ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

Fantastic Voyage suffered from a sad lack of humor.

This movie does not. In fact it could have used a few more plot elements on the serious side.

However, it's still enjoyable, and the cast is quite good. For example, Dennis Quaid is charming as a Naval pilot, similar to his role in The Right Stuff.





Meg Ryan is his spunky girlfriend, similar to her role in Top Gun. Martin Short is a goofy little nerd who yearns NOT to be a goofy little nerd, similar to his role in Three Amigos.





On the flip side, Kevin McCarthy is a ruthless businessman who wants to get control of a revolutionary hi-tech process, similar to his role in . . . well, absolutely no other movie he's ever been in.





Robert Picardo (The Doctor from Star Trek: Voyager) plays a wacky henchmen of McCarthy who speaks with a comic accent and styles himself like a rhinestone cowboy. And if that isn't weird enough, the miniaturized Dennis Quaid who's inside Martin Short's body uses some sort of face-reshaping process to make Martin look just like Robert so they can fool the bad guys!





Like I said, this movie does NOT suffer from a lack of humorous elements.

There's plenty of imaginative special effects and exciting action, all emphasized by the great score by Jerry Goldsmith. The movie was a perfect feature for fun-loving families with parents who wanted to share a lighthearted science fiction movie with their kids.

Unfortunately there aren't enough of those folks in America to make a movie like this successful, so the $27 million budget only brought in $25 million at the box office. We've seen that happen time after time with films like The Rocketeer, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, and *batteries not included.

I think I've mentioned this before, but the failure of movies and TV series that require an audience with both intelligence and imagination tend to do poorly at the box office and in the television ratings simply because that segment of the American population is a minority group too small to make such praise-worthy projects profitable.

It's a phenomenon similar to the fact that message boards like All Sci-Fi are dying out, and the ones still around have a small but dedicated group of members who enjoy the company of like-minded people.

_____________ Innerspace (1987) Official Trailer


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Custer]

To quote from followingthenerd.com: "InnerSpace is one flick everyone seems to forget about. Everyone has seen it and loved it and found it hilarious, so why is it that no one seems to mention it when it comes to discussing classics from the 80s?"

"Joe Dante, who had great success with Gremlins, teamed up with Steven Spielberg again for InnerSpace. Originally the producers wanted something like the classic film Fantastic Voyage, but Joe Dante didn’t want to go in that direction and jumped ship. John Carpenter stepped in and got it re-written by Jeffery Boam who later went on to write Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Boam did a complete overhaul, and Dante returned as director as Carpenter left to do Big Trouble in Little China."

"InnerSpace has a fantastic cast. Dennis Quad and Martin Short provided some great comedy, and you see regular cast members from previous Joe Dante flicks. What people most remember about this film is the incredible visual effects, everything done in miniature form by the effects wizard Dennis Muren."



Talking about Top Gun, is it just me or does the man in the middle of the poster look rather like Tom Cruise...? The quote above was slightly modified to sort out some differences in tense.

[Krel]

One of the funny running gags in the movie was Vernon Wells ("The Road Warrior", "Commando") as the silent Mr. Igoe. It wasn't that he couldn't speak. He was silent because every time he went to speak he got cutoff or interrupted.

David.

[Bud Brewster]

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After Kevin McCarthy and Fiona Lewis were partial miniaturized, they had some humorous scenes as they continued to be villainous while being on a few feet tall.

The sight of Kevin standing on Fiona's shoulders in the phone booth while they snapped at each other in their squeaky little voices was funny.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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IMDB has 54 trivia items for this movie. Here’s a few of the ones I found the most interesting, in the blue text.
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~ After Scrimshaw and Canker are shrunk 50%, there are a few scenes where they are seen with full-size actors. These shots were filmed using forced perspective. For the car scene, the rear of the car is actually twice as large as a normal car rear, and was about 20 feet away. During the scene half size hands and double-size heads were used.

Using this method, the film-makers didn't have to worry about compositing two separate shots in post production, so the shots could be completed quicker. Even in the final scene with the suitcase, the case was twice as large, but the hand that closes it was real, closer to the camera in sync with the closing. (It took about 20 takes before it was perfect.)

