Fantastic Voyage

Fantastic Voyage is a 1966 science fiction film written by Harry Kleiner, based on a story by Otto Klement and Jerome Bixby. The film is about a scientist who's nearly killed in an assassination attempt, and the medical team who shrink to microscopic size and venture into his body to repair damage to his brain. However, an unknown assailant tries to sabotage their mission. The original story took place in the 19th century and was meant to be a Jules Verneâ€"inspired adventure tale with a sense of wonder. Kleiner abandoned all but the concept of miniaturization and added a Cold War element. It was directed by Richard Fleischer and stars Stephen Boyd, Raquel Welch, Edmond O'Brien and Donald Pleasence.

Bantam Books obtained the rights for a paperback novelization based on the screenplay and approached Isaac Asimov to write it. Because the novelization was released six months before the movie, many people mistakenly believed Asimov's book had inspired the film.

The movie inspired an animated television series.

Plot

The United States and the Soviet Union have both developed technology that can miniaturize matter by shrinking individual atoms, but only for a limited amount of time, depending on how small the item is miniaturized.

Scientist Jan Benes, working behind the Iron Curtain, has figured out how to make the process work indefinitely. With the help of the CIA, he escapes to the West, but an attempted assassination leaves him comatose with a blood clot in his brain.

To save his life, agent Charles Grant (Stephen Boyd), pilot Captain Bill Owens (William Redfield), Dr. Michaels (Donald Pleasence), surgeon Dr. Peter Duval (Arthur Kennedy) and his assistant Cora Peterson (Raquel Welch) are placed aboard a specially designed submarine at the C.M.D.F. (Combined Miniaturized Deterrent Forces) facilities. The submarine, named the Proteus, is then miniaturized and injected into Benes. The ship is reduced to one micrometer, giving the team one hour to remove the clot. After 60 minutes the submarine will begin to revert to its normal size and become vulnerable to Benes' immune system.

The crew faces many obstacles during the mission. An arteriovenous fistula forces them to detour through the heart, where cardiac arrest must be induced to avoid turbulence, through the inner ear (all outside personnel have to remain silent to prevent turbulence) and replenish their supply of oxygen in the lungs. When the surgical laser needed to destroy the clot is damaged, it becomes obvious there is a saboteur on the mission. They cannibalize their radio to repair the device. When they finally reach the clot, there are only six minutes remaining to operate and then exit the body.

Before the mission, Grant was briefed that Duval was the prime suspect as a potential surgical assassin. But as the mission progresses, he pieces the evidence together and begins to suspect Michaels. During the critical phase of the operation, Dr. Michaels knocks Owens out and takes control of the Proteus while the rest of the crew is outside for the operation. Duval successfully removes the clot with the laser, but Michaels tries to crash the sub into the clot area to kill Benes. Grant fires the laser at the ship causing it to veer away and crash. Michaels is trapped in the wreckage and killed when white blood cells attack and destroy the Proteus. Grant saves Owens from the ship and they all swim desperately to one of the eyes where they escape via a teardrop seconds before they return to normal size.

In the original screenplay, there was a follow-up scene where we learn that, because of brain damage caused by the submarine, Benes no longer remembers the formula for unlimited miniaturization. Surviving stills suggest this scene was filmed but never used.

Cast

• Stephen Boyd as Grant
• Raquel Welch as Cora
• Edmond O'Brien as General Carter
• Donald Pleasence as Dr. Michaels
• Arthur O'Connell as Colonel Donald Reid           
• William Redfield as Captain Bill Owens
• Arthur Kennedy as Dr. Duval
• Jean Del Val as Jan Benes
• Barry Coe as communications aide
• Ken Scott as Secret Service
• Shelby Grant as nurse
• James Brolin as technician

Production

Isaac Asimov, asked to write the novel from the script, declared that the script was full of plot holes, and received permission to write the book the way he wanted. The novel came out first because he wrote quickly and because of delays in filming. Director Richard Fleischer originally studied medicine and human anatomy in college before choosing to be a movie director.

