Fellow movie-goers, Like the subject line says. The animated effects were just beautiful, Robby is one of the coolest robots ever, some of the set pieces look great even to my jaded 21st-century eye, the planet's lone woman wore a breathtakingly short skirt, and the idea of a man unconsciously projecting the foulest impulses of his id into reality, creating a terrible invisible monster, was really cool.
But the script ... oh, dear God.
Turgid. Florid. Overly expository, and full of unconvincing pseudo-scientific jibber-jabber. And I know this was released in 1956, but the crew's boorish, panting overtures to the planet's lone woman were just embarrassing. And for no good reason, there were Earth animals running around the planet. All I can figure is that the producer pulled the director aside one day and said, "My little girl loves deer and tigers. Put some deer and tigers in there somewhere." They could have cut this down from ~100 minutes down to about 80, easily. Felt like a good (original-series) Trek episode, but deliberately, clumsily padded out to feature length.
Maybe this is when Leslie Nielsen, who plays the ship's captain, decided to get into spoofing. If you're going to make movies that are sort of goofy, why not do ones that are *deliberately* goofy? Sort of like "The Andromeda Strain," this movie was more about sci-fi gee-whizzery than about effective storytelling.
If you haven't seen it, rent it some afternoon, enjoy this little bit of "the history of the future," but get ready to roll your eyes a few times.
-- Chaz.
But the script ... oh, dear God.
Turgid. Florid. Overly expository, and full of unconvincing pseudo-scientific jibber-jabber. And I know this was released in 1956, but the crew's boorish, panting overtures to the planet's lone woman were just embarrassing. And for no good reason, there were Earth animals running around the planet. All I can figure is that the producer pulled the director aside one day and said, "My little girl loves deer and tigers. Put some deer and tigers in there somewhere." They could have cut this down from ~100 minutes down to about 80, easily. Felt like a good (original-series) Trek episode, but deliberately, clumsily padded out to feature length.
Maybe this is when Leslie Nielsen, who plays the ship's captain, decided to get into spoofing. If you're going to make movies that are sort of goofy, why not do ones that are *deliberately* goofy? Sort of like "The Andromeda Strain," this movie was more about sci-fi gee-whizzery than about effective storytelling.
If you haven't seen it, rent it some afternoon, enjoy this little bit of "the history of the future," but get ready to roll your eyes a few times.
-- Chaz.