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Fantastic Voyage (1966)
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Pow
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 04, 2021 3:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

So I just watched FV for the umpteenth time, and enjoyed it as I always do.

Couple of things occurred to me on this latest viewing that I hadn't pondered before.

In the scene where the crew are in the ear, there's a loud noise from the operating room which causes severe reverberations inside the ear to the crew, three of whom are outside the Proteus at the time.

Cora (Raquel Welsh) is sent spiraling into some stuff & becomes trapped.

She has to get out of there before the antibodies arrive and attack her as an invading foreign organism.

Our hero, Stephen Boyd, swims down and rescues her and they both make a mad paddle back to the Proteus.

Boyd opens the ship's bottom hatch but just then the antibodies show up and envelop Cora.

But only Cora.

Boyd is right next to her but they ignore him totally.

Wouldn't antibodies attack him just as well?

In the rousing finale we see Donald Pleasance trapped in the pilot seat of the Proteus as antibodies descend upon the plastic bubble located just over the pilot's seat.

Boyd enters the ship & attempts to rescue him but is too late.

The antibodies envelop Pleasance.

Boyd and the Proteus pilot then quickly exit the vessel.

Except the antibody must have dissolved the plastic bubble to eat Pleasance. So if that bubble is gone the entire Proteus would be flooded immediately.

Yet, we see Boyd & the pilot head for the exit hatch in a basically dry ship after the death of Don.

Still and all, a terrific SF movie.

I'm astonished that this came out in 1966 and no studio has produced a sequel. With today's phenomenal visual effects available a reboot is long overdue.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 04, 2021 4:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Interesting comments, Mike! It really got me thinking about that movie. Very Happy


Pow wrote:
Cora (Raquel Welsh) is sent spiraling into some stuff & becomes trapped.

She has to get out of there before the antibodies arrive and attack her as an invading foreign organism.

Our hero, Stephen Boyd, swims down and rescues her and they both make a mad paddle back to the Proteus.

Boyd opens the ship's bottom hatch but just then the antibodies show up and envelop Cora.

But only Cora.

Boyd is right next to her but they ignore him totally.

Wouldn't antibodies attack him just as well?

After careful thought, here's what I came upwith.

I watched Fantastic Voyage just a few weeks ago and I remember a plot point which explained (through character dialog) exactly why the antibodies (the strange filaments) wrapped around Raquel, but not around Boyd.

Basically Edmond O'Brien's character said that Raquel's collision with the tube-like tissue caused some cellular damage, and that alerted the antibodies that the patient's body was being "attacked".

Here's what I found at this link.

Antibodies help the body to fight microbes or the toxins (poisons) they produce. They do this by recognizing substances called antigens on the surface of the microbe, or in the chemicals they produce, which mark the microbe or toxin as being foreign. The antibodies then mark these antigens for destruction.

So, Raquel got "marked" somehow when she damaged the "tubes", and that's why she was attacked while Boyd was not.


Pow wrote:
In the rousing finale we see Donald Pleasence trapped in the pilot seat of the Proteus as antibodies descend upon the plastic bubble located just over the pilot's seat.

Boyd enters the ship & attempts to rescue him but is too late.

The antibodies envelop Pleasence.

Boyd and the Proteus pilot then quickly exit the vessel.

Except the antibody must have dissolved the plastic bubble to eat Pleasence. So if that bubble is gone, the entire Proteus would be flooded immediately.

Yet, we see Boyd & the pilot head for the exit hatch in a basically dry ship after the death of Don.

I could be wrong, but the way the Donald's Pleasence death was filmed, the white corpuscle smashed the pilot's dome and then filled the cockpit as it enveloped Donald.

The white corpuscles are blood cells which do the actual destruction of "invading bodies" after they're enveloped by the antibodies.

In the movie, the corpuscle filled the cockpit and prevented the fluid surrounding the Proteus from rushing in right away while the characters' escaped. In fact, it covered the entire upper surface of the sub.


_____ Fantastic Voyage Ending - White Cell Attack


__________


But of course, there's still the infamous flaw concerning the fact that even though the corpuscle supposedly crushed the Proteus, the sub still retained all it's mass . . . which should have expanded to full size at the same moment we saw the surviving characters expand!

Therefore, the patient would have been torn apart from inside by the expanding wreckage of the Proteus! Shocked

Isaac Asimov's novelization fixed this flaw. Cool

For the record, I've never heard anybody mention the hundreds of gallons pf water inside that oversized syringe which the Proteus was placed into. After which a second shrinking procedure was performed on the Proteus, along with the syringe . . . along with those gallons of water which the oversized syringed contained.

All that shrunken matter was injected into the patient's body!

That huge volume of water molecules ALSO enlarged when the crew did at the end — along with the wreck of the Proteus!

Net result; the patient's body was obliterated! Rolling Eyes

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Pow
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 04, 2021 10:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Interesting explanations, Bruce.

I did not recall that dialogue regarding the explanation about Cora being marked & targeted. Makes sense.

However, I would submit that Boyd's untangling of Cora from that material would have marked him too. He's reaching right into it in order to extract Cora, he must have been marked, at least to some degree.

I suppose the corpuscle could have so filled the Proteus dome when it came through it so as to not let any human body fluid to seep inside.

