Movies - Fantastic Voyage

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	Movies - Fantastic Voyage

Fantastic Voyage is a 1966 science fiction film written by Harry Kleiner. 20th Century Fox wanted a book that would be a tie-in with the movie, and hired Isaac Asimov to write a novelization based on the screenplay. Because the novelization was released six months before the movie, many people mistakenly believed Asimov's book had inspired the movie. The movie inspired an animated television series.

Synopsis

The United States and the Soviet Union have both developed technology that allows matter to be miniaturized using a process that shrinks individual atoms, but its value is limited because objects shrunk will return to normal size after a period of time - the smaller an object is made, the less time passes before it reverts.

A scientist named Jan Benes, working behind the Iron Curtain, figures out how to make the shrinking process work for an unlimited time. With the help of the CIA, Benes escapes to the west, but an attempted assassination leaves him comatose with a blood clot in his brain. The US Government is anxious to save his life so that he can share the secret of unlimited miniaturization.

A group of scientists including Grant, Capt. Bill Owens, Dr. Michaels, Dr. Peter Duval, and his assistant, Cora Peterson, enter a submarine, the Proteus, which is miniaturized and injected into Benes. Because of the process's time limit - the Proteus is reduced to one micrometre in length - the team has only one hour to find and repair the clot before certain death: once the miniaturized submarine begins to revert to normal size, it will become a target for Benes' immune system.

Many obstacles hinder the crew as they proceed on their journey. They are forced to travel through the heart (a temporary cardiac arrest must be induced to avoid destructive turbulence), the inner ear (all in the lab must remain quiet to prevent similar turbulence) and the alveoli of the lungs (where they replenish their supply of oxygen). They cannibalize their communications radio in order to repair the surgical laser used to remove the blood clot. It becomes obvious there is a saboteur on the mission. They finally reach the brain and the clot with only some five minutes remaining, barely sufficient to operate and then follow the veins to the removal site. The saboteur acts overtly at this point.

Logical flaw

In the original movie the crew (apart from the saboteur) manage to leave Benes' body safely before reverting to normal size, but the Proteus remains inside, as do the atoms of the saboteur's body (digested together by a white blood cell). Isaac Asimov pointed out that this was a serious logical flaw in the plot, since the submarine should also revert to normal size, killing Benes in the process. Therefore, in his novelization Asimov had the crew provoke the white cell into following them, so that it drags the submarine to the tearduct. The submarine then expands outside Benes' body.

Cast

Jean Del Val
as Jan Benes
Stephen Boyd
as Grant
William Redfield as Capt. Bill Owens
Donald Pleasence
as Dr. Michaels
Arthur Kennedy
as Peter Duval
Raquel Welch
as Cora Peterson

Further novelization

Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain, was written by Isaac Asimov as an attempt to develop and present his own story apart from the 1966 screenplay. This novel is not a sequel to the original, but instead is a separate story taking place in the Soviet Union with an entirely different set of characters.

Fantastic Voyage: Microcosm is a third interpretation written by Kevin J. Anderson, published in 2001. This version has the crew of the Proteus explore the body of a dead alien that crash-lands on earth, and updates the story with such modern concepts as nanotechnology (replacing killer white cells).

Links to other motion pictures/television

The set design used for the brain has a strong resemblance to a set used in the Lost In Space series' second episode, suggesting that parts of Fantastic Voyage were filmed during 1965 and the brain set used for Lost In Space.

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