For the technical and artistic elaboration of the subject, Richard Fleischer asked for the collaboration of two people of the crew he had worked with on the production of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the film he directed for Walt Disney in 1954. The designer of the Nautilus from the Jules Verne adaptation, Harper Goff, also designed the Proteus; the same technical adviser, Fred Zendar, collaborated on both productions.

The military headquarters is 100×30 metres, the Proteus 14×8. The artery, in resin and fiberglass, is 33 metres long and 7 metres wide; the heart is 45×10; the brain 70×33. The plasma effect is produced by chief operator Ernest Laszlo via the use of multicolored turning lights, placed on the outside translucent decors.

Frederick Schodt's book The Astro Boy Essays: Osamu Tezuka, Mighty Atom, and the Manga/Anime Revolution claims that FOX wanted to use ideas from an episode of Japanese animator Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy in the film, but never credited him.

Biological issues and accuracy

In the original movie, the crew (apart from the saboteur) manage to leave Benes's body safely before reverting to normal size, but the Proteus remains inside, as do the remains of the saboteur's body (albeit digested by a white blood cell), and several gallons (full scale) of a carrier solution (presumably saline) used in the injection syringe. Isaac Asimov pointed out that this was a serious logical flaw in the plot, since the submarine (even if reduced to bits of debris) would 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 tear duct, and its wreckage expands outside Benes's body. Asimov solved the problem of the syringe fluid by having the staff inject only a very small amount of miniaturized fluid into Benes, minimizing its effect on him when it expands.

Asimov also dealt with another logical flaw in the original, involving extra oxygen needed by the submarine's crew members. In the film, the submarine enters the lung and crew members pump oxygen into the submarine's stores. However, Asimov knew that the miniaturized crew members would not be able to breathe unminiaturized oxygen molecules. So, in the novel, the oxygen from the lung is processed through a miniaturizing device installed on board the submarine; there is no such device in the original film script.

There is also a flaw when the laser runs out. Grant uses it to stop the Proteus. After he fails to save Michaels, the four survivors swim for Benes' optic nerve, leaving the laser behind in Benes' head. No mention is made regarding this serious flaw, meaning the laser should have grown back, killing Benes.

Music

The score was composed and conducted by Leonard Rosenman. The composer deliberately wrote no music for the first four reels of the film, before the protagonists enter the human body. Rosenman wrote that "the harmony for the entire score is almost completely atonal except for the very end when our heroes grow to normality".

The complete film score was released in 1998 on compact disc, on Film Score Monthly records.

Reception

The film received mostly positive reviews and a few criticisms. The weekly entertainment-trade magazine Variety gave the film a positive pre-release review, stating, "The lavish production, boasting some brilliant special effects and superior creative efforts, is an entertaining, enlightening excursion through inner spaceâ€"the body of a man." Bosley Crowther of the New York Times summarized, "Yessir, for straight science-fiction, this is quite a filmâ€"the most colorful and imaginative since Destination Moon" (1950). Richard Schickel of Life Magazine wrote that the rewards would be "plentiful" to audiences who get over the "real whopper" of suspended disbelief required. He found that though the excellent special effects and sets could distract from the scenery's scientific purpose in the story, the "old familiar music of science fiction" in lush new arrangements was a "true delight", and the seriousness with which screenwriter Kleiner and director Fleischer treated the story made it more believable and fun. Schickel made note of, but dismissed, other critics' allegations of "camp."

As of 2012, the film holds a 92% approval rating at the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus being: "The special effects may be a bit dated today, but Fantastic Voyage still holds up well as an imaginative journey into the human body."

