness and awesomeness of their powers: Heroes, or Sidekicks. (You get three guesses about which group is the cool kids, and the first two don't count. *g*) There is no getting out of the group a student is put into (unless they develop new powers, which will be mentioned again in a bit), and upon graduation, every hero is matched with a sidekick who will help them in their efforts to protect mankind.
But that's graduation. Before then comes many years of typical high school antics. Ah, hormonal teenagers with superpowers. What could possibly go wrong?
So, who are the characters?
The Heroes (Superpowered Main Characters)
Will Stronghold (played by Michael Angarano)
Will is the protagonist of the film. As the son of two of the most powerful superheroes in the world, he's got pretty big shoes to fill at Sky High. There's just one tiny problem: the first day of school has arrived, and Will still hasn't developed any powers. (Insert your own late bloomer jokes here.)
Steve and Josie Stronghold, aka The Commander and Jetstream (played by Kurt Russell and Kelly Preston)
By day, Steve and Josie Stronghold are two of the top real estate agents in the thriving suburb of Maxville. But when duty calls, they become The Commander and Jetstream! He's got super strength that makes him nearly invulnerable. She has the power of super-sonic flight and fantastic knowledge of unarmed combat. Together, they fight crime! (Sorry, I couldn't resist.) And when they're not saving the world from crazy supervillains, they're raising Will to follow in their mighty footsteps. Of course, Will conveniently forgot to mention that whole not-having-powers bit...
The Sidekicks (Supporting Characters of Great Awesomeness)
Layla Williams (played by Danielle Panabaker)
Layla is your typical environment-protecting, peace-loving, hippie-in-training girl-next-door...no, really, she lives next door to the Strongholds and everything. She and Will have been friends since elementary school, but despite their closeness, Will is painfully oblivious to the fact that Layla is ass-backwards in love with him. Stupid boy. Layla is part of the Sidekick group at Sky High, mainly because she refused to show off her powers (control over plants) during the placement process.
Magenta, Ethan, and Zack (played by Kelly Vitz, Dee Jay Daniels, and Nicholas Braun)
Magenta, Ethan, and Zack are also members of the Sidekick group, due to the fact that their powers are considered less-than-useful: Magenta can turn into a guinea pig, Ethan can transform himself into a puddle, and Zack glows in the dark. It's cooler than it sounds, honestly.
The Villains (Characters with Nefarious Intentions)
Warren Peace (played by Steven Strait)
Warren is the classic school bully/kid from the wrong side of the tracks/hot bad boy in leather. (And yes, he's legal in real life. Woo!) His mother is a superhero and his father is a supervillain, which gives Warren some pretty sizeable attitude problems. And the fact that Will's dad was the one who sent Warren's dad to prison makes the two of them automatic arch enemies. Ah, high school. Warren's power is the ability to conjure fire (he and Bel would get along really well). And yes, his name is one of the many jokes designed for the adults watching the movie.
Gwen Grayson (played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead)
Gwen is a technopath (she can move and control any kind of machinery), and is also the prettiest, most popular girl in school. Therefore, it shouldn't be surprising that she's the requisite love interest for Will. But despite her sunny disposition and willingness to help Will adjust to life as a hero, her shady past hides some important and dangerous secrets...(yes, I'm being deliberately vague, mwahaha!)
So, what's the movie about?
(I'm going to try to continue being kind of vague here, to entice you all to rent or buy the movie. *g*)
The movie takes places over the first few months of Will Stronghold's freshman year at Sky High. His first day isn't all that stellar - when he fails to show off any powers during the placement process, he gets labeled a sidekick, the school nurse informs him that there's a possibility that he'll never develop any powers, and he meets Warren Peace and discovers that the two of them are destined to be enemies, due to the battle between their fathers. And that's just before lunch!
But the first day is also when Will meets Gwen, complete with a slo-mo hair-tossing love-song moment, so all hope is not lost. And over the next few weeks, things get somewhat better for Will - he starts coming to terms with being a sidekick, makes new friends, and even manages to come out to his parents (...not like that, despite what the fanfic might tell you).
Of course, if things were easily resolved, there would be no movie, so there ends up being a slight snag in Will's plans - he finally develops a power. And not just any power, but a cool power that gets him transferred to the Hero group. This is great for giving him more time with Gwen, but not so great when it comes to continuing to be friends with the sidekicks, and with Layla.
And in the end, Will's problems extend far beyond his own social life - his dad's arch enemy, a supervillain named Royal Pain, turns out to not be as dead as everyone believed, and he has plans to not only take down The Commander and Jetstream, but to destroy Sky High as well, and it's up to Will - along with the sidekicks and Warren - to save the day.
Yes, there's a lot of messages for kids in the movie, like "Don't give in to peer pressure," "Loser kids make better friends than cool kids," and "Puddles and guinea pigs can save the world just as well as people who can fly." And you can pretty much figure out who the bad guy is like, halfway through the movie. But it's a really good movie for when you just want to sit down for a few hours and laugh, and I highly, highly recommend it to everyone. *g*
So, what is Sky High?
The movie takes place in a present-day world very much like our own, except for the whole "superheroes and normal people living in peaceful coexistence" part. Like in most comic-esque universes, the heroically-inclined live normal day-to-day lives, complete with secret identities. They have jobs, they pay taxes - and they get married and have kids. And when those kids become teenagers, they go to Sky High.
