ALL SCI-FI

[Krel]

The Flying Sub was designed from the Stingray, not the manta ray. A stingray is pointed at the front, the manta ray isn't.

David.

[Bud Brewster]

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Ah-ha! I stand corrected. Thanks, David.

I won't correct my post above unless Pow wants to change his, then I'll fix both our errors.
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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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Here's a few more trivia items from IMDB in the blue text.
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~ The Martian war machines were originally going to be walking tripods as they were depicted in H.G. Wells' novel, but George Pal didn't know how a tripod would walk and instead went with the flying machines.

Note from me: As much as I love stop motion, I doubt the audience would be as impressed with animated tripods as they were with the slow, ominous, floating Martian ships.

~ The Martian war machines had about twenty wires running to each one. Some were for suspension and maneuvering, while others carried power to the various lights and mechanisms. This was produced before there were lightweight circuits and sophisticated radio controls.

Note from me: Digitally removing wires from actors portraying weightlessness in spaceships has created some great scenes in recent years. Call me a heretic, but I'd love to see those damned annoying wires removed from the ships in this movie.

~ The sound effects of the Martian war machines' heat ray were created from three electric guitars played backward. The sound of the Martian screaming after Forrester hit it was a mixture of a microphone scraping along dry ice and a woman's scream played backward. The former set of sound effects became widely used stock sound effects after the film was released. They are still in use.

Note from me: By gum, now that I know how those sound effect were done, it's easy to imagine electric guitars and dry ice being the source of those sounds!

~ The sound of the spaceships shutting down was made by vacuum cleaners being turned off.

Note from me: Hey, ditto for that sound effect! It DOES sound like a vacuum cleaner engine winding down!

~ George Pal originally wanted the audience to put on 3-D glasses when the actors put on goggles. The rest of the movie would have been in 3-D.

Note from me: "Ladies and gentlemen, please remember to put on your 3D glasses at the appropriate moment or you'll be blinded by the atomic blast in the movie. Thank you."

~ By way of acknowledging the part that Cecil B. DeMille had played in bringing the story to the screen, George Pal wanted him to narrate the film, but DeMille suggested Sir Cedric Hardwicke instead. Pal also paid tribute to DeMille in the film by having his film Samson and Delilah (1949) listed on the theater marquee early in the film.

Note from me: When I read this I remembered that DeMille provided narration for The Ten Commandments and sounded pretty good, but Mr. Hardwicke was indeed the right choice. Ironically, Hardwicke plays the old pharaoh in The Ten Commandments!

~ Lee Marvin was offered the male lead.

Note from me: Marvin is a fine actor, but I think Mr. Barry was a better choice. I love him in Bat Masteron, and I recently bought the box set.

~ Ann Robinson reprised the role of Sylvia Van Buren in the B-movie, The Naked Monster (2005).

Note from me: That is one very funny fan-made movie!
Ted Newsom created the movie as a project that took several years.

Ted was a member of the older version of All Sci-Fi, but he never posted much, and he finally told me he had no interest in the board. (Jeez, what an old grouch, eh? )
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Eadie]

Actually the Martian war machines were tripods as was seen and commented upon by Dr. Forrester when they left the gully for the first time (similar to this fan painting):



And seen (faintly) here:



An early Albert Nozaki engineering art concept:


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Art Should Comfort the Disturbed and Disturb the Comfortable.

[Bud Brewster]

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You're right, Miss Eadie, we do see three faint beams of sparkling light from the bottoms of the Martian machines. This is important, because it explains why the machines couldn't just fly around like aircraft.

If they had been able to do that, the Martians would have wiped out mankind in a matter of days!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Krel.]

They had to discontinue the active electric leg effect due to it being both a fire hazard, and an electrocution hazard. But it was spectacular.

One of the problems with the tripod was that George Pal wanted to do them like in the book. But they couldn't figure out how to make the sliding cam legs work.

They were also concerned that the audiences wouldn't accept walking tripods. They considered a tripod design using animated electric legs.

I've been told that the wires didn't show on screen until the later generations of prints were struck.

Personally I doubt the Lee Marvin story. In the fifties, he was trying to break out of villain roles. He was popular, but they would hire him to play villains. He probably would have jumped at the chance to play the hero. As it was, his agent had to get him a TV show to change his image with the public.

David.

