Visually the whole film is very striking offering some lovely matte paintings, sets, models, and that typically dapper Victorian attire that you see in many Wells and Verne adaptations. These guys are mainly men in rather cheap basic looking rubber suits but some of the main aliens are animated by Ray Harryhausen including the wonderful lunar centipedes. The alien creatures known as Selenites are bug-like in appearance, bipedal and live underground like ants. The big bug idea could also have spawned the likes of 'Starship Troopers', mainly the huge centipede-like insects (space cows) that roam the lunar surface. It seems Mr Burton liked this particular sci-fi film. This is my first ever viewing of the film and straight away you can see many little sequences which have been homaged by other sci-fi films, mainly 'Mars Attacks'. Putting aside the real science plot holes (of which there are absolutely tonnes), the film itself is highly enjoyable. I think its fair to say back in the early 1900's the knowledge on resources/materials required for space travel/space crafts in general was probably very limited and underestimated, so what we see in this adaptation could well have been real concepts of the time (maybe not the moon bugs though). Whether or not this was an actual belief of the era or just Well's fantasy, I don't know (I'm not even sure if this is accurate with the original source material). The whole idea that the two main characters in this film use deep sea diving gear on the lunar surface is cute. This of course doesn't mean people in 64 thought there were aliens running around up there, but back when the original story was published in 1901 I'm guessing people could of thought it possible. Interesting to note that this film was of course made before man actually reached the lunar surface (1969). There on the moon they encounter insect-like aliens hungry for knowledge. It tells the story of how his eccentric inventor neighbour creates a substance that defies or eliminates gravity thus allowing them to fly to the moon in a homemade space sphere (hexagon). The whole story is narrated by the main character as an old man. Although it seems this film isn't as surreal or fantastical as the original story surprisingly. Obviously a more fantastical story from Wells and this British made film certainly has that outlandish angle that's for sure. Wells story to feature encounters with alien lifeforms after his most famous sci-fi story The War of the Worlds. Juran thought his film needed a beautiful damsel in distress angle for the wider audience. Why did they alter the source material? I guess director Nathan H. Bit of a glaring mistake with this adaptation. Or in this case the first men, and one woman, in the moon.
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