Sky High gets its name from the school's primary security system - the fact that the school is literally located in the sky, hovering in orbit and in constant motion hundreds of miles above the Earth. The children of the world's most powerful superheroes go here, so precautions against anyone with nefarious plans must be made. Every student in the school is the child of either one or two parents with powers, so it's an unspoken given that genetics will ensure these kids have powers too. So, instead of getting an average education, classes are geared towards teaching the students everything they'll need to know to grow up and save the world someday...or possibly help someone else save the world, as it were.
You see, no high school would be complete without a separation between the cool kids and the losers. On the first day of school, every freshman at Sky High is put into one of two groups, based on the usefulness and awesomeness of their powers: Heroes, or Sidekicks. (You get three guesses about which group is the cool kids, and the first two don't count. *g*) There is no getting out of the group a student is put into (unless they develop new powers, which will be mentioned again in a bit), and upon graduation, every hero is matched with a sidekick who will help them in their efforts to protect mankind.
But that's graduation. Before then comes many years of typical high school antics. Ah, hormonal teenagers with superpowers. What could possibly go wrong?
So, who are the characters?
The Heroes (Superpowered Main Characters)
Will Stronghold (played by Michael Angarano)
Will is the protagonist of the film. As the son of two of the most powerful superheroes in the world, he's got pretty big shoes to fill at Sky High. There's just one tiny problem: the first day of school has arrived, and Will still hasn't developed any powers. (Insert your own late bloomer jokes here.)
Steve and Josie Stronghold, aka The Commander and Jetstream (played by Kurt Russell and Kelly Preston)
By day, Steve and Josie Stronghold are two of the top real estate agents in the thriving suburb of Maxville. But when duty calls, they become The Commander and Jetstream! He's got super strength that makes him nearly invulnerable. She has the power of super-sonic flight and fantastic knowledge of unarmed combat. Together, they fight crime! (Sorry, I couldn't resist.) And when they're not saving the world from crazy supervillains, they're raising Will to follow in their mighty footsteps. Of course, Will conveniently forgot to mention that whole not-having-powers bit...
The Sidekicks (Supporting Characters of Great Awesomeness)
Layla Williams (played by Danielle Panabaker)
Layla is your typical environment-protecting, peace-loving, hippie-in-training girl-next-door...no, really, she lives next door to the Strongholds and everything. She and Will have been friends since elementary school, but despite their closeness, Will is painfully oblivious to the fact that Layla is ass-backwards in love with him. Stupid boy. Layla is part of the Sidekick group at Sky High, mainly because she refused to show off her powers (control over plants) during the placement process.
Magenta, Ethan, and Zack (played by Kelly Vitz, Dee Jay Daniels, and Nicholas Braun)
Magenta, Ethan, and Zack are also members of the Sidekick group, due to the fact that their powers are considered less-than-useful: Magenta can turn into a guinea pig, Ethan can transform himself into a puddle, and Zack glows in the dark. It's cooler than it sounds, honestly.
The Villains (Characters with Nefarious Intentions)
Warren Peace (played by Steven Strait)
Warren is the classic school bully/kid from the wrong side of the tracks/hot bad boy in leather. (And yes, he's legal in real life. Woo!) His mother is a superhero and his father is a supervillain, which gives Warren some pretty sizeable attitude problems. And the fact that Will's dad was the one who sent Warren's dad to prison makes the two of them automatic arch enemies. Ah, high school. Warren's power is the ability to conjure fire (he and Bel would get along really well). And yes, his name is one of the many jokes designed for the adults watching the movie.
Gwen Grayson (played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead)
Gwen is a technopath (she can move and control any kind of machinery), and is also the prettiest, most popular girl in school. Therefore, it shouldn't be surprising that she's the requisite love interest for Will. But despite her sunny disposition and willingness to help Will adjust to life as a hero, her shady past hides some important and dangerous secrets...(yes, I'm being deliberately vague, mwahaha!)
So, what's the movie about?
(I'm going to try to continue being kind of vague here, to entice you all to rent or buy the movie. *g*)
The movie takes places over the first few months of Will Stronghold's freshman year at Sky High. His first day isn't all that stellar - when he fails to show off any powers during the placement process, he gets labeled a sidekick, the school nurse informs him that there's a possibility that he'll never develop any powers, and he meets Warren Peace and discovers that the two of them are destined to be enemies, due to the battle between their fathers. And that's just before lunch!
But the first day is also when Will meets Gwen, complete with a slo-mo hair-tossing love-song moment, so all hope is not lost. And over the next few weeks, things get somewhat better for Will - he starts coming to terms with being a sidekick, makes new friends, and even manages to come out to his parents (...not like that, despite what the fanfic might tell you).
Of course, if things were easily resolved, there would be no movie, so there ends up being a slight snag in Will's plans - he finally develops a power. And not just any power, but a cool power that gets him transferred to the Hero group. This is great for giving him more time with Gwen, but not so great when it comes to continuing to be friends with the sidekicks, and with Layla.
And in the end, Will's problems extend far beyond his own social life - his dad's arch enemy, a supervillain named Royal Pain, turns out to not be as dead as everyone believed, and he has plans to not only take down The Commander and Jetstream, but to destroy Sky High as well, and it's up to Will - along with the sidekicks and Warren - to save the day.
Yes, there's a lot of messages for kids in the movie, like "Don't give in to peer pressure," "Loser kids make better friends than cool kids," and "Puddles and guinea pigs can save the world just as well as people who can fly." And you can pretty much figure out who the bad guy is like, halfway through the movie. But it's a really good movie for when you just want to sit down for a few hours and laugh, and I highly, highly recommend it to everyone. *g*