[Bud Brewster]

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Thinking Outside the "Plot"!
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~ A Question for the Members: After mankind was almost wiped out by inhuman invaders from another world, would mankind rebuild our world as a unified race, free from conflicting political systems, vastly different cultures, and religious superstitions which refuse to accept logic and science?

~ My Theory: Nope. We're stuck with all that crap.

Sorry, folks, but I've come to the conclusion that mankind, as a species, ain't got the sense that God gave geese.

Please feel free to prove me wrong, because this idea depresses me as much as it does you.

(I just tossed this out to encourage a discussion. I hope I get one.)
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pow]

Bud, as I look at the world in general and our nation in particular I am reminded of Taylor (Charleton Heston) in "The Planet Of The Apes" film.

He says something to the effect "There has to be something better than humans in the universe, there just has to be."

[Bud Brewster]

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Apparently Taylor shares my less-than-enthusiastic opinion of mankind in general.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Krel]

Self loathing is a sad, sad thing. As my Dad told me, if all you do is stare into the dark, then you never see what's in the light.

David.

[Bud Brewster]

[Maurice]

[Gord Green]

Bud, your somewhat pessimistic foretelling of Human History may not be too far from the truth.

However, take a step back and take a realistic look back at where we've come from.

As an organism Humans have existed basicly unchanged for over 100 thousand years. We have exactly the same brains and mental abilities as those early men. Hunting and gathering was the way they sustained themselves in small groups passing knowledge on by word of mouth and example.

These small populations struggled on through multiple ice ages until about 14 thousand years ago at the end of the last ice age when some of these groups came together to produce food by farming and the domestication of some animals.

To keep track and maintain records of these crops and flocks math, architecture and writing and the passing down of knowledge in abstract ways were developed.

Just 5 thousand years ago civilizations in Sumar ,Egypt and China arose. Social structures came to be deeply class oriented with slavery and the domination of the strongest a constant for thousands of years.

It was only a little over 6 hundred years ago that there was an industrial revolution that spurred the development of technology from sailing ships that could cross an ocean to rockets that could cross space to the Moon and beyond.
Throughout this time social structures slowly improved. Slavery was virtualy eliminated. Conflicts and wars came and went...and came again.

Unfortunately, along this journey we've also gained the ability to destroy ourselves.

Looking at the history of the development of this industrious hominid indicates that we are indeed at a tipping point. Odds of survival vary with the attitude of the individual making them.

As for me...It's about 50% -50%.
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There comes a time, thief, when gold loses its lustre, and the gems cease to sparkle, and the throne room becomes a prison; and all that is left is a father's love for his child.

[Bud Brewster]

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Tales from the Parallel Universe!
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Near the end of my recent post on the First Men in the Moon thread I came up with an idea that I don't think H.G. Wells thought of.

I suggested that a cavorite sphere which could be rendered completely weightless . . . would actually work like a hot air balloon!

I love the irony! The sphere is made of steel, with a framework that looks like the beams from a skyscraper!

Add to that the massive railroad bumpers used to minimize the impact of box cars, and you've got something you could drop from the Empire State Building. The only thing that would be broken is a large portion of Fifth Avenue!

And yet none of that matters when you can actually negate every ounce of the sphere's weigh with cavorite and send it off to cruise the sky with a fleet of colorful hot air balloons!





My post on the First Men in the Moon thread also demonstrated that a cavorite sphere could be flown to the Moon and back — but only if the astronauts make sure that the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth are all perfectly positioned to slow it down as it approached the lunar surface!





All the delightful speculations I enjoyed making to create the post for First Men in the Moon inspired me to come up sometihng new in a fictional vein.

I started wondering if there was some way to put H.G. Wells and Jules Verne together in story. Here's what I came with.
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Somewhere in the vast multiverse is a version of Earth which faced a terrible threat, and its only hope lay in the heroic efforts of two men who pioneered some of the greatest scientific inventions the world had ever seen!

I’m talking about versions of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne in a parallel universe.

In this universe, the two men are both great inventors and brilliant authors who have thrilled the public with stories which described how there own inventions played key roles in historic events!

Jules Verne was born in 1828, and H.G. Wells was born 1866 — 38 years later. The older one died 41 years before before the young one, and in different countries — France and England.

