Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea / Fantastic Voyage

Rating:
Summary: Super cast on Super sub SEAVIEW saves world!
Review: This movie is fun to the max. Walter Pidgeon, of Forbidden Planet fame, leads the charge as the "mad" admiral Nelson in command of the futuristic(if sometimes toy model)-looking SEAVIEW. The Van Allen radiation/magnetic fields have exploded and it's the mission of the Seaview to nuke it out of existence before "the day the earth caught fire" becomes a reality. With the exception of running low on oxygen, practically every possible problem ...plus several genuine surprises...menaces the sub before the well-done climax averts a well done earth. Peter Lorre is excellent as Admiral Nelson's main man (shades of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea!) and Robert Sterling does a good job as Nelson's captain who ponders a "legitimized" mutiny. This is a great family movie that should hold the attention of viewers of all ages. One "cooly" funny touch/scene: Watch Pidgeon and Lorre carefully calculate the precise trajectory and time a polaris-type missile must be fired by Seaview to blow-up/put-out the flaming Van Allen belts. No Cray super computer for our men on the super sub...They use a slide rule! Good show...

Rating:
Summary: Better Than The Television Series, But...
Review: This remains the most enjoyable of the "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" adventures that I recall seeing. Walter Pidgeon is at his absolute best as the driven Admiral Harriman Nelson. His performance is worth alone the admission price of this otherwise routine science fiction submarine thriller. It's a pity Irwin Allen never got his science correct nor his writing; otherwise both this film and the television series which followed could have been a credible underwater version of "Star Trek".

Rating:
Summary: Reality Goes to the Bottom of the Sea, and Stays There!
Review: To enjoy any movie, one must suspend disbelief. The problem with watching "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" is that, from beginning to end, the absurdities keep coming so thick and fast that suspension of disbelief would require the assistance of a powerful hallucinogen. If there is any other main-stream motion picture ever made that is packed with more pseudo-scientific babble and less understanding of science and technology, I have not seen it. The best moments of the movie are as silly as any Japanese monster movie, providing unintended laughs; the worst parts are simply abysmal. It is patently obvious that no one involved with the production of this movie had the slightest knowledge of either science or submarines or, if they did, they did not use it. From the absurd plot about the Van Allen belt to the even more absurd solution to the problem, and from a diving alarm that sounds like a runaway semi, to impossible diving depths, there is no believability anywhere in this movie. The Seaview itself, however, should be the envy of every naval architect. Not only are its compartments larger and have higher overheads (ceilings to landlubbers) than any compartment on any surface warship, the Seaview actually is larger on the inside than the outside! And while I realize the movie was made in 1961, whose decision was it to put tail fins on a submarine, for crying out loud? The most important thing this movie accomplished was to teach Barbara Eden to play comic fantasy with a straight face, thereby preparing her for her role as Jeannie in a TV sitcom that was far more realistic than this movie.

Rating:
Summary: A good undersea adventure.
Review: Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea is a good action adventure story of mankind at odds with nature when nature runs wild. The struggle of Adm. Nelson a scientist/adventurer and the submarine S.S.R.N. Seaview in their quest to save the world from the atomic radation of the Van Allen Belt is as exciting today as it was when first written in 1961. And the future advances in science in undersea exploratin in this story as the Seaview and her exploration craft have now come to pass, and the Seaview herself may soon come into being as science continues forward with new metals and the new revelation " Transparent Aluminum " the Army has developed is like the " Herculite " of the Seaview's viewports. In todays stories of fantistic worlds, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea is still a fine adventure of the events here on the earth from danger from the Van Allen Belts to unknown life forms under the sea that mankind has still yet to discover. END

Rating:
Summary: Seaview's first voyage to the bottom of the sea.
Review: Watch the 1961 motion picture, then read this excellent adaptation of the original Irwin Allen story by Theodore Sturgeon. While the movie is OK in it's own right and was one of Fox's success stories in the summer of '61, this novelization fills in many of the story gaps in the movie and for my money, in many instances is more exciting than the movie. There is more background and interaction between Nelson, Crane, and a character missing from the movie...Chip Morton. And the real villain that nearly destroys Seaview isn't the religious zealot Avarez, it's....I won't spoil the ending. Find this book...and my own as well; "Seaview: The Making of 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea'" and the original "Voyage" novel by Sturgeon make good companions for those that are fans of this sci-fi show from the near future. END