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20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 13, 2022 8:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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Let's watch it again. We certainly haven't "Made America great again", have we? Sad


"America is not the greatest country in the world anymore" - The Newsroom 2012


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Pow
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 13, 2022 9:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm a huge Aaron Sorkin fan! His writing is never less than outstanding, and he has fantastic writers assembled on his wonderful TV shows.

I've watched this scene with Jeff Daniels from the first episode of The Newsroom many times. Blows me away and brilliantly encapsulates what America once was at its height, as well as how it has fallen.

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Morbius
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 14, 2022 8:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2247692/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

This is when the plan took hold.
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Pow
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 17, 2022 10:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Disney Films by Leonard Maltin.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was Disney's most ambitious live-action film to date (1954), and it remains one of the most successful he ever made.

Disney knew that no amount of money, technical wizardry, or inventiveness could take the place of a good story. And he was certain that Jules Verne's futuristic tale of a despotic sea captain and his fantastic submarine was a story worthy of a major production.

Ironically, the man chosen to direct the film was Richard Fleischer (Fantastic Voyage, 1966), the son of Disney's onetime rival Max Fleischer, who had started in short subjects and shown tremendous promise with modest low-budget films like Narrow Margin and So This Is New York.

Planning 20,000 Leagues entailed more complex work than any live film Disney had yet tackled. Compared to the logistics of shooting, the screenplay must have been relatively simple, although director Fleischer recalls "it was a very difficult book to translate to the screen because there wasn't really any story."

Characters and their interplay were developed, with appropriate thought given to limited comedy relief from the tense dramatics of the story line. For the first time Disney decided to hire well-known names to head his cast, and he made the ideal selection with Kirk Douglas as the swaggering sailor Ned Land, James Mason as the Machiavellian Captain Nemo, Paul Lukas as the distinguished professor, and Peter Lorre as his aide-de-camp.

Art director John Meehan was imported from Paramount studios, where he had won Academy Awards for his work.
His creations, particularly the main lounge of the submarine, replete with velvet chairs, divans, rococo ornaments, and a pipe organ, are largely responsible for the film's success.

Veteran cameraman Franz Planer had the double challenge of working in the newly developed CinemaScope process, and trying to create believable and sufficient lighting in sets built with viewable ceilings (in order to emphasize the submarine's interior settings).

The submarine itself, the Nautilus, was built to scale, two hundred feet long, shaped as Verne had described it, as an undersea monster, its headlights appearing as "eyes" in the dark waters.

Although most underwater filming was done on location, a special sound stage was built at the studio to house a giant tank for more intimate and complex shots.

Most of the seagoing material was shot off the coast of Nassau in the Bahamas, where the fifty-four man crew spent eight weeks filming.

Aware that the story of how the film was made could be in some ways as interesting as the film itself, Disney assigned a second unit to make a documentary about the filming of 20,000 Leagues. The resulting hour-long film, shown on the Disney TV show as Operation Undersea, won an Emmy Award as the year's best television documentary.

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Morbius
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 18, 2022 6:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Some debate about the ship's length, 178' or 200'? But a great film at either version.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 18, 2022 10:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Pow wrote:
The submarine itself, the Nautilus, was built to scale, two hundred feet long, shaped as Verne had described it, as an undersea monster, its headlights appearing as "eyes" in the dark waters.

I'm afraid that statement is inaccurate. Here's an excerpt from the Wikipedia article which quotes the description from Verne's novel.
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In Captain Nemo's own words:

Here, Professor Aronnax, are the different dimensions of this boat now transporting you. It's a very long cylinder with conical ends It noticeably takes the shape of a cigar, a shape already adopted in London for several projects of the same kind. The length of this cylinder from end to end is exactly seventy meters, and its maximum breadth of beam is eight meters.

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Seventy meters is 227.5 feet. So, Disney's Nautilus is either 27 feet or 42 feet shorter than the one in the novel.

In the original illustrations for the novel, the artist found it easy (if a bit boring) so to render the ship.



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Strange the way the artist placed the ship's "headlamp" at the rear of the vessel. That would create a long shadow in front of the ship, because it would block part of the beam.

Besides that, just where is the porthole that faces the area in front of the submarine? Why illuminate the view ahead when there's no window to look through?

However, there does seem be a small dome on the top of the Nautilus, so that might be the way the bridge crew viewed the area ahead!
Confused
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Last edited by Bud Brewster on Sat Jun 18, 2022 3:30 pm; edited 2 times in total
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Pow
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 18, 2022 12:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Disney Films by Leonard Maltin.

20,000 Leagues under the Sea is fantasy at its best, with the Disney production team making the unbelievable come to life, in order to project a convincing tale against real-life backgrounds. The sumptuous mounting and careful attention to detail contribute immeasurably to the overall effect.

James Mason is compelling as Captain Nemo, wavering on that fine line between genius and madman. The balance of the cast fills the various roles to perfection, Douglas's byplay with Nemo's pet seal and Lorre's unique personality providing gentle but welcome comedy relief.

In fact, everything about the film seems unmistakably right. Such perfectionism made possible by the resources of the Disney studio, was responsible for 20,000 Leagues under the Sea becoming one of the great films of its kind, as well as one of Disney's biggest grossing films. It would be some time before Disney would top this achievement in the field of live-action films.
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Sidebar: Earlier I posted the question as to why Disney did not pursue more extravagant science fiction fare since 20,000 Leagues was such a huge critical and box office hit for his studio?

