ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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The Wikipedia article for this movie is very interesting. It has several items I was not aware of, and it also has a few statements I'm not sure are correct.

Here are a few examples.

[Morbius]

http://www.mrgodzilla.com/misc/HP1a.jpg

[Gord Green]

You are right Bud. The covers are pretty good though.












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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.

[Krel]

Ray Harryhausen was asked why he used stop-motion animation for the destruction of the buildings. He said that he had to, because the budget didn't allow for the use of pyrotechnic destruction of the miniature buildings. It was a royal pain, because every piece of masonry had to be suspended from a wire. It must have been a task equal to the skeleton battle in "Jason and the Argonauts".

David.

[Pow]

It took Ray four days in order to shoot the destruction of the Supreme Court building. He had to laboriously animate each brick or stone that fell, on separate wires.

The wires were held by a specially constructed rig called an aerial brace which was fixed above the animation table. The wires hold the object being animated firmly in place.

The main body of the Capitol Building was a large still cutout photograph with the dome missing. A miniature model of the dome was pre-broken and then reassembled again with wires holding it all together.

Ray said that filming this sequence of the movie was tortuous and that he never wanted to do this amount of work ever again.

[Gord Green]

And yet you look at the destruction of the White House in INDEPENDENCE DAY and see how easily it could be realized with under cranking the film and no more extensive modeling effort.

The results matter.

Stop motion was reaching the end of its' revelance to the movie making technology and a combined CGI and practical effects was on the horizon.

I would like to think...as Phil Tibbet realized with JURRASIC PARK... that Rays' talents could be translated to the newer technology.


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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.

[scotpens]

[Bud Brewster]

[Bud Brewster]

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After posting the message above, I found a nice interview with Ray Harryhausen which I decided to share.

___ Ray Harryhuasen - Earth vs. the Flying Saucers


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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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Just a quick thought before a stumble off to bed.

I've always been intrigued by the sparse clues we get concerning these alien invaders. Consider this.

~ All we see are aliens in suits that apparently serve as "life support" for beings who (according to Hugh Marlow) are "humanoid, and ancient". But they dissolve when the helmets are removed.

My God, are these decrepit beings the actual "soldiers" of this invading army!

Furthermore, the alien voice (done by Paul Frees) states that "we are the remnants of a disintegrated solar system".

Does this mean that these aging aliens are all that's left? No young aliens, no women, and no children?

If so, that means these alien invaders are just trying to take over the Earth so they can be cared for by humans during the last few years of their waning lives — with no hope of their species surviving after they're gone!

Well, damn! That's plum pitiful, folks.

If I was writing a sequel for this movie, I'd find a way to help these poor old guys to revive their lost race and clone a new generation who could unite with the human race and venture out among the stars!

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

[Pow]

Yep, your sequel has potential, Bud. I don't believe anyone has ever done a plot that involves aliens that are technologically far ahead of us coming here for our help.

Interesting that this film never names either the alien race nor the name of their home world. Wonder just how many SF films involving aliens have done the same thing?

Off the top of my head: Klaatu doesn't name his race or any of the planets he represents.

We don't know what the Thing From Another World calls his species or planet of origin.

[Gord Green]

An interesting clue to the origin of these aliens could lay in the fact that "time" passes differently for them than it does for us. This alteration in the passage of time could lead us to suspect they are not only from a distant planet, but also from a different "universe" or even dimension.

Their time stream ran much faster in relation to ours indicating that minutes to us would be years to them! They may have been young adolescents when they arrived on our world and swiftly aged to old, old age!

Maybe it wasn't bacteria (like in War of the Worlds) but the ravages of TIME that really caused their downfall!
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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.

[Pow]

From author Bill Warren.

Ray Harryhausen's flying saucers are the best ever done, even edging out Klaatu's ship from The Day the Earth Stood Still. Harryhausen's saucers are spookily alive, moving gracefully and swiftly; they're highly maneuverable, convincingly fast and deadly.

Their design is somewhat similar to Klaatu's ship, but enough differences were added to make them distinctive.

But in Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, the only real enemy are the flying saucers themselves, despite some scenes involving the aliens. To fiddle around with the saucerman's armor is a waste of time and footage. But couldn't the running time have been extended by making the characters more interesting, rather than the business of the saucerman's armor, eavesdropping "foo lights" and so forth?

Harryhausen doesn't seem to think so.

He told an interviewer, "We try to put characterization in a film as long as it doesn't stop the story....But character takes time to develop. And when you're trying to tell a tale such as we do in the saucer picture, you either spend the time trying to develop characterization, or you spend the time developing the destruction, which is what these pictures are all about."

George Worthing Yates and Bernard Gordon are both writers of little talent, judging from the visible evidence.

Earth vs. the Flying Saucers is awkwardly constructed.

The saucermen do claim that they do not want merely to take over. "To do that would cause worldwide panic. Despite our power the few of us would be busy indefinitely trying to suppress a largely hostile population."

