Hello & welcome back to A Look at Disney and today, we continue our look at our foes from Disney's non-MCU superhero/comic movies. And today, we are looking at the villain of a childhood favorite of mine, Neville Sinclair from The Rocketeer. I doubt we will see him in the upcoming Disney Junior show based on The Rocketeer. This comic series is interesting as it always gave me the allusion that it was older than it actually is but when looking at research, The Rocketeer first debuted as a backup story in 82. And the movie came out in 91, not a whole lot of time but has remained somewhat popular in the comic scenes, obviously not a Marvel or DC level and it doesn't help but the series has been bounced from publisher to publisher. It started at Pacific Comics as a creation of Dan Stevens and as 2015, IDW has been putting out new Rocketeer comics.
Actor
Going to do something a little different here.
If you are wondering why I'm not jumping into Dalton as Sinclair is because it's also important to look at the actor that played a part in inspiring Sincliar, Errol Flynn. While I cannot speak to the truthfulness of this, there has been a long-held belief that Flynn was a Nazi conspirator and while the articles I have looked at dating back anywhere from 2009 and even further back, the reports seemed to be mixed As some have suggested that Flynn worked for the Allies while Errol Flynn biographer, Charles Higham has alleged that Flynn did indeed work for the Nazi party. This article goes into a bit more detail here. Again, I cannot speak to how true the notion of Flynn being a Nazi is but Joe Johnston's movie leans heavily into that idea with Sinclair and considering that Sinclair is modeled after Flynn, hearing news such as this about one of Hollywood's biggest names would be devastating for his fans when they found out that he had beliefs that aligned with a group that most of society had deemed as bad people. Okay, now that we have looked at this, let's go ahead and look at Dalton.
Timothy Dalton
Dalton is fantastic in this role and he is really is the perfect choice to play an actor that is oozing with charm and gravitas as you can just get the sense that everyone around him would fawn over him.
First Appearance
I think it's important to look at both of Sinclair's first appearances and yes, I did say both because they help to show the dual identity that Sinclair has going on. Because when we see Sinclair for the first time, we are shown Sinclair the Nazi and this is after the incident with the jetpack on the airfield and when we see Sinclair the Nazi for the first time, we see that he can be a bit short-tempered and will stop at nothing to get what he wants. As I said though, it's also important to look at when the audience meets Sinclair the Actor for the first time.
I'm bringing up the introduction to Sinclair the Actor because it helps to show the kind of public persona that Sinclair portrays to his adoring fans as this suave and charismatic man that would have his name up in every marquee in Hollywoodland. This helps to hide the man that he truly is.
Personality
We've touched on this here and there in the first two pieces of discussion regarding Sinclair considering the dual identity that is going on here with Sinclair as he has the persona that is the true Sinclair, the demanding and willing to do anything to get what he wants and in this case, it's the jetpack. As the Actor, he is very suave and charming. He's also a bit of a womanizer and we see this in action with how he treats Jenny.
Grand Desire
I'll use the Disney Wiki's description for his Goal to describe this one.
To obtain the X3 rocket to return to Germany
That boils it down a bit but the idea is a bit bigger than that as he wants the rocket to take Germany so that the Nazi troops can reproduce this and use them to attack. Which is scary to think about but Nazis aren't happy folks.
Lackeys
We have two underlings here to look at, let's start with the one that turns on Sinclair.
Eddie Valentine
Played here by Paul Sorvino, Eddie Valentine is a mob boss and that is the whole of his character but you can see how he tries to wager with Sinclair and that doesn't go exactly as planned.
A moment like this here between Sinclair and Valentine shows how much Sinclair likes to be in charge and will throw his authority around over anyone. Of course, Valentine's most important line in the movie is right here.
"It matters to me. I may not make an honest buck, but I'm 100% American. I don't work for no two-bit Nazi."
This line here is interesting because Valentine as he says, he may not be a good guy but Nazis are just a step too far. This reminds me of a panel featuring The Joker and Red Skull that has made the rounds as Joker said something similar to this line here.
Joker here says that he may be a criminal lunatic but he's an American criminal lunatic. While Joker is certainly more evil than someone like Valentine, I think that this line here from Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo's script seems to highlight the idea that I've brought up before, that yes Valentine is for all intents and purposes, a bad person but Nazis go one step beyond what these characters are. According to the Disney Wiki, Valentine is partly based on Capone but I can't find anywhere else confirming as I could with Errol Flynn/Neville Sinclair so I won't touch on that
Lothar
Lothar is perhaps the less interesting henchmen to talk about. As he's just really muscle for Sinclair but as I was listening to the podcast, Junkfood Cinema episode on this movie, I learned that Lothar was indeed also based on a real person.
Rondo Halton was a smalltime actor that as Wikipedia put it, had some unique facial features.
He was known for his unique facial features, which were the result of acromegaly, a syndrome caused by a disorder of the pituitary gland.
This information here helps to show that once again how steeped in history, this movie truly is and that is just so fascinating as it really shows how this movie is following the footsteps of its original source material from Dan Stevens and using aspects of history, both known and unknown pieces of history.
Most Evil Deed
Now, this is perhaps the hardest thing to bring up. If we want to go with the more general sense of him being a Nazi, we could end it there but I think I want to hone in on a specific moment and my mind keeps going back to how he treated Jenny. It may be cliche but the way he kidnaps Jenny and also uses her as leverage to get what he wants, i.e., the rocket. But it also fits the type of pulpy character that Sinclair is.
Demise
Sinclair has a rather cool demise.
. Sinclair dons the rocket pack and flies off, but the leaked fuel causes the rocket pack to catch on fire, causing Sinclair to plummet to his death on fire near the HOLLYWOODLAND sign; the resulting explosion destroys the "LAND" part of the sign.
It's cleverness and quick thinking on Cliff's part to take down the bad guy as he knows the rocket, still hasn't been repaired at this point. And yeah, this is able to get the best of Sinclair and taking out the land part of the sign of the Hollywoodland sign was a nice touch. Seeing Sinclair engulfed in flames is a bit horrifying.
Is Neville Sinclair A Good Villain?
Yes, absolutely. Neville Sinclair is one of the most interesting villains that we've looked at on Villains Profile as he is just so scary because of how real the threats of Nazis were and sadly in some ways, still are. The biggest thing that sells the threat of Sinclair is Timothy Dalton playing him and that's saying quite a bit as while for most, he's most likely best known as Bond, whenever I think of Dalton, my mind goes to Mr. Pricklepants.
And clearly, these two characters are night and day. Getting back to Sinclair, he is just so eerie and really feels like he could win at any moment and I think that is what makes him such a great baddie. Join me next time as we head to the world of Pixar to look at...
Syndrome
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