Note from me: This is similar to the method used to create the amazing FX in Darby O'Gill and the Little People.

~ All of the cells seen outside the pod were in fact made out of Jello according to Peter Kuran, the special effects supervisor.

Note from me: I wonder how they kept it refrigerated?

~ William Schallert was cast as Jack's doctor as an in-joke since he had played a doctor in The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957).

Note from me: What a clever tribute to the classic!

~ When they are shrinking Tuck Pendleton, the lab's instrumentation shows a reading on the screen that is six interlinked hexagons (two top, three bottom). This is the symbol that the "Combined Minature Deterrent Forces", or CMDF, also used in the movie Fantastic Voyage (1966).

Note from me: Another clever tribute to a classic!

~ In the DVD commentary, when Jack and Lydia are puzzling over Scrimshaw's miniaturizer, Robert Picardo says, "I pushed buttons on consoles like that for seven years," a reference to his role as the Doctor in Star Trek: Voyager (1995).

Note from me: Hey, I have the DVD but I've never watched it with the commentary on! I'll have to do that soon.

~ Rick Moranis was considered to play Jack Putter. He later did a similar kind of movie two years later which was Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989) which also had Mark L Taylor.

Note from me: I think Rick would have been pretty good as Jack Putter . . . maybe even better.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bogmeister]

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Director Joe Dante's amusing version of the sf classic, Fantastic Voyage (1966). Dennis Quaid stars as an undisciplined Navy officer (the only kind in many Hollywood movies, also drunk much of the time) who volunteers for an unusual experiment — he gets shrunken down to microbe size and then is accidentally injected into neurotic Martin Short.

Enemy scientists and opportunists (Fiona Lewis, Kevin McCarthy) chase after Short, who at first believes himself to be possessed (Quaid figures out a way to communicate with Short from inside).

Meg Ryan also stars as Quaid's girlfriend, a journalist. There are also unusual henchmen involved in the chasing, played by Vernon Wells (The Road Warrior) and Robert Picardo (in all of Joe Dante's films). Wells, for example, can shoot people with his finger.

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The film is generally amusing, usually involving Short talking to 'himself,' but rises above other similar fare by having a few truly hilarious bits.

At one point, Short finishes urinating in a men's room and, for a moment, thinks he may have gotten rid of Quaid in the process. Later, Quaid employs an off-the-wall & out-of-left-field technique to rearrange Short's face muscles so that he mimics Picardo's character. When Short abruptly begins to change back to his own self while confronting the villains, the shock of his transformation almost paralyzes the bad guys with fear — it's some inspired comedic moments.

But the film also throws in at least one gruesome moment in the final act, involving the demise of a bad guy — it's meant to be darkly comic, but it's just gnarly. We expect Short to be funny, but Ryan is also cute & funny, and McCarthy makes for a very humorous villain.

BoG's Score: 7 out of 10




_____________________ Innerspace Trailer


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BoG
Galaxy Overlord Galactus

Galaxy Overlord Galactus

[Bud Brewster]

[The Spike]

Innerspace is directed by Joe Dante and written by Jeffrey Boam and Chip Proser. It stars Dennis Quaid, Martin Short, Meg Ryan and Kevin McCarthy. Music is by Jerry Goldsmith and cinematography by Andrew Laszlo.

A hapless hypochondriac store clerk battles to save the life of the man who, miniaturized in a secret experiment, was accidentally injected into him.

The premise is of course absurd, but everyone involved knows this and proceed to entertain with a mixture of thrills, spills and a good old fashioned good versus bad value. Narrative is based around the race against time thematic as miniaturized Tuck Pendleton (Quaid) fights from within the body of Jack Putter (Short). He has to keep Jack out the hands of crooks who are after the secrets of the miniaturization process, whilst simultaneously being on a clock before he runs out of air - or falls prey to Jack's anti-bodies system etc.