Awards and honors

The film won two Academy Awards and was nominated for three more:

• Academy Awards (1966)

Won: Best Art Direction â€" Color (Jack Martin Smith, Dale Hennesy, Walter M. Scott, Stuart A. Reiss)

Won: Best Special Effects (Art Cruickshank)

Nominated: Best Cinematography (Ernest Laszlo)

Nominated: Best Film Editing (William B. Murphy)

Nominated: Best Sound Editing (Walter Rossi)

• American Film Institute lists
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies â€" Nominated
• AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores â€" Nominated
• AFI's 10 Top 10 â€" Nominated Science Fiction Film

Adaptations

Novelization

After acquiring the film's paperback novelization rights, Bantam Books approached Isaac Asimov to write the novelization, offering him a flat sum of $5,000 with no royalties involved. In his autobiography In Joy Still Felt, Asimov writes, "I turned down the proposal out of hand. Hackwork, I said. Beneath my dignity." However, Bantam Books persisted, and at a meeting with Marc Jaffe and Marcia Nassiter on April 21, 1965, Asimov agreed to read the screenplay.

In the novelization's introduction, Asimov states that he was rather reluctant to write the book because he believed that the miniaturization of matter was physically impossible. But he decided that it was still good fodder for story-telling and that it could still make for some intelligent reading. Plus it was known that 20th Century Fox wanted someone with some science-fiction clout to help promote the film. To his credit, aside from the initial "impossibility" of the shrinking machine, Asimov went to great lengths to accurately portray what it would actually be like to be shrunk to that scale, such as the lights on the sub being highly penetrating to normal matter, time distortion, and other side effects that are completely ignored in the movie.

As noted above, Asimov was bothered by the way the Proteus was left in Benes, and in a subsequent meeting with Jaffe he insisted that he would have to change the ending so that the submarine was brought out. Asimov also felt the need to gain permission from his usual science fiction publisher, Doubleday, to do the novel. Doubleday did not object, and had suggested his name to Bantam in the first place. Asimov began work on the novel on May 31, and completed it on July 23.

Asimov did not want any of his books, even a film novelization, to appear only in paperback, so in August he persuaded Austin Olney of Houghton Mifflin to publish a hardcover edition, assuring him that the book would sell at least eight thousand copies, which it did. However, since the rights to the story were held by Otto Klement, who had co-written the original story treatment, Asimov would not be entitled to any royalties. By the time the hardcover edition was published in March 1966, Houghton Mifflin had persuaded Klement to allow Asimov to have a quarter of the royalties. Klement also negotiated for The Saturday Evening Post to serialize an abridged version of the novel, and he agreed to give Asimov half the payment for it. Fantastic Voyage appeared in the February 26 and March 12, 1966 issues of the Post.

Bantam Books released the paperback edition of the novel in September 1966 to coincide with the release of the film.

Harry Harrison, reviewing the Asimov novelization, called it a "Jerry-built monstrosity", praising the descriptions of science-fiction events as "Asimov at his best" while condemning the narrative framework as "inane drivel".

Related novels and comics

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).

A comic book adaptation of the film was released by Gold Key Comics in 1967. Drawn by industry legend Wally Wood, the book followed the plot of the movie with general accuracy, but many scenes were depicted differently and/or outright dropped, and the ending was given an epilogue similar as that seen in some of the early draft scripts for the film.

A parody of the film titled Fantastecch Voyage was published in Mad Magazine. It was illustrated by Mort Drucker and written by Larry Siegel in regular issue #110, April 1967. The advertising-business-themed spoof has the crewâ€"from L.S.M.F.T. (Laboratory Sector for Making Folks Tiny)â€"sent to inject decongestant into a badly plugged-up nose.

1968 animated television series

Two years after the film was released, ABC aired an animated series of the same name on Saturday mornings. The series was produced by Filmation.

In the series, a different team of experts performed their missions in a craft known as Voyager, a submarine which featured wedge-shaped wings and large, swept T-tail, and was capable of flight. A model kit of Voyager was offered by Aurora Model Company for several years, and has become a sought-after collectors' item since then.

As of June 2008, the Voyager kit has been re-released by the Moebius model company.

Similarly-themed movies

Innerspace (1987)

In 1987, director Joe Dante made Innerspace, which reworked the story of Fantastic Voyage, but remade as a comedy starring Dennis Quaid, Martin Short, and Meg Ryan. A test miniaturized sub and pilot are injected into a grocery store clerk in error, instead of a test rabbit as planned. Now trapped in an unwitting human's body, the pilot needs to work with the clerk to escape and stop the bad guys from trying to steal the prototype technology.

