Full Metal Alchemist - Conquerer of Shambala

I'm a big fan of Full Metal Alchemist, and this project reminds me a little of it.

First a brief, broad, explanation of FMA. Two brothers, Edward and Alphonse Elric live in a world known as 'Amestris.' This world is a world where Alchemy is the most advanced scientific technique. It is set after the Industrial Revolution, in an alternate reality type show. The two brothers lose their mother, and attempt to revive her using Alchemy. Bringing someone back to life using Alchemy is forbidden and very dangerous, and Edward loses an arm and a leg, and Al loses his body. Ed is forced to attach Als soul to a suit of armour. The rules of alchemy are that you can only get something if something of equal value is lost in return, equivelent exchange. Any way, the rest of the story of the series is some what irrelevant for the point I am going to make.

The film Conquerer of Shambala sees one of the brothers, Edward, in another world (Our world, the real Earth) set in Munich, Germany, 1923, he is trying to find a way of getting home. Hitler knows through some events of this other world, a world of Alchemy, and is trying to develop a way of getting to that other world in order to hopefully get some weapons to win the war, and so the story develops with Edward and the Nazi's trying to get through to the world of Amestris, Ed wanting to return home, and Hitler wanting some sort of weapon to win the war.


Here is where it gets interesting, I stumbled upon Conquerer of Shambala in my travels through the internet for Steampunk materials. I had forgotten about this film entirely. The majority of it is set in Germany just before World War 2, and Hitler is trying to find a secret weapon, and it is also very steam punk. In the alternate real world, with Hitler and what not, the dress code feels very victorian influenced and such.

It is some what similar to my plan of this Steampunk Medusa being Hitlers secret weapon, in a what if situation. What if the victorians had our technology way back when? What if that carried through to WWII and Hitler could have developed some sort of robot inspired by greek myth?

Thoughts and Opinions?

Conquerer of Shambala trailer :





At first I was thinking that this would turn out to be a still Image for a final piece. But now after browsing around, I'm thinking it would be possible to do a very short time based piece for this. I really could use some feedback on the last few posts I have done so that I can make choices on where to go with this.

Thanks.