It's just that I always though that corpuscles were somewhat porous so that fluid would still seep through in this case.

Perhaps not as a flood all at once, but something would be entering the ship.
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johnnybear
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 09, 2021 9:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

What was Asimov's explanation for the ship not killing Benes in the book?
JB
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Krel
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 09, 2021 11:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

johnnybear wrote:
What was Asimov's explanation for the ship not killing Benes in the book?
JB

They coaxed the antibody into following them to the exit spot, so it and the wreckage could be remove with them.

David.
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Pow
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 26, 2021 11:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Was there any medical explanation given as to exactly why the CMDF could not inject the Proteus & crew directly into the head of Benes?

Or at least closer to the brain where they had to operate, rather than starting off being injected into the neck?

Of course if they had done that, then we'd end up with a film where the interior body scenes would have lasted five minutes.
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Krel
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 26, 2021 1:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Remember, the Doctor that picked their point of entry and course was an enemy agent. He picked an entry site he knew had the crossed veins, where he hoped the Proteus would be destroyed. Failing destruction there, the longer course gave him time to plot an alternate plan.

David.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 26, 2021 4:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Hey, I never realized that. Thanks!

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Pow
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 22, 2021 6:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

So was there ever an explanation as to what exactly happened to the microscopic nuclear fuel that powered the Proteus?

Our intrepid voyagers escaped via the tear duct as they were beginning to return to their normal size. We saw the Proteus was being eaten by the antibodies on screen.

But would the nuclear fuel, as tiny as it was, be able to be digested by the bodies defenses? If not, then what would be the repercussions to the scientist Benes?
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scotpens
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 22, 2021 9:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Pow wrote:
Our intrepid voyagers escaped via the tear duct as they were beginning to return to their normal size. We saw the Proteus was being eaten by the antibodies on screen.

But would the nuclear fuel, as tiny as it was, be able to be digested by the bodies defenses? If not, then what would be the repercussions to the scientist Benes?

I should think a microscopic bit of radioactive material would have a negligible effect on Benes' body. The question is: Why did it have to be a microscopic-sized particle in the first place? The pilot, Cmdr. Owens, says, "They can't reduce nuclear fuel."

Why not? It's matter, isn't it?
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 23, 2021 10:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Pow wrote:
I should think a microscopic bit of radioactive material would have a negligible effect on Benes' body. The question is: Why did it have to be a microscopic-sized particle in the first place? The pilot, Cmdr. Owens, says "they can't reduce nuclear fuel." Why not? It's matter, isn't it?

Good question!

Unfortunately, the movie doesn't specify just HOW the device reduces matter. So, it's hard to figure out why nuclear fuel is somehow different from ordinary matter.

~ If the machine reduces the distance between the atoms, that would mean the objects retained their original mass, but with greatly reduced size. How could microscopic people move around if they still weighed as much as they normally do?

~ If the machine reduces the number of atoms in the object-or-person, where did the missing atom go . . . and how could they just "come back" after 60 minutes?

~ If the machine actually made atoms smaller . . . well, I don't know what to say about that, except that when I looked up the question below, I got this answer.
____________________________________________

Why does splitting an atom release energy?

“Splitting an atom“ releases energy when the original nucleus of the atom has more mass than the total mass of smaller nuclei into which the original atom splits. The difference of mass is converted into energy and released in the form of photons, neutrinos, etc.

____________________________________________

So, apparently the mass of the atom is a key factor in the release of the energy. If the shrinking process does indeed reduce the mass of the object, then shrinking the nuclear fuel would reduce its ability to produce energy when the atoms split.

In other words . . . the fuel becomes wimpy. Laughing

Therefore, maybe what Cmdr. Owens meant when he said, "They can't reduce nuclear fuel" was that they can't reduce it and still get as much energy from it, because its mass is reduced.

This would be consistent with the idea that teeny tiny people can't move around if they still weigh 100+ pounds. Very Happy

What do you guys think? Confused

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Last edited by Bud Brewster on Mon Jul 19, 2021 12:49 pm; edited 2 times in total
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johnnybear
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 27, 2021 7:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I might be wrong but what if it was only human tissue that expanded after that time and not the Proteus? Maybe the ship — not being organic — could be shrunk or grown larger only when the ray struck it? I've probably forgotten some of the dialogue, but it's possible I guess...
JB
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 27, 2021 10:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Interesting idea, JB! Very Happy

However, if the non-organic matter remained miniaturized at the end of the movie, the characters would have expanded . . . while still wearing their microscopic wetsuits, crushing them before they even became visible! Shocked

Or (on a more optimistic note), the suits would rip apart, and they'd all be standing there stark naked! Now THAT would be a climax! Laughing

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Krel
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 27, 2021 7:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

What gets me is the incredibly small atomic fuel chamber. The Proteus is not a large submarine, but to be fueled by something about the size of a Coke can is quite remarkable.

David.
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scotpens
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 27, 2021 10:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Krel wrote:
What gets me is the incredibly small atomic fuel chamber. The Proteus is not a large submarine, but to be fueled by something about the size of a Coke can is quite remarkable.



And the nuclear reactor apparently fits in the two feet or so of space between the interior floor and the bottom of the hull. Also, where are the ballast tanks? The pumping machinery? The Proteus is basically a big bottle of air. But it sure looks pretty.
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