MovieChat Forums > Fantastic Voyage (1966) Discussion > Wow, is this movie a stinker! [SPOILERS]

Wow, is this movie a stinker! [SPOILERS]


The effects are laughable, even for back then. Star Trek was doing far better with far less, as was Stanley Kubrick in 2001 about a year or so later.

No explanation whatsoever is given for how the miniaturization process works. Not even a stupid one, or an off-hand one. I know that this is the entire conceit of the movie, which you have to accept in order for there to even be a movie, but you HAVE to give the audience something to go on. They gave us nothing, except that, for some other unexplained reason, nuclear fuel won't miniaturize. Right, because there's a difference between elements that way.

The sets of inside the body just blow. They look completely fake.

There's no light source when they're inside the body. How are we seeing anything at all?

They're supposedly scuba diving in the capillaries. Where are the air bubbles when they breathe out?

Our hero is travelling from the plasma, where everybody's floating (yeah, right), to the lung, where there's air. Where is the plasma/air boundary? Why isn't there a boundary between liquid and gas where they made a hole?

"The Proteus may already be destroyed." So what? Whatever's left is still inside and is going to expand and destroy this guys skull! And even if not - "may be"? Is that really good enough? Yeah, it may be destroyed, so we should just leave it in there, because lord knows, if I'm wrong, it'll just kill this guy who's continued survival is a vital national interest. No big deal.

Then they re-enlarge, and everyone is fine. But, oh wait, didn't we send five guys inside? Where did the fifth guy go? No one seems to give a sh!t about Donald Pleasance. No concern for his life whatsoever.

And finally, they don't even let us know if the guy survived. Isn't this slightly important to the whole plot of the movie? Wow, this is really poor screenplay writing.




I want the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.

reply

It was a different time. A computer wasn't even 20 years old. The manned space program had existed for less than a decade. How much more they were capable of IDK? I'm not saying they shouldn't have done better with errors but the stuff they did was probably resonsonable given the budget they had.

Kisskiss, Bangbang

reply

I enjoyed watching the movie- I saw it for the first time on TV (Film 4) I found the special effects convincing- they still hold up well. Later on I watched a program about botony in the evening on BBC4 which showed up to date views of plant cells. I said that if Fantastic Voyage were made now, they would show cells vying for position like the plant cells jostling to get more sunlight. I loved the painted cloths and plastic models used in the special effects in the movie, and the submarine moving past wisps of polyester stuffing under black light. Much more effective than blah CGI.

reply

i watched it too on film4 :)
i thought it was pretty good effects for the time

reply

yeah didn't enjoy it either, couldn't hold my attention

i thought the movie was too serious, they went for a sci-fi thriller which didn't fit given the ridiculous plot, would have been better if the movie was a little more campy


5/10



so many movies, so little time

reply