In the fifties, when we saw these things we believed them. We believed the effects, or rather allowed he inadequacies in the effects to pass. And we believed the science too, more or less on the same terms.
Now of course matters have changed. So far as effects, we expect more. They are still pretty junky, you know and it may be a whole generation before effects are actually indiscernible from photographed “reality.” So when you watch one of these old things, there is a built in amusement value, a sort of juvenile amusement park pretense.
And on the science side too. Despite massive cold war investments in science education, just massive, the general knowledge of science in the viewing public has actually decreased since the period of this movie. Its an odd, odd coincidence that the quaint scientific artificialities here which should be seen in the same light as everything else here won’t be by most.
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Having said all that, this is one of the very best of scifi movies from this era. It has laughable effects, and the joke amplified knowing they weren’t so laughable at one time.
It has a profound nihilistic cold war influence. The world is doomed, absolutely, because of man’s blind stupidity on both sides and only scientists — of which there are dangerously few — can see the depressing truth. There are lots of great speeches here about that impending doom and a finale where the possibility of life overcoming its negative future just out of exuberant hope. Its like walking through a museum.
The story is one of those typical things, people from diverse backgrounds thrown together under stress. Death, romance, conflict, resolution.
And then there’s the science. You have to know, of course that the science is utterly bogus in every respect. If you accept this, then the whole thing merges into a sort of Lynchian surrealism, a trip quite literally to another world. That’s why I love this stuff. It really is a voyage to a mindset, a coherent world where everything is different expect for trivialities. Telephones still work the same way roughly. The clothes are familiar. People have the same shape. Much of the language is the same we use today. But all the stuff that matters, its part of an unknown world.