Sadly, these two giants in the fields of both science and science fiction never met in our universe — but in the parallel universe, a global crisis compelled H.G. Wells to seek the aid of Jules Verne!

Separately they were each awesome forces who championed the virtues of logic and scientific advancement.

But together they became an unstoppable force when faced with a hideous threat to humanity!

This is a summary of their amazing story.
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In 1897, Earth was invaded by malevolent beings from Mars who were determined to wipe out mankind and take possession of our planet. Wells would later write a powerful novel about this event — and it was drastically different from the one Wells wrote in our own universe!

Herbert George Wells, who was 31 years old and dazzling the world with his new inventions and his amazing science fiction stories, quickly realized that mankind needed help to defeat these nightmare creatures from another planet.

He's desperate efforts to convince the terrified authorities that drastic actions were needed fell on the deaf ears of men who lacked H.G. Wells incredible intellect.

Wells soon realized that he needed a strong ally who could grasp the bold strategy he'd devised, one which could save mankind!

Unfortunately the man Wells needed was almost 70 years old. Wells knew he required the help of the younger version of this great individual — and Wells had a way to bring that young man into this battle for the survival of humanity!

With great reluctance, Wells decided to use the device he'd invented just two years earlier in 1895, which he then published a novel about that described his experience with his invention — as a fictional account.

The novel was The Time Machine.

Wells knew he had to use his carefully hidden invention and travel back to 1863 — despite the danger of altering the timeline.





When Wells arrived in 1863 he showed the time machine to a 35 year old Jules Verne — and proved that it worked. As a result, these two young men bonded immediately and agreed to do whatever it took to save mankind!

They knew that the fate of Earth relied on their combined efforts to defeat the invaders by inspiring mankind to employ every aspect of science at their disposal.

Wells and Verne used the time machine to return to 1896 — a full year before the Martians arrived!

But before leaving 1863 they committed all of Verne's fortune in investments that Wells had researched before traveling back in time.

When the men arrive in 1896, thirty-four years later, Verne's personal fortune had increased dramatically. This provided the two men with ample working capital to fund their plans. Based on their combined reputations, the two men succeeded in convincing the authorities that alien invaders would arrive on Earth within a year, and mankind would not survive without carefully planning.

With a year to prepare, Wells and Verne took charge of Earth's defenses. They began an ambitious campaign, employing their accumulated knowledge to defeat the alien invaders.

H.G. Wells began by supervising the construction of a fleet of giant cavorite spheres which were self propelled, well armed, and loaded with biochemical bombs. He had correctly theorized that Earth's microorganisms would be lethal to the invaders.

Then Wells launched part of the fleet towards Mars while the rest of the spheres were made ready to attack the Martian tripods immediately after the cylinders landed.

Meanwhile, Jules Verne designed a fleet of large airships based on the one featured in his novel Five Weeks in a Balloon. These proved to be invisible to the Martian's sensors because they used very little metal in their construction!

These airships were able to fly over the Martian war machines without the aliens considering them as a threat.







The airships, which used heated helium to control their altitude, were able to drop powerful bombs, as well as packets of viral organisms which polluted the air in the craters where the Martian cylinders were located. The moments the cylinders opened, the Martians were exposed to the viral organisms.

However, several groups of oversized cylinders landed in the ocean, and they were fully equipped to establish undersea bases. This protected them from the biological threat in the atmosphere.

Verne and Wells had anticipated this possibility, and Verne had shared his designs for the Nautilus, which he obtained from Captain Nemo when the two men met, shortly before Nemo's sad demise.

In the novel Verne wrote, he substituted the fictional character of Prof. Pierre Aronnax rather than reveal that he was actually the one who'd traveled with Nemo on the submarine.

During the months prior to the invasion, the American and British ship-building industries worked feverishly to produce a fleet of submarines based on Nemo's designs!





The Herculean efforts of these nations resulted in a successful effort to scour the oceans for undersea Martian bases — and to destroy them whenever they were found!

Inspired by the genius of these two men, the world succeeded in defeating the alien invaders!

H.G. Wells returned Jules Verne to the exact instant he left in 1863 — thus preventing any disruption in the time line. Naturally, both Wells and Verne greatly benefited from their incredible collaboration.

And so did the world in the centuries to come.

Mars, however, was completely devastated by the fleet of cavorite spheres which were sent there to seed the atmosphere with viral organisms.



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

[scotpens]