âSome Traveller from New Zealandâ: Steampunk, Retrofuturism, and the Limits of Revivalism in Philip Reeveâs and Peter Jacksonâs Mortal Engines

Kevin Moberly; Brent Moberly

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Chapter 10 âSome Traveller from New Zealandâ: Steampunk, Retrofuturism, and the Limits of Revivalism in Philip Reeveâs and Peter Jacksonâs Mortal Engines

In: Neo-Victorianism and Medievalism

Authors:

Kevin Moberly

Kevin Moberly
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Brent Moberly

Brent Moberly
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 263â287

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004688353_012

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Abstract

Peter Jacksonâs 2018 Mortal Engines embodies one of the central contradictions of steampunk and related genres of retrofuturism. As with Philip Reeveâs novel of the same name, it offers audiences a spectacular, post-apocalyptic vision of the future that is ultimately constructed in the image of a past that never happened. In doing so, Jackson deploys the neo-Victorian in much the same way that proponents of the Gothic Revival deployed the medieval in the mid-nineteenth centuryâas a kind of a missed historical opportunity that, when projected into the future, allows the present to imagine a way around and forward from the current impasse. By examining Jacksonâs film and Reeveâs novel in this light, this chapter seeks to better understand the problematics of how steampunk, neo-Victorianism, and other forms of retrofuturism harness the aesthetic and political potentials of the Gothic Revival while ostensibly distancing themselves from the legacy of nationalism, racism, and cultural imperialism that was part and parcel of the movement.

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Neo-Victorianism and Medievalism

Re-appropriating the Victorian and Medieval Pasts

Series:Â Neo-Victorian Series, Volume: 9Â andÂ Neo-Victorian Series Online, Volume: 9

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004688353

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 17 Apr 2024

Subjects
- Literature and Cultural Studies

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Chapter 10 âSome Traveller from New Zealandâ: Steampunk, Retrofuturism, and the Limits of Revivalism in Philip Reeveâs and Peter Jacksonâs Mortal Engines

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Neo-Victorianism and Medievalism

Re-appropriating the Victorian and Medieval Pasts

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Chapter 10 âSome Traveller from New Zealandâ: Steampunk, Retrofuturism, and the Limits of Revivalism in Philip Reeveâs and Peter Jacksonâs Mortal Engines