It’s meant to surprise, delight and spark conversation and the new Giant Roadside Mural: Tribute to Apollo 11, in west central Ohio, certainly does all that and MORE!Įach year famous roadside muralist, artist John Cerney chooses a topic or theme and donates one of his works of art to a community or organization. Take all the gigantic scientific plot holes and complete lack of realism as part of the fun (as was intended), and you can't fail not to enjoy."Tribute to Apollo 11" in West Central Ohio Its a visual spectacle, an effects film, an early 60's blockbuster if you will. But this film is pure and utter silly fantasy (no further explanations required for that) its not a film for actors and its not really about the characters either. So to go backwards and make a film so 'medieval' must have been a hard sell, despite being an adaptation. His constant yelling and rather frantic red-faced performance does become tiresome.Īt the time this film was made, space travel and reaching the moon (the space race) was at its peak with public interest. His performance was a strange one as it comes across as though he's improvising, it doesn't feel like he's in character or simply he can't act too well. Then you have the main character of Cavor played quite oddly by Lionel Jeffries. He's always shouting at his fiance Kate who does pretty much nothing accept look pretty and shout back. Bedford (Edward Judd) has that stereotypical male chauvinistic streak about him coming across as rather unfriendly and rude. The only downside to the film for me was the bland characters. The small space flight sequences at the start of the film are a joy to behold, very dated but very effective (not too far from reality either with the flight suits) surely everyone will appreciate them. I think that concept was started by the 1960 film 'The Time Machine'. Even the inside of the space sphere is lined with that diamond shaped patterned leather upholstery effect. Visually the whole film is very striking offering some lovely matte paintings, sets, models, and that typically dapper Victorian attire that you see in many Wells and Verne adaptations. These guys are mainly men in rather cheap basic looking rubber suits but some of the main aliens are animated by Ray Harryhausen including the wonderful lunar centipedes. The alien creatures known as Selenites are bug-like in appearance, bipedal and live underground like ants. The big bug idea could also have spawned the likes of 'Starship Troopers', mainly the huge centipede-like insects (space cows) that roam the lunar surface. It seems Mr Burton liked this particular sci-fi film. This is my first ever viewing of the film and straight away you can see many little sequences which have been homaged by other sci-fi films, mainly 'Mars Attacks'. Putting aside the real science plot holes (of which there are absolutely tonnes), the film itself is highly enjoyable. I think its fair to say back in the early 1900's the knowledge on resources/materials required for space travel/space crafts in general was probably very limited and underestimated, so what we see in this adaptation could well have been real concepts of the time (maybe not the moon bugs though). Whether or not this was an actual belief of the era or just Well's fantasy, I don't know (I'm not even sure if this is accurate with the original source material). The whole idea that the two main characters in this film use deep sea diving gear on the lunar surface is cute. This of course doesn't mean people in 64 thought there were aliens running around up there, but back when the original story was published in 1901 I'm guessing people could of thought it possible. Interesting to note that this film was of course made before man actually reached the lunar surface (1969). There on the moon they encounter insect-like aliens hungry for knowledge.
It tells the story of how his eccentric inventor neighbour creates a substance that defies or eliminates gravity thus allowing them to fly to the moon in a homemade space sphere (hexagon). The whole story is narrated by the main character as an old man.
Although it seems this film isn't as surreal or fantastical as the original story surprisingly. Obviously a more fantastical story from Wells and this British made film certainly has that outlandish angle that's for sure. Wells story to feature encounters with alien lifeforms after his most famous sci-fi story The War of the Worlds. Juran thought his film needed a beautiful damsel in distress angle for the wider audience. Why did they alter the source material? I guess director Nathan H. Bit of a glaring mistake with this adaptation. Or in this case the first men, and one woman, in the moon.
0 kommentar(er)
