So we're up to disc two, side two of Sci-Fi Classics, and the first of our color features. Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet was one of my favorites as a kid, being as it is a relatively plotless piece of sci-fi eye candy about some astronauts who, in the far-flung year of 2010, land on Venus, stroll around, get attacked by some monster, stroll around, then get in their rocketship and fly away. The film was actually constructed out of pieces of a Russian sci-fi film, with a few token newly filmed shots of Basil Rathebone in a space station thrown in for good measure, compliments of American producer Roger Corman. I'm not familiar with the plot of the original Soviet film, so I'm not going to compare the versions.

What I will say is that, although Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet will undoubtedly prove too slow moving for many people who have been raised in the era when sci-fi simply means "action film with some future stuff," I personally love it as much now as I did as a kid. The special effects are of the archaic "rocket on a wire" style that I cherish, and the sets are surreal, wild, and imaginative -- and accomplished entirely with actual physical objects, this being decades before everyone relied on computer generated landscapes and prog rock album cover illustrations. Sure there isn't much going on other than some guys in spacesuits walking around, but it's still cool, and on their walk they do get attacked by carnivorous plants, lizard men, and a pterodactyl. Ad then one astronaut sneaks up and pulls a brontosaurus' tail just for kicks.

Of course, you wouldn't want to rely too heavily on some of the science in the film. We've learned a little more about Venus in the ensuing few decades, so I doubt we'll be tooling about its surface in hover cars any time soon, but then, actual scientific knowledge is often the hobgoblin of fun science fiction. I'd rather watch 70 minutes of guys fighting monsters on Venus than 70 minutes of a guy explaining to me why there can't possibly be any life on Venus.

Labels: Set: Sci-Fi Classics