It doesn't occur to either the saucermen or leaders of Earth that a peaceful settlement is possible.

The sloppy construction confines all the action to the first and last reels. The saucers turn up briefly in the middle, but don't do very much. It's a long wait until something really interesting happens again.

The film is narrated by Paul Frees in his most doom-laden voice. Invariably, the narration tells us things we already know, or don't need to know or, most frequently, things that we see taking place.

But despite the portentous narration, the plot lurches and dead ends, the inadequate acting, and all the other infelicities of Earth vs, the Flying Saucers, it is still basically a good low-budget invaders-from-outer-space movie.

The film ends with a highly satisfying orgy of destruction.

Harryhausen's saucers are somehow better characterized than some of his "living" animals. They are purposeful. blankly evil and lively.

Sidebar: Warren's critique of the film is a fair one. Except for Ray's marvelous stop~motion animation sequences there's little else to hold the interest of the audience. Films such as The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Thing From Another World, Forbidden Planet, and War of the Worlds all manage to keep us absorbed from beginning to end.
That just isn't true of EvtFS anymore than it was true of It Came From Beneath the Sea where we clamor to get past the wooden characterizations and the uninteresting scientific exposition and on to Ray's splendid work.

Unlike Warren, I did find the scene with the aliens small eavesdropping device spying on the scientists and military rather intriguing.

It gave an indication of just how sophisticated the technology possessed by the aliens truly was.

It was also a remarkable plot device involving a drone. Drones are a big thing today in the 21st century, but few ever heard of such a contraption back in 1956. The writers were well ahead of their time.

This was a movie that could have been as classic as The Day the Earth Stood Still and others from that era if the writing had been top notch. Instead, the film lowered the bar by simply being action oriented and with its fantastic special effects. Other than that, it offers nothing to appeal to SF fans seeking intelligence, depth, and surprises.

The writers do create a different take on the invading alien theme whereas the aliens comprehend that conquering the Earth is not in anyone's best interest. The aliens realize that while their technological prowess far exceeds the nations of Earth, a war will make the planet potentially unlivable for both humans and aliens.

It was an original and clever concept. However, then the writers just seem to abandon it entirely so as to get to the battle scenes. It's a shame they could not have expanded on the idea but somehow give us those battle scenes.
That could have given the film a dimension it simply doesn't have.

[Bud Brewster]

[Bud Brewster]

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IMDB has 17 trivia items for this movie, several of which I already posted above. However, here’s a few of the ones I didn't post which are also interesting, in the blue text.
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~ The scene of a "destroyer" blowing up is actually stock footage of the sinking of HMS Barham, which occurred on 25 November 1941.

To not upset the British public, the Royal Navy decided to withhold an announcement until later. However, in late November 1941 a Scottish medium, Helen Duncan, who had heard of the sinking through a friend, disclosed the sinking during a seance.

She was eventually tried under the British Witchcraft Act, the last person before it was repealed.

Note from me: Well, ummm . . . I know what to make of this. A woman was tried for revealing government secrets she learned in a seance.

Okay, this is blatant bullshit . . .

~ The supposed satellite launches are actually stock footage of Viking rockets, high-altitude probes that were the predecessors of the Vanguard, intended to be the first satellite launcher.

The later shots of rockets crashing at takeoff are really German V-2s, since none of the first 12 Vikings ever failed. Ironically, the 13th Viking, now called Vanguard, blew up on the launch pad, just like in the movie.

Note from me: The shots of the V-2 tipping over and exploding are dramatic, despite being stock footage.

~ Columbia's publicity department created publicity stills using the cut-and-paste technique. The resulting stills of the flying saucers were vastly inferior to the special effects in the film itself. In fact, one of the more infamous stills shows Hugh Marlowe and Joan Taylor standing on top of the water in the middle of the Potomac River.

Note from me: Well . . . yes the cut-and-paste stills suck. But there isn't a still of Hugh and Joan standing on the water of the Potomac river. This items is completely bogus!

~ Fans of Disneyland might recognize the voice of the narrator (and of the alien) as actor Paul Frees, who provides the voice of the ghostly host for The Haunted Mansion ride. Frees also was voice for many cartoon characters for Disney, as well as for The Bullwinkle Show (1959)

Note from me: This items is true. I think I submitted ti myself.

~ This was the last movie in which Ray Harryhausen used stop-motion to create collapsing buildings. He said it was too much work.

Note from me: Okay, so it doesn't look "real". But it doesn't look like a miniature falling apart either. I love it!

~ One of the buildings struck by crashing flying saucers is Union Station, Washington's main train station. This may have been inspired by a 1953 accident when a runaway passenger train smashed into the station concourse.

Note from me: I don't know it this is true, but the shots of the saucer with the statue in the foreground and the saucer in the background are wonderful!

It juxtapositions the human and alien cultures perfectly!



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