MovieChat Forums > It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958) Discussion > Smoking and pyrotechnics on a spaceship?

Smoking and pyrotechnics on a spaceship?

posted 14 years ago by GreatWhiteApeofBarsoom
14 replies | jump to latest

Somehow I have to think NASA would consider such things far too dangerous to be allowed. Such is the fun of a '50s B movie though.

Carthago delenda est.

[–] DrGlitterhouse 14 years ago

Maybe I'm misinterpreting, but is the trip back from Mars in the movie twice as long as the trip there? The first ship crash landed six prior to the movie starting. The second ship left two months previous according to the press briefing at the beginning, and Carruthers in the narration says he's going to be on the ship four months. Does it have something to do with rotation, is it a mistake, or (like I said) am I misinterpreting?

I thought it was interesting that Ann was a divorcee and it was no big deal.

Definitely an above-average 50s B-movie.

"How's that for Japanese efficiency?"

[–] mousalope 14 years ago

"... but is the trip back from Mars in the movie twice as long as the trip there? "

I didn't catch that but it's not necessarily a plot hole. Orbital mechanics of Mars and Earth are such that they are only occasionally in close conjunction. Earth being an interior planet will orbit the Sun more quickly, leaving Mars behind and then catching up to it. Depending on when you launch you will get a shorter trip, or a much longer one.

Unless the Mars crew stays for a full orbit of the planet, any time they take off for Earth would make for a materially different length transit then the initial voyage. Maybe the scriptwriter knew this and threw it in for scientific realism, or maybe he was ignorant on the point and just got it by accident. Who can say.

[–] 14 years ago

[deleted]

[–] mikebailey4052-31-500377 14 years ago

Plot holes you can drive a truck through and that's what ruined it for you?

[–] Jonny_B_Lately 14 years ago

Well sure, but then again would NASA consider grenades and bazookas appropriate defensive weapons? I doubt it. At least all, including the war surplus 45s would work in space.

Yadda yadda yadda <- this is my signature

[–] mam13143 13 years ago

Remember this film like so many others were made five years after WWII. Guns and grenades were considered normal gear back then. NASA would spend a billion dollars to develop a new gun for the trip though. And every single movie in the 50s had the people smoking and eating regular food and lots and lots of room inside their ships. Not to mention normal desks and rolling chairs............lol, and it was believable back then.

[–] mlaughlin22 13 years ago

A bullet through the hull would end the trip real quick .
And smoking the air purifire would be working 4 times faster .

[–] darryl-tahirali 11 years ago

A bullet through the hull would end the trip real quick . - mlaughlin22

Not to mention that they uncovered the core to their nuclear reactor . . .

------------------
"Man becomes the food of the divinity he worships." - Chris Stevens

[–] 11 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Bill-16 11 years ago

I kept expecting them to pull out a Sherman Tank on the spaceship and start blasting. They don't make spacecraft like that anymore... silly little oxygen tank explosion took out an Apollo Service Module in Apollo 13.

[–] hackraytex 9 years ago

Also, today everyone would be taking turns with the cooking but it looks like there, as was the culture of the time, the women got stuck with doing that. We have come a long way.

[–] littlenightmusic-15077 9 years ago

I noticed that. The women were serving coffee and preparing meals and cleaning up ... and, of course, while the men knew how to use weapons the women stood behind them, looking terrified. 

[–] hackraytex 9 years ago

You're right about that. If the writer had been thinking for even that time, no one would have been sent of such a mission that was not weapons qualified. Segourney Weaver certainly made that point in the Alien movies. Of all the odd things, I had just finished Alien 3 when I found this one.

[–] irishtom99 9 years ago

1-well let all the air out of the ship,and then "build it back up"?? WTF. 2-they uncovered the nuclear core..they uncovered the nuclear core..they UNCOVERED