All I can come up with is that since movie making is always a big gamble for any major film studio with each film they produce, perhaps Walt Disney figured that producing more such films as 20,000 Leagues and hitting the bullseye was indeed a chancy throw of the dice for him?

He could have just as easily sunk a fortune into another science fiction film after 20,000 Leagues and it could have either bombed, made a modest profit, or just broke even.

And we all know that science fiction films in the 1950s had a limited audience and that may have been another factor that played into Disney's reasoning for not tackling more lavish SF movies?

It wouldn't be until twenty-five years later that the Disney studios---without Walt who passed away in 1966---would tackle another major big budgeted science fiction film with 1979 epic The Black Hole. The movie would be a critical and box office disappointment despite its massive $20,000,000 budget.

Some feel that one of the problems with the movie was that it was essentially repeating the plot from 20,000 Leagues.
It had a magnificent spaceship, a crazed genius at its helm, loyal obedient servants. Similar elements to 20,000 Leagues.

In addition, this spaceship (The Cygnus), is discovered by a group of humans who board it and end up confronting its mad captain. In the finale we see the Cygnus drawn into the spatial phenomena of a ginormous black hole. Not unlike how the Nautilus is sucked under the ocean by a huge, swirling pool.

These plot elements may have just been to imitative of 20,000 Leagues to impress audiences over two decades since that classic movie. Disney was known as an innovator who broke new ground with his productions. Unfortunately The Black Hole was a gorgeous looking production built up around a plot that Disney had produced years ago.


Last edited by Pow on Mon Jun 20, 2022 8:44 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Maurice
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 20, 2022 2:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Are people confusing the budget of The Black Hole with Star Trek—The Motion Picture? The former reportedly cost $20 mil with $6 mil prints and advertising, whereas the latter infamously was tallied at costing over $40 million.
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Pow
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 20, 2022 8:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You are correct, Maurice, regarding the actual budget for The Black Hole. I made an error but corrected it.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 15, 2022 10:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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GETTING TO KNOW OUR FAVORITE MONSTERS!
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The fine 1997 National Geographic documentary below (narrated by Stacy Keach) is about the giant squid (arcatuthus). It includes several clips from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, along with interesting information about how Verne was inspired by spectacular news reports of encounters with giant squids which whaling ships had back in the 1800s.

Unlike other documentaries I've seen, this one doesn't just tease the viewer along with endless scenes of scientists on small boats spending weeks in unsuccessful attempts to get pictures of giant squids using cameras they hang down from the boats.

In this documentary we see squid carcasses on beaches and fishing boats, along with magnificent artwork and diagrams of arcatuthus, plus beautiful underwater photograph of the smaller squids and their strange cousins.






At the 15:00 mark there's a funny CGI commercial for Nissin Seafood Noodle that you'll enjoy (one of several which Youtube has).

______________ Sea Creatures: Cup Noodle CM


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On a personal note, when I was a Security Policemen in the Air Force in 1970, stationed in Ramstein Germany, I went on TDY (temporary duty assignment) for three days with a C-130 crew to Athens, Greece. One evening we all went to a Greek restaurant, and I had one of the most delicious meals of my life: fried squid, fried squash, and (naturally) white wine.

Enjoy! Very Happy


________________ Search For The Giant Squid


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orzel-w
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 21, 2023 12:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Morbius wrote:
Some debate about the ship's length, 178' or 200'?

Here's my take on the issue...

All pre-release and post-release publicity, including the studio's preview booklet and press releases, gave the length as 200'. The briefing for the divers employed in the underwater scenes described the length as 200', per Bill Stropahl, one of the divers.

It wasn't until the publication of the studio's blueprints for the sub's exterior in a 1974 edition of Scale Modeler magazine, 20 years after the movie's release, that the 178' figure came up. That drawing, never intended for popular release, served as the master plan for all live-action exterior sets, such as the deck set, the salon viewport exterior, the rudder repair set, and the dive hatch exterior. However, it is a very common practice in Hollywood to build exterior sets in reduced scale as cost-saving and ease-of-handling measures. This appears to have been the case with the Nautilus deck set as well, as can be observed when actors are seen outside the wheelhouse in comparison with its size as seen in interior shots.

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 21, 2023 4:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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Well, all I have to say is . . . welcome back old friend. Very Happy

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orzel-w
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 22, 2023 12:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bud Brewster wrote:
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Well, all I have to say is . . . welcome back old friend. Very Happy


After hanging out on FB this site is a fresh breath of fresh air!
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orzel-w
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 22, 2023 3:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Every year around Christmas the variety stores bring out those tabletop animated winter scenes, usually of a village with ice skaters, sleds, trains, and so forth. They often have fiber optics providing sparkly effects.

Well why not, not only for winter, but any time of year, an animated scene of the 20k ride from Walt Disney World in Florida (once upon a time)? So I put together a mockup visualization, using photos of the Nautilus ride model. Fiber optics would be used for adding "motion" to the waterfalls.

Like so...



And a view of the back side...



I imagine this item would be really popular with anybody who mourns the loss of the actual ride.

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 22, 2023 6:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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Awesome work, Wayne!
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