A while back, Christopher Mills blogged about his experience with the Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea TV series from the mid-'60s. I've never seen the show, but I did recently catch the movie it was based on when it was on cable. And I put off re-watching the Disney 20,000 Leagues to do it.
I'm not sure I made the right choice, but I did like Voyage for the most part. The cheesy Frankie Avalon love song they use for a theme doesn't fit the rest of the movie, and that's the least of the film's problems, but it's hard not to like Barbara Eden and Peter Lorre tooling around in an enormous sub with a possibly mad commander who's either going to save the world or destroy it.
In a plot timely enough that they've recently (and distastefully) re-released the movie in a "global warming" edition, Voyage tells the story of the Earth's rapid heating due to the Van Allen radiation belt's catching fire. The world's greatest scientists meet in New York to discuss solutions and two are given serious consideration. Dr. Zucco believes that the belt will burn itself out when it grows hot enough; Admiral Nelson disagrees and believes that only a nuclear explosion hitting the belt at just the right time in just the right place will snuff out the fire. The problem is that the solutions are diametrically opposed to each other. Zucco claims that Nelson's plan will trap the explosions in the Earth's atmosphere and destroy the Earth; Nelson says that if they wait for Zucco's solution to fail, it'll be far too late to implement the nukes as a backup.
Against the wishes of just about everyone on Earth - including his crew - Nelson takes his massive submarine, the experimental Seaview, to sea to get it into position. Thanks to the presence of a visiting psychologist on board, much is made of the stress of being cooped up in the sub for long periods of time and we begin to wonder who the strain is affecting more: the crew who don't want to be on the mission or Admiral Nelson for insisting on it.
The movie's supposed to be a tense, psychological drama but with an awesome submarine, an interesting crew, and a giant octopus. It succeeds on the setting and adventure. The Seaview seems like a cool place to live and hang out. I'm planning on watching the TV show now just so I can spend some more time on it. But the movie fails on the psychological level.
People act strangely all through the movie and it can't all be explained by stress, which - in spite of the psychologist's pet theory - doesn't explain how seasoned, hand-picked sailors can suddenly snap and become suicidal, mutinous saboteurs. Loyalties shift and motivations change all throughout, but it feels fake. For example, the Admiral's solution to the crisis is backed up by another famous scientist on board the Seaview, but everyone - including the sub's captain who supposedly looks on the Admiral like a father - concentrates solely on the Admiral's mental health, ignoring the scientist's input. And rather than do whatever they can to stop the crisis, military crewmen would rather desert their posts and spend their last remaining days at home with their families. I found all of the doubt and suspicion impossible to believe unless I gave in completely to the psychologist's theory, but we're never given a great reason to do that either.
I'm hoping that with a different plot though, the TV show will make better use of the great setting on the Seaview and be an enjoyable series. I'll let you know.
1 comment:
Some episodes are better, many are worse. But I much prefer the TV cast to the film cast. Start with the B&W first season, most of the best episodes of the series are from Season One.
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