MovieChat Forums > World Without End (1956) Discussion > The start of the Eloi and Morlocks

The start of the Eloi and Morlocks

posted 9 years ago by Axholio
7 replies | jump to latest

My wife and I watched this last night and realized that this is the beginning of the Eloi and Morlocks from The Time Machine.

This takes place 500 years in the future and we see the human race has split into two different races; one living under ground and one above. The Time Machine takes place in 802701. Just imagine that evolution over that many millennium.

The mutates would have died off from their own sicknesses leaving only the 'human' survivors. These survivors were like cave people starting over with no technological abilities or knowledge... really primitive.

The under-grounders were all scientists and thinkers. Over the centuries they would have used up all their resources and will have turned to the surface for food... but after living under ground for so long, would be unable to tolerate the sun.

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Make me a sergeant and charge the booze!

[–] gary_overman 9 years ago

Kind of like the 1956 movie, The Mole People, huh? Have you seen that one?

[–] Axholio 9 years ago

I have seen The Mole People. One of our favorites.

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Make me a sergeant and charge the booze!

[–] hobnob53 9 years ago

Of course, WWE has been called (or accused of being) a variation on The Time Machine, with the civilizations partially inverted (normal people below, not above, but the technology also below, as in TTM).

Whatever its inspiration, I like World Without End better than The Time Machine. Or even The Mole People...though as weapons of mass destruction go, flashlights are more benign than bazookas.

[–] Axholio 9 years ago

You think that the civilizations were inverted? Interesting.

I was seeing it as the under-grounders hadn't devolved enough yet, but that they would over the long time period from malnutrition and lack of sunlight as well as in-breeding.

And the above-grounders would evolve some once the mutates died off from their defects and gene mutations. But they would be ignorant to technology because of living in the caves, etc...

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Make me a sergeant and charge the booze!

[–] hobnob53 9 years ago

I see your point, and what you say might be possible. But in the film, it's established that the underground civilization has only about one more generation to go before it's extinct. Malnutrition isn't a problem, and lack of sunlight doesn't appear to be either. Instead, it's inferred (but not stated -- this was 1956, after all) that the men were becoming sterile and that the civilization would ultimately just die off. So there wouldn't be time for them to devolve, a process that would take many centuries.

Whether and in what ways the "beasts" might evolve is much more questionable. Even given their mutations and the resultant health problems, that doesn't mean all the "mutates" would die off or evolve out of their mutated state back into normal human beings. There were some normal people among them but these were killed or driven off, so how well they'd be able to compete for survival with the mutates is debatable, meaning that there was only a very slim chance they'd inherit the Earth, or even survive to mate with the mutates. Obviously over millennia they'd evolve in some ways but into what we can't predict. But by then the underground civilization would have died off, so there would be no analogous situation to the Elois and Morlocks.

Anyway, when I wrote that the two civilizations were inverted, I was referring to the way the two sides were physically depicted in each film. But it's true, there is a big difference in the passage of time between 2508 and 802,701, so the kind of changes you posited might be possible...provided the underground people survived and the mutates evolved into normal humans, both of which were highly unlikely developments. Still, the notion of World Without End as a kind of prequel to The Time Machine is an interesting one.

[–] Axholio 9 years ago

I think they would have survived - Remember Deena. She was a mutate whom they brought into their underground society. So they had already started bringing select people underground. When things get to that tipping point I would think they would bring 'healthy' above-grounders in and mated with them.

It's never mentioned why the men are becoming sterile so it's all conjecture, but it could be because of malnutrition and or vitamin deficiencies from poorly grown foods in artificial light. Or some kind of very slow acting radiation sickness.

I dunno... It's fun imagining how the world got that way in TTM. I always wanted to see things when that Eloi dome was new and in use for whatever.

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Make me a sergeant and charge the booze!

[–] hobnob53 9 years ago

But Deena was an exception -- a normal "beast" who was driven off and just happened to wander into one of their tunnels. As far as we saw she was the only above-ground person down below, though I'd suspect there might have been a few others. Most of the normal children seem to not have survived, either being killed by the beasts outright or driven away and left to starve.

In any case, by definition it takes two to mate, so even if there were several choice normal humans from above available, if the men were sterile that would do little good. Remember, in the film it's mentioned that the women are "so much more vital than the men", so any problems seem to reside within the male population. So a few more Deenas down below wouldn't be of any use. And it would always be possible that she might give birth to a mutate, even mating with a normal man. She carries the gene.

You're right, no real reason for the declining fortunes of the underground race is ever given. The men all appear fairly old, certainly middle-aged, and listless, while all the women are young babes. Of course, that's all male fantasy as far as moviegoers are concerned, with little logic to it. But there's no indication, either from anything seen or said, that they suffer from any food or similar problems -- in fact, food seems to be abundant, and without any bad side effects. And the radiation had long since died down to a safe level, so that couldn't have been an issue.

Perhaps just the simple fact of living underground for over three centuries (since the atomic war of 2188) and the deprivation of the benefits of the surface have rendered the men sterile. That was the main impetus of the crew in trying to get the people to relocate to the surface -- that their children "need the sun". This is very typical of a mid-50s mindset, that the sun was seen as a wholly beneficial object (as in many ways it of course is) and sort of a cure-all for physical ailments. In the previous decade, submarine crews out on long duty were usually given sunlamp treatments as a way of helping them get their physical and psychological strength back, and later some subs even carried sunlamps. That kind of thinking carried over in the public mind and into the script for this movie.

As for TTM, we know of course from the talking rings how the world got that way, but it would have been interesting if George had stopped his machine a few decades earlier -- not just to see the Eloi's dome in somewhat better repair, but with Weena as yet unborn. By the way, that's another connection -- Weena's name seems to have been appropriated for WWE's Deena.