Dante strings together some terrific set pieces, while the realisation of the inside of the human body is smartly staged. Cast are on hugely engaging form, with the central relationship between Quaid and Short a pure joy and mined for constant laugh and peril tactics. The dual aspect is niftily handled by Dante and his crew, with the battle within Jack's body running concurrently with Jack's battles out in the real world.

What wonderful sci-fi froth this is, as Dante has a blast of a time with the effects tools at hand to take the concept of Fantastic Voyage and make a top line action comedy adventure. Great soundtrack too! 8/10
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The quality of mercy is not strnen.

[Bud Brewster]

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Spike, you've certainly reduced the essence of this fine little movie to its smallest common denominator!

Even though you touched on every tiny aspect of the movie, your review was still compact, using a minimum of words for maximum effect.

Offering my humble thanks is the least I can do!

Bud
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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Thinking Outside the "Plot"!
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I already made comments about miniaturization in the threads for Fantastic Voyage, Honey and I Shrunk the Kids. And of course the Ant Man movies took the whole concept to the next quantum level . . literally!

Having said that, what does this version of the concept offer that is specific to the concept.

Well, the compact vehicle which Dennis Quaid uses has the ability to cruise around inside a human body a bit more freely than the Proteus.

And Randy can actually communicate with the host body!

Furthermore, he can induce biological reactions to the host which can enhance the host's physical abilities.

Add to this the fact that in one scene we learn that Randy can transfer from one host body to another . . . and then back again . . . during the simple act of kissing!

So, now that we've established a few unique abilities which this miniaturized person and his jazzy little submarine can perform, what new ideas can we suggest by Thinking Outside the Plot?

Well, my father died of Alzheimer's. It's a disease which hereditary. Naturally I'm worried about getting it. People wtih Alzheimer's develop growths called "bundles and tangles" in the brain which interfere with normal intelligence.

My father suffered from this, and he acted like a "happy drunk" for the last years of his life. But it also meant that he couldn't care for himself, and that caused a terrible burden on my beloved mother.


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If miniaturized surgeons could go into my body and cruise around in my brain, they could zap those damned "bundles and tangles", cleaning up the mess in my noggin and allowing me to retain my ability to contribute brilliant contributions to All Sci-Fi!

Come one guys, I know I'm not the only member of this board capable of thinking about his own mortality, his genetic heredity, and mankind's future ability to save ourselves from becoming mentally impaired because of unfortunate conditions we've inherited?

With that in mind, please consider this.

~ A Question for the Members: In the future, will mankind be able to eliminate mental disorders that impair our intelligence?

~ My Theory: Medical teams will go into our bodies and use advanced procedures to correct all the problems which cause conditions like Alzheimer's, aging, and everything else which keeps us from living as long as we damn well want to!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Krel]

A copy of my posting from the "Fantastic Voyage" discussion:

"Bud, it's a great way to keep people or populations in line too. Just let them know that they have all these microscopic assassins idling in their body, just in case they do something someone thinks they shouldn't. They could threaten not only death, but painful physical disabilities. The possibilities for torture and crippling conditions are endless!

It could mean the end of whistle-blowers, industrial spies, labor difficulties, strikes. Government agencies, particularly the security and intelligence agencies, would love it. Current day China, Google, Facebook and Amazon would be all over it. A tyrant's dream. The possibilities for crime boggle the mind! No more stool pigeons, or snitches. Assassinations become a breeze!

And the best part? You could infect a person without them even knowing it! Just slip a microscopic package into their food or drink, and they'd be none the wiser...until you activate the little microscopic assassins.

Okay, I'm beginning to be a little concerned about my mental processes."

Now what "Innerspace" brings to this is the ability to see and hear everything the victim experiences. Plus, because there would be no limit to the pre-miniaturized size, the vehicle could be as large as you like incorporating anything you like into the vessel. It could have banks of computers doing real-time analysis, which would take action if predetermined actions are committed.

If you aren't intending evil, it could be the size of an aircraft carrier, and have any medical device you like at it's disposal.

Isn't technology wonderful.

David.

[Bud Brewster]