Airplane! story
Airplane! (alternatively titled Flying High!) is a 1980 American satirical disaster film written and directed by David and Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams, and produced by Jon Davison. It stars Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty and features Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Lorna Patterson. The film is a parody of the disaster film genre, particularly the 1957 Paramount film Zero Hour!, from which it borrows the plot and the central characters, as well as many elements from Airport 1975 and other films in the Airport film series. The film is known for its use of surreal humor and its fast-paced slapstick comedy, including visual and verbal puns, gags, and obscure humor.
7 total · 6 major · 1 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| boyfriend and girlfriend | major | Ted and Elaine had been in flashbacks, and became again |
| coping with post-traumatic stress | major | Ted couldn't fly because of some event in his wartime past |
| fear of flying | major | Ted overcame his fear of flying in order to pursue Elaine |
| overcoming a limitation | major | Ted overcame his fear of flying |
| romantic love | major | we saw how Ted and Elain got together in a flash back, and how they rekindled their love affair after the flight episode |
| what it is like on a passenger flight | major | All sorts of antics occurred on a flight from Los Angeles to Chicago. |
| disintegrating romantic relationship | minor | we saw retrospectively how Ted and Elaine's relationship broke down |