This Island Earth Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
cover]]This Island Earth is a 1955 science fiction film directed by Joseph M. Newman. The film is also known as War of the Planets. It was filmed in Technicolor and re-released (significantly cut and with much additional non-TIE footage) in 1996 as Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie.
This Island Earth stars Jeff Morrow as the alien Exeter, Faith Domergue as Dr. Ruth Adams, and Rex Reason as Dr. Cal Meacham.
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Aliens from the planet Metaluna come to Earth seeking scientists
to help them defend their planet in the war against the evil Zagons.
Exeter, the leader of the small group of aliens,
takes two of the reluctant scientists back to his war-torn planet
in a flying saucer.
The special effects are gorgeous for the time,
though decidedly eclipsed by modern effects,
and the flying saucer, though relatively orthodox,
is well-designed and detailed.
The scientists (and aliens) are deeply involved in what was the cutting-edge research of the day.
Columbia Broadcasting System had come out with a form of color television which used one electron gun and one set of phosphors,
rather than the three that won out. This worked by having a little television screen inside the big television receiver.
Between it and the larger screen that the viewers would look at
was a disk divided into three transparent sectors, colored red, blue, and green. The disk was intended to turn synchonously
to match the signals sent from the broadcasting station: first a whole red image, then a blue one, and then a green one.
It is this to which the disk of the Metalunans' "Interociter" refers. At the time, there was only black-and-white television available commercially.
Another achievement of the period was the flying of a bomber across the Atlantic entirely automatically. This was touted as a triumph for robotics
that would someday be used to enable passenger aircraft to fly without pilots. However, it really was used to try out early cruise missile technology, which was of very low capability.
Similarly, jets were not yet proven for commercial travel, so the scenes of Jeff Morrow's character flying one made him appear exciting.
The show strives to get some excitement in the plot, though the monster doesn't really do much.
There is a scene of being trapped in a vertical, transparent cylinder whose purpose is to avoid the bends on reaching the planet;
similar tubes appear in the Lost in Space television show.
Even though the episodic nature of the film makes its script seem to have been slapped together by the studio, it comes from a novel written by Raymond F. Jones in 1952.
At the time, some European film reviewers noted the similarity to the Earth scientists being recruited by aliens
to help them fight a war against other aliens with the American acquisition of German and other European scientists to help fight the Cold War.
The original motion picture This Island Earth is considerably longer than the edited version aired in Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, which removes several sequences, some important (like a sequence of the Zagon fleet attacking Metaluna), both in order to make the film fit a shorter 73-minute running time and to accomodate several "host segments."
This is an Article on This Island Earth. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About This Island Earth Plot
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