Osmosis Jones (2001)

Antibody (2002)

Antibody, a movie closely based on Fantastic Voyage, was released on the SciFi channel in 2002. In this film a submarine with its crew is miniaturized and injected into the body of a terrorist, to prevent an attack on Washington D.C.

Sequel/remake plans

Plans for a sequel or remake have been in discussion since at least 1984, but the project has been stuck in development hell ever since. In 1984, Isaac Asimov was approached to write Fantastic Voyage II, out of which a movie would be made. Asimov "was sent a suggested outline" that mirrored the movie Innerspace and "involved two vessels in the bloodstream, one American and one Soviet, and what followed was a kind of submicroscopic version of World War III". Asimov was against such an approach. Following a dispute between publishers, the original commissioners of the novel approached Philip José Farmer, who "wrote a novel and sent [in] the manuscript" that was rejected despite "stick[ing] tightly to the outline [that was sent to Asimov]". "It dealt with World War III in the bloodstream, and it was full of action and excitement". Although Asimov urged the publisher to accept Farmer's manuscript, it was insisted that Asimov write the novel. So, Asimov eventually wrote the book in his own way (completely different in plot from what [Farmer] had written), which was eventually published by Doubleday in 1987 as Fantastic Voyage II and "dealt not with competing submarines in the bloodstream, but with one submarine, with [an] American hero cooperating (not entirely voluntarily) with four Soviet crew members". The novel was not made into a movie, however.

James Cameron was also interested in directing a remake (since at least 1997), but decided to devote his efforts to his Avatar project. He still remained open to the idea of producing a feature based on his own screenplay, and in 2007, 20th Century Fox announced that pre-production on the project was finally underway. Roland Emmerich agreed to direct, but rejected the script written by Cameron. Marianne and Cormac Wibberley were hired to write a new script, but the 2007â€"2008 Writers Guild of America strike delayed filming, and Emmerich began working on 2012 instead.

In spring 2010, Paul Greengrass was considering directing the remake from a script written by Shane Salerno and produced by James Cameron, but later dropped out to be replaced by Shawn Levy. It is intended that the film be shot in native stereoscopic 3D.

In popular culture

Many films, television shows, cartoons and video games parodied Fantastic Voyage:

