I got a real kick out of watching the hokey special effects. A space suit with a helmet that uses screws to hold it in place, and snaps up the front? How effective is that? And the odd contraption that spins the three sea-faring astronauts, and conveniently subsides in place for the first to regain consciousness to slide out of it, then rotate his two buddies in turn to exit the mechanism. I wondered who would start the thing back in motion upon re-entry
And the gyro scope! It reminded me of Jodie Foster in Contact, where she journeys through space and time in a similar invention. The extensive use of wood puts Starship Voyager to shame, and the lack of zero gravity (drinking wine to celebrate take off) is downright amusing.
But what really made the movie work for me, was the poetic language as Virginia Nicholl Debra Paget) realizes they are all going to die. We could live to we are really old, and die quietly in our sleep, but how much better to go out as star, a blazing star, for all the world to see! To which Barbicane replies, that if he ever gets back to Earth alive, he will make sure all future voyages will include a woman, for hope. How could they possibly have foreseen the catastrophic re-entry into Earth's atmosphere by Space Shuttle Columbia in February 2003? Where not just one but two women, Commander Laurel Clark and Dr. Kalpana Chawla joined five men in instant death. Sure, the parallels to Power X and atomic warfare were already obvious in 1958, but the simplistic plot tells a whole lot more. To quote a great man, 'The cause in which they died will continue. Mankind is led into the darkness beyond our world by the inspiration of discovery and the longing to understand. Our journey into space will go on.'