• There was a Muppet Babies episode "Scooter's Uncommon Cold", which has the babies imagining themselves shrunken down to fight viruses inside Scooter's body. There were even clips of this film.
• A 1980 episode of Saturday Night Live parodies the story with a miniaturized team of dentists sent to fix Anwar Sadat's teeth. Host Kirk Douglas plays the team leader.
• The film is alluded to in Season 4 of the medical drama series House, where the Emmy Award-winning 2008 episode "House's Head" jokes about exploring a patient's brain in a miniaturized submarine.
• The show is parodied in Season 2, Episode 25 of the animated Nickelodeon TV series Rugrats, and Season 1, Episode 14 of The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, especially an episode of Invader Zim, entitled "NanoZiM", where ZiM invades Dib's body, as well as in The Fairly Oddparents episode entitled "Tiny Timmy".
• Two The Ren & Stimpy Show episodes parody the story, namely "The Cat That Laid The Golden Hairball" from season 2 and "Blazing Entrails" from season 4.
• In "Journey to the Centre of the Punk" of The Mighty Boosh, Howard and Lester shrink to microscopic size to fight a malignant jazz cell infecting Vince.
• It was also parodied on The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror XV". "Parasites Lost", Episode 2 of Season 3 of Futurama, is another Fantastic Voyage parody.
• "Fruitastic VoyOrange", Episode 12 of Season 1 of The High Fructose Adventures of Annoying Orange was also a Fantastic Voyage Parody.
• Another Fantastic Voyage parody was "Itsy Bitsy Enemy Within", an episode of Pucca, where Tobe and his minions go inside of Garu's body to mess with his life.
• Fantastic Voyage was also parodied in an episode of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show, where grandpa swallows Wayne and his family.
• Cow and Chicken did also parody Fantastic Voyage in an episode where Chicken ends up inside of cow in "Journey to the Center of Cow".
• There was also an episode of Lilo & Stitch that parodied Fantastic Voyage.
• It was also parodied in an episode of Space Goofs called "Inside Gorgious", and an episode of Oggy and the Cockroaches called "Globulopolis".
• It was also parodied in an episode of Sidekick called "Internal Affairs", where Master XOX invades Eric's body.
• Fantastic Voyage was parodied in the Dexter's Laboratory episode "Fantastic Boyage."
• Fantastic Voyage was parodied in the Codename: Kids Next Door episode "Operation: S.P.R.O.U.T."
• Fantastic Voyage was Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode "Unremarkable Voyage"
• Tiny Toons Adventures did a parody of Fantastic Voyage in the episode "Inside Plucky Duck."
• It was also parodied in SpongeBob SquarePants in two episodes, as "Squidtastic Voyage" and "The Inside Job".
• It was also parodied in The Mask: The Animated Series as "Fantashtick Voyage".
• Fantastic Voyage was also parodied in the "Journey to the Center of Mason" episode of Wizards of Waverly Place.
• Batman: The Brave and the Bold also made a parody of Fantastic Voyage inside of Batman in "Journey to the Center of the Bat".
• "The Journey" episode of Animorphs is based on, and mentions, Fantastic Voyage.
• In the "Emission Impossible" episode of Family Guy, Stewie miniaturizes himself and a spaceship to enter Peter's body and prevent Peter and Lois from having another baby.
• It was also parodied in the entire show, Ozzy & Drix, as well as the theatrical pilot, Osmosis Jones.
• Regular Show also even made a Fantastic Voyage parodied episode called "Cool Cubed", where Thomas freezes his brain after chugging down a "Cool Cubed" slushie. Because of that, Mordecai and Rigby travel into his head to stop it from freezing his brain's core.
• The Epcot attraction Body Wars was based on the film.
• The movie's title is parodied in the fifth novel in the Franny K. Stein series, Frantastic Voyage.
• An episode of Phineas and Ferb titled "Journey to the Center of Candace" had the boys in a submarine shrunken down and inside their big sister Candace.
• In the 1977 Doctor Who story The Invisible Enemy, the Doctor and his companion Leela are cloned, miniaturized and injected into the Doctor's host body in attempt to locate the nucleus of an intelligent virus which is possessing the Time Lord. Many aspects of the original film are used including some areas of set-design, the use of hostile anti-bodies and the tear-duct as a means of escape.
• Another Doctor Who episode from 2014, "Into the Dalek", has the Doctor and his companion being miniaturized again. Only this time they go inside a Dalek.
• The music video for Placebo single "Special K" is based loosely on the film.
• The Venture Bros. episode "The Diving Bell Vs. The Butter-Glider" includes a parody of Fantastic Voyage.
• Teen Titans, Season 3, episode 4, "Crash", has Beast Boy and the H.I.V.E villain Gizmo, shrunk and injected into Cyborg's body to remove a computer virus from Cyborg's central operating system.
• In Gunbuster Episode 5, one of the small spacecraft assisting the crippled Exelion battleship is the Proteus, though there is no other connection to Fantastic Voyage in the series.
• The two-part, season 6 finale of Archer, entitled "Drastic Voyage," retells the story in the Archer universe.
• Stan Freberg spoofed the plot in a radio commercial for a car stereo, "Fantastic Sound System" which appears on Tip of the Freberg box set.

See also

• List of American films of 1966
• Microsurgery

References

External links

• Fantastic Voyage at the Internet Movie Database
• Fantastic Voyage at the TCM Movie Database
• Fantastic Voyage at AllMovie
• Proteus
• 3D Model of Proteus Submarine
• Various releases of music from the film